We Have 90 Days

When I was 17, I had a dream that one day in Canada there would be a government and a leader that would create laws preventing the discrimination of misfits, geeks, nerds, autistics, punks, furries, folks from far-away lands, lovers of underground culture, and yes, Christians. I believed that someday there would be a law that would make bullying a criminal offense, and that somehow it would bring people together. I held onto that dream while being bullied daily in high school, while navigating restraining orders for protesting against my high school, while deconstructing from Christianity, while trying to find friends, while watching movements like The Autism Advocacy Group, Pride, and "Black Lives Matter" fight for basic human rights, and while trying to find my own place in the world. Maybe I was truly a radical advocate for DEI all along. I mean the first time I heard a recording of Martin Luther King Jr when I was a teen say the following, it changed my life:

"When we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:
Free at last!"

But now I see that this dream King and I share of people coming together regardless of differences isn't just childish, it's dead. There's no point moving people to this dream anymore. There's no point giving people another ultimatum to look at the world differently like I've done for years through song and post.

I just found out about the new Trump executive order that will allow the U.S. military to exercise martial law within domestic U.S. that may happen around the next 90 days. So in less than 90s days, provided the courts are unsuccessful in stopping the shitstorm that's coming, America will no longer be a democracy. This order is called "Strengthening and Unleashing America's Law Enforcement to Pursue Criminals and Protect Innocent Citizens." They're doing this because of the orange idiot's falling poll numbers and cratering economy. They will have military, police, and ICE with exclusive duties to crack down on political dissent with no limits. They will dissappear anyone they don't like, anyone who fights back, and anyone who doesn't fit their political image of what an American is. They will take people from their jobs. They will invade homes without warrants. They will make sure that any outcast will never see sunlight in an urban city. This is racial and political purification in raw form. This is the opposite of the dream I had in my late teens.

I've always been worried for my Filipino family in the US even while we're already experiencing enough hardship in Canada including recent events in Vancouver BC. But now I'm really worried. What's going to happen to family members who are more centrist in their views? What's going to happen to cousins who are more left-leaning? I already lost a second-cousin in Georgia to suicide. If they end up in El Salvador just by looking at a cop funny or they disappear just because they can't get back into the country after visiting us here in Canada, the remaining family we have will never know what to do.

The America I used to be head over heels for in terms of their culture, from Los Angeles, to Chicago, to New York, is going to become a chronicle that will never be experienced again. The history of coloured folks who created a safe space in Chicago or Detroit warehouses that bump techno and house will no longer be a trend. The awesome black folks who created the revolutionary art form known as boom bap will be a legend gone dark. The punk rockers who rage against the machine will have to yell their rage in secret basements like in China or figure out a way to kill all the electric bugs in their houses while crafting their resistence art with no internet or smartphones. Hollywood won't be a thing, so I guess there's no Tron movie or industrial music making a comeback (sorry not sorry Trent Reznor).

There will be no freedom of speech. Every progressive social media creator is screwed unless they're using a fediverse server in Europe and not Substack. BlueSky will either be shut down or become another X. Facebook will probably die by the end of this year and Discord will be infiltrated.

If people want to run away, and find somewhere safe to live in the country within 90 days, they'll probably start by constructing checkpoints on each road, so people will have to figure out safe ways to get out. And if multiple families try to get away and over-run small rural towns, the locals will fight back. And if anyone tries to get into Canada, most won't have their immigration work figured out. A lot of Americans don't know it's not as simple as just moving here.

And what will be the steps after that? Curfews? Civil War with many people literally giving their lives? Trump getting access to nuclear codes? Another pandemic (but this time from an actual disease that was engineered in the United States?) Trump and his army actually conquering other nations and colonizing them? Good God, the possibilities are endless and it's scary.

If people get nothing else from my rant, the country is cooked unless the people get their asses up, do much more than march in the streets, and figure out a way to remove the US government from its offices physically. And even if that's successful, it's going to be a bleak dark age of centuries trying to fight off and fix the Western world from this populist neo-liberalism that has ruined our entire planet over the last decade. To my American brothers and sisters who want to turn the world around, you have one shot. You have less than 90 days. Don't just protest. Rise up and do more. Don't fuck this up. Or you will be ruled and dominated by the very ideology that has taken over three decades of my own life.

Anyway, back to my life of collecting hilarious memes that make me laugh, masturbating because I do that now (and we probably all do it and just don't admit it, I'm just open about it if people ask), possibly sailing the high seas because there's nothing else to look forward to, maybe watching some last minute movies before I have no choice but to watch Corner Gas re-runs or my physical copies of the Thanos MCU. Or maybe I should just shut my eyes off and close this blog after 90 days.