When I grew up, “being woke” used to be called “being a decent human being.”
MAGA Nazis are waging a propaganda war against empathy and basic human decency, to normalize being a selfish, hateful asshole.
Help! Liberal brainwashing in school made me woke!!
Just kidding. That video clip is from Stanley Kubrick’s classic 1971 science fiction movie A Clockwork Orange.
It’s about a future where ultra-violent youth gangs think cruelty is cool. They torture, rape, and murder people for shits and giggles.
Watch the movie, and tell me those psychotic toxic males don’t remind you of today’s hateful, violence-glorifying MAGA incels.
In the clip above, one of these deranged psychos is being treated by doctors, to turn him from a bloodthirsty monster into a normal human being with a basic sense of human decency.
They brainwash him, by showing him the consequences of his actions. They force him to see what he did, and to feel empathy for his victims.
He learns a valuable life lesson: Violence is bad! Empathy is good.
The movie is a bit like a South Park episode, where different topics are blended together in an unexpected, satirical way, to make you think.
Fascism, and the way it dehumanizes and brainwashes normal people to turn them into bloodthirsty monsters, plays a central role.
Anyway, there’s another movie I wanna tell you about:
I was a kid when the movie Gandhi with Ben Kingsley came out in 1982.
At my school in Germany, where I grew up, it was mandatory for every class to go see it in the theater.
To teach us a valuable life lesson: Violence is bad! Empathy is good.
Boooring!
A three-hour history epic about some far away place that preteen me couldn’t care less about. India?! Meh.
About a little skinny dude who goes on hunger strikes. Oh yeah! Sounds great! Kill me now.
But the movie was actually pretty good.
At some point halfway through the movie, something dawned on me:
“Wait… wait a minute. Wait. The brown people are the good guys in this movie? And the white guys are the bad guys? What? Am I getting this right?”
That was the moment in my life when I realized, that up to this point, in every movie I had ever seen so far, the white guy was always the hero, and brown guys were always the bad guys.
The movie Gandhi in 1982 was literally the first time in my life that I saw the roles reversed.
That opened my eyes to a lot of things.
The way we see the world is shaped, or tainted, by what our trusted sources tell us about the world. And for a lot of people, movies and TV are a trusted source.
A lot of red state MAGA yokels are still on the wrong side of that Gandhi moment.
For them, that moment of clarity hasn’t happened yet.
They haven’t figured out yet that sometimes the brown guys are the good guys, and the white guys are the bad guys. Because that’s not something their trusted TV has ever told them.
But they’ve never even noticed it.
And when they’re suddenly confronted with “woke” movies where a woman or a brown guy plays the hero, they’re repulsed by it. It’s some crazy upside down world to them. Does not compute.
Remember how they freaked out about an all-female Ghostbusters?
And how mad they were about a female main character in Star Wars?
And the meltdown they had over a black mermaid?
And they lost their fucking minds when a trans person appeared in a Budweiser beer ad.
That’s why they want to go back to the time before the civil rights era in the 1960s.
Before women and black people and gay people got human rights, and before red state MAGA yokels were suddenly forced to treat them as equals.
When they say “make America great again,” MAGA Nazis mean they want to turn the clock back to before the 1960s. The good old days to them was when women and black people didn’t have equal rights, and it was still ok to rape your wife, and hit her if she stepped out of line.
To the racist MAGA Nazi cult, America was great when it was still ok to use the N word when addressing black people. And when gay people were sent to prison.
In the 1950s, racism out in public was still perfectly ok. In fact, it was illegal to not be racist.
In the 1950s, before women were allowed to have bank accounts, interracial marriage was still illegal. People went to prison for marrying someone of a different race.
Then, during the civil rights movement, the racist anti-interracial-marriage-laws from the slavery days were called unconstitutional, and interracial marriage was finally legal in red states too.
That was in the 1960s, when America turned to shit, according to MAGA Nazis.
Here, watch these short video clips of MAGA Nazis explaining in their own words, what “Make America Great Again” means to them.
Watching the videos below might be your Gandhi moment.
"The mind once enlightened cannot again become dark."
Christofascist MAGA Nazis want to ban women from voting, because most women vote for Democrats:
Christofascist MAGA Nazis want to exterminate gay and trans people:
Christofascist MAGA Nazis want to ban and deport all immigrants:
Christofascist MAGA Nazis want to destroy democracy and install Trump as dictator:
Tell me these videos don’t remind you of A Clockwork Orange?!
The MAGA Nazis in these videos are like a real life version of the brutal psychopaths in A Clockwork Orange. Scary shit!
It’s like we’re living in the fascist future that old science fiction movie warned us about!
When I grew up, being anti-fascist was a proud American stance. My uncle fought at Omaha Beach; his brother somehow survived the Bataan Death March. And my Air Force dad survived a plane crash during the Korean War. All were proud to serve their country.
But today's GOP/MAGAts think anti-fascism is wrong, and a 5 times draft dodger with pretend bone spurs is an American hero.
Seriously??? 😡
I did note, in the many times I've watched that film, how many top British stars had cameo roles in it, which, I think, was their way of supporting Gandhi and his ideals.
There's also an interesting evolution in the British...the first time Gandhi is in jail, the police warden yells, "Gandhi! I want Gandhi! Which Sammy is it?"
The last time the British jail Gandhi, for opposing Britain in World War II, the British Army officer politely asks, "Mr. Gandhi, sir, I am directed to enquire as to the subject of your speech tonight."
"The value of goat's milk in daily diet...but you can be sure that I will also speak against war!"
"I'm sorry, sir, but that can't be allowed." The officer then tells Mrs. Gandhi he has orders to take her back to the ashram. When she says she will speak in his place, he reluctantly arrests her too.
My point is that, over time, the British realize that it is time to leave India.
Lord Mountbatten makes that point in his arrival as the last Viceroy, saying he is here to "Crown victory with peace, and welcome India as an equal and independent member of the British Commonwealth of Nations. I hope that I am the last Viceroy to receive such a welcome." Which he did and which he was.
Trevor Howard has a great cameo as a judge who Gandhi forces to sentence the Mahatma to the longest term possible. Howard (Judge Broomfield) does so, but adds, "However, if that sentence could be shortened, no-one would be better pleased than I."
It reminded me of the white guys who supported the Civil Rights movement...and how the Jewish War Veterans were the only veterans' organization that did the March on Washington in 1963.