Is this 2020 deja vu? Feeling in a bit of a time loop? This past week seems like we jumped back a year to a return to those mask wearing, good old pandemic times! But this time around with the added fun of inflation all around! Whoopee!
Thanks to all you ignorant anti-vaxxers we get to go through another round of hell in America, even those of us who made the responsible, principled and wise decision to get a vaccination. Thanks to you ignorant anti-vaxxers we have to continue to wear masks indoors and distance ourselves, and continue to wait for a return to normal conditions in which we can go out at night and have a good time. Sitting in a public place such as a bar or restaurant or show with a mask is NOT my idea of a good time. Thanks to you ignorant anti-vaxxers people who can’t get a hospital bed are dying.
So either get vaccinated or soon there will be a wave of businesses that demand vaccination before one is allowed to be employed by them, along with restaurants, bars, entertainment venues requiring vaccination or a same-day negative test. To think that getting a vaccination that maybe one person in a million has a poor reaction to, is more dangerous than contracting a disease that kills one in ten thousand, at the least reveals poor math skills, if not outright stupidity. Do what is right for your own health, the health of others, and the health of our society in general and take the less risky option. How can anyone rationalize delaying vaccination because the government hasn’t passed final approval on it and at the same time constantly complain about how they don’t trust anything the government tells them? This is insanity, folks! Get vaccinated.
Now take a minute away from the Monday morning routine and read the comic, you might get a laugh or it might make you mad or it might make you think. For best viewing on mobile devices, go to onthefencecomic.com for Webtoons format. Follow on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook & Ko-fi.
This country has been heading in a dangerous direction for a while now. Since Ronnie Rayguns if you ask me. That direction is one of barreling headlong towards a stupendous level of national ignorance. But it has swiftly accelerated, and those who paid attention in physics class are aware that acceleration is a case of exponential growth. Which fact causes me to think that we are running out of time to fix things. America is suffering from the Tyranny of Stupidity and if we don’t act decisively we will be washed away by an irresistible tsunami of stupid.
There was a time not too long ago to remember that public schools provided a pretty good education. I remember because I attended one. My high school was rated second best public school in the country the year I graduated. Yet within four years the quality had plummeted and the school had taken on a semi-prison atmosphere. I used to walk through the woods behind our family church which would emerge onto the school athletic field. About 3 years later the whole field was fenced off and security guards were on full-time duty.
When I attended, the school offered vocational training classes, including electronics for the nascent geeks, soon to rule the digital world. The standard English Humanities curriculum divided the week into English, Art and Music classes that were equivalent to college humanities courses. I know because when I started college I was years ahead of the other students. After I graduated in 1971, the quality of public school education in general deteriorated pretty rapidly.
By the time my kids were in school, the situation was more of warehousing children to study government mandated tests instead of anything remotely approaching intelligent discourse between teachers and students. The goal had become training the kids to pass the test so the school’s funding wouldn’t be reduced. I took my son out of school and home schooled him for two years because he used a word (hegemon) in classroom discussion that the teacher didn’t understand. He was expelled from class until he was willing to apologize to the teacher for not admitting he was wrong. My son’s school was dealing with a parent who had boycotted gym class in mid-sixties middle school because the gym teacher roughed me up—he didn’t like me much—but he liked me much less after they forced him to apologize to me. So I wasn’t about to tell my son he should apologize for being more well-read than his teacher.
Now we live in a country where somewhere around 25-30% believe just about anything they are told by their favorite celebrites, or social media sites. Critical thinking, the structure or history of the country, Civics or government are for the most part ignored. So now a good proportion of citizens have little basis to make sound judgments or to study events or assertions with skepticism. I realize the majority of folks out there pay little attention to politics except close to election time. But it does no good to pay attention at all if you have no information or critical abilities to make informed judgments.
Thank Dog for psychologists Dunning and Kruger because if they hadn’t developed their eponymous Effect, someone would have had to do it. This country is suffering from a mass endemic outbreak of that Effect due to the epidemic of ignorance which has lead to the present Tyranny of Stupidity. The majority of people sincerely believe they are more intelligent than the average. The even distribution of intelligence among the population according to the Intelligence Bell Curve clearly refutes that idea.
Which all results in our current predicament. Nothing gets accomplished because a large enough portion of the population have received a purposefully poor education, enough to perform some repetitive task. Or even better, a morally bankrupt service for the kleptocracy. It was bad enough when most people believed that anything one saw on TV had to be true. Now the gift of unlimited communication and knowledge that is the Internet has been corrupted into the world’s most dangerous propaganda machine. The mostly ignorant people who uncritically believe everything they follow on line have made this gridlocked society possible. Too many are not equipped to make intelligent judgments about societal issues that have enormous impact on people’s lives and welfare.
Any rational, informed person cannot help but wonder what the hell is going on. Every day brings new facts about the amazing level of corruption in the past few years and the abandoning of all standards. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but when your opinion has no basis in reality and is just frigging ludicrous by any normal standards of decency and sanity, that is an opinion that should carry no weight. Informed opinions are the only type that matter. We are in the midst of a fight over whether or not observable reality will prevail over fascist lies. This is dead serious and I don’t know how to effectively convey that to that 25-30% who seem oblivious and unsusceptible to factual reality. Ignorance may be mitigated but the Tyranny of Stupidity is nearly impossible to subdue.
I’m beginning to sense a change in the air, and I get that same old sick feeling it’s not a change for the better. It seems increasingly likely the Dems are nearing the end of their post-election burst of activity, the ooze of the swamp is bogging them down to a halt. Like a nausea-inducing recurrence of deja vu, I sense the return of the Democratic Impotence Time Loop. That’s bound to touch a few nerves but I’m beyond caring because I’ve seen this happen so many times before.
Many people feel it’s unfair criticism of the Democrats, who they believe are doing everything they can in the face of united opposition from the Republicans. What I see is a divided country that cannot afford to go through another cycle of the Impotence Time Loop. Over and over, the Repubs have acted in short-sighted, opportunistic, self-dealing fashion while stirring up their very victims. And each cycle is a continuation of the downward spiral to fascism.
Many of the poorly educated or slow-witted who have been left behind by the corporatocracy have been manipulated by the right into believing all sorts of fantastical nonsense. It took two generations to de educate the masses, who now have little historic or common sense context with which to make judgments about their reality. It’s much easier to feed people ridiculous conspiracies if they have little basic knowledge of history science logic or physics. When I returned to school in the 90s I was shocked by how few (mostly younger) classmates could read a novel or text book and make any kind of sense of what they had just read. That type of person is easy to fool. Now we are stuck cohabiting the country with fact-averse looney tunes who couldn’t critically think their way out of a paper bag. I have seen and spoken to so many people in the last decade who ostensibly went through the education system but who have no knowledge about basic things such as, The Earth is round, the Moon affects tides, there is only one human race, etc. Don’t expect comprehension of concepts like logical fallacies, or how everything in nature is interconnected. All they know is, I read it on the internet so it must be true. Or Trump wouldn’t lie to me, he told me so!
Republicans are a pack of power hungry unscrupulous authoritarian traitorous weasels. They will cheat lie and steal to get what they desire, which is absolute power over the rest of us. The Democrats, sadly restrained by their precious ethics, morals, principles, are incapable of withstanding the soulless fascist actions of the Republicans, who want permanent power at any cost. The Democrats continue to wring their hands and commiserate about their inability to unite in a LIFE or DEATH effort to stop the republicans. We CANNOT afford to go through another cycle of the downward spiral of the Democratic Impotence Time Loop. THE TRAITORS HAVE TO BE STOPPED. Their will be no further cycles after this next one if the traitors are enabled to regain control. Although the Dems cannot muster the willpower to answer the call of history AND patriotism, it is of existential importance that they go against their polite proclivities and stop the cycle now!
“The scenario then goes like this. The Republicans win back the House and Senate in 2022, in part thanks to voter suppression. The Republican candidate in 2024 loses the popular vote by several million and the electoral vote by the margin of a few states. State legislatures, claiming fraud, alter the electoral count vote. The House and Senate accept that altered count. The losing candidate becomes the president. We no longer have “democratically elected government.” And people are angry.”
The article is well worth reading, and so obvious if you’re paying attention. I find the fact disturbing that every day more evidence of Trump’s utter unfitness as a Human Being is revealed, yet he has millions of devoted cult followers as well as the entire Republican leadership. If Dem leadership can’t get their contrarian members on board the cruise to save democracy, they will be beyond sorry. Trump and his crooks have been gaming the system as SOP for years and their fondest desire is to bring down the limits that constrain them from all-out pillage. First, the Democrats need to act now to save democracy. Then they need to raise taxes on the ultra rich and corporations, which have become far too powerful and have been getting a free ride from working people and lack of meaningful regulation. This ain’t no fooling around these criminals must be stopped now.
On The Fence: About Us
I created this site to post my new Comic, On The Fence, and also to post artwork, commentary and eventually my previous graphic novel.
Creating a satirical look at a cartoon-like reality is thirsty work, If you enjoy the comic, please consider clicking the coffee cup icon and buying me a coffee.
ON THE FENCE Has Been Weaponized Into A Book!
If you support progressive art please consider buying a copy of On The Fence from (OPTION 1) Amazon.
Or (OPTION 2)
I will have books as of June 29, this Thursday. If you order a book direct from me I'll ship you a signed copy for $16.99 with a complimentary copy of Issue 1 of my first graphic novel, Taters and Gators. Email your order to cmebz1@yahoo.com and I'll send you the books. In 20 years you can read this book to the kiddies and they will have a better idea of what's going on than they will ever read in a censored history book. So don't delay weaponize your library today!
Video versions of all pages of On The Fence are posted HERE
I created this site to post my new Comic, On The Fence, and also to post artwork, commentary and eventually my previous graphic novel.
Creating a satirical look at a cartoon-like reality is thirsty work, If you enjoy the comic, please consider clicking the coffee cup icon and buying me a coffee.
