The first half of 2023… the year of the enigma... is in the books. We’ve played hard through the first half… and stoppage time… with the appropriate, irreverent gusto. So named for the highly strange phenomenon known as the
23 Enigma, 2023 (the Year of the Rabbit in the Chinese zodiac)... percolating and incubating... is just now coming to a boil.
The patriarchal world order isn’t dead yet… it just smells that way. Desperate, they play dirty in their vicious end-game. With that said, we have made some good in-roads during the first half. So “stand back and stand by” dear intrepid readers… for the tek-gnostics halftime report…
Politically, the year was off to a rough start in the Grand Old Party… where it took 15 separate votes to elect Keven McCarthy Speaker of the House of Representatives, where the GOP holds a razor thin majority. Poor Keven was forced to sell his soul to gain the title, and ended up turning over the House to the bat-shit crazy Freedom Caucus, featuring such notable wingnuts as (recently ejected) Marjorie Taylor Greene (GA), Matt Gaetz (FL), and Lauren Boebert (CO).
As reported in our previous episode, the great Robber Baron/Trickster King (aka 45) has been indicted not once but twice. His first New York Grand Jury indictment, related to hush money payments was followed by the 37 count Federal Grand Jury indictment, charging 45 of conspiracy to obstruct justice, withholding a document or record, corruptly concealing a document or record, concealing a document in an investigation, scheming to conceal, and false statements, along with various charges related to willful retention of national defense information, a violation of the Espionage Act.
And yet…
And yet… the great Robber Baron/Trickster King is amazingly the clear frontrunner in the 2024 GOP presidential primary elections. Guess it goes to show just how loyal a crime syndicate such as the GOP is to their crime boss. Well… either loyalty or fear. Either way, the great Robber Baron/Trickster King is poised to take on any Democratic opponent in the 2024 general election. Here at the half way mark of 2023.. things look a little shaky for the Dems.
As dramatic as the above events are, the most far-reaching story of the first half of 2023 has been the growing implications of the rise of a ultra-conservative US Supreme Court. The conservative, 6 member super majority seemed ominous as 45 appointed one conservative Justise after another. But as the New Right Supreme Court decisions were handed down, it became clear just how ultra-conservative the Court has become.
This horrific reality began a year ago when the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization was handed down… overturning the landmark Roe v Wade decision, which legalized a pregnant woman's right to have an abortion.
The 6-3 decision in Dobbs, authored by Justice Samuel Alito, largely followed the draft opinion leaked to the public in early May, 2022. The conservative block of justices held that the Constitution does not guarantee the right to an abortion, instead finding that while substantive due process under the Fourteenth Amendment may protect some unenumerated rights, it does not protect a woman’s right to choose whether to continue her pregnancy. In one fell swoop, 50 years of a woman’s right to choose what happens to their body was swept away, returning us to a 1950’s era legal status for all women.
It was one thing to imagine the ramifications of a new, ultra-conservative Supreme Court… it was quite another thing to witness this Court disenfranchise 50% of the American population.
In 2023… with rulings that rejected affirmative action in college admissions, curbed LGBTQ rights and blocked President Joe Biden's student debt relief plan... the full impact of a ultra-Right Supreme Court is now being felt by us all. With cases on issues including gun rights already lined up for its next term, beginning in October 2023, the court will undoubtedly continue its Alt-Right agenda, plunging our Democracy into a patriarchal, white supremacist, totalitarian theonomic State like the Republic of Gilead, as depicted in A Handmaid’s Tale.
And of course the hideous reality is… Trump’s appointments of justices Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barret are lifetime gigs, making a conservative bench a stark reality for decades to come. Even if Clarence Thomas croaks (or is impeached)… even on a Democratic President’s watch… we are still stuck with a conservative Supreme Court for the foreseeable future. So the first half of 2023… the year of the enigma… has worked out reasonably well for the patriarchy, all things considered.
But there have also been significant, foretelling
Blows Against the Empire that have occurred in 2023 as well. We begin with the list of the great Robber Baron/Trickster King’s legal woes…
1) 2020 Election and the US Capitol attack
2) Georgia election tampering probe
3) New York hush money criminal case
4) Sexual abuse and defamation
5) New York attorney general civil lawsuit
6) Truth Social Deal
Oh… you didn’t know about number 6 on the list? According to Reuters, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority have been investigating whether any securities regulations were broken by the Truth Social merger, according to special purpose acquisition company: Digital World's financial disclosure documents. Federal prosecutors have subpoenaed the company and every director on its board, Digital World disclosed in June 2022.
As of this posting, the rumor is that Digital World has reached a tentative agreement with the staff of the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Beyond the great Robber Baron/Trickster King’s legal entanglements, there has been some very interesting developments, worldwide. France has been rocked by a waves of protest since late June, 2023… after 17-year-old Nahel M, who was of Algerian heritage, was shot dead during a routine traffic stop in the Paris suburb of Nanterre. Protesters have been carrying signs that read
“the police kill” and hundreds of government buildings have been damaged as Nahel’s death taps into anger over racial bias in the country.
Successive nights of violence across France and its overseas territories have in turn prompted French officials to launch a crackdown, with more than 40,000 police officers mobilized to patrol cities across the country. Since the killing, more than 2,000 people have been detained and more than 500 police officers and
gendarmes have been injured, according to numbers released by the Interior Ministry.
French minister of the interior, Gérald Darmanin deplored another “night of unbearable violence against symbols of the Republic” adding that hundreds of arrests had been made across the country as town halls, schools and police stations were set on fire or attacked. Overnight, cars and trash bins were torched in parts of Paris and nationwide. Protesters launched fireworks at riot police, who fired flash-ball projectiles to disperse the angry crowds. A tramway was also set alight in a Paris suburb.
Accusations of brutality have long plagued French police. The Council of Europe criticized
“excessive use of force by state agents” in a statement earlier this year during protests against Macron’s unpopular pension reforms. Human Rights groups, such as
Amnesty International, have accused French police of ethnic profiling and have recommended deep, systemic reform to address the discrimination. The UN called on France to address
“deep issues of racism and discrimination in law enforcement,” in the agency’s first comments since the killing.
This is but the latest instance of an angry, well networked, politically motivated movement driven by disenfranchised and disillusioned youth. Reports indicated that the majority of protesters were between the ages of 14 to 17. "No justice, no peace," one young man screamed into an NPR reporter's microphone, as he sprinted away from helmeted police in Marseille protests.
French youth have been becoming much more rebellious and vocally anti-authoritarian since the beginning of the year of the enigma. The following is from a recent article at NBC news...
A 17 year old French high school student Elisa Fares, recently took part in her first protest. Fares was both excited and nervous as she prepared to march down Paris streets where people for centuries have similarly defied authority. Two friends, neither older than 18, but already protest veterans (whose parents took them to demonstrations when they were little) are showing Fares the ropes. They’ve readied eyedrops and gas masks in case police deploy tear gas.
In a country that taught the world about people power with its
revolution of 1789… and a country again seething with anger against its leaders... graduating from bystander to demonstrator is a generations-old rite of passage.
“The French are known for fighting and we’ll fight,” says one of the friends, Coline Marionneau, also 17.
“My mother goes to a lot of demonstrations ... She says if you have things to say, you should protest.”
All across the planet, disillusioned gen Zers are taking Climate Change and political chicanery very seriously. They are both politically and technologically savvy, and utilize social media very effectively in their organization, as the recent French protests demonstrate. Generation Z is acutely aware that the patriarchy has sold them down the river. They don’t plan on taking it laying down.
And so Gen Z is well equipped to deliver new and creative
Blows Against the Empire. Between Gen Z and the half of the U S population disenfranchised by the recent Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization ruling… 2024 may well be the turning of the tide implied by your humble blogger in this, the Year of the Enigma.
And if you think Gen Z is a game changer… just wait until the next generation comes of age. What generation you ask? Why Generation Alpha of course! That’s right dear readers… Gen Alpha is the unofficial name assigned by marketers, researchers, cultural commentators, Tic Toc influencers and the like, for those born after 2010, the oldest of whom are on the cusp of turning 10.
Your intrepid blogger for one, is looking forward to the Alphas with great anticipation. Alpha being the first letter in the Greek alphabet, dare we hope that the wheel is finally turning on Empire? Dare we hope for the patriarchy's demise? Dare we hope for new beginnings? Fingers crossed!
Can't wait to see what shenanigans will come to pass in the second half of the Year of the Enigma! Now that the players have once again taken the field, the referee checks her watch... the whistle blows... and we are off! The second half of the Year of the Enigma promises to be highly strange! Stay tuned!
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