by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
The problem with defining “woke” is it’s such a hodge-podge of different concepts that are framed relative to the needs of the Far Right. So, it’s difficult to come up with any clear sense of what it means in any practical basis.
But I guess another attempt to define it would be:
Woke, to be: Having a heightened awareness of past and current structural problems in regards to racial and gender inequality, with a particular emphasis on LGBQT+ rights.
Yet, that is not the whole picture.
Perception is a very powerful thing. And, at the moment, the perception among a lot of white conservative men is that they risk, at the hands of the “woke cancel culture mob” being “canceled” simply for being conservative and or believing in traditional heteronormative values.
This is where the idea of being “Red Pilled” comes from. For a lot of white conservative (Christian) men, there is a real fear that they are something of an endangered species with the “woke cancel culture mob” demanding that everyone become gay.
The problem is, this is a situation generated, in part, from a combination of technology and generational changes in societal expectations. It’s all happening so quick that your typical middle age CIS white man, as they say, simply can’t process or “grok” what the fuck is going on.
There is a book from the 1970s, called The Forever War, which probably is ripe for Chris Pratt to star in the big budget Hollywood adaptation. As I understand it, part of the plot is some dude coming back to earth from some sort of space war and everyone on the planet is a gay hippie. Seems like the type of subject matter a conservative like Chris Pratt might really like.
Here’s what Wikipedia has to say, in part, about The Forever War.
Almost entirely through luck, Mandella survives four years of military service, while several centuries elapse in real time. He soon becomes the objectively oldest surviving soldier in the war, attaining high rank through seniority rather than ambition. He and Potter (who has remained his last link with the Earth of his youth) are eventually given different assignments, meaning that even if they both survive the war they will likely never meet again due to time dilation. After briefly contemplating suicide, Mandella assumes the post of commanding officer of a “strike force”, commanding soldiers who speak a language largely unrecognizable to him, whose ethnicity is now nearly uniform (‘vaguely Polynesian‘ in appearance) and who are exclusively homosexual. He is disliked by his soldiers and he assumes this is because they had to learn 21st century English to communicate with him and other senior staff and because he is heterosexual.
Engaging in combat thousands of light years away from Earth, Mandella and his soldiers need to resort to medieval weapons to fight inside a stasis field which neutralizes all electromagnetic radiation in anything not covered with a protective coating. Upon return, the strike force learns this is the last battle of the war. Humanity has begun to clone itself, resulting in a new, collective species calling itself simply Man. Man is able to communicate with the Taurans, who are also clones. It is discovered that the war started due to a misunderstanding; the colony ships were lost to accidents and those on Earth with a vested interest in a new war used these disappearances as an excuse to begin the conflict. The futile, meaningless war, which had lasted for more than a thousand years, ends.
Man has established several colonies of old-style, heterosexual humans, just in case the evolutionary change proves to be a mistake. Mandella travels to one of these colonies (named “Middle Finger” in the definitive version of the novel) where he is reunited with Potter, who had been discharged much earlier and had taken trips in space to use time dilation to age at a much slower rate, hoping for Mandella’s return. The epilogue is a news item from the year 3143 announcing the birth of a “fine baby boy” to Marygay Potter-Mandella.
Anyway, as I keep saying, we’re past the event horizon for something really, really bad happening at some point between now and, say, spring 2025. I don’t know what it will be, but it’s going to be bad. It could be civil war, autocracy or military junta.
All I know is — barring something I can’t predict — MAGA is going to try to steal the 2024 election in a very brazen manner and Blues either bend a knee or demand a National Divorce.
Pick a side or a side will be chosen for you.
