What a beautifully written, heartfelt and deeply moviing, unsettling and stirring trilogy, thank you. The third installment has echoes of 1984 and an old Terry Gilliam movie, Brazil. It is true, our compliance has been offered in exchange for comfort and convenience, our outrage monetised as content. The pyramid now consists of money, power and control, with money at the bottom, the base of it. Perhaps an organised protracted boycott is one of the few legal forms of resistance allowed, and non-compliance, a return to community. The story is not yet written, and megalomaniac narcissists have a tendency to self-destruct. Resist mental conditioning, live the reality you wish to inhabit. Peace and thank you.
Thank you for this generous, clear eyed response. You’ve named so much of what haunts me in writing these pieces: the ease with which comfort becomes a leash, the way even our dissent gets fed into the machine and sold back to us. And yes,Brazil and 1984,not just as dystopias, but as warnings disguised as fiction, now quietly mirrored in our daily lives.
The image of the pyramid with money as the foundation, power and control rising above,it’s chilling in its accuracy. What’s left to us are the tools they overlook: refusal, withdrawal, community, care. A boycott of the mind. A reorientation of the heart. That you read these words and met them with such clarity and resolve is itself a kind of resistance.
Peace to you as well and thank you, deeply, for reading.
This was the first of your works I came across and therefore the first I read. It was eerie, reading and being unsure whether this was intended as nonfictional commentary on our current situation or a fictional short story depicting a near-future dystopia. I ended up thinking it's somewhere in the middle. A warning, like so much of literature has been throughout history. It's absolutely haunting a beautiful. Excellent work!
Thank you,that’s exactly where I hoped it would land. Somewhere between what is and what could be, the uneasy space where warnings live. I’m grateful you found it and stayed with it. Literature has always lit those dark corners. I’m just trying to hold the match steady. Read part 1 and 2 for full effect.
thank you for the reminder of the coercion and subversion of language and labels. they slip in hardly noticed, then leverage what exists out of existence, then sit proud and new and shiny on the rubble. Ive watched this happen with disbelief as the arts became creative industries, as university integrity crumbles, as journalist becomes influencer.. i will subscribe if i ever enable paid subs on my neglected stack- I still hold that crazy old belief that information wants to be free :)
My career was in the creative industry, and I concur with your observation. It mirrors my own.
I have grown adverse to trendy or newly-created lexicon. One concerning example, “I’m *obsessed* about these shoes!” There is nothing good or okay about being obsessed, and it should not be a stated goal in our pursuit of happiness.
This is so utterly sad. It's the kind of future - or present? - we have, or will? experience. A flattening of emotion - caring, compassion and empathy erased. A studied nothingness, when freedom is not even a word, let alone a concept. A nation empty of souls, only packaged drones occupy the spaces.
"You realize your rage is still there, somewhere beneath the convenience and the fear and the anesthetic of routine. You want to find it again. You want to feel something sharp. You want to remember who you were before the flattening taught you to forget."
The thing with the flattening is that it stems from the quiet sadness and shame that settles in when the rage has expired (or been methodically silenced through countless threats of consequences - when fear wins).
But sadness paralyzes. Rage has movement. Rage is easier and more comforting in many ways because there's movement in it... it usually translates to action, exhausting as it is. We yearn to find it again to find our way through. Find our way out. Find our way back.
Aside from leading us toward numbness, I'd say sadness isn't our friend in this fight.
We do need to push away the numbness, acknowledge the sadness so as not to forget the horrors, but summon the rage. Repeatedly and relentlessly. to encourage each other to hold a space for hope through assertive action. Together.
We're weary, yes. But, we're still doing this. On all levels. Sometimes subtly, but not ineffectually.
I love what you're writing, how you're framing this transition and adaptation, Johnny. It gives everyone a blueprint and guide as to where they are on the path of capitulation and flattening. Whether we're already learning to live with it.
When we feel it, see it, name it, and understand where we're headed, it IS a reminder that
"We are not helpless. We are not beyond repair.
We still get to decide what we notice.
And what we refuse to forget."
Please keep reminding us.
Thank you for all that you are and all that you're contributing to keep us all in the fight.
Thanks Tom. I kept thinking about the phrase "alternate facts" I heard in 2016. It's coming to fruition. BTW: I'm a paid suscriber. But apparently not in the phone. I'll fix that.
Thank you and yes, “alternate facts” felt absurd back then, but it turns out they were just getting started. We’re living in the fully realized version now. And thank you for being a paid subscriber, truly. That kind of support means everything. No rush on the phone issue. I’m just glad you’re here.
Shining your spotlight on how collapse and fascism creeps and slides in, through language, fear and desire to comply.
We are the boiling frogs, part way cooked , with still time to jump out of the pan.
Excellent writing, so descriptive and chillingly realistic, a wise warning .
A reason to be clear on our values, and what lines won’t be crossed or maybe what can be tolerated for an easy life…We can still make choices at this point and if we don’t the consequences will be dire for us and the next generations.
Thank you for this deeply thoughtful reflection. You're exactly right,fascism doesn’t arrive with a fanfare, it seeps in through compromised language, euphemisms, silent compliance. It's in what we erase, excuse, or delay confronting. The metaphor of the boiling frog is tragically apt: we adjust to the rising heat until escape feels impossible. But yes,there is still time. Naming our values, holding the line, refusing the seduction of ease over integrity,these are the quiet acts that matter now. Thank you for seeing the warning, and for answering it with clarity and conscience.
This third part is the most chilling and the saddest. As I don't live in the US and therefore not confronted with the daily onslaught on democracy. Some parts in the text reminded me of things my grandparents and specially my father told me about his life during WW2. He
was 7 when it started and a very traumatised 12 yr old when it stopped. He never forgot. Never. The ever present fear of his father not coming home from work, which eventually happened when he was arrested by the Germans and sent to Stalag 17. He survived. The mistrust that grew about neighbours, rumours about collaboration, betrayals. Never talk about what was talked about at home. People disappeared without any explanation. Entire families gone. I'm glad my dad doesn't have to read what is going on in the US now. The complying to conform, the dullness that creeps into your life, you wrote it down with a chilling clarity. I can only hope that the resistance grows stronger every day so that it never becomes reality. Too much has become reality already, now is not the time for the American people to roll over and give up so that your children will never have to listen to your stories. I firmly believe that your writing will help people to understand what they stand to lose if they don't stand up for what they believe in. Not just for themselves but for their children and generations to come.
Thank you for this powerful, deeply personal response. It means more than I can say.
What you shared about your father,his fear, the silence, the betrayal, the absences that never healed is exactly what this piece was trying to hold in its hands. Not to make a direct comparison, but to trace the emotional residue, the warning signs, the slow, quiet corrosion of a society that thinks “it can’t happen here.” You remind us that it can. It already has.
That dullness you mention, that fog of conformity,it's the most dangerous part. Because it doesn’t come with banners or boots at first. It comes with paperwork. With policy memos. With silence.
I’m grateful your father survived. And grateful you carry his memory with such moral clarity. You’re right,too much has already become real. But I believe what you believe: that writing, truthfully and without flinching, helps people feelwhat’s at stake. That it can shake us awake before we sleep through the sirens.
Thank you again for reading, for witnessing, for remembering.
Every sentence a gut punch. Exceptionally well-crafted work.
Incidentally, regarding your name, I actually preferred Rage's version over Springsteen. A controversial statement, I'm aware, but I just think that de la Rocha's fury is far more appropriate than Springsteen's wistful mumbling.
And yeah, I totally get that take. Rage brought raw, blistering energy to The Ghost of Tom Joad that feels truer to the character’s anger and urgency. Springsteen’s version has its place, sure,but de la Rocha doesn’t just sing it, he lives it. Not controversial to me at all,just honest.
What a beautifully written, heartfelt and deeply moviing, unsettling and stirring trilogy, thank you. The third installment has echoes of 1984 and an old Terry Gilliam movie, Brazil. It is true, our compliance has been offered in exchange for comfort and convenience, our outrage monetised as content. The pyramid now consists of money, power and control, with money at the bottom, the base of it. Perhaps an organised protracted boycott is one of the few legal forms of resistance allowed, and non-compliance, a return to community. The story is not yet written, and megalomaniac narcissists have a tendency to self-destruct. Resist mental conditioning, live the reality you wish to inhabit. Peace and thank you.
Thank you for this generous, clear eyed response. You’ve named so much of what haunts me in writing these pieces: the ease with which comfort becomes a leash, the way even our dissent gets fed into the machine and sold back to us. And yes,Brazil and 1984,not just as dystopias, but as warnings disguised as fiction, now quietly mirrored in our daily lives.
The image of the pyramid with money as the foundation, power and control rising above,it’s chilling in its accuracy. What’s left to us are the tools they overlook: refusal, withdrawal, community, care. A boycott of the mind. A reorientation of the heart. That you read these words and met them with such clarity and resolve is itself a kind of resistance.
Peace to you as well and thank you, deeply, for reading.
This was the first of your works I came across and therefore the first I read. It was eerie, reading and being unsure whether this was intended as nonfictional commentary on our current situation or a fictional short story depicting a near-future dystopia. I ended up thinking it's somewhere in the middle. A warning, like so much of literature has been throughout history. It's absolutely haunting a beautiful. Excellent work!
Thank you,that’s exactly where I hoped it would land. Somewhere between what is and what could be, the uneasy space where warnings live. I’m grateful you found it and stayed with it. Literature has always lit those dark corners. I’m just trying to hold the match steady. Read part 1 and 2 for full effect.
thank you for the reminder of the coercion and subversion of language and labels. they slip in hardly noticed, then leverage what exists out of existence, then sit proud and new and shiny on the rubble. Ive watched this happen with disbelief as the arts became creative industries, as university integrity crumbles, as journalist becomes influencer.. i will subscribe if i ever enable paid subs on my neglected stack- I still hold that crazy old belief that information wants to be free :)
My career was in the creative industry, and I concur with your observation. It mirrors my own.
I have grown adverse to trendy or newly-created lexicon. One concerning example, “I’m *obsessed* about these shoes!” There is nothing good or okay about being obsessed, and it should not be a stated goal in our pursuit of happiness.
Talking about “Comfortably numb” by tragically hip.
Beating against the walls closing in.
more like uncomfortably numb 🍸
This is so utterly sad. It's the kind of future - or present? - we have, or will? experience. A flattening of emotion - caring, compassion and empathy erased. A studied nothingness, when freedom is not even a word, let alone a concept. A nation empty of souls, only packaged drones occupy the spaces.
Thank you. You saw it exactly,what we’re already inside of. Not future, not warning. Just the quiet erasure happening now.
Well, you've gutted me again, my dear.
There's this:
"You realize your rage is still there, somewhere beneath the convenience and the fear and the anesthetic of routine. You want to find it again. You want to feel something sharp. You want to remember who you were before the flattening taught you to forget."
The thing with the flattening is that it stems from the quiet sadness and shame that settles in when the rage has expired (or been methodically silenced through countless threats of consequences - when fear wins).
But sadness paralyzes. Rage has movement. Rage is easier and more comforting in many ways because there's movement in it... it usually translates to action, exhausting as it is. We yearn to find it again to find our way through. Find our way out. Find our way back.
Aside from leading us toward numbness, I'd say sadness isn't our friend in this fight.
We do need to push away the numbness, acknowledge the sadness so as not to forget the horrors, but summon the rage. Repeatedly and relentlessly. to encourage each other to hold a space for hope through assertive action. Together.
We're weary, yes. But, we're still doing this. On all levels. Sometimes subtly, but not ineffectually.
I love what you're writing, how you're framing this transition and adaptation, Johnny. It gives everyone a blueprint and guide as to where they are on the path of capitulation and flattening. Whether we're already learning to live with it.
When we feel it, see it, name it, and understand where we're headed, it IS a reminder that
"We are not helpless. We are not beyond repair.
We still get to decide what we notice.
And what we refuse to forget."
Please keep reminding us.
Thank you for all that you are and all that you're contributing to keep us all in the fight.
If there’s one thin thread running through it, it’s this:
We can still choose not to be like this. Even now. Especially now.Thank you so much for your wonderful support.
Thanks Tom. I kept thinking about the phrase "alternate facts" I heard in 2016. It's coming to fruition. BTW: I'm a paid suscriber. But apparently not in the phone. I'll fix that.
Thank you and yes, “alternate facts” felt absurd back then, but it turns out they were just getting started. We’re living in the fully realized version now. And thank you for being a paid subscriber, truly. That kind of support means everything. No rush on the phone issue. I’m just glad you’re here.
Reaction while reading: growing nausea as the recognition dawned.
Reaction at the finale: NO, NO, NO, NO, NEVER!!!!!!!
Your words were a match to the dry sticks of horror, disgust and fatigue piling up inside me.
Thank you.
This is such a powerful piece!
Shining your spotlight on how collapse and fascism creeps and slides in, through language, fear and desire to comply.
We are the boiling frogs, part way cooked , with still time to jump out of the pan.
Excellent writing, so descriptive and chillingly realistic, a wise warning .
A reason to be clear on our values, and what lines won’t be crossed or maybe what can be tolerated for an easy life…We can still make choices at this point and if we don’t the consequences will be dire for us and the next generations.
Thank you for this deeply thoughtful reflection. You're exactly right,fascism doesn’t arrive with a fanfare, it seeps in through compromised language, euphemisms, silent compliance. It's in what we erase, excuse, or delay confronting. The metaphor of the boiling frog is tragically apt: we adjust to the rising heat until escape feels impossible. But yes,there is still time. Naming our values, holding the line, refusing the seduction of ease over integrity,these are the quiet acts that matter now. Thank you for seeing the warning, and for answering it with clarity and conscience.
Thanks Tom, for your work and this thoughtful response/summary.
As an admirer of your work, this is deeply appreciated.🙏 together we must rise.
This third part is the most chilling and the saddest. As I don't live in the US and therefore not confronted with the daily onslaught on democracy. Some parts in the text reminded me of things my grandparents and specially my father told me about his life during WW2. He
was 7 when it started and a very traumatised 12 yr old when it stopped. He never forgot. Never. The ever present fear of his father not coming home from work, which eventually happened when he was arrested by the Germans and sent to Stalag 17. He survived. The mistrust that grew about neighbours, rumours about collaboration, betrayals. Never talk about what was talked about at home. People disappeared without any explanation. Entire families gone. I'm glad my dad doesn't have to read what is going on in the US now. The complying to conform, the dullness that creeps into your life, you wrote it down with a chilling clarity. I can only hope that the resistance grows stronger every day so that it never becomes reality. Too much has become reality already, now is not the time for the American people to roll over and give up so that your children will never have to listen to your stories. I firmly believe that your writing will help people to understand what they stand to lose if they don't stand up for what they believe in. Not just for themselves but for their children and generations to come.
Thank you for this powerful, deeply personal response. It means more than I can say.
What you shared about your father,his fear, the silence, the betrayal, the absences that never healed is exactly what this piece was trying to hold in its hands. Not to make a direct comparison, but to trace the emotional residue, the warning signs, the slow, quiet corrosion of a society that thinks “it can’t happen here.” You remind us that it can. It already has.
That dullness you mention, that fog of conformity,it's the most dangerous part. Because it doesn’t come with banners or boots at first. It comes with paperwork. With policy memos. With silence.
I’m grateful your father survived. And grateful you carry his memory with such moral clarity. You’re right,too much has already become real. But I believe what you believe: that writing, truthfully and without flinching, helps people feelwhat’s at stake. That it can shake us awake before we sleep through the sirens.
Thank you again for reading, for witnessing, for remembering.
Thank you Tom. One of my father's sayings: never compromise your integrity to conform because it makes you one of them.
I enjoy reading your work. You are truly gifted.
Every sentence a gut punch. Exceptionally well-crafted work.
Incidentally, regarding your name, I actually preferred Rage's version over Springsteen. A controversial statement, I'm aware, but I just think that de la Rocha's fury is far more appropriate than Springsteen's wistful mumbling.
Thanks so much,means a lot coming from you.
And yeah, I totally get that take. Rage brought raw, blistering energy to The Ghost of Tom Joad that feels truer to the character’s anger and urgency. Springsteen’s version has its place, sure,but de la Rocha doesn’t just sing it, he lives it. Not controversial to me at all,just honest.