North Carolina

It never had been my intention to criticize my home state.  After moving elsewhere to pursue academia, North Carolina's idiosyncrasies  emerged.  I lived in the Midwest, Columbus, Ohio, and  in Columbia, South Carolina.  Each destination proved themselves to be better than North Carolina.  Adjusting to the humble modesty of Ohio took a few years, but once I became acclimated to this behavior I became a Midwesterner.  I lost my southern drawl, became more forthright and passionate about my interests, and left the false security of Southern Gentility behind.  The people of Cowtown would not recognize this of faux romanticism.  You had to earn your keep in Ohio, and so I started over.  As it turned out the almost decade I lived in Columbus became some of the most fruitful years of my life.  It was a fantasy strapped onto a rusty pick up truck.  Life there was benevolent, so it was easy to flourish.  North Carolina does not treat her people this way.  The common folks of North Carolina are a second thought to the corrupt and ruling General Assembly.  This boys club is the same as Donald Trump, and only the rich Republicans rape and pillage Raleigh politics picking clean the bones of federal and state monies.  Fort Bragg is no different in Cumberland Country.  The surrounding community are vultures using the army as their Communist provider.  Most of America is provided for by our government, and those who are on the receiving side of this agreement cast blame on everyone else.  It is the Republican "In Crowd" who falsely criticize President Joe Biden and the Democrats.  Never have I had less faith in the power of good until now, the post Donald Trump attempted coup, who still has not been made accountable.  He is  clever but no less evil and criminal.  His unethical, narcissistic, petty corruption has set an example of ruthless dominance in a declining and unsupported Capitalist socioeconomic system.  America abandoned our own unique system in lieu of shallow legislative and judicial manipulation.  It is far easier to tilt the pinball machine or slant the field than do the actual work to make Capitalism work again.  The reason why it is not happening, is because the Republicans don't want it to happen.  They want Capitalism to fail in favor of an authoritarian regime with them in control.  This is why they are doing everything in their power to maintain control, even undermining our representative model of freedom and democracy.  Capitalism takes work, and to make it work it takes intense savvy, intelligence, and cunning.  It is a wonderful model of human existence yielding social mobility, probable financial security, and mental challenge.  All of these things that built America and are America have been shoved under the rug so a motley crew of tepid Greek gods can have their fun.  The war that will ensue will not so much be civil as revolutionary.  Fighting one another because we disagree is one thing, and slavery is no longer.  Fighting for freedom from tyranny, oppression, and injustice is the issue, and it is coming.  Whence the body snatchers came, I don't know.  I don't understand the radical points of view, because they don't make sense.  It seems more like deconstructionism if anything, just stirring up the pot.  Logic exited the room six years ago.  It is disheartening to live in such a backward state, a state in which Wile E. Coyote and Bo Diddly vie for public office.  Are their any honest politicians left?  To further exaggerate our ignorance, popular culture has been pushed also in the wrong direction.  The tenants of Christianity say, "Love they neighbor as thyself."  The United States Constitution says, "All men are created equal."  When I look at television the modern aesthetic is, "Have no pride in your lifestyle."  If we are using abortion as birth control, we are unable to exercise and eat a healthy diet, and we cannot define our own gender, what responsibility as adult human beings can we discard next?  It is as if we have devolved into the simplest and nonthinking species in modern times.  "Accept us."  We are not required to live with discipline, diligence, and pride as the Protestant Work Ethic taught our parents and grandparents.  We could blame the food system, and now like our state government it is not there to help us.  It is there to make us fat and stupid, and that comes from poison.  There are few things in our lives actually helping us do anything.  Our children go to school to receive an education to offer them a better life, and they risk hate crimes and lynching.  The lynchings now come from an AR-15 assault rifle.  It is not wrong to recognize and engage our physicality.  The human body once was a temple of study and investment.  When I look at the Eighties, our hair was so beautiful.  Our bodies were ripped.  We were intelligent, loving, compassionate, and mature.  We were not driven by our bodies and ruled with our hormones, but we understood the relationship of our mind with our vessels.  Our vessels are a fundamental factor in the equation of love.  Our physicality is a metaphor for spiritual love, and it is a reward for sincerity, honesty, and passion.  Christian love is immersed in and preened from physical and emotional altercation.  Without this intimate experience with and resultant understanding of our personal sexuality, we are naive and weak.  Sex gives us these things, and it is not sinful.  I don't like the newly chosen mainstream of American popular culture.  It has missed the boat.  There is more integrity in the Broadway musical Carousel with its hard knock lessons than any of the camp and drag being performed today.  These lessons, these rules of life purposely are being disguised simply so our American gods and accumulate money.  They never will see the Kingdom of God or experience the eternal life of heaven.  They will eat their cake on earth and burn in hell.