Tag Archives: Horror

Nightmare on Pennsylvania Av.

Politics, , , , ,

Some horror stores are for real.

In just over 13 months the United States may just be starting a great national nightmare. A horror store of Edgar Allan Poe proportions. We may see the ‘re-election’ of an impeached and convicted President in the person of Donald J Trump. An this may happen not only because of the devotions of MAGA but also the machinations of Russia, Iran, ISAS and other international actors in our elections.

Like most of the great horror stores this will come about despite the actions and intents of the heroes and the ‘good’ people in it. It will be seem avoidable, “If Only” was this or that done. But it will not be done. The villains and ‘bad’ people will go about their nefarious actions mostly ignored and unopposed. The majority of people effected will do nothing till too late and will stand around blaming the Heroes for not preventing it from happening. An like most of Mr. Poe’s horrors, there will be no ‘happy’ ending. Just the post credit scene where it all starts again.

So just what is the horror I see coming? Just this. For the past year many many people have been trying to get the Congress to act on the proven interference in the 2016 election by Russian national operatives. Everyone of these actions has died in the Senate where the handmaiden of MAGA and President Trump, Majority Leader McConnell has refused to bring them up for even debate. Efforts to show new efforts by Russia, Iran and others are currently being ignored. MegaCompanies like FaceBook are doing nothing to prevent any effective action to stop these activities in social media so we can not look to them for any significant action.

I see coming a wave of false and misleading social media swamping anything the mainstream Medea can report. (By the way has anybody but me ever seen the play “enemy of the people”? It seem quite appropriate for today.). I can see it now, lowest turnout in a Presidential Election in history. MAGA, the GOP and Donald J Trump swept in the largest landslide ever. Followed by the biggest crackdown on ‘illegals’, ‘sectarians’ and other ‘bad’ people by Homeland Security. Not good white Christian folk like you or me but all those ‘others’. Those LBGTQ’s who aren’t really Americans. I can see it now: everyone being sure to ware their MAGA hats, buttons, etc. Every business with it’s framed autographed picture of the Great Businessman Donald J Trump.

And times will be good in the Stock Market, of course it won’t be so great in the farm belt, or in manufacturing. An the pharmaceutical s will start hurting when most people can’t buy any of the meds they need. But it will make a nice little boom in the mortuary business. An construction will be booming once Southern Florida start really flooding. Not sure what will happen once President Trump dies in his second or third term, or will we have terms by then? It shouldn’t be. Too hard to get an amendment thru to make the Presidency a life term. Just look at how much easier things will be when the Congress gets to select who the V.P. Will be every time the President dies in office, no more Presidential Elections, ever.

An of course we will have to do something about all the ‘Fake News’ out there. Maybe we will set up a Department of Real News, or maybe Truth, or Altnews? Yeah, Department of AltNews, that’s the ticket.

After the Apocalypse

General, Philosophy, Science, , ,

An now for something completely different, America’s love of post apocalypse stories.

Of recent I have noticed more comments about how the Americans seem to be in love with zombie apocalypse stories and games and this is take as being a indication of just how pessimistic we are in Americas future. To this I say HA!

I shan’t go into the long history of the popularity of apocalyptic literature thru history. Instead I’m just going to look at it’s popularity in the past 68 years an keep mostly to the movies movies as the best (an worst) books were often made into movies.

We just need to go to IMDb and you can find quite a few lists of Nuclear Apocalypse movies starting in the early 50’s. Some of the worst ‘passion pit’ second realers were were SF apocalypse themed. It stay this way till the mid to late 60’s when we started to worry about over population (who can forget “Soylent Green is people!”). This is also when we started to get the first ‘Zombie’ apocalypse stories, but like “The Night of the Living Dead” they often weren’t called zombies.

In the seventies and eighties we also keep having the thymes of nuclear apocalypse but we also see a few where it is just war with the USA loosing to the USSR. We also start seeing more and more ‘dark’ or pessimistic endings. An this is where I think we can see the key to the love of Zombie Apocalypse starts. Almost with out fail most if not all humanity, or at least civilization, is destroyed. An there is nothing that can be done about it.

So now let us consider how many horror movies we’ve seen where the heroes have won and all of sudden, just before or even after the credits a scene flash’s on the screen showing the monster is not really vanquished. Yes, I know it is just a sequel marketing device but it is also a horror movie trope. Evil can never truly be defeated. This is an old, old, old idea in theology, going back to Zoroastrianism if not before. It is also not limited to horror stories, just read 1984 and the perpetual war Oceania is fighting. Lots and lots of dystopian stores are like this too.

In fact, I think that all of the Apocalypse stories are really just theologically based horror stores. In more recent times we have had truly theological apocalypse stores like the “Left Behind” series. Also we are now seeing a lot of what can be called the ‘Sixth Great Extinction Event” apocalypse stories based on global warming. One of the worst was “The Day After Tomorrow” but lets not throw stones.

Now as to just why Americans seem to love apocalypse horror stores I really have no ideas. If you do please share with us, we would love to hear your ideas.