MK3 BLOG

MK3|Sept 14,2025

Every few months, it happens.

Your feed floods with hashtags, slogans, and profile-picture filters. Corporations suddenly have something to say. Politicians scramble to issue statements. Your friends quietly judge you if you don’t join in.

And like clockwork, we’re all asked the same question: Are you for it, or against it?

That’s The Current Thing.

Every few months, the world demands you care about something. A hashtag. A war. A protest. A slogan. Silence isn’t neutral — it’s suspicious.

What Exactly Is The Current Thing?

The Current Thing isn’t just the latest headline. It’s a loyalty test.

It’s the issue that hijacks the conversation, forces people into binary camps, and turns politics into a game of allegiance.

Here’s the recipe:

• A trigger event — a war, a pandemic, a viral video, a protest.

• Media framing — simplified into “good guys vs. bad guys.”

• Symbols and slogans — hashtags, flags, emojis, profile filters.

• Social pressure — silence suddenly equals complicity.

• Institutional bandwagon — corporations, governments, and NGOs line up.

• Peak saturation — it’s everywhere, all the time.

• The drop-off — it fades, replaced by the next thing.

By the time people stop arguing, you’re already onto the next Current Thing.

Why Do Current Things Matter?

They aren’t random — they’re how modern politics works.

• They give people identity badges. Display the right emoji, wear the right pin, and everyone knows which tribe you belong to.

• They offer moral clarity. Forget nuance — this is good vs. evil, right vs. wrong.

• They act as elite coordination tools. Governments, media, and corporations all get to signal they’re “on the right side.”

• And yes, they can be distractions.

While everyone fights over flags in their bios, bigger, slower issues — like rights being restricted or mass surveillance — slide under the radar.

The Ugly Side of the Current Thing

The problem isn’t that people care. It’s that the care is shallow, manic, and disposable.

• Hashtags don’t fix broken systems.

• Binary framing crushes complexity.

• Yesterday’s “moral emergency” is today’s forgotten headline.

Yesterday’s “moral emergency” is today’s forgotten headline. The victims remain. The policies stay. The crowd moves on.

Meanwhile, as Noam Chomsky pointed out decades ago, the media doesn’t just tell us what to think — it tells us what it’s acceptable to think about.

And corporations have learned to exploit this. They swap their logos during Pride Month, pledge solidarity during protests, or change colors for the flag of the moment. Then, once the spotlight fades, so does their commitment.

Corporations swap their logos during Pride Month, pledge solidarity during protests — then go silent once the spotlight moves on. Marketing masquerading as morality.

Some Examples You’ll Remember

• COVID-19: Masks and vaccines weren’t just health issues; they became political purity tests.

• George Floyd / BLM: Corporate logos went black, fists went up, and protest slogans were suddenly everywhere.

• Ukraine (2022): The blue-and-yellow flag emoji became unavoidable, as Western governments and companies pledged loyalty.

• Israel–Gaza (2023–2025): Competing Current Things (#StandWithIsrael vs. #FreePalestine) split publics down the middle.

• Meanwhile… Yemen, Congo, Sudan? Crickets. Some crises just never qualify as The Current Thing.

And it’s not only foreign policy. Think of the Flint water crisis or the opioid epidemic. Both were once national scandals. Both were described as urgent emergencies. And yet, both faded from public attention long before solutions were reached. That’s how the memory hole works.

Why You Should Care About The Current Thing (Even If You’re Sick of It)

You might think: so what? People always follow trends.

But here’s the kicker: Current Things aren’t just trends — they’re tools.

They show us:

• Who has the power to set the agenda. Why Ukraine, but not Yemen? Why Gaza now, but Congo never?

• How shallow engagement warps democracy. Politics gets reduced to virtue-signaling instead of real policy.

• How attention itself has become currency. If we’re always reacting to the Current Thing, who’s doing the long-term thinking?

If we’re always reacting to the Current Thing, who’s doing the long-term thinking?

A Historical Reminder

The Current Thing has always existed — what’s new is the speed.

• During World War II, Pearl Harbor transformed American opinion overnight.

• In the 1950s, McCarthyism forced Americans to prove their loyalty or risk ruin.

• In the 1960s and ’70s, Vietnam War protests dominated public life, splitting the country into hawks and doves.

Back then, it took weeks or months for public opinion to coalesce. Today, it happens in hours — because social media compresses outrage into viral bursts.

Final Thought

The phenomenon of The Current Thing is not trivial. It reflects how collective attention is orchestrated, how political identities are formed, and how moral clarity is manufactured in a media-saturated society.

While Current Things can mobilize the masses and bring urgent issues into focus, they also risk superficiality, polarization, and distraction from structural change. In the networked age, where attention is currency, politics is increasingly governed by spectacles of the moment.

The challenge for democratic societies is to find ways to engage beyond the Current Thing — to cultivate deeper deliberation, longer-term commitment, and more nuanced debate. Otherwise, we risk a politics permanently trapped in cycles of outrage and amnesia.

The Bezmenov Angle

If you want a deeper understanding of how these cycles work, a good place to start is with Yuri Bezmenov’s warnings about “ideological subversion.”

His four stages — demoralization, destabilization, crisis, normalization — describe exactly how societies can be manipulated. In many ways, Current Things are the perfect vehicles for this process:

• They demoralize by overwhelming people with outrage.

• They destabilize by polarizing groups.

• They create a sense of crisis that demands instant response.

• They normalize the new status quo once attention moves on.

Demoralization. Destabilization. Crisis. Normalization. Current Things are the perfect vehicles for ideological subversion.

Reader Challenge

When the next Current Thing hits, don’t just ask what it is. Ask:

• Who benefits?

• Who is ignored?

• What’s being buried while the spotlight shines here?

Because the spectacle will pass. The only question is: what will you remember when it does?

So long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men.

— Voltarine de Cleyre

Definition of tyranny

Tyranny is usually thought of as cruel and oppressive, and it often is, but the original definition of the term was rule by persons who lack legitimacy, whether they be malign or benevolent. Historically, benign tyrannies have tended to be insecure, and to try to maintain their power by becoming increasingly oppressive. Therefore, rule that initially seems benign is inherently dangerous, and the only security is to maintain legitimacy — an unbroken accountability to the people through the framework of a written constitution that provides for election of key officials and the division of powers among branches and officials in a way that avoids concentration of powers in the hands of a few persons who might then abuse those powers.

Tyranny is an important phenomenon that operates by principles by which it can be recognized in its early emerging stages, and, if the people are vigilant, prepared, and committed to liberty, countered before it becomes entrenched.

The psychology of tyranny

Perhaps one of the things that most distinguishes those with a fascist mentality from most other persons is how they react in situations that engender feelings of insecurity and inadequacy. Both kinds of people will tend to seek to increase their power, that is, their control over the outcome of events, but those with a fascist mindset tend to overestimate the amount of influence over outcomes that it is possible to attain. This leads to behavior that often brings them to positions of leadership or authority, especially if most other persons in their society tend to underestimate the influence over outcomes they can attain, and are inclined to yield to those who project confidence in what they can do and promise more than anyone can deliver.

This process is aided by a common susceptibility which might be called the rooster syndrome, from the old saying, "They give credit to the rooster crowing for the rising of the sun." It arises from the tendency of people guided more by hope or fear than intelligence to overestimate the power of their leaders and attribute to them outcomes, either good or bad, to which the leaders contributed little if anything, and perhaps even acted to prevent or reduce. This comes from the inability of most persons to understand complex dynamic systems and their long-term behavior, which leads people to attribute effects to proximate preceding events instead of actual long-term causes.

The emergence of tyranny therefore begins with challenges to a group, develops into general feelings of insecurity and inadequacy, and falls into a pattern in which some individuals assume the role of "father" to the others, who willingly submit to becoming dependent "children" of such persons if only they are reassured that a more favorable outcome will be realized. This pattern of co-dependency is pathological, and generally results in decision-making of poor quality that makes the situation even worse, but, because the pattern is pathological, instead of abandoning it, the co-dependents repeat their inappropriate behavior to produce a vicious spiral that, if not interrupted, can lead to total breakdown of the group and the worst of the available outcomes.

In psychiatry, this syndrome is often discussed as an "authoritarian personality disorder". In common parlance, as being a "control freak".

The logic of tyranny

In Orwell's classic fable, Nineteen Eighty-Four, the protagonist Winston Smith makes a key statement:

Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.

Following the trial of the surviving Branch Davidians in San Antonio, Texas, in March, 1994, in which a misinstructed jury acquitted all the defendants of the main crimes with which they were charged, but convicted them of the enhancements of using firearms in the commission of a crime, the federal judge, Walter F. Smith, first dismissed the charges, correctly, on the grounds that it is logically impossible to be guilty of an enhancement if one is innocent of the crime. However, under apparent political pressure, he subsequently reversed his own ruling and sentenced the defendants to maximum terms as though they had been convicted of the main crimes, offering the comment, "The law doesn't have to be logical."

No. The law does have to be logical. Otherwise it is not law. It is arbitrary rule by force.

Now by "logical" what is meant is two-valued logic, which is sometimes also called Boolean, Aristotelian or Euclidean logic. In other words, a system of propositions within which a statement and its negation cannot both be true or valid. One of the two must be false or invalid. The two possible values are true and false, and every meaningful proposition can be assigned one or the other value.

A system of law is a body of prescriptive, as opposed to descriptive, propositions, that support the making of decisions, and therefore its logic must be two-valued. It is a fundamental principle of law that like cases must be decided alike, and this means according to propositions that exclude their contradictions.

It is also a fundamental principle of logic that any system of propositions that accepts both a statement and its negation as valid, that is, which accepts a contradiction, accepts all contradictions, and provides no basis for deciding among them. If decisions are made, they are not made on the basis of the propositions, but are arbitrary, and that is the definition of the rule of men, as opposed to the rule of law.

So what Winston Smith is saying is that freedom means being able to distinguish between a true proposition and a false one, and what his nemesis O'Brien therefore does to crush him is make him accept that "2 + 2 = 5", which cannot be true if the logic is Aristotelian. O'Brien represents the logic of arbitrary power, a "logic" we might call Orwellian, although Orwell, whose real name was Eric Blair, was strongly opposed to it.

The methodology of tyranny

The methods used to overthrow a constitutional order and establish a tyranny are well-known. However, despite this awareness, it is surprising how those who have no intention of perpetrating a tyranny can slip into these methods and bring about a tyranny despite their best intentions. Tyranny does not have to be deliberate. Tyrants can fool themselves as thoroughly as they fool everyone else.

Control of public information and opinion

It begins with withholding information, and leads to putting out false or misleading information. A government can develop ministries of propaganda under many guises. They typically call it "public information" or "marketing".

Vote fraud used to prevent the election of reformers

It doesn't matter which of the two major party candidates are elected if no real reformer can get nominated, and when news services start knowing the outcomes of elections before it is possible for them to know, then the votes are not being honestly counted.

Undue official influence on trials and juries

Nonrandom selection of jury panels, exclusion of those opposed to the law, exclusion of the jury from hearing argument on the law, exclusion of private prosecutors from access to the grand jury, and prevention of parties and their counsels from making effective arguments or challenging the government.

Usurpation of undelegated powers

This is usually done with popular support for solving some problem, or to redistribute wealth to the advantage of the supporters of the dominant faction, but it soon leads to the deprivation of rights of minorities and individuals.

Seeking a government monopoly on the capability and use of armed force

The first signs are efforts to register or restrict the possession and use of firearms, initially under the guise of "protecting" the public, which, when it actually results in increased crime, provides a basis for further disarmament efforts affecting more people and more weapons.

Militarization of law enforcement

Declaring a "war on crime" that becomes a war on civil liberties. Preparation of military forces for internal policing duties.

Infiltration and subversion of citizen groups that could be forces for reform

Internal spying and surveillance is the beginning. A sign is false prosecutions of their leaders.

Suppression of investigators and whistleblowers

When people who try to uncover high level wrongdoing are threatened, that is a sign the system is not only riddled with corruption, but that the corruption has passed the threshold into active tyranny.

Use of the law for competition suppression

It begins with the dominant faction winning support by paying off their supporters and suppressing their supporters' competitors, but leads to public officials themselves engaging in illegal activities and using the law to suppress independent competitors. A good example of this is narcotics trafficking.

Subversion of internal checks and balances

This involves the appointment to key positions of persons who can be controlled by their sponsors, and who are then induced to do illegal things. The worst way in which this occurs is in the appointment of judges that will go along with unconstitutional acts by the other branches.

Creation of a class of officials who are above the law

This is indicated by dismissal of charges for     wrongdoing against persons who are "following orders".

Increasing dependency of the people on government

The classic approach to domination of the people is to first take everything they have away from them, then make them compliant with the demands of the rulers to get anything back again.

Increasing public ignorance of their civic duties and reluctance to perform them

When the people avoid doing things like voting and serving in militias and juries, tyranny is not far behind.

Use of staged events to produce popular support

Acts of terrorism, blamed on political opponents, followed immediately with well-prepared proposals for increased powers and budgets for suppressive agencies. Sometimes called a Reichstag plot.

Conversion of rights into privileges

Requiring licenses and permits for doing things that the government does not have the delegated power to restrict, except by due process in which the burden of proof is on the petitioner.

Political correctness

Many if not most people are susceptible to being recruited to engage in repressive actions against disfavored views or behaviors, and led to pave the way for the dominance of tyrannical government.

Avoiding tyranny

The key is always to detect tendencies toward tyranny and suppress them before they go too far or become too firmly established. The people must never acquiesce in any violation of the Constitution. Failure to take corrective action early will only mean that more severe measures will have to be taken later, perhaps with the loss of life and the disruption of the society in ways from which recovery may take centuries.

The only honorable course for a citizen is to conduct his life as though the Constitution, as originally understood, is in full force and effect, and if and when that brings him into conflict with public agents, to take a firm stance in opposition to their usurpations, regardless of consequences to himself, to them, or to others. Maintaining the Constitution, in every particular, is more important than human lives, even millions of them, if it should come to a choice. Individuals die. The Constitution needs to live for as long as one human remains alive, and perhaps even beyond that. 

— Jon Roland, 2003

--Context for blog post--

What are the odds the patsy taking the fall for the Charlie Kirk incident just so happens to have a transgender partner?

What are the odds the very last question Kirk was asked before being "unalived" was on tranny mass shooters in America?

Last month it was Minneapolis, this month Salt Lake City, both incidents involving tranny's in the narrative.

Do you see the pattern here?

What came from the Minneapolis PsyOp?

AI predictive policing and more reason for "personalized medicine."

Aside from the other telling signs and the obvious division this is causing (by design) this event will also justify both AI predictive policing (Palantir) and AI personalized medicine (Project Stargate) into the minds of the feeble masses – and yes even those who claim to be "awake."

I could be wrong (I want to be) but I haven't been so far...

While the public is distracted with headlines and culture wars, a series of quiet but decisive moves are reshaping the United States. The Epstein files remain sealed. Boycotting Israel is on the edge of becoming a federal offense. The economy is staggering under the weight of debt, inflation, and upward wealth transfer. And perhaps most dangerously, the meaning of words — particularly Nazi — is being bent and retooled to serve a new political purpose.

 This isn’t paranoia. It’s a pattern. And unless more people recognize it, America is being maneuvered into a future where surveillance, censorship, and control are normalized — all under the guise of “protecting democracy.”

 Epstein and the Politics of Secrecy

 The Epstein scandal should have been a moment of reckoning. Instead, it became another lesson in how effectively power protects itself. Despite endless speculation, only fragments of his network have ever been revealed. Now, by congressional maneuvering and judicial stonewalling, the remaining files are effectively locked away.

 The official line is that disclosure would harm “national security” or unfairly implicate the innocent. In reality, it keeps the machinery intact. Transparency here would topple too many pillars — political, financial, and cultural. And so, secrecy wins.

 Criminalizing Boycotts

 At the same time, legislation across multiple states and at the federal level has taken direct aim at boycotts of Israel. These “anti-BDS” measures do more than target one political movement; they carve a hole in the First Amendment.

 If political and economic boycotts — historically one of the most powerful nonviolent tools of American citizens — can be criminalized because they run counter to foreign policy, then the very concept of protected speech is hollow. It would mean Washington has the power to dictate not only what you can say, but what you can buy, sell, or refuse to purchase.

 That isn’t democracy. It’s policy enforcement by coercion.

 The Economy: Bleeding Out in Real Time

 Meanwhile, the economic reality for most Americans is grim. Inflation continues to devour wages. Debt has ballooned to historic levels. Servicing the interest alone now threatens to overwhelm the federal budget.

 On the ground, the middle and working classes are being hollowed out. Housing, food, fuel, and taxes consume nearly all disposable income. Whether the unraveling is intentional — a controlled demolition — or simply the consequence of decades of negligence doesn’t matter. The effect is the same: Americans are being stripped bare before the next phase of restructuring.

 Language as a Weapon: Redefining “Nazi”

 But perhaps the most insidious shift is linguistic.

 The word Nazi once referred specifically to the National Socialist German Workers’ Party. Over time, it became shorthand for authoritarianism, fascism, and absolute evil. Today, however, the term is increasingly untethered from history.

 There is a growing effort to flip the definition, recasting “Nazi” as a form of left-wing extremism. This linguistic sleight of hand serves a strategic purpose. Once established, it allows lawmakers and media alike to:

•  Label dissenters, populists, and gun owners as “Nazis.”

•  Justify mass surveillance, censorship, and unconstitutional laws under the banner of “fighting Nazism.”

•  Package authoritarianism itself as a moral crusade.

 It’s the same move that followed 9/11 with the word terrorist: stretch the label until it covers anyone the state wishes to target.

 Surveillance by Consent

 The groundwork for this has already been laid. Over the last decade, cancel culture and online witch hunts normalized the idea of punishing people for speech. Every time someone lost a job over a tweet, the precedent grew stronger: free expression is conditional, subject to the whims of outrage.By cheering on these purges, society gave implicit consent for mass surveillance. Neighbors snitched on neighbors. Employers policed thoughts as much as behavior. 

And the state — always watching — realized it could do the same on a national scale.

 What Comes Next

 So where does this leave us?

•  Litigation: Fighting through the courts is slow, costly, and rarely victorious. The system is designed to exhaust challengers.

•  Preparation: Building parallel networks, decentralized communication, and legal defense strategies is more practical than waiting for the system to correct itself.

•  Recognition: Most Americans won’t understand the magnitude of what’s happening until it’s irreversible. Those who do see it now have to prepare outside the herd.

 The Hard Truth

 The most bitter pill is this: those who eagerly participated in silencing others, enforcing conformity, and cheering on surveillance will never fully grasp the damage they enabled. They were useful to the machine, and once their role is complete, they’ll be discarded like everyone else.

 The few who recognize the game have a choice: adapt now, or be consumed in the reset.