By Lance Hardwood

A woman was shot in Minneapolis by ICE agents. The excuse? She tried to block them using her vehicle, when she got scared and tried to pull away–which she was told to do–she was shot in the face.
I am not shocked, nor am I surprised.
I’m numb to all of it at this point.
Not unfeeling, not uncaring, not unemotional internally, just numb on the outside.

Cold calculation is a face I wear well. I’ll even give you a little background.
When I was about four years old, I lived with my single mother (I have a present and wonderful father) on a farm. We were walking from pasture to pasture using a dirt road, the only way in or out. To our left, cows, greenery. To our right, barbwire with some bent over posts and untamed property.
Two teenage ladies were riding by on a three-wheeler, back and forth, back and forth, having a wonderful time, waving, and saying, ‘Hi’ every time they passed. Then that front tire hit a bump and they went sideways. They literally rode up that bend in the barbwire, it made an audible snap, then tangled them up.
This was the pre-cellphone age.
My mother said, and I quote, “Holy fuck,” then she screamed at them, “Do NOT move. Do-not-move. It will only tangle more.” She told me to wait there while she ran back to the house and called an ambulence.
I, meanwhile, stood there and listened to their screams. Even at that age, I knew to say, “Don’t move. Don’t move. Don’t move.” And after a while I found I couldn’t stop.
To be fair, when you’re tangled up in fuckin’ barbwire, it’s hard not to want to break free.

This, however, was not the only time something terrible has happened within my proximity.
When I was thirteen I watched my neighbor step outside with slit wrists (second attempt). His wife opened up the garage door just as he had done the deed, and she screamed. My father, hearing this from his own garage, ran across the street and held him down like a man on the cross, trying to stop the blood, while screaming to his shocked wife for assistance which she never gave. I watched this from my window.
At fifteen my ex-girlfriend committed suicide by jumping of a hotel balcony. I wasn’t there, but I felt it keenly.
At eighteen I left work at an ice rink to hear a gunshot and be the first on the scene to witness blood and brain matter on the window. I called the cops, then waited.
At thirty my wife and I walked our children out to the car to witness my elderly neighbor slumped in his wheelchair , grey-skinned and leaking from the side of his head. Gunshot. Suicide.

What’s the point of this, you may be asking? Well it’s simple. After seeing so much–and this is not even close to all of it–I have a knack for seeing what’s coming. Just go on my TikTok account, and you’ll see two, three, four months prior to many events currently happening in the US, I called it. This is not a boast, because it’s not a blessing. It’s a curse.

But, and you knew a but was coming, this is a warning.

The United States stands on a precipice. Every citizen of this country is being shoved further toward their inevitable demise by the forces on high. Who are the forces on high? They’re the corporations, the regime, the government–make the distinction if you like–but they’re all one large machine at this point thanks to the corporatocracy that fuels the oligarchy.

What does this mean for us? It’s simple really.

The issue with the United States is division.

“Well, duh,” you might be saying.

But no-no, stick with me.

White people, left and right, democrat and republican; woke, trans, hippies and gun-toting, redneck, cousin-fuckers are entirely complacent. On the right, we have hateful clowns who think the other side losing is a boon for their side. On the left, we have moral purity test administrators who think righteous indignation is some kind of shield, and that the more morally outraged you are, or the more flauntingly ‘enlightened’ you are, or the more you call out anyone and everyone who disagrees with your ‘enlightened’ position, the better you are.

Both sides are now obsolete. Both methods of thinking are inherently flawed. And both sides are losing while playing the game of ‘who memes better and trends more.’

What can be done then?

There is the faintest shred of hope. And me, being so very,very smart, I’ll elaborate.

The rightwing galvanizes behind the rightwing. Like sheep given the means to speak and consult with each other, they choose a shepherd and let the shepherd lead them, astray or otherwise. These are not ‘intelligent’ people. Smart? Sure. Experts in their given fields? Absolutely. Salt of the earth, hard working, common men and women? Yes, they are that. But they will follow the shepherd off the cliff while still shouting about how, ‘This is the left’s fault.’ And this, my friends, is their flaw. They’re kind of stupid. They cling to what they know. They’re not fond of change, or new ideas, and they think their expertise in a given field means they can also do quantum physics. And yes, I’m talking to you flat earthers.

The left, meanwhile…Jesus…the left is nothing but a boiling pot of culture hot buttons and political correctness, with every issue being treated as the ultimate in moral outrage by a select tribe. They are moral elitists who enjoy the smell of their own farts in so much that it makes them, and only them, feel good. Most of them, and I do mean most, are more likely to do something generous specifically so they can post about it on Insta or TikTok. They chase clout while pretending to be ‘above it all.’ They pretend at morals while never truly taking the stand. They’re not about what they’re about, because they’re about goddamn everything, and they never specialize in a given about-ness. to summarize, their about-ness is not only divided, but divisive. Think I’m wrong left-wingers? I dare you to not correct a word I said with a long diatribe that feigns ‘enlightenment, or sympathy,’ all while being absurdly condescending.

Do you see where this is going?

If not, I’ll lay it down now.

Both sides complete each other. Joker needs Batman. Batman needs the Joker. But here’s the key ingredient. In order for Joker to beat Batman, he needs to think like Batman. In order for Batman to beat the Joker, he needs to think like Joker. In the case of the United States, in order to beat the regime and the corporations controlling us, the left must start to think right, and the right must start to think left. This is not an absolute, it’s a matter of taking what the other side does correctly, and using it for the greater good of all.

I’ll end by giving you an example.
If every hippy-dippy, pot-smoking, queer, trans liberal went out and learned how to use a pistol and rifle, then started open carrying, the right would take note.
If every rightwinger occassionally opened a book that wasn’t a car manual or a gun manual and instead read some fuckin’ boogeyman Marx, they might start to understand the position that they themselves are in. Hint, it’s not a good one. Double hint, it’s the same position the leftwing is in.

We are fellow countrymen. The idea that ‘politics’ is a hot button issue, and that we should never discuss, debate, or even argue ideas, is bullshit. It’s a coddled nature that does nothing to further the future of this country. And yeah, I get it, some of you don’t ‘feel’ like Americans. You’re disenfranchised. You’re down and out. You’ve been trampled on and stepped over.

Well, goddammit, it’s time to change that.

Time to step up and step out.

Time to forge your destiny, make a new path.

And yes, the new path will be difficult.

But nothing worthwhile is easily gained.

The future is waiting for the people of the United States to grab hold of it and say, “I am worthy of this title. I am worthy, and you will see me.”

We the People, is not a bestowed gift, handed down by the generations before us; it is an earned moniker, and we must answer the call, again, and again, and again, until this country becomes something we can be goddamn proud of.

We the divided, disenfrachised, down and out, do nothing, don’t care, must become we the people.

Or we, all of us, WILL lose everything.