Right-wing extremism and Pepperland

Right-wing extremism and Pepperland  by Marc Batko (marc1seed [at] yahoo.com, https://www.freetranslations.foundation)

Sky of blue, sea of green
Everyone has all they need
on our yellow submarine

The Beatles in 1964 warned us about Pepperland, anti-music people and the
Blue Meanies.  Trump with his draconian immigration policy shows us the bestiality of
the Blue Meanies, sweeping up workers from hospitals and shopping centers and
locking them up in detention centers!

In the 1960s, the Boomer generation grew up in an atmosphere of fear and potential
horror.  In school, we practiced hiding under desks to avert nuclear fallout.  As a country,
we were indoctrinated in the Red Scare, hatred, and fear of Russia.

Facts and truth are not a match for Russophobia.  In the 1945 battle of St Petersburg,
the Russians defeated Hitler’s army and lost 27 million people.  Perpetrators and victims
were reversed in German and the US.  People needed an enemy to focus their anger and
Russia filled that need!  The Ukraine war really began with NATO’s eastward expansion in
1999 and the coup in 2014.

The ego must die for the self to be born, Christians, Jews, and Buddhists agree.

Why do people become negative, nihilistic, anti-music and deaf and blind to the wonders of life?

In the age of science and technology, people adapt and optimize themselves.  Prophetic, spiritual, utopian, cooperative, anarchist, and post-materialist traditions fall by the wayside!

Be not conformed, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds!

Neoliberalism turns out to be an ideology and an indoctrination.  The self-healing market, money as a private matter, money out of nothing, CEOs as job creators and  workers as cost-factors are prominent myths that paved the way to exploding inequality, hopelessness, and
environmental destruction.  Freedom and self-determination were distorted as spiritless servitude to the market.

Neoliberalism kills curiosity and rhythm.  In his 1980 classic “The One-Dimensional Man,” Herbert Marcuse warned us of the enemies of human liberation: false needs, false
consciousness and alienation.  George Orwell in “1984” explained that war would become a domestic necessity to distract from economic contradictions and injustice.  Aldous Huxley in “Brave New World” foretold that people would submit and conform to the totalitarian state and sacrifice their freedom and independence.  Fyodor Dostoevsky said people would surrender their freedom for the Grand Inquisitor’s promise of happiness.

In 2025, Donald Trump formed his base through fear-mongering, scapegoating, lies, obscenities, threats and insults.  Repeating the Hitler words “vermin,” “killers,” and “invaders,”
the great distractor and master victimizer carries out vicious wars against migrants and against the poor, ends whole departments (e.g. Education, EPA, Veterans Affairs, and IRS) and radically cuts vital programs (e.g. Medicaid, HUD housing assistance, SNAP food assistance, Pell college grants, airport safety, cancer research, and small business aid).

Beware of hypocrites, Pharisees, and false teachers!  They clean the outside of the cup and leave the inside filthy; they see the speck in their brother’s eye but not the log in their own eye!  They walk about in long robes and rush for the front seats and ignore the weightier matters of the law and justice!

In his second term, Trump has revealed himself to be a bully and reversed Robin Hood, a pathological liar and a pathological narcissist, a scaremonger and master victimizer using  nonstop lies, obscenities, threats, and insults to increase and consolidate his power.  His war on migrants, the poor, and the dollar has wrecked the US economy (cf. Laura Tyson, “Trump has wrecked the US economy,” The Atlantic, July 1, 2025).  With punitive, vindictive, and irrational tariffs on the world, he punished Canada, China, Brazil, India, Mexico, and Japan.  He said all countries had “ripped us off” even though the dollar as the global currency since 1945 enabled the US to borrow and spend profligately even as a debtor country!

Recovery will take decades and generations; institutional trust has vanished.  Trump replaced the rule of law with tantrums and separation of powers and checks and balances with scapegoating and megalomania!  As a television host, he took advantage of a polarized and paralyzed political system to create a one-man rule or one-man circus strengthened by sycophants and boot-lickers!

The torch is passed to a new generation, John F Kennedy proclaimed in 1960.
The hard rains are going to fall, Bob Dylan sang.
Masters of war,
you hide behind walls and desks,
I can see through your masks.
Which side are you on?
He not busy being born is busy dying.

The future must be anticipated and protected in the present, not extrapolated from the present (cf. Jurgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope, 1960).
The present is more than the present since it includes the promise.

Whoever controls the present controls the past.
Whoever controls the past controls the future. (George Orwell, “1984”)

George Orwell’s message in 1984 is a dire warning against the dangers of totalitarianism, where unchecked government power leads to absolute control over society, truth, and the individual. He warns that a totalitarian state can maintain power through pervasive surveillance, manipulation of language (Newspeak) to control thought, historical revision, and the systematic suppression of individual freedoms and independent thought.  Wake up America!