Ray Hecht's Blog

America has supremely lost the plot. As everyone knows, there was a tragic shooting in Minneapolis, Minnesota on January 7th. Renee Good was shot in the head by masked ICE agent Jonathan Ross, which has inspired protests throughout the city.

On the face of it, the shooting looked completely unjustifiable. There is video evidence from multiple angles, and it’s frustrating that ICE is even doing traffic stops harassing citizens in the first place. This whole thing shouldn’t have happened, and the argument that the officer felt threatened for his life makes little sense when there isn’t even sufficient reason why federal agents need to be in cities like this making “Kavanaugh stops” which contribute nothing to public safety.

These kinds of shootings which become viral on the internet are always disturbing. It’s sadly become commonplace to watch what are essentially snuff videos in this day and age, both because of the prevalence smartphone videos that everyone has and because of the epidemic of police shootings in the violent landscape that is America. People shouldn’t have to see this, and people should be mad when they see this.

But what may disturb me the most, is that the online discourse is so vitriolic and so incoherent. You’d think people could at least agree this was a tragedy? Social media websites have been right-leaning for a long time, and there’s even been new data showing that many accounts spewing the talking points are bots from third-world countries that make money by boosting engagement. All that being said, one can usually expect so-called debate no matter what the issue is, even when citizens are needlessly shot in the head by masked secret police.

It’s not 2020 anymore, back when there was at least something of a consensus that law enforcement outright murdering people on video is wrong…

But this era has become increasingly insane. There’s no other way to put it. Decent human empathy has gone out the window, and every site seems to be flooded with monstrous sociopathic comments about how this woman deserved to die. There are lies after lies about her, much of it obvious nonsense and misinformation simply making up notions about how she supported terrorism or whatnot, yet strangest of all are the lies contradicting all the videos we have seen. Serious journalists have analyzed the angle of the vehicle and the gunfire and all that, it’s worth getting deeper into if someone is serious about understanding what happened. Even still, just on the basis of having eyes, it’s easy to see that the shooting was unnecessary and this man’s life was not at risk.

Right-wing sources recently leaked a video from the point-of-view of the agent, which they claimed somehow proved he was in the right. It infuriates me to no end, because I really can’t understand the mindset of people who think this way. It’s been pointed out that the video was actually released not to exonerate Jonathan Ross, but to mock Renee Good because her queer wife is in the video talking back and that apparently proves they are bad people.

Overall, the narrative online is basically that anyone who doesn’t comply with the police deserves to be killed. Again and again these comments boil down to: If only you’d comply with orders then you will not be killed. Disturbing enough in a supposed free society already. What I find most bizarre about this take, is that it’s well-known that police are only supposed to shoot if they’re life is threatened. Isn’t that common knowledge by now? That’s what the eventual legal court case is going to be about. All this muddying of the waters, going on and on about compliance and victim-blaming, it’s all besides the point. And this is the incoherence of the era we live in now.

America is in a dark place. The far right government is failing and life is getting objectively worse for the majority of people, we can all see it happening, and the only policy that motivates their base seems to be the killing of “libs” and the worship of corrupt and incompetent law enforcement. The reasons why don’t matter at all, the reasons why get made up and all sorts of motivations are thrown like shit against the wall, and the truth eventually gets lost amidst all the screaming and bad faith flooding of the zone…

This is the real Putin-esque strategy in order to get people to disengage politically. It’s often not actually about getting people to believe in lies. It’s about getting people to give up trying to figure out what the truth is, so that there is no such thing as the truth and the people become apathetic. This is what authoritarian government wants in the end.

I have a terrible fear that it’s working. America is in a goddamn terrible place right now.

This is my Year in Books on Goodreads.com

I read less than last year (which was a record), this time at over 34,000 pages – 140 + books. But that was more than in 2023.

As usual, lots of manga and superhero comics. Which is kind of cheating, admittedly. There were rereads of Grant Morrison’s DC and Jim Starlin’s Marvel work, lots of Daredevil in anticipation of the show this year, Chris Claremont’s X-Men through the ages, and Star Wars comics on Marvel Unlimited. And read all of Dandadan. Several high-brow indie comics in there as well.

Science fiction: the last two Expanse books, the Foundation trilogy–because of the show, several Neal Stephensons including Master of Revels the sequel to Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. Also reread Robert Anton Wilson, and his excellent biography Chapel Perilous.

The biggest feat was definitely the six months of reading War & Peace. Got some more good literary fiction here and there too. My favorite of all might be the brilliant Power Fantasy graphic novel by my new favorite writer Kieron Gillen, and my favorite (nonfiction) audiobook was Black Pill by Elle Reeves.

Looking forward to reading more in 2026!

As a young man in my twenties, I devoured Haruki Murakami. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Norwegian Wood, Kafka on the Shore, Sputnik Sweetheart, IQ84, and more. Seventeen at last count. The dreamlike fantasies of other worlds, the magical realism, the meticulous prose of the English translations, the lack of plot and the melancholic atmosphere, I found great comfort in reading book after book. And then one day, after the author went past his prime, I started finding them repetitive and I stopped reading. Perhaps my tastes have changed, perhaps they weren’t as sophisticated as I once thought. I like to think my standards have improved, but who knows? In any case, it can’t be denied that Haruki Murakami is among the most successful fiction writers on earth and has had a great impact on literature.

I also happen to be a fan of Japanese manga comics. So therefore, a manga adaptation of Murakami short stories should be right up my alley. I have now finally read Haruki Murakami Manga Stores Volume 1, which adapts the author’s short stories “Super-Frog Saves Tokyo,” “Where I’m Likely to Find It,” “Birthday Girl,” and “The Seventh Man.”

I’m not totally sure these always work, but it’s certainly an interesting idea to adapt these stories into another medium. (There have been several successful film adaptations of his works, in fact.) The term manga in the title, however, does not really lend itself to assumptions about heroic shonen adventures and cutesy anime girls. Perhaps this should be thought of more as artistic indie comics.

The first story, “Super-Frog Saves Tokyo” is a weird tale of a Super-Frog. With a typical Murakami protagonist, a dull businessman/sarariman type having an existential crisis, it’s unclear in the story if the frog is real or just a figment of his imagination. In that way, it’s a good introduction to the vibe of this collection. I also don’t know what to make of it. Is it good literature? Is it just weird for weird’s sake? For more depth, I’d have to read the original prose short story to analyze. The comic version, with decent colorized art, is as confusing as it is anything else.

“Where I’m Likely to Find It” is in black & white, which is more typical for manga, albeit using a bit of color in some scenes in which a mirror seems to show an alternate world. This is what Murakami often writes best, a subtle fantastical mystery without any true resolution. In a sort of neo-noir genre, an amateur investigator explores a staircase to find a missing husband. There’s something of satisfying conclusion, but of course what really happened is never quite explained in the end.

“Birthday Girl” feels different in starring a female character, and probably has the most dynamic art. Maybe it’s clichéd that the main character is a waitress, but it’s suitable for the purposes of the plot. She meets an old man, they have a drink together, and she gets a birthday wish granted which the reader doesn’t get to know. It does inspire imagination, which is ultimately the point of this kind of style.

The final one is “The Seventh Man,” and it is the most haunting of them all. A story-within-a-story, a nameless man speaks about his childhood from a less modern era. There is nothing necessarily supernatural, when he experiences a typhoon and its horrifying aftermath. A childhood friend drowns, which is expressed with sadness and mystification. A good meditation on trauma. Like the rest of the stories, this may not be a good read for everyone. The overlap of Murakami and literary comic readers is rather specific, but for me I’m glad I gave it a try.

Order Visions of Taiwan # 1 – 4

If you’d like to order any of the 4 issues of the anthology comic series Visions of Taiwan, whether in digital eBook format via the Kindle app or paperback, all the information is here…

Firstly, the entire series is available on Amazon

Visions of Taiwan # 1

Visions of Taiwan # 2

Visions of Taiwan # 3: Festivals of Taiwan

Visions of Taiwan # 4: The Artists Issue

For those based in Taiwan, I will happily mail you a copy. Just email me at rayhecht@gmail.com

The prices are as follows — # 1: $150 NTD, # 2: $180 NTD, # 3: $180 NTD, # 4: $250 NTD

Bank Information: 007 First Bank
Account: 208-68-113763

I am proud to announce the publication of Visions of Taiwan # 4 – The Artists Issue

This is the final issue and the biggest one yet, at 98 pages with a whopping 14 stories!

Read all about them, each story an original comic highlighting life in Taiwan as an international artist… Free to download this weekend only

Check out all four issues now, via Amazon for the Kindle

The Artists Issue

Featuring:

“The Sketch of Self Doubt” by Erique Chong

“Facezine # 183” by Joel Fremming

“Younger Man Eat More” by Kristin Foss and Paulina Olejnik

“Artist Residency in Taiwan” by Fabienne Good

“Makin’ Comics” by Ray Hecht

“My Black Hole” by Patty Hogan

“Thai in Taiwan” by Thai Martin

“A Day in the Life” by Daniel Martinez Sierra

“The Concept” by Stefano Misesti

“Sweat & Blood” by Daniel C. Moore

“Changes” by Jon Renzella

“Bonds” by Angela Sauceda

“Finding Faces” by Bronwen Shelwell

“Worries” by Royce Widjaya

New life plan: Live until I’m 90, so I can see the world make any progress at all

I’m going to have to be very patient. It’s more than waiting just four years, which will indeed be a long four years. The consequences of the Supreme Court especially will stall any societal progress for 50+ years. So I really will have to wait until the 2070s…

Still trying to make sense of all this. Once upon a time, I had hope. I’m not a naturally optimistic person, but there were rational reasons. Real signs. Basically, there was a narrative that Bernie Sanders was this generation’s Barry Goldwater. Although he lost, he inspired a new generation which would signal a shift in governing philosophy over the coming decades . These things take time. In the past it was Goldwater’s failed 1964 presidential campaign that signalled the end of the Roosevelt era, and solidified in the 1980s when Reagan was triumphant, and then Reaganism basically defined the next 40 years no matter who was in office.

Well, now it’s very clear now that Sanders is not the future, despite polling young voters or whatever. It’s MAGA that is going to set the defining tone for the next four to five decades.

It’s such a shame, because there are serious problems with the world due to neoliberal economic policies. And the only remedy is to bring back what worked in the New Deal era, as democratic socialist countries have already proven themselves around the world to have the highest standard of living, it truly is the only path to fixing anything. Unions, higher wages, environmental regulations, labor rights, minority rights, police brutality, housing costs, education costs, all those issues!

And yet now we are on a path to make every single one of those far, far worse. A second Gilded Age, with even more income inequality than the first. Historians note that rising inequality is a major sign of civilizations falling. So apparently, when these problems worsen it just causes people to become more bitter and aggrieved, blaming marginalized groups for why they can’t afford to live, and whining about niche ‘woke’ issues, and generally pushing the Overton Window further and further to the bigoted right.

Why does it have to be this way? There is an international trend that all over the world incumbent parties have lost due to voters being mad about inflation. Just goes to show how irrational voters are, since right-wing governments with austerity had it worse, but whoever is in charge gets blamed and most don’t look at what’s happening around the world.

It’s so crazy how random history is—he lost in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Then he won in 2024 because of the pandemic-caused inflation.

With all the hindsight over the election and the campaigning, shoulda been more left or shoulda been more centre, who knows what might have been. Biden was a risk in 2020, but it seemed to have paid off that time. Then it turned out not to work well. He probably should have withdrawn earlier and allowed a primary, but then who knows many it was inevitable that the opposition party would win. Or maybe it’s simply sexism that doomed America. Debates and ridiculous shitshow of a campaign and a billion dollars wasted, none of it seemed to matter in the end.

(I just wish so much he went away in 2020, and at least it would have been a normal Republican destined to win now. But normal Republicans are essentially extinct.)

Misinformation online also seems to be a huge factor in why the world is getting crazier. Social media completely ruining the very concept of objective reality. It even appears that the youngest generation isn’t getting more progressive, as earlier assumed, but rather are influenced by far right podcast bros. This misogyny is only going to cause more social unrest as young women go in the other direction and resentment will build up even more.

The 21st century, frankly, sucks. The second half of the 20th century, for all its problems, did have quality of life steadily improve with each generation. Now it is going backwards, by every metric from income to lifespans, and it’s going to continue to go backwards. There’s very little reason to have any hope.

And the goddamn climate. We’ve all given up. We are a society gone mad. Leaving the Paris accords, denying reality. Rising temperatures are becoming increasingly obvious, we are all feeling it, and we do nothing but vote in science deniers. Absolute madness.

Sigh, it’s so frustrating. It’s like the world we live in is a badly written story. There’s no Karma. No arcs. All those scandals, all those laws broken, the indictments and felonies and proven sexual assault. It doesn’t matter.I was stupid enough to believe that there was a trend towards justice, that problematic old men get theirs in the end, and the gross far right had kept losing elections since 2018 so that seemed like a rational take. But looks like all that was happening was normalization.

Turns out, #MeToo and Black Lives Matter did not have the biggest impact on history. Old-fashioned bigotry was the future after all. Herein Elon Musk gets to destroy government services, RFK Jr gets to destroy healthcare, all those horrible trolls online get to feel vindicated. Furthermore, expect AI slop to grow even more prevalent on a dead internet devoid of truth, as Zuckerberg said himself. 

It’s certainly possible, even extremely likely, that the economy will implode and Democrats will win a trifecta in 2028. But by then, I believe, it will be too late. The opposition party, already corporatized and lame, will be pushed rightwards. There will be no going back. It will be too hard. And no revolution rebooting the system either. The damage will simply be permanent. 

No one is going to save us.

Personally, I never wanted to believe in the Great Man theory of history. It gives individuals too much credit. But it looks undeniable now that it’s his world, that fucker, and we’re just living in it. 

So, who knows what exactly will be, but for me it’s going to have to be a lesson in patience. If I am to have any sense of optimism, it will be for the very long-term. I will wait out the next 50 years, see if I can experience some progress in my lifetime, and then at 90-something I’ll allow myself to have hope again…