Don't you feel it? That queasiness in the pit of your stomach; the constant headaches? Eventually it manifests as overwhelming anxiety.

They call this the New World Order, but you know it's not. It's an Old World Order, in some cases an Ancient World Order; from the Roman empire when the senate was continually displaced by Caesars to the Second World War when we said "never again."

We were warned about it repeatedly by sci-fi/dystopian writers. 1984. Feed. The Hunger Games. RE: The Hunger Games. We're not quite there yet, but just wait. The first two aren't near future, or starting to come true. They are here. They are now.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with these books, I'll include a brief summary below.

George Orwell wrote 1984 to warn people what would happen if they permitted their government to exercise total control. The totalitarian regime of Oceania manipulates their citizens into believing anything, which allows the regime to take as much power as they could possibly want.

M.T. Anderson's Feed tells of a failing futuristic society controlled by large corporations. People are conditioned to value objects, money, and entertainment over everything else. Most of the characters have chips called "feeds" installed in their brains. They can communicate with other people instantly and look up any information they want, but it also sends them a constant stream of advertisements. (The computers, phones and tablets do the same thing. Who needs a chip?")

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins is a story in a dystopian world based on a ruling oligarchy with a supreme leader - the Capitol - that has instituted an annual tradition to suppress the districts who live in poverty and remind them of the Capitol's absolute power. The districts must each send one female and male tribute to fight to the death as a form of entertainment for Capitol audiences. It's gladiator theater. (This type of cruel and inhuman entertainment cropped up in Rome every time democracy was overturned by a sadistic Caesar.)

Back to dissonance . . .

First, we'll start with a definition. This will be short and sweet. There are other definitions, but this is the one I'm feeling right now.

Leon Festinger coined the term cognitive dissonance in the 1950s.

He conceptualized the dissonance as a sense of unease that a person feels when dealing with inconsistent pieces of information. Sometimes it's a feeling you get when your own beliefs, values and actions contradict each other.

I have been feeling this unease increasingly in the past few years, but particularly in the past few weeks. That’s because even news agencies I thought I could trust are excusing and normalizing fascism, hate, and the enormous grifting and gaslighting of a nation.

And if you think this criminal behaviour in government is only confined to the US or Russia, think again. It is infecting democracies worldwide, particularly in politics of the right. Not to say there aren't dictatorships on the left. Venezuela, or China, for example. But that doesn't negate the fact that the right in our current democratic nations has been co-opted by extremism. Yes, the party that espouses freedom, privacy, fiscal restraint, Christian values, etc. is doing the opposite. It is using the feed on our devices to disseminate misinformation which distorts and perverts any values message and certainly obscures the truth.

We’ll start by discussing freedom and, by extension, human rights. First, these extremists are attacking the smaller marginal groups with cockeyed conspiracy theories and lies to effectively paint them as enemies, rather than the scapegoats they are. How many trans people do you actually know, and how many have you witnessed grooming your children to change their gender? Lies. Then it’s the immigrants, because they love to incite tribal loyalties. Next the racial minorities, women, then anyone else they can distract you with, and absolutely anyone who objects or tries to exercise free speech against them. Trolls attack if you try to speak . . .

The cascade begins . . .

Intimidate, threaten, defund, deport, imprison, even kill, if they can get away with it. Why do you think they're reintroducing the death penalty?

And if you think you’re safe, I feel a poem coming on . . .

First they came for the Communists

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a Communist

Then they came for the Socialists

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a Socialist

Then they came for the trade unionists

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a trade unionist

Then they came for the Jews

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a Jew

Then they came for me

And there was no one left

To speak out for me.

Pastor Martin Niemöller

A side note on women. I watched an interview of Margaret Atwood at the University of Toronto about a month ago where she was asked if the US was like Gilead (a fictional country where women have no rights and are simply breeders). She said in Texas and Florida it was worse, because in Gilead they valued babies, but in these states they are denying appropriate healthcare to pregnant women so babies are dying, too. As I speak, they are removing studies from the CDC that contain the word ‘pregnant person.’ They will say it’s to remove “woke” terminology, but the studies will probably disappear. This is not about prolife vs prochoice. This is about devaluing women in an Incel backlash against the MeToo movement that will strip all women of their rights. In Canada, we watched these same people, brainwashed on conspiracy theories, full of hate and rage, take over Ottawa for three weeks so they could bully and intimidate ordinary people. They were not rational. Some stalked and threatened women of rape on the street.

The excuse is DEI, but soon women will have no careers, no healthcare, no education. Apparently the latest is no voting rights.

Welcome to Afghanistan, ladies.

But I digress.

Let’s discuss privacy.

The US government and other Conservative outlets are collaborating with tech giants to increase the surveillance state and collect your data, eavesdrop, track your movements, etc., even though they say they believe in privacy. Don’t believe me, read this: Google Lifts a Ban on Using Its AI for Weapons and Surveillance.  A terrifying development, not to mention the weapons issue. But what’s a little relinquishment of privacy for the convenience of shopping, and attention-grabbing headlines, and a place to put your photos?

Except they will use it against you.

People are already being fired for their political views, for speaking out, for exercising their free speech. A CBS employee was fired for calling a Nazi salute a Nazi salute. Is it anything else?

Media outlets are terrified of lawsuits, or threats to their mergers, etc., and are backing off on presenting a balanced viewpoint or even the truth. Canadian media, and I’m probably right to say media in other democratic countries are also under threat. The excuse is mistrust, or bias. The reality is corrupt governments and parties are seeking to obscure their undemocratic activities and escape accountability.

Okay, this is the less ominous one. Or is it? The party that always espouses fiscal responsibility, small government, opposition to grandiose government spending, is spending, spending, spending, but not on you. It’s to enrich themselves, their families, colleagues, their business partners, usually everyone who is already rich. Because, you know, greed is good.

I ask: How much is too much? If you’re obscenely rich, why do you need to be richer? The tech oligarchy is disgustingly rich, and yet they’re getting government handouts: OpenAI Strikes Deal with US Government to Use Its AI for Nuclear Weapon Security. Does it not alarm you? Nuclear security in the hands of deeply flawed AI to the tune of 500 billion dollars? And it’s just the tip of a very deep iceberg.

Consider this: If rich people are getting handouts, is it at the expense of the poor and the middle class? Are the rich robbing the poor to feed the rich? Reverse Robin Hood-ism? Autocracy, technocracy, psychopathocracy.

Christian values. (Do not attack me for this. Either read on, or just go away.) I was brought up in a Christian household. I was taught Christian values and though I have stepped away from the church, I still carry most of those values in my heart. They are often reflected in my work.

Christ told people that they should love their neighbours. And he didn’t mean the people closest to you, or in your tribe. Everyone. Especially the poor, the disenfranchised, the marginalized. Mary Magdalene, anyone?

He hated the money changers, people who get rich without producing anything of value, who prey on ordinary people. (I will call them grifters, but much of our modern tech world and big business has become just like this. Profit and shareholders matter more than product or customers. What value has social media added? It is an echo chamber of hate, a cesspool of ads, and a place to steal your data so you can be targeted with misinformation . . . which is destroying democracy.)

He also denounced the rich. Because money is all they worship. 'It is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle...' You know the verses.

He despised the Pharisees; the hypocrites, the false prophets. This is all I see lately. People who claim to be Christian but tell their flocks lies, and stir their hate against others, and do their best to profit from it. Lately, the messages from the pulpit, and circulating in the congregations, are all about revenge (Old Testament) and attacking enemies (Old Testament) and judging, judging, judging. Judge not, lest ye be judged.

There is no empathy.

And Christ was all about empathy!

Other values that are being ignored: humility, compassion, integrity, justice.

This is what happens when politics gets intermingled with religion. It becomes about power, and nothing else.

It is also the Age of Grifting.

If you’re not familiar with the term here is the definition:

-       to obtain (money or property) illicitly (as in a confidence game) – Definition obtained from the Merriam-Webster dictionary.

We are being scammed left, right and center. But when a president puts out Caesar-like coins on Bitcoin to enrich himself, and they’re clearly scam coins . . . sigh.

.

How can you trust anything?

AI can use your face, your personal data, your writings, your musings, your photos, your everything to impersonate you or deceive you or your loved ones. As you can tell, I love AI.

And then there are the ads that have become another way of conning you because so little of these things add value to your life. Feed! You are incessantly hammered with: Buy, buy, buy. But I don’t need . . . Buy! But I haven’t the money . . . Buy! This is what you love. We have algorithms, or now AI (yuck!) that tell us exactly where your weaknesses lie. Why not gambling? Why not merchandise? Why not likes on FB and elsewhere that gives your brain a little dopamine hit so you can sit like a zombie and sift through more ads?

We become poor; they become rich. They’ve provided us with scapegoats to blame it on. The poorer; the marginalized; the vulnerable. It’s how fascism works.

I’m tired. The bombardment of conflicting and often insane messages is exhausting. They’re counting on that, too.  Wear you down. It will make you less resistant. The more dissonance, the more confusion, the less energy you have to fight for your values.

But what can we actually do, you might ask? How can we fight back against multibillion dollar corporations and evil, downright psychopathic governments as wee little ordinary citizens? As people with the greatest stake in democracy?

Margaret Atwood also said in the above interview that “Writers have no real power.” But then why did the tech world think to first attack the creatives jobs with AI counterfeits? Money may be an incentive, but it doesn’t spawn true innovation. Only passion does. Creatives are passionate, and they’re often guided by firm principles of equality, justice and true freedom. Writers are dangerous to budding fascist regimes because we can’t be bought, aside from a few notable exceptions.

The world grows in a positive way when you innovate with ideas founded in real values. It contracts and diminishes under the weight of oppression and greed.

Words matter.

But you don’t have to be a writer to speak out. You have to be passionate about saving our democratic world and not give in to the toxic division these corporations and fascist factions have spawned. The more people protest, the less power they have. I would ask people to call out the extreme elements in whatever party you subscribe to, whether right or left. And we can speak with our pocketbook, too. Don't support companies that support the unfolding regimes. Tesla sales are even now plummeting. If money is all they care about, take it away from them.

But before we begin to fight back, we need to ease the dissonance for our own mental health. Here are a few suggestions.

1.    Find the truth.

I’m watching the few news agencies that are not indulging lies, and podcasts, not corporate-owned media. Podcasts are still a danger in disseminating extreme messages, so I’m very judicious. And always check the source of a claim or link.

2.    Invite peace.

Find a hobby outside of the screen world. I garden, and in the dead of winter I seed plants and watch gardening shows. Plants are peaceful and pleasing.

3.    Read.

It’s not easy in this attention-grabbing world. We often satisfy our story needs with TV, but I’m finding so many of those now laced with political propaganda, or revenge themes, I’m turning it off and finding a good book.

4.    Quit toxic social media or at least reduce consumption. (I know, it’s an addiction, and I'm not immune.) If you need a platform for your small business etc., find one with decent moderation and fact-checking.

5.    Hugs and kind words.

A podcaster recently suggested we tell our family and friends we love them. We don’t do that enough; and it is so much stronger than hate and tyranny.

I keep telling myself I should be writing my next book. But how can I write a dystopian novel when the world is already dystopian? But I can still write. And that’s what I’ll do. I’m not the best blogger, but I can string together some words. After all, it’s not 1984, it’s 2025. And we survived a pandemic. Let’s keep going.