Essay: Thoughts on the "Great Unraveling"

 

Essay:  Thoughts on the  “Great Unraveling”

 

I haven’t commented on the genocide in Gaza in a while, that ongoing hell, despite the so-called ‘cease fire’ which hasn’t alleviated the miserable, subhuman conditions.  The pathetic victims (who are civilians, not ‘enemies in a mutual war') now live in tents amid rubble, still suffer sporadic bombing, still anguish for the basics of life--shelter, food, water, hygiene, medical help, minimal comfort--still get force-moved here to there, and much more.  There is constant psychological and physical duress.  According to the last article I read, many Gazan children must walk to school in the sight-line of Israeli snipers. 

Nor have I commented on the US takeover of Venezuela’s oil, which happened with the alacrity and shock of blitzkrieg,  Nor have I commented on a 37 year-old woman in Minnesota being shot in the head by an ICE agent as she was turning her car to drive away from him.  Her six year-old son is motherless now.  Reuters says there is almost zero chance that the ICE agent will face any charges.  

The victim's name is Renee Nicole Macklin Good.  She described herself as a “poet and writer and wife and mom.”

And so another poet dies on the frontlines of totalitarian aggression. 

Let me take a moment, once more, to remember, Refaat Alareer, a poet who died in an Israeli airstrike.  Not long before his death, he wrote the now widely circulated poem, “If I must die”:

 

“IF I MUST DIE”

BY REFAAT ALAREER

 

If I must die,

you must live

to tell my story

to sell my things

to buy a piece of cloth

and some strings,

(make it white with a long tail)

so that a child, somewhere in Gaza1

while looking heaven in the eye

awaiting his dad who left in a blaze—

and bid no one farewell

not even to his flesh

not even to himself—

sees the kite, my kite you made, flying up above

and thinks for a moment an angel is there

bringing back love

If I must die

let it bring hope

let it be a tale

 

 

A Great Unraveling

All the above, and so much more, manifests a great Darkness that has taken hold of the geopolitical world.  An NYT op-ed titled, “The Great Unraveling Has Begun,” states the following:

President Trump’s decision to launch a secretive predawn military operation in Venezuela to grab President Nicolás Maduro is a blatant assault on the international legal order. The action threatens to end an era of historic peace and return us to a world in which might makes right. The cost will be paid in human lives. (1/7/26)

Oona A. Hathaway, Professor of political science and law at Yale, Carnegie Scholar, etc. etc.

 

When considering the monumental horrors, such as the genocide in Gaza, it is important to recognize that they are part of a global Evil that has begun spreading very fast, despite the complete denial of that Evil by the Machiavellian monsters who advance it.   In proportion to Israel’s vociferous denial of hatred is its blatant deluge of racism and hatred.  As gigantic as Donald Trump’s lies are the hate- and fear-mongering that propel his inchoate dictatorship, centered in White Male supremacy. 

Once solidly established, Trumpism will do much more than condone and participate in the genocide in Gaza.   It will go much further than the lawless invasion of Venezuela.  Or the shooting of an innocent mother in the head by masked secret police.  The persecution inflicted by maximal Trumpism will be on par with Hitler.  Trump has quoted Hitler in his speeches, saying that immigrants “are poisoning the blood of our country.”  Trump had a book of Hitler’s speeches next to his bed, according to his ex-wife. 

Trump employs the psychological tactics of Hitler.  This includes the standard tyrants’ playbook (outrage, divide, scapegoat, make yourself the only solution …).  He makes himself the victim, taking the shame that his MAGA base feels for their poverty and misery, and turning it into a crusade of calamity, woe, existential war and death. 

Under Trump, federal funds have been secured to greatly increase the size and number of ‘camps’ being built around the country to house ‘undesirables.’  Funds are being secured to expand the number of ICE agents, who so far have been rewarded for being sociopathic and sadistic.

The recruitment for ICE utilizes classic fascist-style propaganda.  The following image not only suggests White purity, but associates it with the genocide of the Native Americans in the 19^th century as the settlers in America expanded westward.

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Example of recruitment image:

https://x.com/DHSgov/status/1948150126494482555

Commentary:

https://www.kpbs.org/news/border-immigration/2025/09/22/experts-concerned-about-white-nationalist-imagery-in-ice-recruitment-materials

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Accelerating Toward World War Three

We are on an accelerating vector toward World War 3, led by Donald Trump.  He has taken Venezuela, at least so he thinks, extracting its leader, seizing oil tankers, blowing up fishing boats, and now making military threats against the Vice President of that country, threatening her with military action if she doesn’t obey.  Trump, of course, won’t stop with Venezuela.  He has proclaimed that he is ready to take Colombia and Cuba.  And, in a threat to the NATO alliance itself, probably turning the EU into our enemy, he lays claims to Greenland. 

Venezuela was just the first step of the imperial expansion.  As a malignant narcissist comparable to Hitler, Trump’s grandiose visions of expansion will never stop.  Historical predecessors are Napoleon Bonaparte [1] and Louis XIV, both of whom conducted war for their entire reigns. 

A critical difference, though, between Hitler, Bonaparte and Louis, on one hand, and Trump, on the other, is that the world is now peppered with thousands of nuclear weapons, enough to end civilization itself. 

If you think Hitler would have used a nuclear weapon, then strongly consider the likelihood that Trump will use nuclear weapons.

 

The End of Civilization

 

I will continue to write about genocide, about lawless invasions of other countries (Putin in Ukraine, now Trump, and perhaps soon China into Taiwan… ), about atrocity and cruelty, about vast suffering, and the many other topics that poets and philosophers dive into, hoping to be brave.  The Darkness we face is a global sociopolitical phenomenon, new and ongoing horrors inflicted under a banner of psychopathic lies, conspiracies, and delusions. 

Am I willing to stand up, to be arrested and tortured, to be killed, for what I believe?  In fact, the choice might already have been made, by continuing to write this blog.  The kindled fire of fascism is just beginning to burn, here in the USA.  I would like to think I will speak out for Good, against Evil, till I no longer can, whether murdered, silenced by confinement, or tortured to the point where I will say and do anything. 

Hate is growing in America.  Hate that labels others as less than human, as vicious animals or even cockroaches or infectious diseases.  Hate that labels others as scum.  As shit.  As wicked.  As demonic.  As Satanists, pedophiles, and child-cannibals, like the Jews were labeled in the book, The Elders of Zion, which was much referenced by the Nazis.   

Hate that labels others as those-who-need-to-be exterminated. 

It is a state of mind beyond ugly.  It shows the brokenness of the souls trapped in the enslavement of a cult spiraling around the giant black hole of a dictator’s ego.  Here in 2026, we are perched on the end of it all.  The great parade of the jackboots of Hate, stomping out reason and light.  Perhaps marching toward WW3 and nuclear holocaust.

In addition to my New Years wishes for people to appreciate the miracles and gifts of life, I wish also for people to raise their heads out of the muck--of fanaticism or neutrality--and see the Evil encroaching. 

I wish for people to  embrace the lovely and miraculous side of life.  Yes.  But also to realize, simultaneously, that Darkness is on the verge of destroying civilization. 

 

My Own Hate

Sometimes, but not always, my hatred for my fellow American citizens is intense.   Both for those who have lined up to worship Donald Trump with unequivocal zealotry, and those who refuse to be anything but neutral:

The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil-- Hannah Arendt

However, I write in my essay “On Hate,” that hate is not necessarily bad [2].  It comes down to how you interact with it.  Hate  can be channeled in healthy ways for the Good.   One way to get out painful or compulsive passion is through poetry.  Poetry that sings of justice and laments of cruelty.  Poetry that weeps for the infliction of so much that is hellish, and yet allies itself with the Light.

Those of us who feel intense ‘negative’ reactions--such as hate, fear, despair, resignation--these can be written out in words that bring truth and light by their honesty.  They can be channeled into activism.  Into protest.  Art.  Exercise.  Into new levels of awakening and awareness.  Validating your hate can bring you back around to love.  Martin Luther King Jr. spoke of  agape, that is, spiritual love, even for the racists who spit and cursed, beat and murdered, the protestors who simply wanted skin color not to matter in determining who is innately better or worse.

An important question is, “Who manages your painful feelings and how?”  It can and should be you, through cathartic and sublimating expression.  Therapists, of course, can be a big help.  Or supportive friends.

Trump manages the dark feelings of his MAGA base and uses those feelings to drive them further into obedient Evil.

 

Why Keep Going?

Perhaps we cannot stop fascism from taking us into another world war, or from locking us away in dungeons literal or metaphorical.  Nevertheless, in my essay on “lightcraft” I give many reasons to stand up for the Good.  One of them is the following:

 

[Another]  reason to study the Good, even while our society deteriorates, is that it can be personally fulfilling and beneficial.  There is quintessential meaning in an intentful act, one which sends a virtuous message to the universe.  Such an act soars, heartful and heavenly, above the barbaric might-makes-right that oversees humanity today.  When embraced from a defiant place, amid a dominance of despair and loneliness, surrounded by a sea of conformity, such an embrace of the Good is even more lovely.

 

Being courageous is hard.  But it is also rewarding.  Not in a selfish way that sees others as pawns to manipulate, or that perceives the world as a Monopoly board with properties and trophies to expropriate.  I speak of the courage to participate in a deep honesty.  An inward- and outward-looking compassion that explores the soul and aligns with Good.  [3].

May the Forces of Goodness guide us all.  I have no better name for them.  I see these Forces as spiritual but also grounded in critical thinking and simple scientific truths.

 

Good night and good luck.

 

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Footnotes

(1)  https://owlwholaughs.blogspot.com/2020/10/napoleons-aphorisms-chillingly-describe.html

(2)  https://owlwholaughs.blogspot.com/2025/10/essay-on-hate.html

(3) https://owlwholaughs.blogspot.com/2025/05/draft-intro-of-my-book-better-angels.html

1/9/26 ... eds all day