INTRODUCTION
As another
year ends, it is time for The Sociologist’s Dojo to rattle off the top ten
Sociological films of the year. As
with the last four years, I’ve decided to once again give
readers a list of 10 events of the year that can be encapsulated in film.
Understand that this is not an exhaustive list of events, nor even the ones
that are “The Most Sociological.”
Instead, this is to provide an accounting of some of the noteworthy
happenings of 2024 and the films that epitomize their essence; either directly
or tangentially. With each event, I will provide a brief explanation, followed
by how the film(s) relate to each incident. This list is obviously limited by
personal bias, the films I have seen, and my own specialties in Sociology.
2024 has
been a year with a collection of events that range in description from the odd
and surprisingly hopeful, to the erratic and utterly devastating. Our social
institutions, which we have seen eroded in years past, now stand on the
precipice of utter annihilation, due to the incoming administration’s goals
guided by Project
2025. Deportation, Denaturalization and
general demagoguery, this plan is set to be the backbone of the next
presidential administration taking power on Jan 20th 2025. This decision,
along with protest backlash, natural and industrial disasters, Data breaches, child
labor making a 100-year comeback, and a literal standoff with Federal
Authorities emphasize what kind of year this has been. Much like the seasons
changing, our socio-political climate is about to enter its second ice age. It
is going to be dark, bleak and cold.
10) Biden
Cancels Student Debt: Double Feature: Borrowed Future and Loan Wolves (2022)
One of the
glimmers of 2024 came in the form of President Biden canceling record amounts
of student debt. Beginning in February through October of 2024 the
Biden-Harris Administration canceled 175 billion dollars-worth of Federal
Student Loans affecting 5 million people (A whopping 11% of all
outstanding student loan debt). 1 million of those whose debt was forgiven was
through the fixing and expansion of the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program
(PSLF) established in 2007 under then President George W. Bush. Under this
program, borrowers would have their federal student loans forgiven if they went
into the Public service industry and made qualified payments
on their loans for 10 years. Therefore, anyone who is employed by the State and
Federal government, as well as many non-profit agencies could qualify. Prior to Biden taking office, the program had
grind to a halt due to strict criteria in place to qualify. The laxing of these
rules allowed more borrowers to be automatically enrolled and forgiven if they
qualified.
Unfortunately,
this does not cancel all types of loans. With his power as President, Biden
could only forgive Federal student loans. Anyone holding state loans or private
loans would not be included. There were many cases where individuals had their
federal student loans forgiven, but still owed money in these other forms.
Additionally, in our politically divided times, leading Republican Party
members attempted
to block the debt forgiveness by preemptively suing the Biden administration
for the effort; citing a lack of Judicial review. This
was after a softer attempt by Biden to forgive debt in 2023 that was struck
down by the Supreme Court.
This opposition metastasized
in our culture among right leaning pundits and social media keyboard warriors
as being unfair. Their rationale was because so many of them had to pay, so too
should everyone else. Some of the more “moderate” individuals were charitable
on the loan forgiveness, but also wanted reimbursement for their own loans.
This emphasizes an individually focused ego-centric mentality where people do
not appreciate what this means for the public good and an inevitable boost to
the overall economy. Yet, all these individuals see is what they didn’t get.
Never mind the hypocrisy those same individuals exude when they talk about
avoiding paying taxes as being “smart” or “savvy”. There is a lack of sociality
and collectivism which has contributed to the evaporation of social programs
since the 1980’s.
I rarely include documentaries
on these top ten lists as part of the love and joy in discussing cinema through
a cinematic lens is finding real-world themes within narrative storytelling.
However, the student debt crisis is so monumental, I had to include two
documentaries to give the subject the weight it deserves. In the two
documentaries, both produced in 2022, and one more tongue-in-cheek than the
other, outline the predatory and economically crippling situation 40 million
people are still in. As one person states in the documentary, the phrase
“Student loan” should give us pause because we are saddling barely legal adults
with mountains of debt that they do not fully understand until they are trapped
underneath it, because we normalize the process. Everyone is in debt and the lenders
are the ones who are raking in the profits
This is
such a pernicious and prevalent issue that many of the narrative films that
deal with the expense of college tuition are in the comedy genre. Two comedies:
Stealing Harvard (2002) and The House (2010), produced near a
decade apart, use the same premise: The cost of tuition is so astronomically
high that it is laughable, allowing for zany hijinks to ensue as the main
characters find a way to pay. In the former, Jason Lee gets the tuition money
for his niece by gambling on a horse race. In the latter, Amy Poehler and Will
Ferrell open an illegal casino to pay for their daughter’s college. There is
never an interrogation of the classist nature of these situations, only the
consistency of payment by any means necessary.
9) Alaska
Airlines Flight 1282: Sully (2016)
In
2018 and 2019, the Boeing company came under fire for its Maneuvering
Characteristics Augmentation System(MCAS) on its 737 Max airplanes that
contributed to the crashes of Lionair Flight 610 in 2018, and Ethiopian
Airlines Flight 302 in 2019, killing a total of 346 passengers. The system was
originally conceived to mimic older models so that pilots would not have to train
in the simulator for the 737 Max planes. The system would automatically adjust
the forward stabilizer, pitching it down before the plane would perceivably
stall. During the two flights the MCAS system engaged and pitched the plane
down, making it difficult for the pilots to gain altitude contributing to the
crash. The planes were grounded until the system was updated and rigorously
tested. The United States was the only country that provided push back against
the plane’s grounding (presumably due to the financial loss involved) testifying
to the safety of the aircraft on March 11, 2019. They decided to ground the
planes two days later after a public outcry.
Boeing and
the Max airplanes were again in the spotlight in early 2024 when the door plug
on Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 blew open, causing the cabin to depressurize,
requiring the crew to make an emergency landing. All the passengers and crew
survived. The door plug was a structure installed to replace an optional
emergency exit door on 737 Max planes. A preliminary report concluded that four
bolts, intended to secure the door plug, had been missing when the accident
occurred and that Boeing records showed evidence that
the plug had been reinstalled with no bolts prior to the initial delivery of
the aircraft. This error highlights the gross negligence that often
accompanies mass production fueled by the profit motive. Through this mindset, plastic
screws and washers are replacing metal ones in newly made aircrafts while
forcing workers to work faster under reduced quality controls.
The 2016
film Sully directed by Clint Eastwood, highlights the procedure and
investigation after a plane crash. Like the famous landing on the Hudson, Alaska
Flight 1282 experienced an in-flight anomaly, and it was the quick thinking and
the training of the crew that allowed all passengers and crew to be saved. However,
the aftermath of the Alaska Airlines flight shed more light onto the
manufacturing shortcuts at Boeing plants indicating a disregard for human life,
unlike the actual Pilot featured in the film, and played by Tom Hanks, Chealsey
“Sully” Sullenberger, who went over the plane after it’s landing and made sure
all parties had deplaned, A National hero.
8) Natural
Disasters: Geostorm (2017)
Originally,
this section was only going to discuss the damages of Hurricane Francine in the
Gulf of Mexico making land fall in Louisiana, Hurricane Helene which claimed
the lives of 215 people, and Hurricane Milton in Florida. But if you scroll back to the events related
to natural disasters over the past year, you see an increase in storm surges
and the devastation that they cause. In addition to Francine and Helene which
caused unfathomable amounts of destruction and displacement, in 2024 we also
experienced: Wind storms (derecho) that produced over 500 tornadoes totaling 30
billion dollars in damages and killing near 50 people, Heatwaves in the
Midwest, wildfires in the southwest, and a winter storm unofficially referred
to as Finn.
This eclectic
mix of climate disasters evokes the continued degeneration of our environment,
highlighting the clear effect of human intervention in nature. While the Biden
administration re-established our participation in the Paris Climate accords,
rejoined the G7 summit in 2021, and set
records for vehicle admission standards, it may all be for naught. Considering
the incoming administration’s cabinet picks, it is likely we will be whiplashed
back into laxed EPA and climate regulations which will favor corporations and
the continued consumption of fossil fuels. With that eminent future on the
horizon, it is possible that a lot of the Climate Science Fiction (Cli-Fi) that
at one time might have been an entertaining harbinger, may soon become a
prophetic oracle.
Geostorm
is a terrible movie. Secret brothers, unbelievable romance and broken
families healed by shared world-ending trauma. Many cli-fi films, like disaster movies
involving giant monsters (Go see the re-release of Godzilla Minus One),
fail to understand that audiences go to these films for the spectacle (in this
case the storms) rather than the human drama. We don’t care about the
characters. We care about the metaphorical force of destruction that keeps us
entertained and captivated in the theaters. It is often an escape, a respite
from our lives. However, given the information coming out of the transition
team for the next administration, even though Geostorm is a terrible
film, it would be devastating as a reality.
On May 10th, solar flares led to a
geomagnetic storm that led to a solar wind shockwave that had the potential to affect
electrical systems. Given the climate skepticism ramped in our soon-to-be-
leaders, their penchant for privatizing and controlling aspects of nature
(water ways, wind power etc.) and that a billionaire with a space program
specializing in satellites is now the president-Elect’s new pal, how close are
we to profiting from the control of the climate? With continued deregulation of
NASA, how long before Space law, which bans weapons of mass destruction use in
Space and the
Moon Treaty which states: “no
nation may claim sovereignty over any part of space. All countries should have
equal rights to conduct research on the Moon or other celestial bodies.” … are
revoked by privatizers like Elon Musk who find more profit in getting humanity
to another habitable world, rather than saving this one. Many of the manosphere devotees of this
bougie racist Kevin
Durand clone don’t understand that much like the characters in Judd
Apatow’s Don’t look Up, we’re not going with them.
.
7) Baltimore Bridge Collapse: Double
Feature: Unstoppable
(2010) Final
Destination 5 (2011)
In the
early hours of March 26th, 2024, Dali, a container ship bound
for Sri Lanka collided with the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore Maryland,
causing its eventual collapse. The ship reported minor electrical issues while
in port but continued on schedule. The ship lost power and navigational control,
minutes prior to the accident. Although the crew dropped anchor, causing it to
drag and slow the ship down, it struck one of the bridge pillars traveling at 8
miles per hour. Six maintenance crew workers on the roadway were killed in the
collapse, an additional two were rescued from the water. According to the
New York Times, the
force of the impact with the pier was estimated to be between 27 and 52 million
pounds of force. In comparison, Saturn V
rockets generated 7.9 million pounds-force of thrust at launch.
While the devastation may not have
claimed many lives, the environmental impact of the loss of such a major
thoroughfare for both commuters and the shipping and trucking industry is
monumental. After the initial crash, 40 ships were stranded. Ships both trying
to leave Baltimore’s port authority and those trying to enter, caused major
supply chain disruptions especially involving car manufacturers. Traffic was
rerouted through the Baltimore tunnel. 35,000 vehicles crossed the bridge every
day. This meant that a
normal 10-minute commute across the bridge, with the detour, would now take
over an hour. The mayor of
Baltimore has stated they will rebuild the bridge, with plans of reopening by
2028.
Every year whenever I make
these lists, there are always a few entries where I wonder if my film choices
to encapsulate events are too pointedly glib. The choices of the Tony Scott
helmed Denzel Washington vehicle Unstoppable and the fifth installment
of The Final Destination franchise is pretty on-the-nose for anyone who
has seen those films. Unfortunately, all I can say is that sometimes, there is
little nuance to both an event and the film that can represent them regardless
of their momentum. Could have been worse, I was considering including Speed
2: Cruise Control but felt that might be a “bridge too far.”
6) Data Breaches: Hackers (1995)
Living
in the 21st century requires an amount of digital disassociation.
The existence of metadata and the process of data mining has become so
profitable that the public access to now increasingly more laborious and
essential social media networks continue to be free because, we, the
users (shout out to Tron), are the product. With
our data ubiquitously changing hands to the right bidder, data farmer or
misguided keyboard warrior, we then have to pay for net cyber security. Individuals,
organizations and corporations shell out hundreds to hundreds of thousands of
dollars a month to protect our data, and every year there are examples of when
that security utterly fails. Granted, the often patchwork nature of protection
makes the process reactionary; as new barriers against attacks are put in
place, those that are bent on infiltration, either with benevolent or malicious
intent, are already in.
The
biggest data breaches and other cybersecurity snafus in 2024 were the Healthcare
data breaches: Ascension and Change healthcare; the latter being the largest
healthcare payment system. This breach and its fix caused payment interruptions
and delays in people being able to get their prescriptions. Ticketmaster the
monopolistic corporation that has a piece of any live venue ticket sales, was
also subject to a data breech that exposed 560
million people’s data , personal and payment information. In a
separate incident, Ticketmaster’s cloud database, Snowflake, was also targeted.
With Ticketmaster’s sordid history with both venues and performers as well as
extreme price gouging, it is reasonable that they would have been a target of a
data breach. However, the data that was gleaned from the attack only seemed to
hurt the customers; and considering the iron fist with which the company holds
all of these tickets, it’s not like many people can go anywhere else if they
are into live performances. Finally, there was the Crowdstrike software update
debacle, in which one of the largest providers of cyber security for businesses
had a glitch in their software update that caused a worldwide
blue brick “blackout” of all devices. This affected a wide range
of industries: airlines, airports, banks, hotels, hospitals, manufacturing,
stock markets, broadcasting, gas stations, retail stores, as were governmental
services, such as emergency services and websites, costing around 10 billion
dollars. Even though the patch went out rather quickly, many of the terminals affected
needed to be restarted manually.
For those of a certain age, Iain Softley’s Hackers
is a cult classic. One of the first films that introduced the concept of
computer hacking in the world wide web, which was still in its public infancy
at the time, also set the tone for computer hacking characters for about a
decade. Presented as young, misunderstood sexually charged misfits, it was a
window into how the mainstream looked at the youth culture at the time. Much
like in the style of old westerns, the film presents the protagonists as libertarian
leaning anti-establishment anti-heroes by having them cite the Hacker’s Manifesto: “This is our world now... the world
of the electron and the switch... We exist without skin color, without
nationality, without religious bias... and you call us criminals... Yes, I am a
criminal. My crime is that of curiosity." These are your white hats, in a
western parlance. The black hat/ bad guy in this story, is an older hacker that
“sold out” and now works for a major tech company. There is a level of
pretention and arrogance in the main characters that is a function of both
youth and technological utopianism; that techno-progressives are superior
because they understand a new form of technology and believe that it will usher
in positive social changes. The film’s writing is bad, and the dialogue is even
worse. You see a few familiar faces from other 90’s related media, like Mathew
Lillard and Laurence Mason. But the film’s biggest impact is that it introduced
Angelina Jolie to the entire planet.
5) Child labor: Daughter of Rage (2022)
The Triangle
Shirtwaist Factory Fire in 1911 was one of the biggest
tragedies in manufacturing during the 20th century. The resulting
outcry from galvanized workers and labor organizers led to liberal labor reform
through the passage and implementation of The
Fair Labor Standards act of 1938. Signed into law by President
Franklin D. Rosevelt that same year, its enforcement saw an end to sweatshops
and sweatshop-like conditions in the known world. By the 1970’s, there was no child labor
(except the
loophole for commercial farm work) or sweatshop conditions in
any industry in the US. Unfortunately, these policies began to be circumvented
through the disciplining of Union labor (whom in the minds of economic and
political neo-cons had gotten too powerful) by the granting of shipping tax holidays for
goods traveling from overseas. This led to many American Corporations to set up
factories in other countries, or partner with third party companies that would
fulfill their manufacturing orders; transforming entire populations of people
of color into their own personal labor farm. This economic “race to the bottom”
allowed President Regan to be deified by the GOP, even though data
has shown that these policies only succeeded in enriching the financiers and
other elites. Therefore, these policies and political ideology have remarkably
unshakable resilience even among the poorest of Republican supporters,
believing the myth that they too can become billionaires, availing themselves
of these enriching policies when they finally make their money. In reality,
they are voting against their own interests.
After the labor
strikes of 2023, there was a demand for fair and equal wages in the
service industry. Yet, because most corporations did not want to cut into their
record profits, they began to incorporate a variety of union
busting tactics to make sure that their workers had no collective
bargaining power, if they were unsuccessful in stopping a union from getting
formed, and had to collectively bargain with their workers for better wages,
they recouped that money by price
gouging their customers. But, by far the most insidious of these
behaviors was the weakening of child labor laws in the US.
Since
2022, Child labor violations have been spiking across the
country with the first part of 2023 seeing the most growth of violations in the
food service industry and fast food (mostly for a violation of maximum number
of hours worked). Concurrently, we saw a weakening of child labor laws in
several states including
Florida, Indiana and Iowa, while other states imposed removing workers
permits (Missouri, Alabama West Virginia, Georgia and Arkansas). Many of the
bills ardent supporters would get on the floors of the Senate and the House to
spin folksy tales of paper routes, lemonade stands and of learning the value of
“a hard day’s work”. This all being a misdirection from the language of some bills
(Iowa) that allowed the lowering of the working age for some dangerous industry
jobs, such as in meat packing plants.
The laxing
on Child Labor has continued in 2024 with sanctions imposed on Hyundai
for violations of child labor in one of their plants in Alabama,
and a new
initiative to allow for teenage commercial truck drivers in Texas. Since corporations are still
driven by the profit motive, and they are unwilling to see their workers as
human, let alone pay them a
living wage, they have now decided to “make their nut” on the
labor of children. Additionally, much like the loophole in farm work, these
labor laws will more than likely disproportionately affect poorer people of
color. A group that may not be a economic resource for much longer if the
deportation and denaturalization plan for nonwhite migrants proposed by Project
2025 goes into effect. The country may end up leaning heavier into child labor
than we have, even in recent years.
There has
yet to be a film released that encompasses the 100-year pendulum swing of child
labor legislation in the United States. Reality is stranger than fiction. That
is, at least in the current backsliding of rights political hellscape we are
currently living in. However, the story of Maria in Daughter of Rage puts
a human face to the globalized economy, and through narrative empathy, crystalizes
the dangers of exploitative labor practices of Western Countries.
4) Texas
Border Tensions: Double Feature: Border
Wars (2007) and The Standoff at Sparrow Creek
(2018)
In another
public political stunt, Texas Gov. Greg Abbot faced off with the Federal
Government when he used the State’s law enforcement to place razor wire along
the Mexico border at Eagle Pass, Texas earlier this year in January. The
Governor, continuing to push misinformation about immigration, defended the
actions by stating the Federal Government under President Biden, hadn’t done
anything about the so called “invasion” which empowers him to act. Abbot was hoping on an (ironically) liberal
interpretation of Article 1, Section 10 of the Constitution that grants States
the ability to respond to invasions until federal authorities were able to
respond. Several analysts have pointed out that
this is both a poor interpretation of the Constitution and illegal. The
section in question was written in a time in American history when the federal
military was small. It was spread out and took weeks to travel. Plus, there is
no support in founding documents or other materials that directly state or even
imply that states can decide for themselves when they're under invasion, and,
even when the federal government disagrees, that the State’s position would be upheld.
The Supreme Court sided with the Federal Government
This “standoff” is a callback
to Abbot’s other political stunt in 2022, when he and Gov. Ron Desantis of
Florida both placed migrants on buses
and airplanes and sent them to Democratically led states and even to Vice
President Kamala Harris’s home. This was not only an example
of blatant racism, but Governor
Abbot may have also violated Texas’s own Human Trafficking laws by
doing it. Thus, Abbott once again, dehumanizes and exploits poor people of
color in order to curry favor with our incoming billionaire oligarchs.
If the tension between the
Texas National Guard and Border Patrol Agents this past January feels like the
plot of a really bad movie, one that wouldn’t get a theatrical release let
alone open widely, you’d be right. 2007’s Border Wars is a hyper
masculine, xenophobic piece of right wing propagandic trash that might be a
prophetic parable for how our border will look after the Project 2025
Mass deportations. The tag line for the film is: “Draw a line in the Sand…in
Blood.” This is the same nationalistic rhetoric that one would find from a zealous
SS soldier in 1936.
The choice to include the far
superior, and more narratively coherent film, The Standoff at Sparrow Creek,
is in part for linguistic symmetry. You can easily supplant “Eagle Pass”
for “Sparrows Creek.” Outside of the rhythmic loquacity of the film’s title
with the events in Texas, the film zeroes in on the dangers of private
paramilitary groups that believe it is their right and duty to police their
cities and towns; much like those at the Texas border. Many of these groups are
former military and have a very specific understanding of the Second Amendment,
that was put out into the public ether by the NRA in the 1970’s. These are the
men that demonstrate with assault rifles because they have an extreme point
of view on what “Open carry” means and the willingness they have to usurp control
from the federal government. The film has an interesting take on how those
groups should be handled.
3) The End of Chevron Deference: Don’t Look Up (2021)
In yet
another striking court reversal, The Supreme Court struck down the use of “The
Chevron Doctrine”. Established in 1984, courts were required to defer
to “permissible” agency interpretations of laws that were under their purview.
For example, the court would listen to industry experts and scientists when deciding
on climate change or EPA regulations. Basically, when the law is in doubt, The
Chevron Doctrine says: “Listen to the experts.” This precedent has given clout
to the Scientific method and Scientific facts when interpreting the law. The
law was based on Scientific evidence because of Chevron. However, in Loper
Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, this summer, The Supreme Court decided that
agency experts are not better suited to decide and interpret tough and
complicated statutory questions than the courts. Chief Justice Jon Roberts, in speaking
for the majority, stated that “agencies have no special competence in resolving
statutory ambiguities. Courts do,” and “even when an ambiguity happens to
implicate a technical matter, it does not follow that Congress has taken the
power to authoritatively interpret the statute from the courts and given it to
the agency.” This dramatic shift has wide-reaching implications in a variety of
industries: from environmental protection and healthcare, to maritime,
securities, tax, and financial regulations. Science and facts are no longer the
benchmark by which the law shall be decided anymore.
This
monumental shift in the Court’s direction, also opens the door for standards
for agency appointments to be lowered. Since science is no longer the driving
force behind legal interpretation anymore, there has been a slide away from education,
credibility and expertise when determining the appointed leaders of these
regulatory agencies. Donald Trump in 2016 and even more so in 2024 has
appointed individuals to certain cabinet positions that
typically have no experience ( Education: Betsy DeVos (2015), and Linda McMahon
(2024)), have political ideology or behavior in opposition to the agency’s
goals (EPA: Rex Tillerson (2015) Lee Zeldin (2024)), (HHS: Robert Kennedy JR.)[1] or his
other sycophantic cavalcade of cronies that will be overseeing “Government
Efficiency” (Musk and Ramaswamy). Thankfully, these positions still need to be
approved by Congress, but considering that Republicans have a narrow majority
in both the Senate and The House, it is possible that this clown car cabinet could
be briskly confirmed.
The buddy
comedy The Other Guys, written and directed by Adam McKay, has a subplot
mirroring the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme. This was on Adam McKay’s mind, enough
for him to include an explanation of a Ponzi scheme in animated detail during
the closing credits. This began McKay’s lean into a greater sense of social
commentary in his films; culminating in The Big Short, where he told the
story of individuals that benefited from the financial crisis of 2008, and Vice,
a limited Biopic on Dick Chaney. But it is only until 2021’s Don’t Look Up,
a story about a group of Astrophysicists that try to convince the planet of its
impending doom, that McKay tackles the issue of misinformation, populism and a
move away from scientific explanations. After the removal of “The Chevron
Doctrine” as a guard rail, many climate, social, and political scientists are
going to feel like the main characters of McKay’s most recent venture. [2]
2) Israel and Gaza Student Protests: Kent State (1981)
One of the
biggest turns in 2024 was the embrace of a Pro-Palestine, anti-Zionist movement
in the United States. Motivated by Gen Z and the youngest Millennials, we
started to see protests that consistently criticized the US blanket support for
Israel. Finding fault in the tired rhetoric of “Israel has a right to defend
itself” there was a generational culture shift that began to question the
actions of Israel and starting to cast them as the villains, given the
overwhelming control Israel has over the infrastructure and resources of the
people in Gaza. What stood these student protests apart from some the more general
protests for Black Lives and against police brutality during the summer of 2020,
is that these student protests were specific in their demands. They were
seeking to have their university divest from providing military aid to Israel. This
is a direct and specific request. However, much like how munitions contracts are
politically engineered through their incorporation into the Military Industrial
complex to keep the system in place, so too is the investment of
many universities support for Isreal. For example, 18% of the University of
California system’s investments are connected to weapons manufacturers and
Treasury bonds supporting Israel. However, that
money is also entangled with student tuition subsidies, faculty salaries (including
retirement) and scientific research grants, complicating the divestment.
Still, rather than communicate this effectively, making strides and taking
steps to hear and alleviate some of the major concerns brought up by the
protestors, major universities across the country called
the cops on their own students.
A liberal interpretation of this action by
universities would be that this violates the students and the faculty’s free
speech rights. Whereas there
has been a consistent cracking down on speech rights by the police since 2001.
Disruption, disobedience and threat of property damage gained primacy for
police officers interacting with protestors. Non-compliance, or a lack of
acquiescence even if you are within your legal rights, have now been perceived
as arrestable, and detainable offenses. With the increase in police discretion during
the same time period, many people were arrested for not listening to police or
not acting quickly enough with officer requests. Under this new purview, many
faculty and students were round up, detained, and later arrested. Those
detained were commonly charged with disturbing the peace, loitering or
interfering in a police officer’s exercising of their duties. No one will ever
be officially arrested or detained for their free speech; that would be publicly
seen as unamerican. Those arrested are instead labeled with a minor infraction,
even when the point was to curb their speech.
One of the most consistent criticisms
around current exercises of free speech that I hear (usually from people on the
political right) is that protesting shouldn’t be disruptive. This is a
ridiculous statement. Why would the status quo be altered if there wasn’t a
clear and disruptive desire for change? Even the most liberal, non-invasive foreign
policies rely on disruption of food/supply chains that compromise the lives of civilians
in other countries in hopes that they may challenge their political or military
leaders. The rich military and political elite recognize the power of
disruption to create change. This is why they have attempted to remove the idea
of disruption from exercising free speech so that the actual act of protesting
has no political weight. It just allows people to complain, and unfortunately
for many, that is enough; without any real change taking place.
These
protests and the overall position of the anti-war movement were quickly used as
a political weapon that became a significant factor in the outcome of the 2024
election. In addition to Representative Rashida Tlaib, the only Palestinian
American in Congress, being censured in the House of Representatives for
speaking out against the war, Vice President Harris, in her bid for President
of the United States, could not clearly distance herself from the Pro-zionist
policies of the Administration she was currently a part of. She also made
several poor choices such as shouting down Pro Palestine protesters at her rallies
and not letting a representative from the movement speak at the Democratic
National Convention. This alienated a lot of the youth votes that could account
for the 10 million people that did not vote in the 2024 election compared to
2020. Finally, seeing that this was a wedge issue for a lot of voters, Former
President Donald Trump, at the time when he held no political office, convinced
Israeli President Netanyahu to delay a peace deal because he wanted to run on
it as an issue.
Much of
the aggression and violence experienced on college campuses this year is
reminiscent of the
student protests against the Vietnam War at Kent State University in Ohio. The
whole world was horrified when the Ohio National Guard opened fire on the protestors,
killing four and wounding nine. This was widely accepted as a violation of
their free speech rights. Therefore, it is only fitting that the movie which most
effectively encapsulates this moment is the dramatization of these events in a
TV movie called Kent State. The movie, like the people at the time,
recognized that disruption is not a valid excuse for violence, especially
coming from the more militarized police that we currently have.
1) The Re-Ascension of Donald Trump: Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of
Skywalker (2019)
Donald
Trump is a scourge; plaguing the world since 2015, the media landscape, and the
city of New York for far longer. He began his
career as a slum lord, became a charlatan
and a huckster of cheap goods, he played
a billionaire on tv because he needed to avoid bankruptcy, then ran for
political office to get back at President Obama for making a tepid joke at his
expense during the White
House Correspondence Dinner in 2011. He began his campaign in a racist
tirade against Mexico, the news
media gave him more air time, and he was able to bamboozle poor white
voters into giving them a scapegoat, and an image of a Savior for their
troubles. However, like his time on The Apprentice, Trump believed that it
could help him open up new revenue streams, but he
never expected to win in 2016.
I wrote a trilogy
of essays as I tried
to process the 2016
Election.
The First Trump Administration
was a hate filled White Supremacist laden cacophony of chaos that few could
expect. He called countries
‘shitholes’, instituted a immigration travel ban, and
put children
in detention centers, separating them at the border. He abused
the powers of the presidency in ways we hadn’t seen, rolled back Civil Rights
protections, including (with the help of Goblin King Mitch McConnell) the shaping
of the Courts, specifically the Supreme Court, into a more religiously
conservative form which led to the
rollback of federal protections of reproductive rights for women in 2022.
He was also impeached,
twice.
In
2020, he lost a nail biter of an election to Joe Biden, not
because of the many things he did in his first term, but because of COVID 19
and his misinformation and failure
to have a proper response; leading
to 3,000 people
dying a day at the height of the pandemic. Since his election loss, Trump unprecedently denied
the results of the election and would not concede, even
encouraging his angry supporters to stop the vote count at the capital on January
6th.
I wrote
about the
media impact on public perception that contributed to January 6th.
Since leaving office, Donald
Trump has hung in the minds, hearts and souls of people. Like a virulent
pestilence that never dissipates, he never went away, never went dormant. He
was always a part of the news cycle, spewing lies, hatred and misinformation. However,
there was some hope that he would face consequences and be removed from
politics, as Prosecutors in New York and Washington DC moved to convict him.
So, much like going on The Apprentice to avoid bankruptcy, Donald
Trump ran for office again, to avoid criminal prosecution. He
was hoping to run out the clock until election day.
In May of 2024, during the campaign,
Trump was convicted
of 34 felony counts in a hush money trial to pay off Porn Star Stormy
Daniels prior to the 2016 election. Additionally, the Department of Justice appointed
Special Prosecutor Jack Smith to investigate
Donald Trump’s actions on January 6th as to if it constituted Election
interference, and a separate case in Florida concerning the
mishandling of Government documents.
The federal case was delt a
serious blow in July 2024 when the
Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision, decided that Trump while in office, and any
President in perpetuity, has broad immunity from prosecution for
official acts while in office. This eliminated a lot of the admissible evidence
Prosecutor Jack Smith was able to use and caused him to have to refile
the case under the new guidelines.
Two weeks later, in an unrelated
incident, Donald Trump survived an assassination
attempt in Pennsylvania during a rally. Trump was nicked in
the ear by a piece of glass and was eventually carried offstage to safety. The shooter, who was killed in the attempt,
was identified as Thomas Mathew Crooks, a registered Republican and in the ensuing
investigation found to have
anti-immigrant views. In September, another
assassination attempt was thwarted by Secret Service on the Maralago Golf
course in West Palm Beach Florida. Still, Trump was undeterred, even emboldened
by his brushes with death.
On November 5th,
2024, we had a choice between Vice President Kamala Harris, a qualified
prosecutor who is also a biracial person of color, and Donald Trump, a narcissistic
convicted felon who cozies up to fascist world leaders, White Supremacists, and
rapists. We chose the felon. We chose Trump.
Trump won through spreading misinformation
about tariffs and Biden’s
economy while tapping the “manosphere”,
encouraging disaffected young white men to vote for him. He gained support from
men of color, even when the majority still voted for Harris. Meanwhile, over 10
million people who voted in 2020 failed to vote in 2024. Trump’s gamble to
seize power and avoid prison unfortunately paid off. Thus, like anyone with chlamydia,
genital warts or any other venereal disease, the United States is about to have
its biggest flare up in history.
Free from the burden of Federal prosecution,
and the sentencing of his criminal conviction being suspended, a Trump second
term is shaping up to be worse than the first. Project
2025 is already being implemented. Contract bids for the
construction of Deportation
centers have already gone out. Bibles
are being shipped to schools, and the Trump Cabinet is
slowly becoming a real life Legion of Doom from the comics. Unlike the first
administration there are no guard rails or adults in the room anymore. Trump
has spent so much time out of office chipping away at the public confidence of
our social institutions that there is little left to regulate him. With winning
the electoral college, the popular vote, and republican gains in The House and
Senate, there is not a majority to stand up to Trump in the halls of power.
Just like Palpatine in Rise
of Skywalker, Donald Trump has returned. Unfortunately, it won’t be as
short lived as the cinematic Sith lord.
CONCLUSION
I look out on the precipice of
another year on the horizon, with a minor sense of personal hope that
absolutely, positively… does not extend to the mezzo or macro level(s). Our
institutions continue to crumble; their remnants being brushed aside over the
next 4 years. There is still an acrimonious stalemate in Congress with the
Republicans having more power than last year, and the certainty of Trump’s
second term is looming. There is not much to be thankful for on that level,
which is why it is essential for us to find love and joy wherever we find it.
Whether that be among our family, friends, spouses, partners and ‘others of
significance’, we cannot count on happiness coming from anyone other than
inside and around all of us. I leave you with the death of Palpatine, here’s to
the hope of life imitating art. See you all in 2025!
[1] I
weas going to put Matt Gaetz here. But as of this writing he has since withdrawn
himself from consideration amid a New s story being released about Gaetz alleged
sexual misconduct with underage girls.
[2] As
of this writing. The Thursday Murder Club is set
for release in 2025
