The Red (Note) White and Blue

Or: FAFO Writ Large

In the world of unanticipated consequences, the threat to remove TikTok in the US created an unexpected cross-cultural moment. Users not keen on the censorship decided to give a full-on middle finger to the US bipartisan nanny state. And by nanny state, I mean a caretaker who doesn't want you to leave the house or be anything but home-schooled. They worry you might talk to other kids and find out that it's not normal to have to rub your mother's feet daily while discussing why obviously the world is flat or we would all fall off. And by give a middle finger, I mean signing up for Chinese social media site “Red Note”.

The impending ban on TikTok pushed many in that oh so American way to do the opposite of what those in charge wanted them to do. Americans are a strange breed-- so docile in practice, but only if they think they are being “rebellious” --look to the MAGA movement. Ask any of those diehards and they will tell you they are mavericks, fighting the good fight, all the while not having a clue they are a useful cog in the machine that continues to funnel wealth to the very top. Americans want to be rebels that actually do no useful rebellion. Mainly they like to rebel against behaving in a socially responsible manner.

But sometimes that American irascibility ends up at a refreshing place. The threat of banning a social media platform so many used actually pushed many Gen Z members to download a Chinese social media app deliciously named Red Note. This is a magnificent fuck around and find out moment. Especially when a topic that made the rounds during early exchanges on that site involved cross-cultural discussions about the cost of taking an ambulance to get care in America. Chinese users on Red Note asked if it was true that in America one needs to pay huge amounts for an ambulance—they thought that perhaps this fact was part of their own government's propaganda campaign about life in the US. The exchanges back and forth were telling, mainly telling in how difficult life in America has become for many, especially the young. Discussions like, how in many cases, two jobs are needed to simply afford rent, that groceries are beyond expensive, that the homeless are often criminalized and fined. Basically for those who remember the 90's sitcom term.…..it was “bad naked”.

It certainly wasn't our finest hour having these topics aired out. There were instances of even right leaning young influencers voicing their disbelief and exasperation at how very little the average American gets from their government, while so many funds are sent elsewhere. The enrichment machine sends cash all over and those funds often can't even be properly accounted for. This...... all for nations to continue corporate driven carnage when all many young Americans really want is college.

In the time our nation has funneled astronomic funds in the global war machine, other nations have been investing in infrastructure and improving the lives of their citizens. Obviously every government has its shortcomings, but here in America we are at a starting point of ask not what the government can do for you because it sure as hell isn't going to do any of it. This includes basics in other nations like health care or modest livability. The brainwashing has been so complete that individuals think they are free, when in fact they are free to be poor, to toil to the point of madness to keep up, to be free to pay taxes to fund an aggressive war machine. So much freedom, it hurts. The question of what is the true purpose to have a nation comes up? If it isn't as stated “to promote the general welfare” then what exactly is it? Simply a funneling up unethical enterprise?

The narrative has been successful in marking those who want basic decent services and the ability to live a healthier, less stressful life as those wanting some kind of handout. Yet, the same narrative is never given for billionaires who have companies surviving on the largesse of the federal government. We heard so much about the madness of forgiving student loan debt but almost nothing about forgiving all those PPP loans by businesses, often used in very shady manners with frivolous and traceable purchases. Any assistance to those not with means is deemed a handout in the US, yet truly massive gifts to the well off or obscenely rich are simply framed as a necessity to keep the system in motion. Look to Obama's rectification of the housing crisis of 2008. No moral hazard for the banking system, only to those who were trying to stay in their homes.

The interaction with Chinese citizens has likely been massively eye-opening for the young taking part in all of this. There's no doubt that the government of China has been outrageous in the past as far as having draconian policies against its citizens, but it would be blind to not realize that they have actively moved away from much of that in the last couple of decades. First-hand accounts from Americans living over there often discuss how they would not want to come back to the US due to things like the lack of affordable healthcare or simple quality of life issues like not needing to work such extreme hours for basic necessities. I'm sure the right-wing reactionaries in the country would tell me if you like it so much, then go. But the thing is I'm here and I just want to make it better in this nation for all of us. The answer isn't a jingoist subservience that assists the powerful. It's a clear-eyed assessment that we need to do better. Perhaps we have hit rock bottom and at this point, have to actively try and steer the car away from the sign on the interstate that says Shit-town. Much has been made of China's one child policies of the past, but we have to be honest and realize that right now in the US we have created economic conditions so poor that many of the young want to have zero children. We don't have a lot of room to judge their past policies. It's comical to say we care so much for reproductive freedom (like that's a thing of any kind in this country now). Again, no room to judge, I'd say. Reproductive freedom goes both ways, not having any choice and mandated forced birth is as bad as denying the ability to have a second child (and this isn't even their current policy). Just something I've had to work out in my mind with previous all-American notions I used to have. I am not a fan of any of these large governments but simply trying to look at them all with clarity, unencumbered by the propaganda we've been steeped in.

Back to the topic at hand, though-- instead of looking at the dissatisfaction brewing in the US and coming up with something of a New Deal to alleviate distress, our politicians look to.....ban TikTok. If there was truly such concern about American data going into the hands of the Chinese government, I think maybe Temu, Shein or other fast-fashion junk product companies might face a similar ban, but it just goes to show that the concern is only about narrative control.

Many commented that on Red Note it was obvious just how much Chinese users of that social media site love Luigi. This was a likely powers-that-be issue with TikTok as well. Many TikTok users (and others) felt similar sympathy to him and shared those thoughts. But instead of looking at that situation as a marker of how high the pressure valve reading is in the United States (if it was a cartoon, the thing would be pulsing and bright red, making woo-woo sounds)--again, the answer from the oligarchy has been to look towards censorship as the answer, not actual mitigation of conditions that bring about these feelings. The deer in the headlights astonishment coming even from right wing idiots like Ben Shapiro has been comical. He was caught off-guard by the rancor from his own followers when he disparaged Luigi. There is some pretty across the board disgust at the for-profit systems that control our lives and it’s coming from every direction. Good luck with censoring all of that, Democrats and Republicans.

It was clear that many of the young who became horrified and disillusioned with US foreign policy got their footage and reports off of TikTok, not CNN or Fox. Those media sources have shown themselves to be little more than an antiquated US version of the USSR's Pravda. So of course, continue to have access and funding. Obvious disinformation and a very narrow allowed window of discussion is their stock and trade. It's like-- here's our panel to discuss homelessness. One panelist wants to use their bodies for live organ donation, one wants to sign them up for chain gang labor and our token bleeding heart on the panel wants to simply euthanize them. Don't say we don't have a vibrant culture of discourse.

The young in the United States are slowly coming out of the nationwide slumber to realize that the world has been passing us by. And it's by design, when “aid packages” are voted on, you can bet it is a recent $820 billion of aid to the war machine. People have great capacity for necessary sacrifice, but living in the world's wealthiest nation, dodging potholes to your gig economy jobs, while you suffer from the toothache you can't treat became there's no dental coverage......and god forbid, the tooth gets abscessed and you end up in the hospital with sepsis and without health insurance (and yes, the average in 2020 for said ride was around $1300, you know it's only ballooned with inflation). And perhaps as you sit in the hospital bed, bills accumulating and lost wages due to no sick leave-- say you scroll some social media for diversion and see some maimed children with US bombs by the tents.......probably you are not so much in the mood for any more “required austerity” demanded of you by the plutocrats. The money is slated for use in Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan, not the education or our young people or the health of our citizenry. How can that go on indefinitely? It can't. This is late-stage looting by bad faith actors as people suffer here and especially there.

At some point the expectations of society are just completely not met and that makes for a dangerous time. The anger can roll towards demanding equitability or it can roll into large scale jack-booted fascism. Anger is like water in a flash flood; it finds the path of least resistance. We have to make sure the narrative doesn't allow for that least resistant path to be that of everyday accepted neighborhood fascism. We've all allowed the slide, taking in some of the cultural zeitgeist that has allowed things to get so far out of hand in terms of not having empathy or accountability to take care of others. That dripping selfishness of the Reagan era was not taken to be the harbinger of enormous tent cities in 2025, but it should have been. Perhaps if we had reacted more viscerally as a people this all wouldn't have become so normalized.

So here's to hoping that the organic cross-cultural exchange on places like Red Note will move us towards demanding a change in course. A change that includes actual responsive governance that includes the well-being of its citizens as a measure of success. If nothing else, this could plant seeds as to what will be accepted in the future from the populace. It may also allow real time experience through direct communication to realize we have so much more in common with each other in the working class than the oligarchs who view us basically as raw materials, not souls. We have more in common with the Chinese Red Note user, more in common with the working class Ukrainian or Russian, the Palestinian.......we have to realize that and turn away from divisive nonsense that serves only the mentally deranged hoarders. The strife and killing is for the benefit of the top only, same as it ever was.

I guess what I'm saying is that hopefully these discussions on places like Red Note will open the world up for many and Americans can stop massaging mom's feet and actually attend public school like the normal kids.