Escaping the Political Gravitational Pull: Hope Beyond Destructive Ideologies

Time dilation, as described in general relativity, explains how time moves slower in stronger gravitational fields or at higher velocities. The closer you get to a massive object, like a planet or a black hole, the more time slows down. It's a concept that challenges our common-sense understanding of time, making it seem almost fluid and relative based on the circumstances.

Now, applying this concept to politics is a fascinating idea. Just as gravitational fields warp time, political ideologies warp perceptions of reality. People within certain political "fields" experience time differently, based on the ideologies and alliances they subscribe to. For example, in the case of Trump, JD Vance, and Lindsey Graham, we might see this "time dilation" in how their political careers and actions unfold in different contexts.

Trump, as the central political figure in this metaphor, can be seen as a massive force, akin to a black hole of political gravity. His rhetoric, controversies, and style have created a gravitational pull that bends the perceptions of time for his followers and opponents alike. For Trump supporters (MaGA), time seems to be running at a different pace—they experience a political reality that is far removed from what others perceive as "normal." Political events that might cause outrage or concern for those outside this gravitational field barely register within it.

JD Vance and Lindsey Graham, though caught in Trump's orbit, have a different relationship with the political "time" in which they exist. Vance, for example, has leaned into Trump's narrative, shaping his political career around that gravitational pull. His time in the political sphere is marked by accelerated movements toward policies that align with Trump’s worldview, even if they are seen as eccentric or extreme to outsiders. Meanwhile, Graham, often oscillating between support and criticism of Trump, might experience a form of political "time" that feels constantly shifting, like an object in a fluctuating gravitational field. His oscillations between positions create a sense of instability in his political trajectory.

The contrast between these figures is like observing different time rates in close proximity to one another. Some are accelerating toward certain extreme views, while others are caught in a cycle of adaptation and change, constantly orbiting the larger force of Trump’s political influence.

In this "political time dilation," the slower-paced areas—the moderates or those outside the immediate gravitational influence—see the actions of Trump, Vance, and Graham as more extreme, out of step with conventional political time. Meanwhile, inside their orbit, it feels like a natural progression, even if it appears wildly inconsistent or erratic to outsiders.

Just as in general relativity, where different observers experience time differently depending on their proximity to a gravitational source, political observers feel the impact of major political figures and ideologies in dramatically different ways. Time, in politics, isn’t just a measurement—it’s shaped by the power dynamics that govern who is in control of the "gravitational field."

Fascism has an outsized weight or density to politics and sensibilities, just as does Donald Trump.

Destructive ideologies, like fascism, tend to have greater weight in politics for several reasons, much like how heavy gravitational fields have a more profound impact on time or objects within their reach. Here’s how this works in both a theoretical and practical sense:

1. Centralized Power and Charismatic Leadership: Fascism often gravitates toward a highly centralized, authoritarian structure, where a single leader or a small group controls the political system. The leader becomes a focal point of authority and influence, much like a massive object that pulls everything toward it. This concentration of power makes it easier for destructive thought to spread quickly, because the state machinery, propaganda, and security forces can all be harnessed to reinforce and normalize these ideas.

   In this sense, fascism becomes like a political black hole—everything around it gets drawn in and warped. Once established, fascism tends to consume all opposing views and consolidate its power by eliminating or silencing dissent. Over time, this centralization of control allows fascism to dominate and reshape the political "field" around it.

2. Us vs. Them Mentality: Fascist ideologies thrive on creating clear divides between groups—often based on race, ethnicity, nationalism, or other identity markers. This "us vs. them" mentality can serve to polarize societies and make opposing political thought feel like a threat. By establishing an "enemy" or "outsider," fascism has the power to unify its base under a common cause while justifying the marginalization or violence against those who don’t align with the ideology.

   This division acts like a political gravitational force, warping public discourse and leading to the normalization of violence or oppressive policies. Once this narrative takes hold, it’s harder for more moderate or inclusive viewpoints to be heard, much like how time dilation makes it harder for external observers to perceive events within a gravitational well.

3. Crisis Exploitation: Fascist movements often emerge during times of crisis—whether economic, social, or political. During crises, people tend to feel more vulnerable and desperate for solutions. A charismatic leader promising strong, decisive action can appeal to these anxieties. This creates fertile ground for fascism to flourish, as it promises a way out of chaos through authoritarian control, scapegoating, and radical change.

   The weight of fascism in such contexts is amplified because it feeds on fear and uncertainty. The longer it can dominate the discourse, the harder it becomes for more rational or democratic ideas to push through the distorted political landscape. In a way, the crisis acts as the "initial mass" that accelerates the pull of fascist ideologies, making them even harder to resist.

4. Cultural and Historical Memory: In many cases, fascism doesn't just present new ideas; it taps into historical grievances, cultural myths, and long-standing fears. This historical resonance makes fascist thought more weighty, as it draws on deep-seated prejudices, resentments, and fears. For example, fascist rhetoric may appeal to a nostalgic sense of "lost glory," "national pride," or the idea of restoring a mythical past, creating a sense of urgency to act in a way that is seen as "patriotic" or "necessary."

   The historical weight behind these ideas can be powerful, distorting perceptions of the present and future. Much like how an object with immense mass can alter the trajectory of smaller objects around it, fascist ideas can change the course of political movements and societies.

5. Media and Propaganda: In the modern age, fascist movements have effectively utilized media and propaganda to disseminate their views. By controlling or influencing the narrative, they can shape public opinion and distort the reality of a situation. Propaganda serves as the vehicle that carries fascist ideas, amplifying their weight and reach. The more they saturate public discourse, the harder it becomes for other ideologies to break through.

   In this sense, fascist ideologies spread like a gravitational field that distorts the political conversation. The more people are exposed to the narrative, the more likely they are to accept or normalize it, even if it’s destructive or oppressive. Over time, this manipulation of the media and information becomes a powerful tool to ensure the ideologies maintain their weight in politics.

6. Resistance to Change: Once fascism has taken root in a society, it can create a feedback loop that makes it difficult to break free from. Institutions, laws, and societal norms may be reshaped to align with fascist principles, and these changes become entrenched. The longer this lasts, the harder it is to undo the damage, much like how time becomes irrevocably distorted near a black hole. Even if the political environment changes, the lingering effects of fascism—through laws, economic systems, and social divisions—can persist.

In short, the weight of fascism in politics stems from its ability to consolidate power, create fear-driven unity, exploit crises, draw on historical memory, manipulate media, and resist change. Just as a black hole’s immense gravity warps space and time, fascism warps political systems and societies, often making it harder for moderate or democratic forces to challenge its dominance. The more these elements combine, the greater the ideological pull—and the more difficult it becomes to break free from its influence.

Despite the heavy gravitational pull of destructive ideologies like fascism, there is always potential for resistance and renewal. Just as light can escape from the edges of a black hole if the right conditions align, so too can societies break free from oppressive political forces when people come together with shared values of justice, equality, and democracy. History has shown us that even in the darkest times, movements for freedom, human rights, and progress have emerged stronger, challenging the status quo and restoring balance.

The key is the power of collective action—individuals and communities who refuse to be swayed by fear or division, who seek truth, and who build inclusive political environments. Whether through peaceful protest, the advocacy of truth, or the formation of resilient democratic institutions, it is possible to create a political "field" where hope, compassion, and understanding have a greater weight than fear, hate, and division.

In the end, while ideologies may hold sway for a time, they are not permanent fixtures. People have the power to reshape the trajectory of politics, to rewrite the story, and to move toward a future where the forces of justice and compassion are the ones that define the pace and direction of change.

Compiled with aid of ChatGPT

 

American Belief of Equality

There is a belief in this country that we are all equal.

We are not.

Under the Constitution we are of course considered equals and that is the spirit of it and our national character. Or is it?

Originally that was not the case as landowners or those with a certain amount of land only, were allowed to vote.

Baby steps. Over time we added in more more equalities.

Until today, when we have the mistaken belief we are all now equal.

We are not.

We are treated as if we are equal in some outward appearing situations. And we should be. But we should in many cases be more equal than we are.

A white and black man are charged separately in different unrelated locations and situations. The white man gets let off or receives a few months incarceration while the black man gets months or years.

A rich man and a poor man are charged separately in different unrelated locations and situations. The rich man walks, the poor man goes to prison for life, or gets death (seriously, avoid Texas with seven executions so far this year).

It is not the system per se, it is the situation. A rich man can afford better legal defense. A white man appears to be less of a threat. Just as a rich black man appears less of a threat, or a poor white man. Which considering Trump supporters of late, could change that mindset entirely. Not to mention how many white male Christians have been involved in domestic terrorism over that of Muslims, blacks or even the poor in general.

Hidden if not blatant cognitive dissonance in either the Judge, Jury, or the Law itself?

It's wrong. Yet, it happens.

That is not where it is imminently necessary that we should  be equals, however.

It is in education or lack thereof and what you do with it. It is in power or lack thereof and what you do with it. Because if we are equal in those two things, all the others fall eventually into place.

An ignorant man wants to feel equal, powerful, and so takes only a little incorrect information from the media, from like people on social media. He will run with it, further spreading incorrect information so others believe and support it. Slander or not, it leaves him thinking how great he is, over that of others who disagree with him.

Under conservative labels if business people are "job creators", a frequent misnomer, then the people they slander are "doers", those who do for us in government. When criticism is accurate it is useful. When it is not, it adds to the burden of those who "do", and who achieve...for us all.

For those who truly are a problem in government or the media, who want to retain and gain more power, more influence, and in so doing knowingly and sometimes even unknowingly, spread more incorrect information to the media, to social media. All in order to, and which affects constituents or potential constituents, to further spread and support disingenuous information in order to stay in public office. Or those in the media may want to spin, even to lie in order to hold onto a position in the media, or to gain a foothold to a higher situation.

It's always about more with these people. When you have a billion dollars or half a billion, or a quarter of a billion, DO you really need more?

These are the kinds of things we've traditionally seen in televangelists. A mindset that has seeped into culture, our government officials.

These people, the citizens spreading lies and spin, the government official doing the same, the media pundit or mogul who works so hard to convey unreality upon what should be an unsuspecting public, to  many of whom should know better, these are the people who are unequal and should remain so.

They are not equal to those of us who are not lazy in mind and action, in our research and speech. Who are not ignorant of how to find correct and valid information. Who educate themselves through public or private institutions. Who self-learn and choose good, not poor information to share, and share it.

And so no, we are not all equal. Some of us may well never be equal. But against their best (or worst) intentions, many of us are going to be. Regardless what underhanded tactic they use against us all.

I do wholeheartedly look forward to the day when we are all playing at least, if not with the same toys, within the same playground.

I'll just leave you with this quote from George Orwell's book, 1984:

And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed – if all records told the same tale – then the lie passed into history and became truth. "Who controls the past," ran the Party slogan, "controls the future: who controls the present controls the past." And yet the past, though of its nature alterable, never had been altered. Whatever was true now was true from everlasting to everlasting. It was quite simple. All that was needed was an unending series of victories over your own memory. "Reality control," they called it: in Newspeak, "doublethink." (1.3.18)

The Age of Aquarius

I was just watching a DVD of the old Smother's Brothers Show from 1967-69 (yes, good old Netflix). They had the West Coast Cast of the Musical "Hair" on. They sang "The Age of Aquarius".  In listening to them perform, I found myself drifting back to those times. I watched the Smother's Brothers show and loved it as a kid. So, this drew my mind back to those times, to the "Age of Aquarius" as we knew it back then. It brought back to me a sense of wonder. Forced me to compare then, and now.

That was a time of opening minds, of new possibilities. Of things being served to the public we had never known of before on a silver platter. Of Vietnam and the war there. Of despair, and boredom in our society and in our way of life. And then this "Age of Aquarius" hit and suddenly we were aware of new ideas, new thoughts, new possibilities. Of Hope. Hope in the possibility of forces outside of our daily lives giving more meaning to what we went through than what we were experiencing at the time.

The boredom and doldrums of the 1950s were then behind us, the early 60s were even behind us and there was hope that we could as a people, win out over the "Cold War", the "M.A.D. (Mutual Assured Destruction) nuclear arms destruction fears, our favored leaders being murdered, the binding chains of our history in finally making African Americans equal to all others, and experiencing the freedom of being able to take life on, on one's own terms. To make of life what we wanted of it and not just do what was expected of us.

To create, invent, explore what was out there and marvel at the unknown.

Lorraine Schneider poster

Watching the show reminded me of what it was about, that whole "hippie" movement, the"Love Generation". Slogans like "Make love, not war", and "War is Not Healthy for Children and Other Living Things" a poster originally done by Lorraine Schneider.

It reminded me of that feeling of possibility, of hope, of faith, and how fulfilling it was to feel such things. To feel that hope and have a belief that somehow, out there, there was something protecting us greater than ourselves. and not just a "God" of religions. Or the concept that, if we could just figure it out, whatever it was, we could use it to protect us. That there was something outside of our Lives, Religions, our Leaders who had led us into war, or those authorities around the world who weren't making such a great world for us and in some cases, were building a nightmare for other humans under their charge, and the enemies of those people, who really weren't their enemies at all and in some cases, were us through some misunderstanding related to culture, ideology or geography, where we were all supposed to hate one another. Why?

I was shocked many years later to hear a Soviet citizen being interviewed on their streets saying that she was fearful of Americans. They were fearful of us? Because she said, with almost tears of fear in her eyes, that we Americans were the only nation in the history of the world who had dropped not only one but two atomic bombs on a civilian population of another country. Years after that I was again surprised to hear yet another Soviet citizen say that they actually liked American people whom they had met.

So they weren't the evil Communists after all, that we had for decades been led to believe they were. And though we were scared of them, they honestly had far more reason to be afraid of us, than we should have been of them.

It makes you think.

Watching the Smother's Brothers show brought all this back up again. To realize those 1960s feelings of hope, excitement at the possibilities in life, of wonder at the opening up of the universe to us, and to our minds. We need to remember that hope though it is something that we seldom get in life.

We find it in Science Fiction. Sometimes, in human interest stories. But not much anymore like we did in the 60s. That was a time of unique experiences that shimmered out into the culture as more and more people experienced things like transcendental meditation, smoking pot, "dropping acid", alternate ways of thinking outside the box, and so on. I'm not advocating drug usage, I'm advocating thinking, thinking in new ways, thinking in ways that push us upward and onward.

Those feelings of hope and adventure back then were palpable and real. Hope was giving us a chance to make things new and different. Now we just seem to have new, new technologies mostly. It gave us faith back then, if not so much faith in religion and God, in ourselves. Religious or not, that is always the first step. Whether God made us or not, or exists or not, we were put here to achieve and to rely on our "God given" talents, to make our way, to take care of others, to build on what we have, and to appreciate what we have achieved. If offering that up to God was how appreciating it was supposed to be, then you simply did that.

But more and more what we saw were people who were self-actualizing and when they did that they began to realize, that it was them who had made the differences in life. All the prayers and proffering they had been told all their lives were the way and the salvation, it finally became obvious... something was wrong. We began to question if what we had been told all our lives, were true. Or if someone had been sorely mistaken. Maybe, all of us.

The 60s were the "Age of Aquarius" and it could be now, again. Maybe it would be called something else now as after all, time has passed.

According to Astrology Zone (yeah, yeah I know but don't fade on me now, check this out):

"The age before the Age of Aquarius was the Age of Pisces. Since the earth is moving in retrograde motion, we have just left the Age of Pisces, which marked the years 1-2000 AD. This time coincides with the age of Christ and Christianity. Pisces is the sign known for universal love, compassion, self-sacrifice, altruism, creativity, intuition and deep spirituality. This Piscean mindset has been the way humanity has approached the world since we evolved and has colored everything that we have encountered during that period.

"Early Christians used the symbol of the fish (symbol of Pisces) as a secret symbol of their faith. The emphasis on washing of the feet as a ritual signifying purification of the spirit ties into Pisces symbolism as well, for Pisces rules the feet. Pisces "carry" the cares of others and often have sore feet. Christ spoke of his role as servant to his flock, which is also a very Pisces notion. Pisces says, "I believe," whereas Aquarius, the age we are in now, says, "Prove it to me scientifically." "

My point in all this is this. What happened to that excitement in life, and in the universe? It was replaced by what we had before, the 1950s. Have we really been evolving all that much since then? Stagnating may be more like it. We've advanced some culturally and retrograded some culturally. Technological and financial breakthroughs galore have occurred, but what about the adventure of the Human race? Or of Humanity's quality of life?

Why are we still working harder, only for corporations and the rich to live easier and make more off of everyone else's backs? Much of which those of the rich really don't even need? I'm not saying being rich is bad. Or that people shouldn't be allowed to strive to have more than others, I'm just saying at at some point, there is only so much to go around and for only a few to have so much, and for too many to have so very little, is in itself, too much.

We need to get back to an age of "waking up culturally" as we were in the 60s. When we did that it scared the hell out of those in charge and in the end, their power petered out into what, a "War on Drugs" to distract the masses. As if that was what had caused the upheaval, rather than a growing realization of the possibilities in life beyond 9-5 work days.

The next time you have a decision to make, or see a news piece on how things are in the world, try to consider it through a filter of what was meant in being in the, "Age of Aquarius". Try to see things outside the box we've been compressed into. Try to see that box. See behind the box to those who built it. And see if you don't see that we should, and we can, raise the quality of our lives, and of that of the Human Race in it's entirety.

Because wonder, is always the first step to making things better.