This painting has been all over the news following an act of protest by two young people from the organization Just Stop Oil. They hurled a tin of tomato soup at it in the National Gallery in London. The painting itself was behind glass and was not damaged by the action. The frame, however, which is an antique, may have suffered some damage.

I will say that I have some sympathy for the activists. Over my lifetime I have been involved in many demonstrations that have not always been greeted with understanding. And sometimes disruption is necessary to get the public’s attention. Blocking roadways or refusing to get up from a seat in a theatre, a restaurant or a bus can be effective ways to protest an injustice and slow the machinery of a brutal system.

Like all of us, the young protesters in London are witness to the continued ravaging of the earth’s fragile biosphere on which we all rely on to survive. They see the web of life unraveling thanks to rampant greed of fossil fuel companies and other lucrative extractive and exploitative industries. And they see apathy and inaction by most world leaders as this carnage continues. They decided to take action.

But I don’t think this act really did anything to galvanize public support or concern. Most people are aware of our existential crisis. Every day we hear of a flood or drought or a monster storm. Famine and species extinction have become normalized. This kind of protest, however, comes across as a kind of preachy performance activism. And it has come to define many climate organizations these days.

Van Gogh’s painting will be fine. No damage was done to it. Ironically, his life’s work was about the veneration of nature. So, he might have even had sympathy for the young protestors. But our anger needs to be focused on the source of this catastrophe, not the few beautiful things humanity has been able to create in spite of it.

We need to focus it against the centres of capital, money and investment, against government agencies which aid these profiteers, against the industries that commercialize everything, including nature, and who reduce life to dollar signs, against the military sector which uses the most fossil fuels and pollutes more than any other industry.

But leave most public art alone, especially the art that is created for all of us. It is a major source of inspiration, particularly for the working class. And it is one of the few things that corporations haven’t entirely stolen from us, yet.

Kenn Orphan, October 2022

*Title painting is from a sunflower series by Vincent Van Gogh, 1887

The first time I remember seeing Angela Lansbury in anything was as Jessica Fletcher, in the tv series Murder, She Wrote. I was only a little kid, but I would watch these episodes with my mom who loved mysteries as much as I did.

I fell in love with the kind, bookish and sharp as a whip sleuth who had far too many murders to solve on her hands in that sleepy hamlet on the Maine coast, Cabot Cove. Fletcher was meant to be a combination of two of Agatha Christie’s most important characters: the elderly busybody, Miss Marple and the eccentric and ever curious mystery novelist, Ariadne Oliver.

Even though it was filmed several years before Murder, She Wrote, I would later see Lansbury in Christie’s blockbuster mystery, Death on the Nile. I was too young to see it in the theatres, of course. But I was glued to the screen when it came to television. Everyone shined in that movie, but her portrayal of the gin-soaked, washed up romance author, Salome Otterbourne, was perfection.

After that, I tried to watch all the older movies she had starred in whenever I had the opportunity. The Dark at the Top of the Stairs and The Manchurian Candidate were my favourites, but there were so many others. Over her long acting career she starred in scores of films along side other legends, like Ingrid Bergman, Katharine Hepburn, Judy Garland, Elizabeth Taylor (who was also a lifelong friend), Orson Welles, Elvis Presley, Bette Davis and Maggie Smith (another lifelong friend).

Hollywood was never Lansbury’s scene. She said she felt like a stranger there and was often cast in roles far older than her actual age. Nevertheless, she made a stunning career on stage on Broadway and in notable plays and musical performances. Her role as the quirky socialite Mame was critically acclaimed and beloved by nearly everyone who saw it, especially the gay community.

I must admit that Lansbury’s death is hard for me. Partly because it is yet another reminder of the relentless march of time. But it is mostly because of that cruel thief of memories called dementia.

As a boy I loved watching each episode of Murder, She Wrote with my mother. We would pore over the clues until we came up with the killer just before the final 10 minutes. Unbeknownst to me at the time, my mom would let me believe I sleuthed it all by myself. Even though those memories have vanished for her, I cherish them for both of us, nonetheless.

A part of me would like to share the news of Lansbury’s death with her. My sister told my mother of the death of Queen Elizabeth and said she felt sad at the news. This is unsurprising since she grew up through World War II in Nova Scotia. And the imagery of the British monarch’s resolve in the face of Nazi barbarism had an enormous impact on a lot of Canadians during that period of history. Dementia hadn’t robbed her of this memory yet.

Still, I think I will hold this news back from her. Not because it would be hard for me. But, perhaps, more for her.

Angela Lansbury lived a life that was undoubtedly full. It spanned almost a century. In fact, she died just 5 days before her 97th birthday. Born in the UK, she came from a family of Labour socialists and never lost that leftwing ideological care for humanity after coming to North America. And she entertained us in a way that forever changed the usual, banal nastiness of the Hollywood industry for the better. There is nothing to grieve about in any of that, but there is a hell of a lot in that life to celebrate.

Kenn Orphan, October 2022

*Photo is Angela Lansbury, 16 October 1925 – 11 October 2022.

I am honoured to feature the prose of a dear friend, Tangerine Bolen. Tangerine has an extraordinary way of tapping into powerful metaphors. Her writing at once captures the daily struggles so many of us encounter, especially those who struggle with chronic illness or disability, while simultaneously lifting us to a different plane of understanding, imagination and wonder. Her musings sing to the contradictions of what it means to have a body, and to live consciously in that body, loving it with all of its beauty and failings, while dreaming of something more.

…

I want to be a cicada, buried underground for 20 years in the cool dark, then bursting forth, furiously singing, furiously mating, then letting my earthly body go.

I want to be a caterpillar, forming my hard-shelled, spiked cocoon, the armor that allows the whole of me to dissolve into goo, liquid forming wings, eyes, head, legs, bursting armor open in the alchemy of transformation, to take to the skies.

Light as a feather, silent as dead stars.

I want to ask the Boatman on the river, the one and only river, why some of us are forced to live bobbing on its waters, where he refuses to speak to us, refuses to row to either shore.

An interminable twilight, racked with sickness and pain, where we must remember to try to capture every gleam, hold it, then let it go, as another piece of us is taken.

I want to speak to Death, and have long conversations. If only Death would deign to speak to me, while I am still keen on living.

I want to climb mountains again, and dance again, and cross logs over rivers, and go bouldering.

I want music to seep into my bones, in a way it hasn’t done, since sound unfriended me, and became ice picks in the ears, diffuse yet glinting.

I want to save the dogs, and help the people, and help myself, and never be sick again.

I want to enter the un-Promised land. Where every wrongful death, animal and human, where every life of suffering, extinguished before grace and relief could come, where the saddest and loneliest of all, in Elysian Fields live, free, utterly free, from all pain.

I want to be with those ones.

Not the Instagram celebrities and vacuous “influencers” and modern-day Nazis, or the people who have it good enough to neither understand, nor care about, others’ suffering.

I want to see transformation in hearts and on faces. I want to see hope return.

I want another planet, but I want this one, and I want another body, yet I just want my own, recovered, and steady.

I want to breathe again, freely, without devastation in my veins.

I want to live in a river of love, where I can learn to dream again.

And I want for you what you need too, because I am human, and my heart, though broken, is still open, and like all the hearts here that are forged by both sorrow and courage—it is made for greater things.

~ Tangerine Bolen is a writer, activist, disability rights advocate and former director of a civil liberties and human rights group she founded in 2010. RevolutionTruth created “Legal Campaigns,” combining grassroots advocacy and multi-plaintiff lawsuits to address power abuses committed by the United States government. The group has taken both the Obama and Trump administrations to court over indefinite detention and environmental injustice at Standing Rock.

*Title photo is Metamorphosis, 1936, by Joan Miró.

The women protesting oppression in Iran and in other countries are nothing less than courageous. And what has been most inspiring is that these are people from all classes and walks of life. There are women who choose to wear the hijab and they are linking arms with women who do not choose to wear it. They understand this is not about Islam, but about repressive systems.

And this is far broader than the Muslim world. If anyone hasn’t noticed, there is a war being waged against women happening in various countries, including in the West. And the implications are deep for all of us in whatever community we identify with.

Unfortunately, there is a familiar chorus of naysayers who claim to be on the left who are saying all of these protests are orchestrated by the American intelligence agencies or their client states to undermine foreign governments they despise. Such is the state of things when people opt for listening to theorists who sit comfortably in their homes pontificating on the evils of imperialism or who take the word of state entities instead of taking the time to actually listen to the voices of the oppressed.

No one on the left denies the US uses its power to coopt movements for its own aims. No one on the left denies that the US has been instrumental in toppling democratically elected governments. No one on the left denies this is being done now as it was in movements like the Arab Spring.

But if you deny fellow human beings the agency to defy the boot stomping on their necks, you aren’t on the left. You have sold yourself wholesale to a cynical brand of misanthropy that lost sight of what matters in this world. Human beings matter, not their government, nor ours.

Iranian women and all people who suffer brutal oppression do not need military intervention or covert ops. But they don’t need cynical obfuscation of their oppression either. They don’t need mealy-mouthed equivocation. They need our solidarity. And I will be damned if I ever sit on the sidelines eating popcorn and theorizing on how the US is meddling in something, while ignoring the flesh and blood human beings rising up against their oppressor.

Kenn Orphan, September 2022

“And those who expected lightning and thunder, are disappointed. And those who expected signs and archangel’s trumps do not believe it is happening now. As long as the sun and the moon are above, as long as the bumblebee visits a rose, as long as rosy infants are born, no one believes it is happening now…” – from A Song at the End of the World, Czesalw Milosz, Warsaw 1944

By all accounts, it was a raucous and tumultuous summer few will forget: from a pandemic that, despite massive denial, is still raging, especially in the Global South, to Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine, which stands poised to descend into a nuclear nightmare no one can even begin to fathom and is causing major disruptions in fuel and food, to biblical floods that have inundated a third of the entire country of Pakistan, to the unprecedented drying up of several major rivers around the world. The unfolding catastrophes around us have made me think often of the Christian myth of the apocalypse.

When the Christian writer, known as John, scribbled his dreams down in a cave on the island of Patmos centuries ago, after likely being banished there by Roman authorities, he could not have known how the world around him would change over the years, nor how it might end. But his visions, coherent or not, would become a cultural touchstone for many people, believers and non alike.

There are many interpretations of these dreams, but the most common one identifies the first horseman on a white horse as bringing about plague. The second, on a red horse, brought war. The third on a black horse brought famine and the last, riding a pale horse, was the harbinger of death. It isn’t difficult to understand how this imagery resonates with many people today. But I’ve been thinking that there appears to be a fifth horseman on the horizon, and he is far more terrifying than all other four put together.

With the convergence of all of these ecological and geopolitical catastrophes, the window on the viability of democratic institutions is rapidly closing. How can democracy survive a constant deluge of biosphere-wide disasters? If we are to go with the allegory penned by John of Patmos, then I think this “fifth horseman” is fascism. And his resurgence is growing more apparent by the day.

Viktor Orbán has proven that fascism is an international movement. The Hungarian dictator, who has been vicious in his campaign against women’s rights, immigrants, Muslims and the LGBTQ+ community and who recently condemned the “race mixing of Europeans with non-Europeans,” was celebrated in August at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Dallas, Texas, as the opening speaker. In fact, he is looked at as a model leader by proto-fascists and their sycophants worldwide. Tucker Carlson, the white supremacist pundit from Fox News, even broadcast a week’s worth of episodes of his daily show in Budapest, featuring a fawning interview of his beloved despot.

The international nature of fascism’s rise can be seen in their alliances. Orbán is praised by Trump’s henchman Steve Bannon, who was himself instrumental in the resurgence of fascism in Italy. Giorgia Meloni, a woman who has unabashedly praised the historic genocidaire Mussolini, just become Italy’s first female prime minister. She, too, has espoused similar racist and paranoid ideas, such as the “Great Displacement Theory.” All of her political ideals are rooted in xenophobia, misogyny and homophobia, and seeming to stem from a conspiratorial mindset that appears endemic to fascism. Unsurprisingly, her historic win in Italy has been praised by Le Pen in France, as well as QAnon lunatics who hold office in the US, such as Majorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert.

The international far right has made no real effort to obscure its renewed love affair with fascist authoritarianism. Its proponents in the US, Italy, the UK, Sweden, Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, Turkey, Israel, India, Russia and beyond are using the same textbook examples for its implementation. We can only expect more fear mongering and violence against foreigners, who will be painted as “infiltrators” or “illegal aliens”. Against women who demand reproductive freedom, LGBTQ+ people who demand equal rights, those who challenge patriarchal norms, and anyone who defies or dissents from their authoritarian narrative.

This fifth horseman’s ascent didn’t come to us in a vacuum. We arrived at this perilous point in our times thanks to the convergence of both catastrophe and complacency. The catastrophes we are now witnessing have been written on the walls for decades. And scientists and environmental activists have been screeching at the top of their lungs that we are headed toward the edge of a cliff. Toward ecological annihilation. And that there would likely be no recovery after we reached a certain tipping point of no return. Now, we are at that point.

For all its bluster and self-importance, the wealthiest and most powerful governments and economic entities have no real plan to stop the free fall we are headed for, or even cushion our landing. In fact, most of them are pushing ahead at full speed for the sake of profit. With the exception of Vanuatu and some other small, besieged states, no government is doing what is needed to address our very real and very existential predicament. In this milieu, it is understandable why fascism would ascend to fill the void of leadership and inspire such fervor in different nations.

Fascism thrives on fear. And there is a cadre of ghouls who have become experts at exploiting that fear in the masses. They understand that there will be an endless supply of otherized “monsters” for them to cast their shadows upon. Endless others to blame. Ecological devastation, economic hardship, social upheaval, everything will be conveniently blamed on those in society who are easiest to marginalize, silence and disappear. Instead of galvanizing the public to radically upend the power arrangement that is killing us and the biosphere on which everything relies, these snake oil salesmen will peddle baseless conspiracies that demonize segments of society. And they will continue to court the acceleration of our collective quietus through distraction, romanticism of a fictitious past and magical thinking, all while giving a green light to the most destructive industries on the planet, including the military sector.

As the Polish American poet Czesalw Milosz warned, most of them will not see the signs of impending disaster. If we do not oppose the madness beginning to engulf so much of the world, its end will not arrive with an announcement of archangels or supernatural men on horseback. It will come by the invitation of a boisterous crowd praising a despot, waving national flags, singing anthems, cheering on war and the round up of all those they deem responsible for whatever they think is wrong in the world. It is this fifth horseman, therefore, that presents the greatest threat of all.

Kenn Orphan, September 2022

*Title piece: Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse by Viktor Mikhailovich Vasnetsov, 1887

I’m just gonna throw this out there for those who need to read it: it’s okay to feel conflicted about the death of the Queen. Don’t let anyone shame you for that. We live in a complicated era of messaging. And the social media ecosphere only compounds this. But we also are living through an unprecedented era of collective grief. And it will manifest in ways we cannot begin to imagine.

I think some people are feeling a sense of grief over the Queen because, consciously or not, they identify her as an archetype. Whether one sees this as accurate or flawed, to them this archetype represented dignity, fortitude, tradition and stability. Since our earliest ancestors climbed down from the trees, we have understood our universe as an interplay of various unseen actors of the psyche or soul. The archetype serves as a place to seek refuge in a world that may feel threatening, is rapidly changing, or that might even seem to be unraveling.

For others, the Queen might have reminded them of their own mother or grandmother. This might seem trite or even infantile to some, but it is a common experience for many people and not just related to the death of someone famous. People who work in nursing facilities often feel this for elderly people they do not know personally. Although mass media amplifies these notions, there is nothing inherently wrong with having these feelings. But it is important to understand where they may be stemming from.

Others, however, are rejoicing because they saw the Queen as a major symbol of centuries old colonialist brutality, especially in the Global South. A symbolic leader of the dictatorship of money that the world continues to languish under. A vestige of feudalism which peddled the elitist myth that some bloodlines are purer or more important than others. And they are glad that at least a part of this era has ended.

The grief here may not be evident for some, but it is there. And I share it. It is a grieving for genocide, cruelty, theft and the misery that accumulated from centuries of murderous plunder in the name of imperialism. And, even though its expression is sometimes crude or even vulgar, it is valid and should not be dismissed or discounted.

Both camps have elements that wish to castigate the other. To shame or mock the sensibilities of those whom they see as either meanspirited brutes with no sense of human decency or shameless sycophants and apologists for murderous imperialism. But, whether or not either side wishes to accept this, it is possible to hold a universe (or multiverse, to be more accurate) of all of these feelings and more within oneself. It is possible to see the points of each camp and hold those points, however uneasily, within ones mind. To grapple with the open wounds and legacy of generational colonial trauma, the banal racism of bloodlines and inherited power, seeing the human being behind the role they play, and parsing through the archetypes we all need and employ to make sense of our world.

As I have made clear multiple times, I am a republican (small “r”). I am against the very notion of monarchy or the injustice of inherited power or ill-gotten wealth. I’ve also written, at length, about the evil of imperialism and colonial plunder. I can also understand, however, the enormous and often hidden power of imagery. I cannot dismiss the influence of archetypes on our lives and interactions. Understanding, or attempting to, is not an endorsement for any particular one.

But I have been thinking about grief, especially our collective grief as a species, for a long time now. And I cannot help but see this latest public event as a significant marker for where we are, especially in relation to the dying and death of old institutions, failing democracy, growing economic disparity and looming ecocide. While the mainstream media is amplifying a specific narrative surrounding this public death, collective grief is a psychic experience. And when I say psychic I am referring to the psyche.

The psyche isn’t some binary, black and white blueprint. It is fluid and infinite in its depth and reach. It is the source of both our internal map and our moral compass. A repository for our dreams, fears, desires, hatreds, longings and love to coalesce. It is also the place where conflicted feelings can be held without prejudice. Only those who are jaded, deeply wounded, or utterly devoid of an imagination would deny this for themselves and others. And I think they, for the sake of ones emotional, mental and spiritual health, should be avoided at all costs. Our psyches are reacting to what is happening to our world and the mass media and culture are a part of this process, even if they are not aware of it.

Whether we like it or not, we have entered into era of mass grieving. None of us have a choice about this. Around the world the societal institutions and structures many of us have relied upon are now seeming to turn against us. The framework of democracy is fraying in ways few thought possible. Economic disparity, which has been codified as a given in late capitalism, is robbing more and more of us of our homes, health, education, vocation and a viable future. Human rights are being stripped away at the most basic of levels. Wars are raging, with even more saber rattling becoming a daily ritual. And our biosphere is under siege from rapacious greed, the result being drought to flood to heatwave to colossal storm, repeating in a cycle no one can quite anticipate or fathom.

We have no choice about any of the above, but we do have a choice about how we would like to proceed through this treacherous landscape of grief that lies before us all. Either by opening ourselves up to solidarity through the hard work of empathy, or biting and tearing at each other, hoping to draw blood and rip apart flesh as we go. There will be many who choose the latter path, either consciously or not. But none of this is about demanding perfection in anyone. Not by a long shot. Collective grief is not linear nor will it manifest in all the ways we want it to manifest. But this is about beginning to see ourselves in the other. And simply realizing it is far better to link arms with one another before the encroaching darkness and feel empathy for each others anger, suffering and fear, rather than go through it alone and enraged.

Kenn Orphan, September 2022

Although I am not a royalist in any way, shape or form, I had nothing personal against Queen Elizabeth II. In fact, apart from Diana, I thought she had many admirable traits and was the most likeable of them all.

Now, before any fellow leftie attempts to shame me, let me say that it should be obvious that I detest feudalism and the very notion of the “divine right of kings.” I am a republican (American friends, note the small “r”. I am NOT a supporter of the loathsome, ever-fascist US GOP/Republican Party, I simply believe that the republic is the best form of government).

But I have royalist friends and family and I understand and respect their feelings. I have no interest or desire to mock them, especially now. And I can relate to some of them because I have some fond memories, like waking up with my mom at 4am when I was a little boy just to watch the royal wedding of Diana and Charles on live broadcast. So, I get the sentimentality and glam of it all. What queer boy wouldn’t? And I also think it is an enormous waste of time attempting to shame or ridicule people for liking something like this.

That said, although it was extraordinary that the Queen lived and reigned over the UK for as long as she did, I sincerely hope it is time to put this era far behind us. King Charles, as he will be known, is a poor shadow of his mother. And he will be reigning over a kingdom that is fraught with enormous economic inequity, social strife and ecological catastrophe thanks to climate change. In fact, the UK is likely in the worst shape it has been since the days following the second world war and the dark Thatcherite era. Truss is a foreshadowing of this.

As a Canadian and, by default, subject of HM, I would like to suggest that this is the perfect time to mothball this tradition. It is one that spawned the murderous age of imperialism, which decimated Indigenous cultures and societies, thrived on the slave trade, and sparked too many wars to count. And it continues to this day. Its inherent racism has caused enormous pain, misery and horror through colonialism and ethnic cleansing. And most of it was at the behest or blessing of royalty, the so-called “bluebloods,” or the elite ruling classes.

I would say that they can keep some of the jewels and even a couple of the grand houses. I would even say a few of them can retain some of their titles so long as they have no real political power. But the feudal era is one of the darkest blots on human history. As the Queen has peacefully closed her eyes forever, that chapter of history should be peacefully closed too.

Kenn Orphan, September 2022

That is what I am, apparently. A “pathetic empire simp.” At least according to Australian writer Caitlin Johnstone.

This insult came on Twitter after I criticized her analysis of the Russian war against Ukraine by correctly pointing out that she has never been antiwar, only anti-American-war. Other wars carried out by despotic, authoritarian or imperialistic governments never get criticized in any way by Johnstone except, perhaps, occasionally in what amounts to mealy mouthed mental gymnastics, which generally end up impugning the victims of war crimes as “head-chopping jihadists” or neo-Nazis, while absolving the criminals. This isn’t a lie. A simple check into her exhaustive Twitter feed or “daily writings” demonstrates this.

Johnstone’s observations aren’t in a vacuum. Real flesh and blood human beings are in harms way thanks to Russia’s bombing campaign and invasion of Ukraine. Europe’s largest nuclear power plant is in the crosshairs. Thousands of Russian antiwar activists have been sent to prison for protesting the war, which is not be called a war but a “military intervention” under threat of prosecution of the Russian Federation.

Johnstone and her ilk represent a particular cynical strain within the erstwhile left, primarily in the US. It is the result of decades of betrayal by American institutions and the ruling, capitalist establishment. Decades of duplicity, corruption, wars of domination, toppling democratic governments, militaristic cruelty, racism, misogyny, classism, exploitation, ecocide and horrendous crimes against humanity.

But this terrible legacy of tyrannical and brutal state power didn’t appear to galvanize this set to do the hard work of international solidarity with ordinary people. What it did appear to do was cause them to think in strictly binary terms when it comes to geopolitics. Thus, solidarity was to be built with the leaders of states who had been declared enemies of the American Empire.

This solidarity does not extend, however, to the people of those states. On the contrary, these people are faceless and without agency. All of their aspirations for democracy, whether it is in Syria, Egypt or Ukraine, have been painted as pseudo “colour revolutions,” entirely constructed and implemented by the American intelligence sector. The ordinary people who gathered in squares and marched peacefully down streets were, apparently, “pathetic empire simps” for demanding an end to the tyranny of their own governments. Puppets of the American Empire who should have been grateful to their murderous leaders simply because they were the enemies of the most powerful imperial force on the planet.

This horrendous “logic” is how so many of them were able to run defense for Assad in Syria as he, with the help of Putin, bombed hospitals, schools, mosques and entire neighbourhoods to rubble using the same lie the US used to carry out war crimes: the bogus “war on terror.” When Saudi Arabia bombs Yemen or Israel commits crimes against the Palestinians, which it does on a daily basis, the erstwhile left rightly condemns it. Yet this same set jumped through hoops to deny any crime Assad committed against Palestinians in Syria. And the fact that Assad was instrumental in running CIA black sites during the Iraq War gets completely deleted from their data banks. This same defense has been extended to the CCP’s treatment of Uighurs.

This is a cynical and caustic strain of politic discourse which has infected nearly all levels of civic discourse in the US. From Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi to Donald Trump and liberal, millionaire know-nothings like Bill Maher. It thrives on invective, a generalized misanthropy, kneejerk reaction, and conspiratorial thinking, which explains the obsession with the so-called “deep state.” Of course, no serious political analyst would deny the existence or influence of clandestine, mendacious and malignant unelected agencies like the CIA, FBI or NSA. But the obsession with these nefarious agencies tends to occlude the power of mass movements to confront them and the larger problems looming for our species and countless others.

This little interaction proved something else that many colleagues and comrades have been saying about Ms. Johnstone for a long time. Dare to criticize her, even mildly, and she will respond with churlish insults and invective. Her entire modus operandi has been snark and vituperation and, as my friend and comrade Dan Hanrahan pointed out, “custom made for the sewer tunnels of social media.” I will admit that my criticism may have come across as harsh or sarcastic. But did I call her a name or use an ad hominem against her? And have we become that jaded that to even raise this question would invite a slurry of mocking laugh emojis? Perhaps, I fear, we have.

Unsurprisingly, many of her fans seem to enjoy this the most about her and follow that lead. Since this one small interaction I have received several hate emails from people using language that verges on threats. Now, this does not include all of her followers. I have several friends, in fact, who seem enamoured with her many of her observations. And it should be said that she is often correct.

She is right that the American Empire is the most powerful state force on the planet at the moment. And I have written about its evil at length for years. But this does not mean that other brutal, powerful imperial or colonial state entities do not exist. This is, whether consciously or not, a profound misunderstanding of this set, which tends to view the world narrowly from the lens of a 1980s geopolitical prism. The US may still be the most powerful, economically and militarily, but it is losing that power in real time on a planet whose biosphere is rapidly destabilizing and where the predations and loyalties of late capitalism are in a state of flux. No matter how many genuflections this segment of the online, erstwhile left perform, the enemy of my enemy is not my friend, it is the same enemy everywhere: the elite, capitalist, ruling class in EVERY country.

Building international solidarity requires real work. It requires more than internet searches or repeating the opposing narrative to the American imperial one as if it is absolute truth. It requires more than just settling for a “multipolar world” as if that were the only alternative to a unipolar one. It requires listening to real flesh and blood human beings who have lived under despotic regimes, even the ones that are the sworn enemies of the American Empire. It requires adhering to the principles of antiwar without equivocation. And daring to dream that a better world IS possible and that we must fight for it shoulder to shoulder with other human beings, rather than spend our time justifying the actions and machinations of the powerful. This, I fear, is a bridge too far for Ms. Johnstone and many of her followers. But it isn’t for this “pathetic simp.”

Kenn Orphan, September 2022

*A note to commenters, please refer to the Guidelines section of this website before posting a comment. If comments violate these terms they will be deleted without a response and the commenter permanently blocked.

*Title photo is of a Russian antiwar protestor. Thousands of Russian antiwar protestors have thrown in prison.

It has become impossible not to notice the trend. Whether it is banning the word “gay,” or banning books that contain topics related to human sexuality, or the Supreme Court decision to overturn a woman’s federal right to an abortion, the war on human sexuality and those who are sexually divergent is ramping up on multiple fronts. Even I’ve been a target of this war. Because of my outspoken advocacy for LGBTQ+ youth, I have been labeled a “groomer” by a few figures on the far right.

To be called a “groomer” in our society carries a specific weight. When the far right brands someone with this moniker it is intended to associate them with pedophiles and child abusers. A “groomer” in this context refers to a person who conditions and accustoms children to accept or normalize abuse or exploitation. The term comes from actual instances of child abuse, but recently it has been used against virtually anyone who is LGBTQ+ or an ally. And there has been an uptick in its use since the antigay legislation passed by far-right Florida governor Ron DeSantis. The intent is to terrify and silence those who dissent from a very narrow understanding of human sexuality. And this smear tactic has been employed against a wide spectrum of people, from teachers, to librarians, to healthcare providers, to drag queens.

Real child abuse is a serious and corrosive societal malady that needs to be addressed with empathy and well-funded structures of support and protection. Most of it occurs in the home by someone well known to the child. Much of it has been perpetrated by religious figures, such as priests or pastors. But this recent war on human sexuality has nothing to do with protecting children. In fact, thanks to conservative governance, many of the social supports for victims of abuse have been systematically cut and consistently underfunded or under-staffed. This has one reason: rigid social control.

There are many fronts in this war on human sexuality. Some are in the classroom, others are in the doctor’s office. Whether it is in the censoring of certain words or terms or in the legislation of transgender or women’s healthcare, the far-right is tapping into an old American angst related to ludicrous and impossible notions of purity and deviance. And the anti-porn crusade has appeared to capture that angst in an relatively easy way.

Ever since the dissemination of pornography in the modern era, there have been efforts to censor or ban it completely. Along with religious fundamentalists and evangelicals, there have also be several radical feminists, the late Andrea Dworkin being one, who sought the legal end to the production and distribution of porn. To those particular feminists, the objection was primarily due to the dehumanization and denigration of women rife within the industry. Their argument, although flawed in many ways, was understandable. Misogyny is rife in the porn industry because it is rife in society in general. But the bulk of the anti-porn crusade has been dominated by ultra-conservative evangelicals whose animus toward pornography is based solely on an extremely narrow understanding of human sexuality and its expression. And they wish to impose that worldview on everyone else in society, by any means necessary.

In a society which was founded on rigid social and religious doctrines and mores, this subject was bound to continually cause friction. And not only within religious circles. There are some who consider themselves “material realists” who reject any new understanding of our sexual diversity. But this has all too often become an excuse for bigotry, discrimination and cruelty. It is also a poor application and understanding of how science actually works. The more we discover about a certain thing, the more our understanding of what is “materially real” changes as a result. These “materialists” have often become unwitting allies to racists, anti-Semites and fascists.

A popular conspiracy theory in many white supremacist circles is that the porn industry is a Jewish plot to weaken white men and exploit white women through the normalization of interracial intercourse. The infamous white supremacist David Duke said that Jews “see pornography as a weapon of revenge for real or imagined European wrongs against Jews from the time of Romans to the modern day.” In addition to this, the anti-masturbation campaign, which is apparently a thing, is of a piece with the broader anti-porn crusade. And it, too, has links to white supremacy. In fact, sex panic among racists is no small thing. The Proud Boys, for instance, demand its members eliminate viewing porn completely and limit masturbating to once a month.

The current sex panic must be understood as a legacy of American puritanism. And the supposed protection of white women and children’s “purity” is at its core. There are many examples of how that legacy has played out over the centuries, from the Jim Crow demonization of Black men as “sexual brutes” to the persecution of homosexuals during the Red Scare. In 1977, beauty contest winner and orange juice spokesperson Anita Bryant came right out saying what it was about when she launched the “Save Our Children” campaign, which aimed at discriminating against LGBTQ+ people in housing and employment.

Today, the panic is most often reflected in chatrooms, Bible studies, camp meetings and political rallies. Many have been ensnared by the unhinged QAnon cult which elevates this all to another level of conspiratorial insanity, one where Satanic pedophile rings in the top echelons of the Democratic Party are trafficking children for abuse and to extract a “life-prolonging” chemical known as “adrenochrome.” But it has also become mainstream, with ultra-conservative pundits like Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham and Candace Owens using their platforms to peddle odious and misleading tropes and stereotypes about queer people.

It cannot be understated that sexual minorities have bore the brunt of this puritanical cudgel. In connecting with other far-right fascists like Orban from Hungary, Bolsonaro from Brazil, or Putin in Russia, ultra-conservative evangelicals are hoping for wider global movement to purify and purge the world of everything and anyone they consider “sexually deviant or perverse.” It is the reason queer theory evokes such rage among them and galvanizes their animosity. And that brings me to the controversy over Maia Kobabe’s award winning book “Gender Queer.”

“Gender Queer” is an honest and intimate memoir by the author about the journey from adolescence to adulthood. It explores the complex feelings one has as they go through these often difficult periods, but from a queer perspective. Unsurprisingly, it has been cast as sexually explicit or even pornographic by ultra-conservatives because it contained some graphic imagery. It was never intended for young children, but for older teens and young adults who may be struggling with their identity and sexuality. None of this mattered. The rallying cry against the supposed “sexualization of children” has become a popular motto for censoring discussion of human sexual development. And instead of empowering young people with knowledge and agency over their own bodies, it is creating a culture of fear and repression that will undoubtedly lead to even more abuse, exploitation and self-harm.

As an adolescent and teenager, I know I would have appreciated Kobabe’s book as I was traversing those confusing times, especially since I grew up in a religiously conservative environment where human sexuality was seldom discussed. And queer sexuality never addressed at all. I knew I was different from the age of 7, and I wasn’t “groomed” or abused. I had loving parents. But my growth and development would have been so much easier if I had been given access to queer-affirming literature and adults who I could have been open and honest with.

And that is another reason why the smear of “groomer” is so loathsome and infuriating. Queer kids need adults with whom they can be comfortable with, now more than ever. But the current puritanical crusade is creating an atmosphere that will only alienate vulnerable youth from a society which is lurching backward to the dark ages every day. They deserve better. They deserve a safe, affirming and supportive culture provided by queer adults and their allies. The one which I never had.

Kenn Orphan, August 2022

Here on the coastal barrens of Nova Scotia the morning fog blankets the bramble and the sun struggles to pierce its cottony thickness. It does, though not without a struggle. Heated grass and pine unleash a rush of scent. The evening light, full of spindly arms of weightless colour. Then night falls and the galaxy lays out its spiral path in the sky over my meadow.

The air, the grasses, under rocks, atop trees, everywhere life is teeming. Blue Jays shatter my morning sleep with their deafening screech. Mice scurry and snakes lace their sinewy bodies through the tall grasses. My skin reflects all this life too. Red welts dot its landscape, the surreptitious kisses of tiny, unwelcome visitors I seldom see.

August, in its rushed laziness. One might miss the minutiae of it all.

And me, I am all too reminded of the coming end. Of season’s end. Of life’s end. My melancholic genes persuade me to contemplate those things whenever I get too high or dance too close to ecstasy. It puts a halt to my reverie, and in no uncertain terms.

And I think. I think of the earth, now endlessly battered and beleaguered, deforested and commodified. Of ocean, with its calcified coral cities now draped with suffocating algae. Of humankind, in endless enmity with “the other.” Locked in ignorant-borne hatred, until their hearts transmogrify into icy granite. Of the cloaks of privilege I don each day sewn from skin, and gender, and religion, and geography. A patchwork map of luck, banality and misfortune. I think of those beloved, now gone from the sphere I inhabit. Some lost recently. Some lost long ago. Their faces bless me, haunt me, elude me. Fortunate, perhaps, to no longer be locked in this orbit of birth and destruction and rebirth and annihilation.

Then, between stinging tears and slumber, the moon lifts its bloated face above the horizon. First slow, orange and blurred. Then open, and bold, and the colour of new snow. Lifted out of that prison cell of my forgetting. Like it vanished for half a day and then was re-created of salt, and stone, and God dreaming. Another dance of celestial distance repeated, as if scripted.

And I feel this ethereal flight of mine, sucking the wind out of my lungs. Frightened to catch that breath; as if doing so might shatter all of this to pieces.

Kenn Orphan, August, original prose written in 2017.

*Photo is of the evening skies over the coastal barrens and forest and out toward the Atlantic Ocean near our home in Prospect, Nova Scotia.