Being a part-time blogger and full-time citizen has always been hard, especially when blogging about current events. It has been difficult to get time and topic to align. I thought retirement would help timewise, but so far, I’ve been wrong. I have to say, the schedule at work made my time much more predictable and commitments manageable. In the four months since officially retiring, my time has been completely fungible but also, completely unscheduleable. This is the long way round to say, this post is a little late for the times, but still important.
The saga of Jimmy Kimmel’s cancellation and reinstatement illustrates the effectiveness of the Ten Commandments of Resisting Fascism. Let’s begin by reviewing the commandments and then we’ll look at how not following them leads to trouble and following them leads to success.
The Ten Commandments for Resisting Fascism
The Ten Commandments for Resisting Fascism in America
- Don’t work for Republicans – government, corporations, individuals.
- If you must work for Republicans, do a bad job.
- If you have to work for Republicans, work slowly.
- Be accident-prone around Republicans; destroy important machines and tools.
- Destroy everything that could benefit the Republicans.
- Delay all transport concerning Republicans, especially ICE.
- Boycott Republican-aligned media outlets.
- Don’t shop at Republican-owned stores.
- Treat traitors for what they’re worth.
- Protect anyone oppressed by Republicans, especially by ICE.
Jimmy Kimmel Gets Yanked
Famously, Trump and the head of the FCC, Brendan Carr, leaned on ABC and Disney to take Jimmy Kimmel off the air after Kimmel criticized Trump and Republicans for taking advantage of the assassination of Charlie Kirk. In the his public remarks, Trump noted how he made $15 million off ABC when they settled a defecation lawsuit brought by Trump’s oxymoronic “presidential library” when George Stephanopoulos said Trump had been found liable for raping E. Jean Carroll. The Orange Caricature would also frequently also include CBS’ $16 million settlement over “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris.
Given that two of the three big private networks rolled over for him in BS lawsuits, and he successfully defunded PBS, he figured bullying ABC into yanking Kimmel would be as easy as getting Steven Colbert’s show cancelled. And, it was!
Big surprise. How does needing FCC approval for a telecommunications merger affect business judgement? Apparently, money trumps the Constitution and our civil liberties. Who needs freedom of the press and democracy when you can make billions?
Serious question, how much would you sell our democracy for? Because that’s what ABC did when they agreed to pull Kimmel’s show immediately.
That Trump keeps coming back and making fascist demands of our media companies shows you exactly what happens when you work for Republicans. You sell yourself once, you’re always for sale.
Do you think any of our for-profit media outlets and their corporate overlords learned anything from this? Hell no. They’ll sell us all out again and again and again.
Jimmy Kimmel Gets Reinstated
However, once Kimmel was cancelled, my social media feeds were filled with people claiming to have cancelled their Disney related subscriptions, Disney+, ESPN, and what have you. There was an impromptu spontaneous boycott of all things Disney. Boy was I ever glad I was up on Andor.
It didn’t take long before ABC announced that it was going to reinstate Kimmel. Of course, the fascist propaganda outlets, Sinclair and Nexstar, went along with them shortly thereafter. Even the fascists can’t resist the allure of the dollar.
And, that siblings, is the lesson. Don’t collaborate with fascists. Don’t patronize their businesses, consume their media, or work at their businesses. And, if you do, make sure to discretely cost them money somehow someway, break something, work slowly, lose things, do whatever you can to be the spanner (that’s a wrench, y’all) in their works. Fascists and fascist collaborators deserve no peace until the racists are afraid to show their stripes again.
Image Attribution
The image was taken from the post, The Ten Commandments for Resisting Fascism. I made the meme, but the original source of the photograph has long since been lost by Ye Olde Blogge — we sincerely regret the error.
The Psy of Life 
How Trump still goes farther, in BREACHING the First Amendment Right of the Media and the Press, and he will, REIGN over all of the land, and everything and every one in the land is no longer free, because everyone living under the jursidiction is now, ENSLAVED by the elected TYRANT!!!
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Howdy Taurus!
Trump is not breaking the First Amendment of the for-profit media, they are handing it to him. They are anticipating his wants and just handing it to him. But, I think Trump has a real fight on his hands. I Don’t think the American people go quietly into the night of fascist tyranny. Instead, I think we’ll rage, rage, rage against the dying of the light of liberty.
The media doesn’t cover the protests and resistance that is occurring daily across the country, especially where ICE is active and the National Guard has been deployed. The next big protest date is in ten days, 18 October. If it is a big day of protest, it’ll tell us a lot about how Americans are feeling about how Trump is changing the country and what they’re willing to do in response.
Blog On, Sibling!
Jack
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Quite so, when dealing with the greedy, remember that fear of loss trumps (sometimes, I wish we had another common word for that) hope of gain.
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I think that was one of the wasted lines in that post, “How much would you sell our democracy for?” I should have focused more on that. I have some posts that I’m thinking about — if I can get around to writing them — that I can use it in.
I’m thinking that democracy goes cheap to most of the corporatists.
Huzzah!
Jack
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The goal needs to be changing their cost-benefit calculation about compliance.
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