6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

The above is George Orwell’s sixth rule of writing, from his essay, Politics And The English Language. The first five are basic good writing rules.

I’m struck by this final rule, which is a kind of self-censorship.

I think what he means here is pretty much the current problem with Social Media these days. Being silly, stupid and boring is not the problem. That’s the common denominator. No, I’m talking the lack of Civility. The fact that you can be mean, and ugly, and even dangerous because your Old Man used to beat you up, or your Mother never gave you a hug, or you grew up in a dump with Meth Head parents. I don’t believe anybody’s a horrible mess of a human being because they were born that way. Something awful happened to you. Maybe lots of awful things happened, and you grew up mentally bent. You forgot how to be kind. Or the Kindness got squeezed out of you through the years of abuse. And so one of the ways that you lash out is through the relative anonymity of social media.

You feel like you should be able to say anything you god damned please. You can toss word bombs around in the name of freedom. You can even beat up on the Jews.

Billionaires Rule The Podiums

I think it’s pretty obvious to anybody that’s looking around lately and trying to get by in The Good Old U.S.A.. that we’re going through some hard times. It should also be obvious to a person with common sense and a good set of ears that we the people are not Billionaires.

How many billionaires are there in the US in 2022?

America still leads the world, with 735 billionaires worth a collective $4.7 trillion.

I’m the Gloomer. Don’t ask me for a statistical comparison. For one thing it’s work. For another thing, it’s depressing. But I did check Google for a number: the good old USA has a population of 332 Million people. Put 735 people next to 332 million people. Let’s face it.

None of us…I’m talking none of us…none of us is a billionaire.

This man is a billionaire. He owns–pretty much owns–FACEBOOK now called Meta. The other big daddy social media deals, Twitter, Youtube, Instagram, TickToc, WhatsApp, etc., are owned by Multi Multi Millionaires or Billionaires. The Google owner is a Billionaire. That dude who owns Amazon (I love Amazon. They published my novel for nothing!) is a HUGE Billionaire.

I feel like I’m beating a dead horse, here. Of course we know that Billionaires run the news outlets. All the information we get is granted to us courtesy of the Super Rich. My Conservative Uber Republican girlfriend’s favorite news outlet, Fox, is owned by a Billionaire.

So what’s my point? Are we suckers to these people? They own everything. We eat Dog food? They get to make the rules and all we can do is hang like cave bats.

Pretty Much. Yes. That’s the situation.

So what do we do about it?

Nothing…except this:

Be aware. Look around. Set yourself some rules of behavior and follow them. Be kind to your neighbor. Turn the other cheek. But don’t back down. And when these people who rule say we maybe don’t need to follow certain rules of civility, we do the one thing we can do: quit.

Just say, No Dice.

If enough of us do that, maybe somebody will listen. Like this guy who just bought Twitter.

I doubt it.

But who am I?

I’m just a schmo like the rest of you.

I’m no Billionaire.