BACK! And just in time for the Apocalypse!

From 2004 to 2021, CANNONFIRE kept finding ways to irk nearly everyone on nearly every side of nearly every issue. Last year, Google shut down the site. 

Why? Dunno. 

The banishment occurred without warning. Despite numerous inquiries, Google refused to explain or to rescind its edict.

The shutdown may have some connection to the compromising of my email. (Damn hackers!) Or maybe it has some connection to my history as a surly, unclassifiable oddball.

But now the site is back. Don't ask me why or how. Resurrection is a mysterious business and this one is particularly confounding. Revival came only when a reader calling herself Faust -- I'm not making this up -- employed incantations and conjurations unknown to mere mortals. Somehow, she compelled the gods of Google to raise the dead. I owe this female Faust a massive debt. As a notable 18th century highway commissioner once said: Das ewig weibliche zieht uns hinan.

The site may migrate to another platform in the future. Google's capriciousness has injured my trust.

For the sake of newcomers, a few words of introduction are in order.

My name is Joseph Cannon. That's the name I've used professionally throughout this century; feel free to call me Joseph or Joe. I've decided to use my former name -- my 20th century name, if you will -- when writing about true crime and other non-political topics. Why? Reasons. If Google can be mysterious and capricious, so can I.

Righties will always hate me because I'm a die-hard Keynesian, a confirmed anti-Randroid, a big fan of FDR and JFK, a defender of Social Security and an advocate of universal health insurance. In short, I love alla that there Big Gummint stuff. Always have. Always will.

Above and beyond all partisan policy considerations, I think that the fight against fascism is the battle of our time. Frankly, at this stage of life I'd rather write about other topics -- heavy stuff, fun stuff, any stuff other than political stuff. But as long as the acolytes of Adolf threaten democracy and Enlightenment values, we are compelled to do battle. Even if all you have is a slingshot, load your weapon and join the fight.

Lefties of a certain stripe -- far lefties, young lefties -- will always hate me because I seek to cancel "cancel culture." I despise postmodernism and all of its misshapen offspring. I think that Critical Race Theory is itself racist to the core. I think that Identity politics is -- and I speak literally -- a synonym for fascism. 

(Did you know that the term "Identity" originated on the racist right? Topic for a future post...) 

I lived in West Hollywood for a while and always got along fine with gays and trans folks, but the current po-mo pissants who pretend to speak for those communities have left me well and truly repulsed. My pronouns are "go," "fuck," and "yourself." I stopped calling myself a feminist when the Me Tooers took Al Franken's scalp. I now call myself an equalist. 

Wokeness has pissed off a whole lotta good people: Bill Maher, Helen Pluckrose, John McWhorter, Stephen Fry, J.K. Rowling, a massive number of Latinos, a growing number of blacks, and almost the entire American working class -- the class that used to be the backbone of the Democratic party. Modern feminism has alienated Margaret freakin' Atwood, fer chrissakes. Woke comic books have destroyed an American art form at a time when it should be more popular than ever. 

It's time to admit that the the critics of Woke-ism are not imagining things or over-reacting or falling for a right-wing propaganda ploy. Wokeness is a cultural disaster. It has done nothing to aid those it claims to champion. It serves only to aid the fascist assault on the Enlightenment. Woke idiots make liberals seem unelectable and toxic.

This piece by Sarah Hepola does much to explain why the Dems will be slaughtered in November, and why the fascists will rebound in 2024.

Every day, I scrolled the endless river of outrage and all-caps, watching people express similar views to mine only to be pounced upon. Once-celebrated writers were being publicly rebranded as ghoulish, pieces of trash, red-pilled. The unwritten rule of elite media tribes seemed to be this: You spout the company line, or you shut up. And that’s why, midway through a career built on speaking out, I shut up.

One last thing. For some reason, many folks are talking about Karl Marx these days, although nobody quotes his writings. Guess I had better make my own position clear.

While I do not advocate Marxism -- the labor theory of value never persuaded me -- I do have fond memories of the days when folks calling themselves "Marxists" would occasionally show evidence that they had read Capital. Everyone seems to have forgotten that Uncle Karl was an economist. He didn't write about race or gender or any of that Identity shit. Whether you love or loathe the man, a "Marxism" without Marx is surrealism, not socialism.

Here's a cute mnemonic device to help you discern real Marxism from the fake stuff: Marx means money. If it ain't about money, it ain't Marxism.

Yes, it really is that simple. 

Unfortunately, both the po-mo pseudolefties and the disingenuous libertarians (I'm looking at you, James Lindsay and Jordan Peterson) are united in a conspiracy to mislead and deceive. These right/left conspirators want you to believe that Uncle Karl wrote "Whites should wallow in self-loathing," not "Workers of the world, unite." Both the left-wing misleaders and the right-wing deceivers are funded, or at least applauded, by high-tech corporatists, by Dark Enlightenment neo-monarchists, by Putin's hacks, by Bannon-esque "Traditionalists," by all the oligarchs who dislike democracy and profit from ever-worsening income inequality. 

These manipulators want a working class oblivious to class. A working class at war with itself. Divide and rule.

Yes, it really is that simple.