Darrin Gonzales
Bio
Darrin Gonzales is a student and poet. He holds a BA and MA in English Language and Literature from the University of Nebraska-Kearney and has studied Literary and Cultural Theory at the University of Amsterdam.
Stories (2)
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After "GaysOverCovid"
“The shitstorm is not a form of accountability.” Richard Seymour, author of The Twittering Machine, continues, “Nor is it a form of political pedagogy, regardless of the high-minded intentions, or sadism, of the participants. No one is learning anything, except how to remain connected to the machine. It is a punishment beating, its ecstasies sanctioned by virtue. [Social media] has, as part of its addictive repertoire, democratized punishment” (74, emphases added). Government response to the Covid-19 pandemic, in general, has left much to be desired. The privileging of profits over people (an alliteration for our times) has all but ensured the string of disasters Covid-19 has left behind and continues to leave behind.
By Darrin Gonzales5 years ago in The Swamp
No Laughing Matter: Taking Populism Seriously
The January 6th storming of the White House marked a turning point in the American political sphere. All of the US’s most prescient crises came into full relief and the inadequacy of our own government to protect itself from an attempted coup, one that began at the top with Donald Trump and trickled down through his allies to his followers, became startingly apparent. Irony seemed to rule the day. Complacency from the police seemed to confirm the police system’s complicity with America’s right populist movement, yet this clashed with the insurrectionist’s disparaging cries against the police when they started to respond to their rioting with force. In a moment of extreme dissonance, there appeared to be brief contact between the right and the BLM protests that they actively vilified and from which they gleaned (accurately) that the police were on their side. This inconsistency revealed to Trump supporters what the left has been saying all this time—the police serve the state and not the people.
By Darrin Gonzales5 years ago in The Swamp
