Oliver Kornetzke: America's Shadow Made Flesh

This quote illuminates the many layered truths about America. We did not emerge into this fascist era overnight. No. The reality is that there has existed a very dark and painful shadow side that has always haunted our nation and beyond, something that has been with us from the very earliest days of colonialism, slavery, and the genocide of the Indigenous Peoples to the present. These horrors need to be exposed. Denial of the toxic costs of American exceptionalism, imperialism, capitalism, greed and hatred and delusion, political and media systems beholden to powerful wealthy interests, and more only keep us stuck and perpetuate the suicidal trajectory that we are all on. We will never be free of the great traumas we are faced with today until we become conscious of these stark truths and decide individually and collectively to face, heal, unburden, and transform what has been at the root of such profound pain and suffering for so very long. I bow with respect and gratitude to those truth-tellers like Oliver Kornetzke who are caring and courageous enough to illuminate reality again and again and again. May courage, truth, and profound caring for the well-being of us all be contagious. — Molly

Behold. The festering carcass of American rot shoved into an ill-fitting suit: the sleaze of a conman, the cowardice of a draft dodger, the gluttony of a parasite, the racism of a Klansman, the sexism of a back-alley creep, the ignorance of a bar-stool drunk, and the greed of a hedge-fund ghoul — all spray-painted orange and paraded like a prize hog at a county fair. Not a president. Not even a man. Just the diseased distillation of everything this country swears it isn't but always has been — arrogance dressed up as exceptionalism, stupidity passed off as common sense, cruelty sold as toughness, greed exalted as ambition, and corruption worshipped like gospel. It is America's shadow made flesh, a rotting pumpkin idol proving that when a nation kneels before money, power, and spite, it doesn't just lose its soul — it shits out this bloated obscenity and calls it a leader.

— Oliver Kornetzke