By MARY UYEMATSU KAO

As I get older, the world seems to be more and more of a different place than what I knew of it.  The changing times seems to have accelerated since the age of the Internet began, and now, with cell phones, the big AI (artificial intelligence) and things I’ve already blocked from my comprehension, I find myself in a world where a new language of English is spoken, or texted. 

Even terms like “gaslighting” seem strange to me — part of our new lexicon that reflects the new times we are living in. The frequent use of “gaslighting” in mainstream media has forced me to look it up. 

Gaslighting comes from a 1944 film titled “Gaslight,” where a man manipulates his wife into thinking she is insane. Google defines it as: “An insidious form of manipulation and psychological control. Victims of gaslighting are deliberately and systematically fed false information that leads them to question what they know to be true, often about themselves. They may end up doubting their memory, their perception, and even their sanity.” 

As small newspapers fold, and the newsprint media is quickly becoming extinct as Internet platforms are cheaper and save trees. Even well-established newspapers like TheL.A. Timesjust laid off 115 journalists, including many of color — another sign of the times. 

1,500 people are dying every week from COVID-19, even though we seem to have left the pandemic in the long [-COVID] forgotten past. With time traveling faster in my slower body, what does the new year hold?

The tragi-comedy is the coming elections and another electoral circus. The only thing Nikki Haley has going for her is that no one wants to see another Trump/Biden race. U.S. mainstream news corporations no longer pretend to be objective — journalists committed to delivering the news are being fired for anything close to “pro-Palestinian,” which is now equated with anti-Semitism. 

International war crimes include indiscriminately killing not just 26,000+ Gazan civilians, but also 142 journalists/media workers, 300 medical workers, and 142 U.N. aid workers. And our guy — who well deserves his new nickname, President “Genocide Joe” Biden — bypassed Congress twice in December to give more arms sales to Israel.

But the response is gathering steam. Young people have taken to the streets in protest and made their voices heard. Some 400,000 demonstrated in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 13 to demand “an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza, a stop to the U.S. funding of Israeli genocide there, and an end to the siege of Gaza.” www.liberationnews.org/national-march-for-gaza-brings-enormous-crowd-to-dc-to-reject-u-s-israeli-genocide/

City resolutions from San Francisco, Minneapolis, Detroit, Oakland, Bridgeport (Connecticut), Atlanta, Seattle, Dearborn (Michigan), Albany (New York), Akron (Ohio), and Providence ( Rhode Island) have called for a cease-fire in the war on Gaza. https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/4429884-cities-gaza-ceasefire-hamas-israel/

The United Nations’ International Court of Justice (ICJ) fell short of calling for a cease-fire in Gaza, but in a 15-2 vote ordered Israel to “take all measures within its power” to halt acts that contribute to genocide, to allow sufficient humanitarian aid into Gaza to end the suffering among Palestinian civilians, and to prevent and punish the public statements of incitement made by senior Israeli officials. Israel must report back to the court in a month on the steps it has taken. www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/jan/26/icj-ruling-israel-western-backers 

It may be nothing more than a huge political victory for Gaza, since the ICJ has no enforceable power. But the World Court heard South Africa’s charges of Israeli genocide on its apartheid state, a tremendous act of humanity from one former apartheid state to the Palestinian victims of Israel’s apartheid.

 So what do we have to look forward to in 2024? When times are hard, confusing, and all at once contradictory, where do we go for emotional and spiritual solace? Religion, traditions, myths, what have you — people need a rock to hold on to when the world is crashing down around us. So how about some Chinese astrology to begin our new year?

“According to Chinese astrology, 2024 is a Wood Dragon Year. Wood indicates calmness, loyalty, and reliability and Dragons endowed with prominent abilities and revolutionary ideas.” www.chinahighlights.com/travelguide/chinese-zodiac/dragon.htm#auspicious

The U.S. government has been shutting down any consideration of socialism ever since the Soviet Union gave birth to the reality that working people can create their own government that represents working people’s interests and needs. Revolutionary ideas are just about the only thing that is going to get us out of this quagmire of gaslighting the American people and the world.

Let the Wood Dragon and revolutionary ideas fly unfettered in 2024!

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Mary Uyematsu Kao is the author/photographer of “Rockin’ the Boat: Flashbacks of the 1970s Asian Movement” and former publications coordinator for the UCLA Asian American Studies Press.  She can be reached for comments and feedback at [email protected]. Opinionsexpressed are not necessarily those ofThe Rafu Shimpo.

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