It’s a Critical Solution and Everyone has the Blues: A Reflection on Current Social Events Meets GNR

9 min readJul 24, 2020

Disclaimer: I don’t own any of lyrics from the Guns N Roses music used in this article. I am using their amazing lyrics to convey my own message, and to give a guideline. Thank you GNR/Axl Rose for these songs.

Look at your young men fighting

Look at your women crying

Look at your young men dying

The way they’ve always done before

Like many of us 80s and 90s kids, we grew up listening to Guns N Roses. They were one of the most influential and dysfunctional bands we’re ever seen. But their music stands the test of time, even more than some may notice outside of their more popular works like “Welcome to the Jungle” and “Patience”. Axl Rose, the lead singer and main writer for most of the band’s music, was very much ahead of his times with songs like “Garden of Eden”, “Catcher in the Rye”, “The Garden” and “Civil War”, just to name a few. The reason being is, with everything that going on right now, we are at the beginning of a civil war in a rotting garden of Eden. The question is, who is the bad apple who spoiled the whole bunch, and can the bunch even be saved. This writing plans to dive into multiple sociological issues going on in the world right now while bringing a little rock and roll into the mix. Because we are pretty much living in a world of anarchy.

I read it on a wall, it went straight to my head

It said, “Dance to the tension of a world on edge”

We got racial violence, and who’ll cast the first stone?…

’Cause all these dreams are swept aside

By bloody hands of the hypnotized…

Since Trump aka 45 came into office, with each year, then each month, then week, and now day, it’s become a game of Bingo of how dumb/ignorant/hateful/violent things can things get here in the US. It does feel like watching everyone dancing to the tension of a world on edge, because everyone is so easily triggered, and opinions are becoming facts, and facts are being ignored or hated. But it isn’t just 45 that is the issue here. The world governments are pretty much almost all dictatorships across the board, and none of these people, or their supporters, are hiding how evil they truly are. Tack on that many of these supports of 45 are as racist, xenophobic, sexist and ignorant as him. We had 45 constantly calling the current virus spread around the world, Covid-19, the “Chinese Virus/Kung Flu” or a number of other racially driven names against the Chinese people. Could we blame the Chinese government for them hiding the issue as long as they did for things getting bad so quickly? Slightly. But reality is that we in the US are struggling because the hate that is spreading like wildfire is making things harder than it needs to. We have entire counties in states saying they have no desire to follow health protocol all because they simply don’t seem to want to. There isn’t much logic to their excuses. We have racial violence going on everywhere with lynchings of black people, assaults on protestors for the Black Lives Matter Movement, Asian people being attacked due to the racist comments by 45 (or simply because they can), mixed race people are still being hated because now our existence is hated by all angles because we don’t fit in anywhere. The tension is getting worse with each day, and the current economic, political, and social issues are feeding it.

Look in the doubt we’ve wallowed

Look at the leaders we’ve followed

Look at the lies we’ve swallowed…

Our governments are dangerous and out of control

The Garden of Eden is just another graveyard…

North Korea makes their rule look like a monarchy, but it’s a clear dictatorship with how the area is run, especially with their complete cut off from the world, to the point that if someone tries to leave they are killed for it. Then we have China, where the President there has made sure he can never be removed from office until he’s incapable of functioning. Russia is all but the same with Putin doing similar to China where he keeps extending his “Presidency”. The Philippines is run by men who have made it clear they will kill anyone opposing them. For me, living in the United States, watching 45 ruin our nation has been pretty much made the US a joke. Unlike the rest, where I gave recent examples of their behavior, 45 is just a daily issue that anyone can find the info for by simply looking at his Twitter account. But while the rest of these dictators found a way to keep themselves in office, it seems like 45 is trying to do the same, except he actually has supporters, who honestly are no better than him.

Look at the world we’re killing

The way we’ve always done before

As of 2020 there are around 7.8 billion people on this planet. That is an extreme amount of overpopulation. We are mass consuming to the point that we’re destroying our planet and taking away resources faster than we can reproduce, if they can be naturally reproduced at all. But one major issue is the massive amount of willful ignorance of the human race. But things are going to stick more to the US here. The “Household final consumption expenditure” (HFCE) is a transaction of the national account’s use of income account representing consumer spending. In 2017 the US was the second on the list of mass consumption per capita, we were losing by only 1000 to Hong Kong. I’m going to assume we’re beating them by now. And our carbon footprint is second to all of China, which also has the largest population in the world with 1.43 billion people, whereas the US has only 329 million. At the rate we are going, we are going to run out of resources, but not enough people even care that we are killing our world. Add on that our social structures are designed to over consume in both locations, we are destined to rot our supposed Eden even faster.

The billions shift from side to side

And the wars go on with brainwashed pride

For the love of God and our human rights

One of the more frustrating issues, especially in the US, is white people with signs and even guns saying “My human and God given rights are being violated by having to wear a mask”, even though this is clearly about more than that since we know if a POC did this they would be shot on sight. Their selfishness is a part of the problem. How a mask is impeding them is difficult to fathom for everyone else. The only thing we can seem to see is the virus, which is a mindset 45 continues to perpetuate. Far too often that will be the retort by anti-vax/covid types, that it’s a “liberal virus”. How does a virus decide to side with a specific party? Anyone know? Anyway, point is that this completely incorrect and hateful thinking is causing a massive divide. I have seen more than once 45 followers saying the jump in covid numbers is related to the BLM protests, yet enough studies show that isn’t true, just a simple Google search shows that the parties without masks and social distancing are the issue. But 45 followers never listen anyway, they seem to want this divide as much as the person they’re supporting. Add on that right now the US is divided on whether to have children be on campus or not, even though we know anyone of any age can get covid right now. And many can be carriers without symptoms. In other countries, they have found efficient ways to reopen and have kids back in school, including barriers around desks, but mostly it’s simply just wearing masks and willingly social distancing without argument. But in America, it’s a fight. In California, where the agreement to shut down campuses was done be each county and school district, where even some, like Orange County, are still saying they will stay open. And then you have Florida, with cases on the rise, saying the pretty much do not care. If this isn’t brainwashed pride and arrogance, I don’t know what is.

Sometimes, when I look out, it’s hard to see the day

It’s a feeling, you can have it, it’s not mine to take away…

By bloody hands of the hypnotized…

One huge issue that needs to be addressed is the rather disturbing current drive for PC (Politically Correct) Cancel Culture. PC culture began with the good intentions of helping people who were “triggered” by serious things like rape, abuse, military PTSD, where if something may trigger a negative response, there was a need for a warning. This was usually done in schools or in online videos, where a warning would be said or come up on screen to avoid a section of a video. This is actually very useful in one way. But then it very quickly spiraled where if anything was deemed “not ok” in PC terms by someone could say they were “triggered”. Even the term triggered is used more as an attack than its original intent. Many times, a person will claim they were “triggered” by someone simply being honest or asking a question. Add on the term “snowflake”, which pretty much means someone who “can’t deal”, and usually used as an attack as well now, and it’s just a constant assault on everyone simply for not being able to respectfully agree to disagree on a topic. Now we have strayed almost completely from the original intent of being politically correct and more on the lines or finding ways to have an excuse to attack someone, and usually it’s not really justified. Cancel Culture began with, similar to PC, positive ideals. “The term has been credited to black users of Twitter, where it has been used as a hashtag.” It was mainly used to go after predators like Bill Cosby and Louis C.K., and more recently Harvey Weinstein, JK Rowling and the police who killed George Floyd. But just like PC culture, it gained a new head and is now commonly used by the average person to attack random people they simply don’t like and cause a bandwagon effect which can have some very unwarranted results. Honestly, looking up these terms showed how negative social media and society has become. Things that were created to help, they are now weapons to destroy a person. It’s OK to not like something, but to become a part of a mass hysteria almost hypnotized by social violence, that will help no one.

I don’t need your civil war

It feeds the rich while it buries the poor

To sum up everything, we are in the midst of a civil war, except it’s coming from everywhere. The reason being is this is the first time in history where everyone everywhere is connected somehow, and easily. We can get news from most parts of the world, even with some difficulty. We are fighting with everyone via social media, which is so weaponized now with things like PC Cancel Culture, where a simply disagreement can equal you getting attacked by people you don’t even know, and attacked to a point of losing everything in your life, or your actual life. And then some do deserve the cancel treatment if they did something terrible, like saying they would kill a POC/Asian/Mixed race simply for being who they were born as, or hate/violence towards the LGBTQ community. The segregation that dictators are causing is really helping no one. The civil war may seem to “feed the rich while it buries the poor”, but at some point, it will backfire when the poor are so beaten down they have nothing to give, or they fight back in needed unison. But the question still stands, who is the bad apple spoiling the whole damn bunch? I’ll leave you to decide.

Whaz so civil ‘bout war anyway? …

We’re lost in the Garden of Eden

This fire is burning, and it’s out of control

It’s not a problem you can stop…

References

1. https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/20692214

2. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-43361276

3. https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1300875/russia-news-vladimir-putin-constitution-vote-president-2036-joseph-stalin-ussr

4. https://theconversation.com/philippines-rodrigo-dutertes-dictatorship-sinks-to-new-depths-with-closure-of-main-broadcaster-138025

5. https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/

6. http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160311-how-many-people-can-our-planet-really-support
7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_final_consumption_expenditure

8.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_household_final_consumption_expenditure_per_capita