Woke Rot

Yesterday my wife and I visited a fabrics store that we have often visited in the past. The parking lot was pockmarked with potholes - more than the usual amount for mud season in Maine. There were only a few cars in the lot despite it being mid-afternoon and we wondered if the store might even be closed. It looked dark through the front windows. But it wasn't closed.

As we entered the store my senses were accosted by what seemed like the leftover smell of a fire. I mentioned it to my wife and to two employees who were in the checkout section. Neither employee was aware of any smoky smell, yet throughout the store this strong smoky smell permeated the air. Mind you, this is a fabrics store. Smoke damage in a fabrics store should be serious business.

I spoke with several other employees, women, and one man who had that manager look to him. He commented that when you work in a place long enough you tend to not smell how the place smells. None of the ladies were aware of the smoky smell. However, massive areas of ceiling tiles had collapsed and in at least one area plastic hoses from above the ceiling tiles were draining water into plastic bins. Everything above the holes in the ceiling looked black to me. Clearly something recent had taken place but no employee was willing to talk about it.

Something about this experience reminded me of what has become of our society here in America. Even when the truth is obvious, nobody dares to speak it out loud. Everybody is afraid.

This morning I came up with a term to describe that phenomenon: woke rot

Woke refers to the fact that one and only one perspective is tolerated.

Rot refers to the way people need to lie to defend that perspective when it is obviously untrue.

Whether we admit it or not, woke rot has all of us living in fear of retaliation should we dare speak the truth.

So who are the enforcers of this rot?

Here's one example:

The Covid Twitter Files Drop: Protecting Fauci While Censoring The Truth w/Matt Taibbi