Hopeless

Hello everyone, I'm Luca. No funny intro, no quirky lines from me, I'm hoping to put forward a serious tone to you.

So this is in someway, my 56th entry on this blog if you discount my 'update' (By the way, my internet is fixed) and also an article I deleted that I wasn't proud of that I'll attempt to redo soon. 56 is my favourite number, so you'd think my '56th' article would be a positive one, and whilst negative is what I'd expect something that wasn't positive to be, I'd say it was real perhaps?

2017 was a year of realisation for me, and not for good. We all go into the following year with a resolution and it's always something we know we won't complete, that won't be the case for me as I'll always be striving to be a better person, you can hold me to that word. So it isn't self realisation that's bothering me at the moment, it's the realisation that the world is dominated by evil.

I have always refrained from using labels like that because I still truly believe that calling something all good or all bad is a weak thing to do, to pour all that's wrong with the world into whatever you disagree with and live in ignorance. Because what I have realised is that we can scream bigotry and human rights all we want, that whatever we have been told is morally right, that from an early age we are placed in front of the television or we listen to our elders and are taught to be respectful, what good is it?

Realising a lot of things in 2017, from something as personal as a director of my favourite movie really screwing with the fans of that movie, to also seeing how close we all are to seeing that moron in the white house really screw with us.

Having seen Star Wars: The Last Jedi for the second time today - I have some issues with it but overall it's a really great movie - but when I was watching it, I remember thinking about what the basic formula of a Star Wars movie has always been, the very basic premise of good vs. evil, the grey area inbetween the light and the dark and what makes either side of the coin. It began to hit me, what makes good and evil, doing good is fighting for those who can't fight back, and evil is doing whatever it can at the expense of those who can't fight back. Having asked myself that for years, I now know the truth.

I don't want to spoil the Star Wars movie for you guys incase you haven't seen it, so if somehow you haven't then slight spoiler warning ahead, the Resistance is down to only a few members by the end of the film. However despite that, you hear throughout the film that there's still hope even after what they all go through, that there's always hope that the Sith, the Empire, now the First Order will be taken down, they will not win. We lose ourselves in this arrogant view of "We will win against evil", but really, will we?

Back in around 2015 or 2016, I went to see Dave Gorman and we were treated to a supporting act from a comedian named Nick Doody, and he was brilliant. He spoke about the 7/7 bombings in London, something which hits home for me as my parents were there a year before that happened and could very well have been there that year instead for the same reason, and how the British spirit keeps hope alive, and I loved hearing that. But having seen terror attacks happen this year especially, I won't hold back when I tell you just how scary it is, but not just terror attacks but also the people that are in charge.

In America, you have a president who quite openly is discriminative against LGBT people, believes black people who protest against the American flag because of police brutality are sons of bitches and Charlottesville racists have some decent people, and also who has now deprived the poor of health insurance and will openly allow them to die because of poverty, what is America exactly? Is it its people or its money? Because I have yet to find a redeeming quality about the Republican party, no matter how hard I try.

I have come to realise just how this world really is ran by evil, that evil is defined by doing what you can but at the expense of someone who is unable to fight back. A cowardly way of winning. It saddens me, because along with that nutter known as Trump doing all of that, we also have legitimate fears that Kim Jong-Un is going to go to nuclear war with Trump, and I can't bare the thought of it.

The other thing I realised this year, your heroes can be just as egregious. Matthew Vaughn could do no wrong in my eyes, but it's almost as if he tried. After I found out he killed Roxy in Kingsman and the manner in which he did, I won't mince my words when I say that I did cry, a lot. I broke down in public, I had to go to a private place and get my mum on the phone, I was a helpless mess. You have all heard enough from me about my reasons for being so passionate about Roxy in Kingsman to last a lifetime, and whilst my petition is fast approaching 700 on its way to 1,000 I still can't help but feel helpless still and hopeless.

It still disgusts me how the Kingsman official Twitter accounts have joked about the demand to see Roxy, the Kingsman mobile game Twitter account even used Roxy as a means to entice people to play the game, saying "She is still kicking butt in the Kingsman mobile game". They know that they fucked up! I know of some people who have confronted Matthew Vaughn but they have been civil with him, like he's going to listen to someone like that. Mark my words, I will confront that sexist troglodyte one day, but the fact I say it means I have to act on it and I am going to find that difficult to physically do. I won't have any issue going up to him in person, I just have to find a way to see him in person.

Anyway, small little tangent there, but overall, powerlessness. Going back to the Republicans, when they passed that bill that deprived 13 million people of their health insurance, I remember seeing a video of a few protestors who said that Republicans were laughing at them, one even trying to have a conversation with another Republican politician and they ran away. A great irony of the Republican way is being a heavily religious Christian party, when Jesus Christ even says "Heal the sick, feed the hungry, care for the weakest among us".

I'm well aware that it may sound like I'm trying to do a hit piece on all Republicans, I'm sure there are some people out there who have either voted for the Republican party in America or identify as a Republican that don't vote that way just at the expense of anybody who can't fight back. I always want to see the good in everyone, I'm just struggling with those sort of people who don't have basic decency like that.

I say this knowing I'm not perfect. I have gone through life making shitty slip ups at the expense of people and I can't live with myself, and I say I'm going to be better not because I don't think I was not deserving of any sort of criticism, but because I want to continue to improve. It would be wrong of anyone to believe they have peeked, and I will always focus on improving myself, it's just incredibly discouraging to know that there are people that do wrong in this world.

Not really the people who do despicable things, but the ones who have the power and abuse it for their own good, we have seen more than the fair share of that in 2017. I am all out of hope for the better of this world, I will continue trying to be a decent human but I know that more people are going to have to die in order to satisfy the greed of these abusive people of power, and that upsets me, not because only is it happening but nothing can be done about it.

You elect a person of the people, there will always be conservatives with some legitimacy somehow, and the many bigots who we turn the left shoulder on and pretend they don't exist when they still do.

You trust someone you idolise to do something decent and they'll exercise their ego at the expense of a beloved character in a movie which on face value, doesn't matter but it really does to some people, myself included.

You have hope, that tiny little spark that will light the flame that will burn down your enemies, they still live in that similar bubble that means they'll continue to fight in the same way you will. In the end, we don't matter to anyone who doesn't care about us? Pass a law that will allow another corporate tycoon to buy another yacht at the expense of the health and pension of a Thomas, Richard and Harold, what can we do about it?

Write a blog post about how pissed off you are, what will it do? Don't be naïve. At the end of the day, what is it that makes us believe that we matter to them? We don't and we never will, we can't win by spirit alone, what is there to do? No point getting all wound up about it, we have no power. Remember my blog post about a voice with no power, Heyday films did respond to me and tell me they'll keep me in mind but honestly, I doubt they have, they probably just told me what I wanted to hear and dismissed me.

I'm sorry if this is bringing you all down, I needed to get this off my chest and tell you all that I feel hopeless. Another case of injustice in America is the FCC most punchable face guy repealing net neutrality, he made a very condescending video that used Star Wars in a segment, and that was when Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker) went to town on him, saying how the Jedi would fight for good and for people who couldn't fight back. That parallels really well with a casino scene in The Last Jedi that whilst a bit meh in execution, still showcased how people make their money at the expense of everyday folk.

This is why I feel lost, and almost devastated at the state of this world. I have a lot of good in my life, great friends and a supporting family who are very well off, and I know I haven't done perfectly in my short 21 years in life but I want to be better. I want to do good in the world, and that's all I can say to all of you, do good and do what you think is good, do good by your fellow person and when you see something wrong and the whole world is telling you that it's right, plant yourself like a log and do, not, budge.

That's the note I want to end this on, that evil exists and just do what you think is right. You have some amazing people in this world, like Edward Snowden who is in exile in Russia because of his 'crimes' when it wasn't a crime, Snowden exposed an invasive NSA practice of spying on everyone, and he did it because he knew it was right. Be good people, even when you're all out of hope like me, just do what's right.

Thank you all,
Luca.