Squid Game doesn't feel like sci fi anymore: Update
Killing people for fun and profit: It's in Trump's GOP 2025 budget bill. Here's what we do now.
Update: While this shameful bill passed the house since I first published this, we don’t give up. Jump to the action items here, or stay and read a quick backstory first to remind us what we’re fighting for — and against.
You know that I love the dystopia.
Zombie apocalypses. Dystopian hellscapes. Orwellian governments. AI overloads gone amok. And my favorite — the survival of humanity hinging on one badass woman fighting against all odds.
Give me all of it.
That, of course, includes Squid Game.
(I have not yet watched the S3 finale, so no spoilers please.)
Watching Seasons 1 and 2 during the last administration was cathartic for me — a cautionary tale about class war and wealth inequities in which even good people have to make terribly tough choices. In the end, the bad guys get theirs, and we, the viewers, get to feel good that we’re good guys too, reserving our derision for those characters with no decency, no moral code, no allegiance to anything but cash money.
This season feels different.
The cautionary tale has become a mirror-perfect reflection of our reality in the U.S. today and it’s impossible to miss:
Billionaires are mocking the pain of people in need.
Billionaires are degrading people in desperate need and dehumanizing them in any number of ways in order to avoid feeling any accountability, empathy, or obligation toward them.
Billionaires are willing to kill babies. Children. Newborns. Hey, why not if it will make them some more billions.
They are voting to cause more pain if they can profit from it. And they often do, without consequence.
They sip champagne and gorge themselves gourmet spreads while watching the people they govern try to live on a single potato a day.
They cosplay as wannabe soldiers and deputized murderers, with the hopes of maybe getting to do a little murdering themselves.
They rig the game so that even a “democratic vote” has a predetermined outcome.
And maybe, worst of all, the people in power aim to create such an unforgiving, inequitable world, that it saps regular people of empathy and turns the working class against one another, creating enemies out of the people in our community.
I got mine, so…
Are we really that far away from our own oligarchs and morally decrepit power brokers from placing backroom bets on who will kill a baby for money?
I think we’re already there.
When I was searching the web for links to support this piece, I came across this interview with Squid Game creator, Hwang Dong-kyuk, who indeed agreed there are similarities between the series’ ultra-rich VIPs and today’s real-life ultra-rich villains.
"The people who really control the power and the system, they no longer hide behind a curtain,” he said. “They willingly take their masks off, almost as if to declare, ‘We're the ones running everything. We're the ones in control.’”
Let’s unmask them.
Don’t let up.
How to fight those who voted for this cruel, immoral 2025 Budget Bill: Updated
While the bill passed, I still believe what I’ve told my kids in November, 2024: I’ll never stop fighting for you.
Hakeem Jeffries did what he could to buy us time.
It wasn’t enough.
The bill passed and I’m sick about it.
Be sure to call your GOP House member who voted for HR1. Your rep first, but at this point, any of them.
Use the 5 calls app to reach them.
If you can’t get through, send a fax.
If you can, show up at their district offices.
Focus on vulnerable House members and those in swing (purple) districts.
Here is Rollcall’s list of the top 10 vulnerable congressmen. (We’re coming for you, Lawler.)
Here’s the Cook Report list of vulnerable congressmen. 17 Republicans are either vulnerable or in toss-up races:
AZ-01 Schweikert
AZ-06 Ciscomani
CO-08 Evans
IA-01 Miller-Meeks
MI-07 Barrett
PA-07 Mackenzie
PA-10 Perry
WI-03 Van Orden
CA-22 Valadao
CA-40 Kim
CA-41 Calvert
IA-03 Nunn
MI-10 OPEN (James)
NJ-07 Kean Jr.
NY-17 Lawler
PA-08 Bresnahan
VA-02 Kiggans
Call your Dem rep too and support them for their vote to help the American people, and not just those in their own districts. They use that information for good.
This 5 calls spreadsheet (Google sheeets) shows how many calls have been made to your own rep opposing HR1. (Not enough.)
Take care of yourself. Turn off the TV news. Take a walk. Eat a donut. Hug your kids. Put on your favorite music. See a good friend.
We keep moving forward. ❤️
Yes, the GOP-led congress caved. They are craven, they are feckless, and they are more afraid of the cruel orange man on the golf course than they care about you, the people whose interests they were voted to represent.
We still fight for people in need.
To the end.
That’s what the good guys do.
I’m a public servant who is struggling and if I ever saw one of those recruiters, I’d probably play. I did everything that was expected of a child of immigrants. Study hard, speak perfect English, go to college, get a good job, meet someone nice, start a family, buy a home, etc the American dream. I did all those things, and it’s not enough. My job as a parent is to make sure that my child can realize her potential and I will do anything (just like 기훈 Gi-Hun) to give her that chance.
I wish all the success in the world for squid game and everyone who worked on it. It is also my hope that people watch in Korean audio with subtitles in their native language.