Now Is the Time of Monsters

A Critical Mass Nola rider with a sign on our Ride Against the Oligarchy, reinterpreting the scene of Giulino di Mezzegra, Italy on April 28, 1945.

Concerning the rise of fascist dictator Benito Mussolini in Italy, political prisoner Antonio Gramsci wrote from his jail cell (1926-1937) that "The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters."

As the patterns of the past resurface in our present, this is not a time to waver — it is a time to take a firm stand.

While in prison Gramsci developed the concept of cultural hegemony. He described how ruling classes maintain power not only through political or economic control, but by shaping society’s cultural values, beliefs, and common sense so that their dominance appears natural and inevitable. In this way, the oppressed consent to their own subordination because the ruling worldview becomes the accepted norm.

A handful of massive corporations — estimated to be just six — control roughly 90% of all U.S. media. These conglomerates shape nearly everything Americans see, hear, and read. Through their control of television, film, news, and digital platforms, they manufacture consent and reinforce the interests of the ruling class. Backed by corporate-funded think tanks, they craft a culture designed to subjugate the working class — promoting the illusion that privatization is democracy, that billionaire hoarders are job creators, and that wealth will somehow trickle down to those who labor. This is not culture — it is propaganda in service of capital. It is cultural hegemony, the invisible machinery of ideology that convinces the exploited to accept their own exploitation.

We must reject the “it is what it is” philosophy. Progress and liberation are not born from resignation but from resistance. From the illusion of painted lines passed off as bicycle infrastructure, to the carceral police state of mass incarceration, to the fossil fuel industry that dictates our economy — we must organize, resist, and dismantle the narratives that normalize oppression and destruction.

A system built to serve human needs rather than corporate profit is not a fantasy — it is a necessity. A planned economy that centers community, ecological balance, and the health of the planet is both possible and within our reach.

As fascism was opposed in the past, so too must we rise to oppose fascism now — with unity, clarity, and revolutionary resolve.

Another World Is Possible!