Signal & Frame | Beginnings
"Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end." - Lucius Annaeus Seneca/Semisonic
From my last essay on societal conditioning and how to make an impact:
Start small, but start today. Find a place where you can show up for the commons. A community meeting, a mutual aid project, a conversation with someone outside your echo chamber. Maybe, note what’s broken, acknowledge what works, and name what’s possible. Share your vision. Invest your time, your creativity, your courage. Say yes to the Tree of Life.
Have you ever unwound an intractable knot? Or, worked your way through a really tangly cord, rope, string, et cetera? When I talked about Gordian knots in a previous installment, we looked at how cutting that knot is a revolutionary act. Of course - we speak in analogies often to describe a complex or foreign circumstance in a more easily understood way. As in real life, when you start teasing out a tangle with serious intent, you must be patient and methodical. Pulling makes the knot tighten. We don’t need more tension.
Our current political reality reflects an intractable knot and the weight of it is causing collapse. None of this happened in a vacuum; power is consolidating power after decades of intentional neglect. The cracks around the edges of society are being used to justify an authoritarian systemic response, while those cracks exist as a result of the very systems. The system is currently stomping gleefully on Constitutional rights such as habeas corpus and causing sweeping unrest among our underserved communities. Barf.
The most important thing to realize may be that systemic power always protects itself - and that every real advance in society has and will come from disrupting the momentum of entrenched elites.
Every impulse to cause pain against the flawed, self-interested system is a pain response; a natural, protective impulse, perceived as an attack by the demands for order placed on us by this system. Power reacts to threats with power; so how do we move “necessary change” from being seen as threatening, bridging into tolerable territory, and then on to be a desired and wanted shift?
Some of this change will come with massive reconfiguration of infrastructure. Not immediately, but either over time and with intention, or all at once and as a catastrophe unlike any in our collected history.
To effect this change, must we begin with saying to the rich and powerful, “You’ll be ok”?
You don’t have to understand what’s about to happen, but you’ll be ok. Because we want systems that serve social needs, our needs - rather than an endless cycle of extraction - this change is not negotiable.
And, because of the rather lackluster but unavoidable golden rule (not that one, the other one) - he who has the gold, makes the rules - if revolution is going to be bloodless (or less bloody) than those of the past, buy-in is going to be essential.
But this goes far beyond being ok. Beyond “you’ll be ok” to “we’ll all be better,” including them. No amount of money will keep this planet livable as societal and anthropogenic change and collapse coalesce. But, sensible social safety nets, truly low and no emission energy, and heretofore unconsidered levels of environmental stewardship will. Geo-engineering, for the sake of a mastery of our environment, will no longer be fringe or optional. The work of the future lies at least in part with the development and integration of technology on our own soil. Why would we learn to terraform on another planet when we are here and can learn the basics where all the materials and people are??
But I digress, because this writing is not about a far-fetched future. In fact, it’s not about the future at all. The work is not in being alarmist about alarming information, but in moving forward with organization and steadfast attention to detail.
We the people need to act - and we need to do it now. If we’re going to avoid what’s clearly in progress and coming, politically and ecologically - a regression to top any in recent memory - action must be taken to first stop, and then prevent, the erosion of democratic and constitutional norms and protections.
The office of the President has now been stress tested harder and farther than at any point in our lifetimes. This is simultaneously horrendous and great - as we’re being harmed, we can see clearly now exactly the kinds of boundaries the office of the President requires to prevent any further consequential meddling by compromised actors. A stitching in of too much power by one person over too many. Tariffs, executive orders, and unilateral authority to stack and rewrite agencies and history should not be left as a magic wand with no real restraint when the party has captured all three branches of the federal government. This office is currently capable of unchecked sorcery - a dangerous fantasy - one which must be dismantled and reconfigured. We all know people get away with awful things regularly, but this office is not and never will be above the law.
The executive, legislative, and judicial are broken and getting worse, and this is by a concerted effort of powerful, malevolent, and shadowy actors.
I don't want to send any more energy to the people committing heinous acts in pursuit of consolidating power by fomenting unrest. So I’m not going to talk about who and what we all see every day on the news. We all know it’s wrong, we feel it, and we know there are better ways. Maybe “knowing” there are better ways is too strong - that we suspect there are better ways - but people are willing to accept a bludgeon as antidote to this manufactured set of society’s “intractable” problems because they’re tired. Tired of the apparent chaos and tension - manufactured by the same power elites on both sides tamping it down. Refusal to adequately legislate solutions and subsequently blaming the populace is sick behavior.
A plan, in the case of the societal upheaval we’re being forced to bear, would include both sides of a reconstruction - the cutting, but also the restoration. This administration is cutting and cutting, but there are zero measures in place to offset the destruction. All the programs and services being cut? Where’s that tax money going? To billionaires? No. Again, no more energy to the horsemen of the apocalypse.
I’m here to tell you - destructive solutions such as deportation and incarceration are extremely small-minded. I’ve been building homes for 20 years. The only time we break things is when we make mistakes or it’s part of a well-documented plan. Dismantling the Department of Education is completely obnoxious; installing DOGE only adds insult to injury. This stuff is so crazy and so right in the face and on the nose benefitting the already wealthy and people in power directly. Even when the actions are illegal and unconstitutional they are going uncorrected because of institutional capture.
These dummies are undercutting the foundation that we all built together in pursuit of more money, while hyped on creating civil unrest. But they’re standing under the building, with their heads up their colons, and the collapse they seek will do more than pinch.
And, as I write this, I realize it’s deeper and more simple than that. Without realizing it, for I am quite sure that while intentional, the underlying motivation for these acts are not understood by their instruments. In cutting other people, from care, from legitimacy, from power, these people are hurting themselves. Because they are hurting, themselves. This is causative, but is no excuse.
There are ways to legislate against this kind of institutional capture, and that’s where we pick up our work.
Some say reform is impossible. That reforming a system based on extraction and subjugation - through wage, tax, and market manipulation - will never stray from those design principles. Reconfiguration leaves the same parts. There is a truth to this.
Knocking the beast of capitalism out entirely won’t work. More importantly, we have to work from where we are. The idealist loses out. The amount of energy involved in overcoming all past momentum to swing immediately from current to ideal conditions is… not achievable. While it can be hard to conceive of iterative changes leading to the change we wish to see in the world, that’s exactly how they happen.
Through dedication, hard work, organization, and perseverance. Those four things are essentially what landed us where we are now, except those practices were exerted by people with ideals vastly different to those of a great many of us.
The results of this needed social revolution come from the work of generating a signal stronger than this old slaver vibration. Whether we like it or not, that’s how we got where we are, and capitalism is only an evolution of that concept.
Because no matter what happens, there is no reality I can conceive of where power doesn’t leave a void when it evaporates. Not in this strange world. And so - the knocking down happens, but I suggest a cage for the beast and not death. A containment of the worst aspects - legally speaking - so we can carry on the necessary work of human-centered revolution without more killing.
A cage of a thousand, or ten-thousand, gossamer filaments. One after the other.
I’m not the first to say this:
We must talk about unravelling the influence of corporate and dark money in politics.
While I can’t see the future, I know a train follows its tracks.
I am certain the people architecting the direction of national politics today aren’t as smart or foresightful as they think they are. The pain they are causing in pursuit of short term and self-serving gains is going to bite them at least as hard as the system collapses on itself.
The same short-sightedness which makes this appealing limits the ability to see unintended consequences. The isolation of politics insulates these people from just about everything they’re causing, but only temporarily. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction, and that waveform is building with every injustice in the name of greatness.
Of all the possible tangles to start with, this is by far the most impactful change we can make to re-humanize politics and let us lead with our American Hearts once again.
Part I is triage. The injured organism that is the American Experiment needs immediate care. Part II is treatment, and Part III will be rehabilitation. Some things to understand about emergency care: you deal with the worst first. The most threatening gets attention first. You use the tools at your disposal. You minimize harm, but you do what you have to to save the patient. That means compromising at times, with the end result in mind.
Part I. Triage starts now. Activism and organization are always the only real means to change, but are more important than ever. Voting, and voting blue, is critical. Sending the loudest NO possible is vital. Modern democrats have lost the thread, but the alternative is exponentially worse. Whereas in the past, political engagement crested with election cycles, we have more work to do than merely voting. Engaging and staying engaged is crucial. Every second counts and every influence leads to change.
Part II. Treatment begins when the immediate threat of destruction is at bay. We will be able to breathe again once triaged but will not stop moving and acting. This means in the 2026 short term, the monopoly is broken. In 2028, the retaking begins in earnest. But again, it doesn’t stop there. We generate momentum in these times and ride the wave but we do not stop surfing.
Part III. Rehab starts, the real rebuilding, when we are out of crisis and the organism is no longer bleeding out. We do have figuring out to do; what’s the name of the new party of the future? These new leaders will eventually displace everyone that needs displacing.
Part I, step 1: Resist. Step 2: Vote fascists out of office.
Part II, step 1: Dark money out of politics. Big money out of politics. Step 2: Ensure voter access and voting integrity. More formal oversight, less State and court meddling. Step 3: Coordinate nationally. Eliminate the electoral college.
Part III, step 1: Honestly, I have my ideas about where we should go and what we should do, but this gets us at least to a leveled playing field. Somewhere that good ideas can go to be adopted, and bad ones put to rest. I’ll make my suggestions in a future installment. Until then, fine folks.
Closing
Capitalism serves capital, but money is nothing without people. This capitalistic system worked until capital was given free rein. This experiment is proving woefully inadequate. As such, we group and legislate to recapture individual American agency. Together, we rise.
The current moments are trying everyone. Our capacity to tolerate the intolerable is being stretched over and over. Stay focused. Build your network. Find the places you can plug in. Get out there and connect with your spiritual kin!
Don’t give in or up. This is our house, and it’s time to reclaim it.
I know how heavy this is, and if you’ve made it this far, congratulations: you’re doing the work. Hone your intuition and honor your divine mind. Please like, share, and subscribe. Everything you do makes a difference.
In solidarity,
Jason
© 2025 Jason Ricca. All rights reserved.
About the Author
I write to inspire social progress and offer alternatives to entrenched stagnation. Ethical technologist and hands-on builder working at the intersection of social change, technology, and the human experience. Author of The Quiet Supermajority: Reclaiming Our Place in America (nearing completion - seeking representation.) I explore civic life, sustainable systems, and the future of community through essays and long-form writing.
With a background in both code and construction, I design tools and technologies that protect privacy, empower people, and place ethics at the core of innovation - from operating systems and AI governance to resilient infrastructure and civic platforms.
My vision is rooted in beauty, sustainability, and inclusivity - whether I’m building homes, software, or social structures. I believe in pragmatic optimism, open dialogue, and the quiet power of showing up to do the work.
Dad of two, and believer in generational stewardship and systems that serve us all.
jr@jasonricca.com (secure)
jasonricca.com