Remember, Remember, The 5th of November

I know of no reason.....

In the shadow-filled corridors of a nation spiraling toward authoritarianism, we find ourselves staring at a mirror that reflects not just our faces, but the grotesque mask of our collective complacency. That mirror? A fucking movie from 2005. "V for Vendetta" wasn't just entertainment—it was prophecy disguised as fiction, a warning shot across the bow of democracy that we've stupidly ignored until the water started rising above our necks.

"Prithee, peace. I dare do all that may become a man. Who dares do more is none."

The Illusion of Choice

Remember that scene where Evey walks through London, cameras tracking her every move, the Chancellor's face looming on massive screens? Well, open your damn eyes and look around. America's urban centers bristle with cameras on every corner, our phones track our locations, and algorithms predict our next purchase before we even know we want it. The taste of freedom has turned metallic in our mouths, replaced by the cold copper flavor of constant surveillance.

Modern America reeks of surveillance—not just the digital kind that follows your every click and purchase, but the kind that seeps into your bones until you start self-censoring because you know they're watching. Your smart TV listens. Your phone tracks. Your car records. Your credit card reports. The smell of freedom has been replaced by the acrid stink of a corporate-government surveillance partnership that would make Sutler's fingers tingle with delight.

The Norsefire regime in "V for Vendetta" maintained power through their surveillance system called "The Eye." Today, we've voluntarily handed over more surveillance capability to both government and corporations than the fictional fascists could have dreamed possible. The NSA's PRISM program, revealed by Edward Snowden, confirmed what paranoid conspiracy theorists had been screaming about for years: they're watching everything. Every dick pic, every angry text to your ex, every late-night Google search about that weird rash. All catalogued, all saved, all potentially usable against you.

"People shouldn't fear their government. Governments should fear their people."

V's words echo with painful relevance as we sleepwalk through a society where the Department of Homeland Security has become as normalized as stop signs, and facial recognition has become so common that we barely blink at its implications.

Media Manipulation

Lewis Prothero, the "Voice of London," spewed constant propaganda in "V for Vendetta," manipulating facts and stoking fear to keep citizens compliant. Sound familiar? It fucking should.

Turn on any cable news channel and watch talking heads twist reality into pretzels that serve their corporate masters. The media landscape has fractured into echo chambers where facts have become optional garnishes rather than the main course. The touch of truth feels foreign now, replaced by the rough texture of manufactured outrage designed to keep us divided and distracted.

In the film, Prothero's catchphrase—"England Prevails"—bears an uncomfortable resemblance to certain political slogans we've heard recently. When Donald McStinkface promised to "Make America Great Again," he wasn't just selling hats; he was selling a narrative of decline that only he could reverse, just as Sutler promised salvation from chaos that his own party engineered.

Media consolidation has left us with six corporations controlling 90% of what Americans see, hear, and read. Six fucking corporations deciding what counts as news. In "V for Vendetta," at least the propaganda came from an obvious government source. Our reality is more insidious—corporate interests disguised as journalism, billionaires buying platforms to shape narratives, algorithms feeding us content designed to maximize engagement rather than understanding.

The film shows Sutler's regime controlling the narrative through state TV. We've created something potentially worse—a system where people voluntarily choose their own propaganda, creating tribal realities that no longer intersect. The sweet scent of objective truth has been overwhelmed by the putrid stench of "alternative facts" and "my own research."

The Manufactured Crisis

The darkness at the heart of "V for Vendetta" is the revelation that Norsefire created the very crisis that brought them to power. They released a virus, caused panic, then presented themselves as the solution. They manufactured fear, then harvested political power from it.

After 9/11, America has lived in a perpetual state of emergency, allowing for continuous expansion of executive power and erosion of civil liberties. The Patriot Act was our own Enabling Act, passed while the rubble was still smoking. The bitter irony of sacrificing liberty in the name of security tastes like ash on the tongue.

Elon ShrimpMusk tweeted in 2023: "Civil liberties are being eroded by both government and corporations working in tandem. The slope isn't just slippery, we're tobogganing down it at full speed." For once, the tiny-dicked billionaire wasn't entirely wrong, though he's part of the very problem he identified.

How many times have politicians used fear to push through legislation that would otherwise be unacceptable? Terror threats that mysteriously escalate before budget votes. Border "invasions" that intensify before elections. Crime waves that dominate news cycles when police budgets are under scrutiny. The pattern repeats with such predictable frequency that it's almost comical—if it weren't so fucking terrifying.

In the film, the St. Mary's virus created the conditions for a fascist takeover. In our reality, crisis after crisis—some real, some exaggerated, some manufactured—has conditioned us to accept increasingly authoritarian measures as "necessary evils." We can feel the rough edges of our eroded rights scraping against our skin, but we've become so accustomed to the pain that we barely notice anymore.

Detention Without Trial // Criminalize Dissent

V rescues Evey from the fingermen—secret police who operate with impunity, detaining citizens without due process. The scene hits differently when you remember that America still operates Guantanamo Bay, where detainees have been held for years without trial.

The sound of cell doors closing on protesters arrested during demonstrations echoes the fictional Britain's detention centers. In 2020 alone, over 14,000 people were arrested during protests across America. Their crime? Often nothing more than exercising First Amendment rights in ways that inconvenienced those in power.

“Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth. And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn't there?”

The film depicts a society where being gay, Muslim, or politically opposed to the regime could lead to disappearance. While America hasn't reached those extremes, the steady criminalization of protest, the targeting of environmental activists as "domestic terrorists," and the increasing use of surveillance against political dissidents all point in a disturbingly similar direction.

When V says, "Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth," he reminds us that controlling language is central to controlling thought. Today's battles over "politically correct speech," book bans, and classroom censorship are just modern iterations of this age-old authoritarian tactic. The crisp snap of closing books and fired teachers resonates across school districts where uncomfortable truths have been deemed too dangerous for young minds.

The Bastard Child of a Government and a Corporation

"V for Vendetta" depicts a world where the line between corporation and state has effectively disappeared. Corporations enforced government will, and government protected corporate interests, creating a seamless fascist partnership.

In America, we've given this arrangement a friendlier name—public-private partnership—but the underlying reality stinks just as badly. When Amazon partners with police departments to promote Ring doorbell cameras, when defense contractors write the policies that justify their next contract, when pharmaceutical companies help draft healthcare legislation, we're witnessing the same fusion of interests that enabled fictional fascism.

The taste of corporate influence has become so common that we barely notice it anymore—a bland, processed flavor that masks the rot beneath. Corporate money flows through our political system like blood through veins, oxygenating campaigns and suffocating genuine representation.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse noted in his 2023 book "The Scheme" that "corporations have captured our courts, our Congress, and increasingly our executive branch, creating a government that serves their interests rather than the people's." This corporate capture doesn't require storm troopers or dramatic coups—just the steady accumulation of influence through lobbying, campaign finance, and regulatory capture.

Collective Action

If there's any hope in the parallels between "V for Vendetta" and our current reality, it lies in the film's conclusion—the moment when thousands of masked citizens march on Parliament. V understood that symbols have power, that ideas are bulletproof, and that real change requires collective action.

The feeling of standing shoulder-to-shoulder with others who share your rage and your vision creates a warmth that can melt even the coldest systems of oppression. The Guy Fawkes mask itself became a real-world symbol adopted by Anonymous and protesters worldwide, demonstrating how fiction can inspire actual resistance.

"V for Vendetta" ends with Parliament exploding—a cathartic but ultimately symbolic act of destruction. The harder work of building something better remains implied rather than shown. That's where our reality diverges most significantly from fiction—we don't need symbolic explosions; we need sustained, strategic resistance followed by the unglamorous work of creating better systems.

As V tells Evey: "A revolution without dancing is a revolution not worth having." The challenge for Americans is to find that joy in resistance, to create a movement that's not just against the creeping authoritarianism but for something worth fighting for.

The 5th of November

"Remember, remember the Fifth of November, gunpowder treason and plot." The nursery rhyme that threads through "V for Vendetta" commemorates a failed revolution—Guy Fawkes's attempt to blow up Parliament in 1605. The film transforms this historical footnote into a rallying cry for justified rebellion against tyranny.

America has its own dates worth remembering—moments when power was challenged, when the people pushed back against overreach. From the Boston Tea Party to the Stonewall riots, from Selma to Standing Rock, our history is punctuated by acts of resistance that shape our national identity far more truthfully than the sanitized patriotism pushed in textbooks.

The smell of tear gas has become as American as apple pie. The sound of protest chants echoes through our cities with increasing regularity. The sight of militarized police facing off against unarmed citizens has become so common that we scroll past it on social media without pausing. These sensory experiences—the burning eyes, the hoarse throats, the bruised bodies—are the reality of resistance in modern America. The path from our current reality to something better won't be found through a single symbolic act but through sustained pressure on multiple fronts.

Conclusion

"V for Vendetta" ends with hope—a society awakened, ready to rebuild after rejecting fascism. Our story remains unwritten, the conclusion uncertain. Will we continue our slide toward authoritarianism, accepting each new restriction, each invasion of privacy, each consolidation of power as inevitable? Or will we recognize the warning signs illuminated so clearly in fiction and change course while we still can?

The most frightening parallel isn't in the specific policies or technologies depicted in the film, but in the gradual normalization of the unacceptable. In "V for Vendetta," citizens don't wake up one morning under fascism—they sleepwalk into it, trading liberty for security, truth for comfort, complexity for simplicity.

The sensation of freedom slipping through your fingers feels like trying to hold onto water—it seems abundant until suddenly your hands are empty and dry. We feel it in the algorithms that narrow our worldview, in the cameras that track our movements, in the data that's harvested from our most private moments. We sense it in the increasing alignment between corporate power and government authority, in the criminalization of dissent, in the manipulation of fear for political gain.

But unlike the fictional citizens of future London, we have an advantage—we've been warned. Not just by "V for Vendetta," but by history itself, by the recurring patterns of how liberty dies and authoritarianism takes root. The question isn't whether we've been warned, but whether we're listening.