TheMadPhilosopher

As the Temperature Dropped: A Cold War Prelude in Poetic Dissent

This is a poetic deep-dive into the final breath of FDR and the quiet ignition of the Cold War. Written like a eulogy, a reckoning, and a cinematic spiral—because that’s how history really felt.

“The country was exhausted—but it wasn’t done.

And then, just past noon on April 12, 1945, the center of it all collapsed.”

This piece traces propaganda, power, fear, and fire—from Warm Springs to the Soviet clapback.

Printable & shareable PDF available because I believe in free education.

Check out my Ko-Fi shop for the full ebook and other works if you’d like to support what I’m doing:

https://ko-fi.com/post/As-The-Temperature-Dropped-The-Prelude-to-the-Col-O5O51F32QL

Subject Index: FDR’s death, Cold War origins, U.S.–Soviet relations, Truman’s presidency, wartime propaganda, the Manhattan Project, American exceptionalism, post-war power shifts, historical erasure, narrative dissent, poetic political commentary.

As the Temperature Dropped: A Cold War Prelude in Poetic Dissent

This is a poetic deep-dive into the final breath of FDR and the quiet ignition of the Cold War. Written like a eulogy, a reckoning, and a cinematic spiral—because that’s how history really felt.

“The country was exhausted—but it wasn’t done.

And then, just past noon on April 12, 1945, the center of it all collapsed.”

This piece traces propaganda, power, fear, and fire—from Warm Springs to the Soviet clapback.

Printable & shareable PDF available because I believe in free education.

Check out my Ko-Fi shop for the full ebook and other works if you’d like to support what I’m doing:

https://ko-fi.com/post/As-The-Temperature-Dropped-The-Prelude-to-the-Col-O5O51F32QL

Subject Index: FDR’s death, Cold War origins, U.S.–Soviet relations, Truman’s presidency, wartime propaganda, the Manhattan Project, American exceptionalism, post-war power shifts, historical erasure, narrative dissent, poetic political commentary.

How Prohibition is taught in schools doesn’t reflect what really happened.

This piece breaks down the economic and political forces behind the movement—and how the myth of “moral reform” was weaponized to justify control.

It’s time to rethink what we call education.

Just released my first Special Edition eBook:

Prohibition and the Profit Motive How the U.S. Sold Control as Virtue Special Edition eBook

Prohibition and the Profit Motive – How the U.S. Sold Control as Virtue

This $5 eBook version helps me keep going.

It funds the next piece.

It keeps the lights on—literally.

Can’t swing $5?

Even a $1 tip makes a bigger difference than you think.

Can’t support at all? Please share this with someone who needs to know.

Thank you for being here.

Every view, every read, every repost—

you’re helping me fight back with facts.

Prohibition and the Profit Motive How the U.S. Sold Control as Virtue Standard PDF

_Subject Index: 

Origins of the Temperance Movement, Feminist advocacy and state betrayal, Racialized and class-based enforcement of Prohibition, Government-sanctioned poisoning, Surveillance and control policies, Economic exploitation of addiction, The War on Drugs as a legacy system, Pharmaceutical profiteering and opioid crisis, The commodification of pain, Resistance, rebellion, and reclaiming history_

The moral panic of Prohibition wasn’t just a cultural moment—it was a propaganda masterpiece.

This breakdown explores how the U.S. government sold virtue to the public while expanding surveillance, enriching criminals, and deepening social control.

It’s not history—it’s a blueprint.

Just released my first Special Edition eBook:

Prohibition and the Profit Motive How the U.S. Sold Control as Virtue Special Edition eBook

Prohibition and the Profit Motive – How the U.S. Sold Control as Virtue

This $5 eBook version helps me keep going.

It funds the next piece.

It keeps the lights on—literally.

Can’t swing $5?

Even a $1 tip makes a bigger difference than you think.

Can’t support at all? Please share this with someone who needs to know.

Thank you for being here.

Every view, every read, every repost—

you’re helping me fight back with facts.

Prohibition and the Profit Motive How the U.S. Sold Control as Virtue Standard PDF

_Subject Index: 

Origins of the Temperance Movement, Feminist advocacy and state betrayal, Racialized and class-based enforcement of Prohibition, Government-sanctioned poisoning, Surveillance and control policies, Economic exploitation of addiction, The War on Drugs as a legacy system, Pharmaceutical profiteering and opioid crisis, The commodification of pain, Resistance, rebellion, and reclaiming history_

Prohibition wasn’t just a moral crusade—it was a market strategy.

This piece explores how the U.S. government used the 18th Amendment to criminalize behavior for profit, partner with organized crime, and manufacture obedience through scarcity.

When you follow the money, the morality myth crumbles fast.

This $5 eBook version helps me keep going.

It funds the next piece.

It keeps the lights on—literally.

Can’t swing $5?

Even a $1 tip makes a bigger difference than you think.

Can’t support at all? Please share this with someone who needs to know.

Thank you for being here.

Every view, every read, every repost—

you’re helping me fight back with facts.

Prohibition and the profit motive special edition ebook

Prohibition and the profit motive standard PDF

They said it was for the children. For the families. For the soul of America.

But Prohibition wasn’t a war on alcohol—it was a war on the people.

It wasn’t about virtue. It wasn’t about safety.

It was never about saving anyone.

It was about power. About profit. And about punishing the very people it claimed to protect.

Just released my first Special Edition eBook:

Prohibition and the Profit Motive – How the U.S. Sold Control as Virtue

This $5 eBook version helps me keep going.

It funds the next piece.

It keeps the lights on—literally.

Can’t swing $5?

Even a $1 tip makes a bigger difference than you think.

Can’t support at all? Please share this with someone who needs to know.

Thank you for being here.

Every view, every read, every repost—

you’re helping me fight back with facts.

This is a radical 9-page microhistory that exposes:

• How Prohibition was used to criminalize poverty, independence, and rebellion
• How women’s pain was exploited to justify surveillance
• How the government knowingly poisoned its own people—and got away with it
• And how all of it echoes in today’s drug war, overdose crisis, and profiteering off pain

Included in the Special Edition:

• Letter from the Author
• Full design and printable formatting
• A haunting “Then vs Now” historical photo spread
• Extended commentary not included in the free version

Free version here (education should be accessible): Prohibition and the Profit Motive: How the US Sold Control as Virtue Standard PDF

Special Edition ($5+, supports the work): Prohibition and the Profit Motive – eBook Special Edition

This was written, researched, designed, and formatted by one person—no team, no budget, just rage, tabs, and truth. If you believe in history that hits back, this is for you.

—The Mad Philosopher

They said it was for the children. For the families. For the soul of America.

But Prohibition wasn’t a war on alcohol—it was a war on the people.

It wasn’t about virtue. It wasn’t about safety.

It was never about saving anyone.

It was about power. About profit. And about punishing the very people it claimed to protect.

Just released my first Special Edition eBook:

Prohibition and the Profit Motive – How the U.S. Sold Control as Virtue

This $5 eBook version helps me keep going.

It funds the next piece.

It keeps the lights on—literally.

Can’t swing $5?

Even a $1 tip makes a bigger difference than you think.

Can’t support at all? Please share this with someone who needs to know.

Thank you for being here.

Every view, every read, every repost—

you’re helping me fight back with facts.

This is a radical 9-page microhistory that exposes:

• How Prohibition was used to criminalize poverty, independence, and rebellion
• How women’s pain was exploited to justify surveillance
• How the government knowingly poisoned its own people—and got away with it
• And how all of it echoes in today’s drug war, overdose crisis, and profiteering off pain

Included in the Special Edition:

• Letter from the Author
• Full design and printable formatting
• A haunting “Then vs Now” historical photo spread
• Extended commentary not included in the free version

Free version here (education should be accessible): Prohibition and the Profit Motive: How the US Sold Control as Virtue Standard PDF

Special Edition ($5+, supports the work): Prohibition and the Profit Motive – eBook Special Edition

This was written, researched, designed, and formatted by one person—no team, no budget, just rage, tabs, and truth. If you believe in history that hits back, this is for you.

—The Mad Philosopher

_Subject Index: 

Origins of the Temperance Movement, Feminist advocacy and state betrayal, Racialized and class-based enforcement of Prohibition, Government-sanctioned poisoning, Surveillance and control policies, Economic exploitation of addiction, The War on Drugs as a legacy system, Pharmaceutical profiteering and opioid crisis, The commodification of pain, Resistance, rebellion, and reclaiming history_

They said it was for the children. For the families. For the soul of America.

But Prohibition wasn’t a war on alcohol—it was a war on the people.

It wasn’t about virtue. It wasn’t about safety.

It was never about saving anyone.

It was about power. About profit. And about punishing the very people it claimed to protect.

Just released my first Special Edition eBook:

Prohibition and the Profit Motive – How the U.S. Sold Control as Virtue

This $5 eBook version helps me keep going.

It funds the next piece.

It keeps the lights on—literally.

Can’t swing $5?

Even a $1 tip makes a bigger difference than you think.

Can’t support at all? Please share this with someone who needs to know.

Thank you for being here.

Every view, every read, every repost—

you’re helping me fight back with facts.

This is a radical 9-page microhistory that exposes:

• How Prohibition was used to criminalize poverty, independence, and rebellion
• How women’s pain was exploited to justify surveillance
• How the government knowingly poisoned its own people—and got away with it
• And how all of it echoes in today’s drug war, overdose crisis, and profiteering off pain

Included in the Special Edition:

• Letter from the Author
• Full design and printable formatting
• A haunting “Then vs Now” historical photo spread
• Extended commentary not included in the free version

Free version here (education should be accessible): Prohibition and the Profit Motive: How the US Sold Control as Virtue Standard PDF

Special Edition ($5+, supports the work): Prohibition and the Profit Motive – eBook Special Edition

This was written, researched, designed, and formatted by one person—no team, no budget, just rage, tabs, and truth. If you believe in history that hits back, this is for you.

—The Mad Philosopher

BLIND ITEM: “The Watchlist Before the Crackdown”

An unnamed private tech firm—with longstanding contracts in predictive analytics, surveillance, and law enforcement integration—has partnered with a major U.S. federal agency (not officially DHS, but connected) to aggregate protest-related data across university campuses. This includes:

• Social media activity flagged by emotion-tracking AI
• Attendance at student government meetings
• Club affiliations labeled as “culturally radical”
• Usage of encrypted messaging apps on campus networks
• Anonymous feedback submitted to university “safety” portals
• Participation in Zoom-based teach-ins or virtual protest planning sessions

All of this is being collected silently, with university compliance. Some schools are not aware. Others are complicit.

The result?

A tiered watchlist.

• Tier 1: Identified protest leaders—already being targeted via immigration, academic misconduct, or financial aid audits  
• Tier 2: Repeat protest participants—monitored, flagged, and sometimes “randomly” subjected to disciplinary review or mental health assessments  
• Tier 3: “Radical-adjacent” individuals—students who haven’t protested publicly, but who engage with protest content, faculty, or groups  

This program does not show up in public records. It’s buried in private security contracts under language like “campus threat analysis” or “student behavioral tracking.”

What Can Be Done (Off the Record):

• Use public computers sparingly. On-campus networks are being monitored for metadata, not content—just enough to flag patterns.  
• Avoid student portals for organizing. Anonymous tips or incident reporting systems are quietly becoming snitch networks.  
• Print everything and destroy digital drafts. If you’re working on an exposé, flyer, or guide—create it offline, print it, and wipe it.  
• Speak in code when necessary. Resistance is ancient. If they’re using old-school surveillance, you use old-school subversion.  

Start documenting the surveillance itself. Make the watchers the watched. FOIA the firms. FOIA the funding. Begin to expose their shadow work.

~Subject Index: surveillance, predictive policing, digital profiling, student activism, protest suppression, university complicity, private sector firms, emotion-tracking AI, watchlists, encrypted messaging, metadata monitoring, resistance tactics, FOIA, dissent, behavioral tracking, campus surveillance, digital resistance, subversion, civil liberties, academic freedom~

BLIND ITEM: “The Watchlist Before the Crackdown”

An unnamed private tech firm—with longstanding contracts in predictive analytics, surveillance, and law enforcement integration—has partnered with a major U.S. federal agency (not officially DHS, but connected) to aggregate protest-related data across university campuses. This includes:

• Social media activity flagged by emotion-tracking AI
• Attendance at student government meetings
• Club affiliations labeled as “culturally radical
• Usage of encrypted messaging apps on campus networks
• Anonymous feedback submitted to university “safety” portals
• Participation in Zoom-based teach-ins or virtual protest planning sessions

All of this is being collected silently, with university compliance. Some schools are not aware. Others are complicit.

The result?

A tiered watchlist.

• Tier 1: Identified protest leaders—already being targeted via immigration, academic misconduct, or financial aid audits  

• Tier 2: Repeat protest participants—monitored, flagged, and sometimes “randomly” subjected to disciplinary review or mental health assessments

• Tier 3: “Radical-adjacent” individuals—students who haven’t protested publicly, but who engage with protest content, faculty, or groups

This program does not show up in public records. It’s buried in private security contracts under language like “campus threat analysis” or “student behavioral tracking.”

What Can Be Done (Off the Record):

• Use public computers sparingly. On-campus networks are being monitored for metadata, not content—just enough to flag patterns.  
• Avoid student portals for organizing. Anonymous tips or incident reporting systems are quietly becoming snitch networks.  
• Print everything and destroy digital drafts. If you’re working on an exposé, flyer, or guide—create it offline, print it, and wipe it.  
• Speak in code when necessary. Resistance is ancient. If they’re using old-school surveillance, you use old-school subversion.  

Start documenting the surveillance itself. Make the watchers the watched. FOIA the firms. FOIA the funding. Begin to expose their shadow work.

~Subject index: surveillance, predictive policing, digital profiling, student activism, protest suppression, university complicity, private sector firms, emotion-tracking AI, watchlists, encrypted messaging, metadata monitoring, resistance tactics, FOIA, dissent, behavioral tracking, campus surveillance, digital resistance, subversion, civil liberties, academic _freedom~

BLIND ITEM: “The Watchlist Before the Crackdown”

An unnamed private tech firm—with longstanding contracts in predictive analytics, surveillance, and law enforcement integration—has partnered with a major U.S. federal agency (not officially DHS, but connected) to aggregate protest-related data across university campuses. This includes:

• Social media activity flagged by emotion-tracking AI
• Attendance at student government meetings
• Club affiliations labeled as “culturally radical
• Usage of encrypted messaging apps on campus networks
• Anonymous feedback submitted to university “safety” portals
• Participation in Zoom-based teach-ins or virtual protest planning sessions

All of this is being collected silently, with university compliance. Some schools are not aware. Others are complicit.

The result?

A tiered watchlist.

1. Tier 1: Identified protest leaders—already being targeted via immigration, academic misconduct, or financial aid audits
2. Tier 2: Repeat protest participants—monitored, flagged, and sometimes “randomly” subjected to disciplinary review or mental health assessments
3. Tier 3: “Radical-adjacent” individuals—students who haven’t protested publicly, but who engage with protest content, faculty, or groups  

This program does not show up in public records. It’s buried in private security contracts under language like “campus threat analysis” or “student behavioral tracking.”

What Can Be Done (Off the Record):

• Use public computers sparingly. On-campus networks are being monitored for metadata, not content—just enough to flag patterns.  
• Avoid student portals for organizing. Anonymous tips or incident reporting systems are quietly becoming snitch networks.  
• Print everything and destroy digital drafts. If you’re working on an exposé, flyer, or guide—create it offline, print it, and wipe it.  
• Speak in code when necessary. Resistance is ancient. If they’re using old-school surveillance, you use old-school subversion.  

Start documenting the surveillance itself. Make the watchers the watched. FOIA the firms. FOIA the funding. Begin to expose their shadow work.

_~Subject index: surveillance, predictive policing, digital profiling, student activism, protest suppression, university complicity, private sector firms, emotion-tracking AI, watchlists, encrypted messaging, metadata monitoring, resistance tactics, FOIA, dissent, behavioral tracking, campus surveillance, digital resistance, subversion, civil liberties, academic freedom~

BLIND ITEM: “The Watchlist Before the Crackdown”

An unnamed private tech firm—with longstanding contracts in predictive analytics, surveillance, and law enforcement integration—has partnered with a major U.S. federal agency (not officially DHS, but connected) to aggregate protest-related data across university campuses. This includes:

• Social media activity flagged by emotion-tracking AI
• Attendance at student government meetings
• Club affiliations labeled as “culturally radical
• Usage of encrypted messaging apps on campus networks
• Anonymous feedback submitted to university “safety” portals
• Participation in Zoom-based teach-ins or virtual protest planning sessions

All of this is being collected silently, with university compliance. Some schools are not aware. Others are complicit.

The result?

A tiered watchlist.

• Tier 1: Identified protest leaders—already being targeted via immigration, academic misconduct, or financial aid audits  
• Tier 2: Repeat protest participants—monitored, flagged, and sometimes “randomly” subjected to disciplinary review or mental health assessments  
• Tier 3: “Radical-adjacent” individuals—students who haven’t protested publicly, but who engage with protest content, faculty, or groups

This program does not show up in public records. It’s buried in private security contracts under language like “campus threat analysis” or “student behavioral tracking.”

What Can Be Done (Off the Record):

• Use public computers sparingly. On-campus networks are being monitored for metadata, not content—just enough to flag patterns.  
• Avoid student portals for organizing. Anonymous tips or incident reporting systems are quietly becoming snitch networks.  
• Print everything and destroy digital drafts. If you’re working on an exposé, flyer, or guide—create it offline, print it, and wipe it.  
• Speak in code when necessary. Resistance is ancient. If they’re using old-school surveillance, you use old-school subversion.  

Start documenting the surveillance itself. Make the watchers the watched. FOIA the firms. FOIA the funding. Begin to expose their shadow work.

~Subject Index: surveillance, predictive policing, digital profiling, student activism, protest suppression, university complicity, private sector firms, emotion-tracking AI, watchlists, encrypted messaging, metadata monitoring, resistance tactics, FOIA, dissent, behavioral tracking, campus surveillance, digital resistance, subversion, civil liberties, academic freedom~