About that revolution…
Aldous Huxley’s nightmare has finally taken the shape of things to come.
As the New Year dawns, the future are us.
I don’t blame my generation entirely for the horror of it all. This on-going collapse of civilization was actually begun by our grandparents during the 1910’s with Woodrow Wilson, the Princeton smarty who set in motion the Federal Income Tax (the state expropriation of private property), The Federal Reserve (State control over the money supply), The Clayton Anti-trust Act (State control over business), and the Farm Loan Act (State Control over agriculture), and then entered us in the First World War after promising not to. This was the same generation that passed Prohibition as a Constitutional Amendment, and then repealed it when their good intentions went awry, thus making that founding document no more serious than a city ordinance. To complete their efforts, after the total failure of everything they had done (unless you believe they did it purposely to destroy–much in the vein of a future Bill Ayers or Cloward-Piven), they then re-elected FDR–four times–despite his total failure to deal effectively with the great Depression and his blind eye toward Germany and Japan. Great job! But they like to be called ‘The Greatest Generation’ because so many of them died for our sins. (Actually only the good ones died, as is always the case.)
And they made some great movies.
And the coming apocalypse was further nurtured and cultivated by our parents (father doesn’t know best–government does), who elected and re-elected their own fools again and again. Mom and Dad are the ones who sent us to Vietnam remember, kept us in Korea, stationed our troops in Germany, declared war on poverty (talk about failures!), ignored the slaughter of tens of millions in China (as their own parents had previously done in Russia) and created a bureaucracy to dispense political favors that is larger than all the socialist governments of Europe combined, or anything they have ever imagined for that matter, and then handed the shitty stick off to us, relay fashion.
What is poignant about it all, at least for me and perhaps some others of you who might still remember (despite the weed-haze) the ‘promise’ of the 1960’s, is that for a brief moment it appeared that we might toss that baton away and simply leave the track. Now, the even larger failures of my generation have condemned our children (my children and my children’s children) to a modern slavery for which there is no end in sight.
On a brighter note, the CGI effects today are awesome.
So here we are, in the midst of the collapse. I’m sure the government bankers will soon stabilize the latest monetary crisis, for a time–maybe. Microsoft will produce a new bit of software to buffer the edge of our consciousness. Apple will market a new toy to catch our eye or ear or both at once. And we will elect or re-elected or un-elect another President because of his skin color. What a great criterion. What a standard! We’ve made it clear that being photogenic and good with a teleprompter trumps all else. Trump indeed.
All that, and yet we are still told that the next generations should be healthier and live longer. Boomers better pray they do and will, because somebody has to pay for all this. But then, with healthcare rationing, forced abortion, and the odd war every now and again, maybe not. (and have you read, the plague is back, and small pox, and whopping cough and…) For the most part, given the quality of our mandated ‘public’ education, most folks will be too stupid to comprehend their own servitude. What they don’t know won’t hurt them–will it?
But those special effects, they’ll be grand.
Perhaps I should avoid the quote marks from here on. Anyone incapable of realizing that I am dealing with a very big picture and using an appropriately sized brush ought to move on. Nothing to see here. (Or think about.)
I’ll also refrain, as much as possible, from describing the malaise in political terms–in that the making of politics into a religion is part of the problem, not the solution. We were warned, after all. Both George Orwell and Ben Franklin offered sufficient caution to our political methods. We did not listen–or is it that we did listen and did not care–or perhaps we cared, but not enough–or,…insert your own excuse here for having followed the political drumbeat so obediently.
You’re okay. It’ll be all right. You’ve got a good job, or a tolerable job, or a job at least. About 80% of you do, anyway. Your 401k may never be the same, of course. Your trust fund dividends may be a bit smaller. But you’ve got yours. Right? And the government will be taking care of those other unfortunate wretches who did not win life’s lottery. No need to worry.
I believe Mr. Alfred E. Newman said something like that first. He ran for president back when, didn’t he? But he must have lost.
Oh, Mr. New Man–how can we miss you if you won’t go away.
Mr. Huxley’s designer genes are being made even now. Alpha, Gamma, Delta, Phi Beta Kappa. The production lines have been moved from Detroit to Berkeley and Cambridge, of course. Darwinism is overthrown. And even an atheist like myself might soon wish for the good old days of God and blood.
But it’s not so bad. At least for me. At least while the heat still comes on.
What do I wish for then, when a Merry C–…I mean, a Happy Holidays is not enough?
Revolution. Again. Naturally.
I am a Romantic. Not a modern Prufrock…Really.
Plagues come and go, as do wars and famine. And there will be another Michelangelo to speak of. So to speak.
At some point in time, the inefficiencies and taxes of Rome outweighed the value of its roads and viaducts and all the enforced peace and prosperity. The pirates outnumbered the merchants and goods become too costly. The slaves revolted–they always were revolting, some say. The barbarians overwhelmed the walls, virtual or otherwise. The empire falls.
Likely, you and I will not be around for that. Right? A really good collapse takes time. The Roman women stopped having children enough to maintain the ranks long before the legions broke. The birthrate plummeted much as ours has done today. Oh, but it took several hundred years for Rome to fall, didn’t it. Then again, like everyone says, things do go so much faster these days. Perhaps you will see more than a little bit of the great collapse before your last complaint–your final whimper.
But it’s true you are living longer now. Haven’t you heard? Only God knows what for, and he doesn’t exist. Those nursing homes look so grand, don’t they! Is your trust fund trustworthy? Will Social Security be broke in ten years or twenty? When you look into your child’s face–that same face that spent so much more precious time in front of the television than in front of yourself–do you see someone willing to pick up the tab?
Oh, and by the way, I hope you’ve put away a full two weeks worth of fresh water–haven’t you? Well, I hear it’s not enough, anyway.
And you may already have plenty of nuts, but remember the raisins.
And don’t be so negative!
But really I’m not. Really. It’s from negatives that positives are made. It’s alimentary. You are what you eat. I’m a Romantic, not a cannibal, right. And I like told you: we will all be fine. But that sound you hear is not a crescendo. It’s the Western wall collapsing. What we all know, or once knew or thought we knew, was wrong anyway. It will soon be smoke on the wind–but there will be another Beethoven. I’m sure. Positive. Someday.
Only, when the electricity goes out, make sure you have a book or two. And some candles. I’m not sure Yeats will be coming back. But he’d just tell you to just keep on fucking yourself if he could.
In New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and California urban centers such as New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia, Los Angeles–all of them well addicted to tax money and controlled by power bosses and unions–they enslave their respective populations like pimps and whores. But it is for the common good, don’t you know.
More taxes will be the cure. I’m sure. The tax code of the United States is unreadable, contradictory, unknowable, and enforced by thugs more brutal than any mafia. But if you try to keep your taxes paid, they will leave you alone, won’t they? Really?
The legal code, to which all citizens are absolutely subject, (ignorance being no excuse excepting for the privileged few who are more equal that the rest of us and had the right intentions) has grown to a size beyond comprehension (more pages than can be read in a long lifetime), requiring a plague of lawyers to interpret on our behalf (like priests interpreting the word of God–don’t you think). But oh, I forgot, you don’t think. You react to a series of electro-chemical catalysts. So they say. Still, it’s kind of funny how we are right back to the Middle Ages in the blink of an eye. Can anyone spell EMP?
They sell indulgences on the corner, I believe. Free parking.
Federal Judges have taken legislative powers from the States and administer the laws that suit themselves without interest in the Constitution (it’s a living document, you know), or Congress, for that matter. When we create an oligarchy, we do it right!
A political establishment that keeps office through favors and lying and the vested powers of incumbency, while manipulating the public sentiment with promises of bread and circuses, and dividing petty interests using the heavy hand of electoral chicanery is just the ticket. Heh, Chad?
Sorry. I wasn’t going to talk about that. But…
True, the armed forces are a bit abused by political whim these days, but they are trained to take it. Better men than we. They will never turn on their political masters. But damn, aren’t politicians taking away the very best of our children to die in places we cannot spell the names of.
Pity, that.
What will the rest of us do–the 95 percent who don’t have the balls to learn how to fire a gun in our own defense?
The very money we use is debased by an unelected Federal Reserve charged with the obvious and essentially public purpose of supporting the oligarchs who run the banks and ‘Wall Street’ interests. That’s about right. Right? And we will bail them out again if we have to, no matter the costs. We just can’t afford to let them fail. Can we?
Are there really enough millionaires for all of us to eat?
I mean, those damned rich are only paying ninety percent of the taxes now, while nearly half of us are paying nothing. What happens when we eat them? Isn’t there a story about a goose and golden eggs that applies here?
Unemployment, artfully used to create a dependent and subservient underclass, will continue at Great Depression levels, but now we will apply a bit of new-math and re-count them with a little statistical slight of hand. (We all understand grading with a curve these days). And they (the underemployed) don’t really want to work, anyway. Right? They enjoy sucking on the federal teat. Who wouldn’t. You? Me?
The elderly, almost twenty percent of the population now, have been made useless by work restrictions (label it retirement) and the limitations placed on the amount of social security they can recover if they want to live a lick above the beggar class, even though the money was stolen from them in the first place. But the money isn’t there anymore, is it? It was (and is) used to fund other, more important interests. Someone else’s.
Children are educated to accept a socialist ethic of ‘the greater good’ (as determined by whom?) and diversity (by which they mean everyone is the same) by teachers dearly devoted to their own comforts first–teachers who are for the most part so uninformed that they themselves cannot pass the proficiency tests which were common only a generation ago. True, the tests have been set aside now for both students and teachers as ‘unfair.’ We would not want anyone to think they are incompetent or anything, would we? We have self-esteem issues to consider.
All while a majority of farmers have given up their independence to insist on subsidies to support agricultural policies determined by bureaucrats who cannot grow a bean, or count one (public education again). But the farmers will always be there to feed us. Right? We’ll keep the borders open for them and the light on.
Universities have become the fifth column beneath our once great republic, denouncing free speech and open inquiry, while college professors, overpaid by your tax money and unable to predict the weather for this coming Wednesday have become the witch doctors of a new religion of climate change with the avowed purpose of controlling all human action (human caused global warming is real! No, really, it is. Really. Trust me. The sun just causes the seasons. That’ll all. That 99% of the carbon dioxide generated by the oceans isn’t important–it’s all about us, you understand). Climate change is a creed now constantly promoted in schools and on nearly every television show. Wow! What a truly brilliant means of gaining absolute political control over all human activity without the semblance of permission through an electoral process. Warming from what? To what? What is ideal, and when will we know what that is? Don’t ask questions, son. It’s all settled, you know. Maybe we should just let the U.N. decide for us.
All while the last wealth of the nation is drained to support an invasion of illegal aliens who never paid for any of its privileges in blood or sweat, and with the primary interest of gaining for themselves what they have not earned. Just make sure they vote the right way. Okay? The crime rate, the prisons, the traffic accidents and fatalities, the emergency rooms, are all dominated by what we are told is only 12% of the population. Only? (Rome, anyone?)
But with the borders of the nation virtually and practically unprotected, we can at least always get someone to mow the lawn. What’s the worry? Who is going to attack us, anyway? We’re broke. More importantly, will they be will to take on their fair share of the National debt?
Oh, that’s right, they already did. They are. And they’re already here.
Meanwhile , the laws of a so called ‘United Nations,’ an elite assembly of dictators and petty tyrants, has been given sovereignty over our national courts.
But then, we are already paying for the privilege, so why not?
Oh, but technology will save us.
The new new thing is the coal-driven car, don’t you know. No? Not with a stove, like a little old-fashioned steam train. No. This one you just plug in and your local utility will burn a bit more coal to feed the thing. Sure, windmills take more energy to build and maintain than they produce–but they’ll work that out. Just give them time, and a few more billions in subsidies. Like growing corn to make ethanol. And solar panels that work–on sunny days. Sheer genius!
Oh, my time is nearly up and I have not yet gotten to the more important matters that are altering our daily lives in ways that are irreparable.
I haven’t even mentioned the unmentionable religion that thinks women have almost the same rights as men and that there can be no separation between church and state. Sheria genius
I have not yet touched upon the new beliefs about when life begins, much less when it ends. Much less. If they’re too old, just let them die. But how much is too. And does too and too equal more?
And all the words we cannot speak for fear of offending, Effendi. Not the F-word. That’s as dead as Carlin. The C word. And the N word. N-N-N-N–can’t say it. Wouldn’t be prudent. (What freedom of speech?)
But then, I’m told, things are not yet bad enough for revolution.
The stinking, ill-mannered, and woefully ignorant product of the public education system, aka, the Occupy mob, that has descended on ‘Wall Street’ so recently, certainly offers no justification for believing the general population is ready for such a radical thing as revolution. Clearly–So long as mom sends the next check. (Oh dad, poor dad, is broke, I hear). And the tea-party fades as it dickers about which savoir will do the magic trick (wine from water and all that).
So don’t worry. Be Happy. (It’s all about you, isn’t it?)
Besides, it is said that Tom Paine drank coffee.
And do remember to have a happy New Year…While you can.
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