The air is crisp, the temperature cool, and coffee warm. Around us are Paleozoic ridges, adorned with discolored leaves disembarking their boughs as they slowly drift to terrestrial tombs.
Atop our peaceful plateau we pause and reflect. While dew glistens and dawn breaks, we review the recipe for the stew that bubbles in the cauldron below.
Pitchforks and Torches
Last month, we recounted the military and monetary misadventures that marred the first decade of this century. But what may be a more consequential event occurred as the second one approached.
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Just before the financial crisis, the initial iPhone was unveiled… enabling unprecedented transmission and tracking of public messaging and private correspondence.
Like many “advances”, smartphones are a mixed blessing. They offer unrivaled flexibility on an electronic leash, and unparalleled convenience under an omnipresent eye.
Few devices save and waste as much time. None so easily enable us to interact with anyone while ignoring those sitting beside us.
No invention has connected so many globally while isolating them locally. It captures events for all time, at the expense of appreciating them as they occur.
Information has never been so accessible, nor more easy to manipulate. The smartphone transformed and catapulted social media, which was instrumental making Barack Obama president.
In most ways that matter (and many that were worse), the Obama Administration was an extension of the one it followed.
The corporate grift, foreign bombings, domestic surveillance, and illegal torture continued. The president created “kill lists” that included American citizens, and unilaterally ordered the elimination of names.
The administration of “hope and change” was also instrumental reigniting racial antagonism and ratcheting up the Culture War.
As connected corporations benefited from bailouts, “Cap and Trade” schemes, the Obamacare boondoggle, and infinitesimal interest rates that enriched the wealthy while pulverizing savers, Americans Left and Right started recognizing who was ripping them off.
As “Occupy Wall Street” grabbed torches, the “Tea Party” picked up pitchforks. Each cast aspersions at the Fed, politicians, and crony corporations. To those in power, this wouldn’t do.
Division has always been a tactic of control, which people in power maintain by convincing the pitchfork people that their enemies are those carrying torches. Better the sheep shear each other while bleating for the wolves to protect the flock.
It’s fine for the rubes to bicker about abortion, homosexuality, racial grievances, women’s rights, or transgender bathrooms. In fact, it’s preferable that they do. But it’s unacceptable for the peons to make waves about their pockets being picked.
Frayed Fabric
It’s no coincidence “social justice warriors” and “wokeness” zealots arose as bailouts, ZIRP, and legal larceny ran riot. “Black Lives Matter” and other purveyors of mayhem weren’t grassroots uprisings or organic accidents.
Suddenly, big corporations and giant financial institutions adopted the “diversity” dogma. “Equity” and “inclusion” became part of the C-Suite catechism.
“Pride” sponsorships proliferated, sex became “fluid”, and homosexual “marriage” went from an obvious absurdity to something only a bigot could oppose. “Toleration” was no longer enough. Only active “allies” were welcome in “respectable” society.
Does anyone honestly believe Bank of America, Lockheed Martin, or the CIA (this recruiting ad was classic) could care less about reducing racial injustice or protecting bizarre sexual preferences? Or was their newfound “awareness” a pacifying diversion while the rails under the gravy train stayed greased?
The questions answer themselves.
After decades of fading social tension as people increasingly got along, angry Americans were urged to distrust or despise each other. Whites were presumed to be “racist” because of their ancestry. Men were vilified as “toxic” because of their sex. Opposing political opinions weren’t merely to be defeated. They had to be vanquished.
Historian Brion McClanahan observed that our recent animosity is the 1850s phase of our ongoing upheaval. But in many ways, division is worse now than in the run-up to Lincoln’s war.
Antebellum angst roiled a common culture. At the time, almost every American descended from western Europe. More than 90% were Christian. Fewer than 10% were abolitionists, and a fifth of that number owned slaves.
Intense as arguments were, the range was relatively narrow. They mostly touched on constitutional topics. Today, the Constitution is among the few things we don’t debate… because nobody cares about it.
The social fabric seems irreparably frayed. Amid distractive squabbles over lunacy almost everyone would’ve considered absurd a decade earlier, castigation of the Fed, wars, and other rip-offs largely subsided.
That was the intent.
“Danger to Democracy”
But most Westerners knew something wasn’t right. For years, standards of living declined, and societal decay increased as liberty receded.
Urban elites openly disdained most Americans. Tradition was ridiculed, Christianity was mocked, and majority populations were portrayed as bigoted oppressors with ancestors unworthy of honor.
Meanwhile, political pilfering continued. For most of the decade, the Fed funds rate stayed stapled to the floor… siphoning wealth from productive citizens to “public servants” and connected cronies.
Beneath the surface, resentment simmered. In 2016, it boiled over. That June, impudent Britons gave eurocrats the bird. Five months later, a more emphatic middle finger rose across the pond.
“Democracy” is the opiate of the administrative state, providing the plebs the illusion of power while Establishment Elites call the shots.
It works well for people in power, but only if the peasants vote the way they’re told. If they don’t, then their decision is “a danger to democracy”.
As when the people choose incorrectly in other countries, the results must be reversed. Before Donald Trump was even inaugurated, the attempted “color revolution” was well underway.
Its most obvious manifestation was the accusation of “Russia collusion” to benefit Trump’s campaign, and that the president remained a “puppet” of Putin after taking office. An impeachment followed over a phone call to the Ukraine. Being devoid of reasonable evidence, these absurdities ultimately failed. But the effort persisted.
Hiroshima and Detroit
With legacy media increasingly discredited, Big Tech consolidated control. Thru them, censorship was enabled and enforced, allowing the State to circumvent the First Amendment.
Amazon removed dissident books, YouTube deleted videos, Google gamed search, and social media erased or squelched contrarian accounts. The sitting president was booted from Twitter.
As always, it started innocuously, with presumed bigots, loudmouths, or ne’er-do-wells whose banishment wouldn’t be perceived as a threat. With obvious coordination among companies and the government, dissidents were simultaneously eliminated from several platforms.
Meanwhile, real menaces multiplied. Unlike Beirut, Baghdad, or Dresden, Americans didn’t need foreign foes to destroy their cities. They’ve done that themselves.
Looking at Hiroshima and Detroit in 1945, then glancing at each today, something in the States went terribly wrong. The roots delve deeper than the 21st century.
In the 1970s, the asylums were emptied. Deranged vagrants and drug-addled derelicts were let loose on law-abiding citizens. Sidewalks and public parks became campgrounds for crackheads.
Some argue that “public” property is open to anyone. If so, should winos, druggies, and bums be allowed to wander into local libraries and public schools? Why should taxpayers endure major cities that are veritable cesspools?
The problem could be alleviated by privatizing everything. Owners would prohibit or police anyone trying to enter their property. This would also mitigate the immigration issue.
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But since that wasn’t realistic, the situation kept getting worse.
Urban Decay
I lived in San Francisco most of the ‘90s. My last visit was to officiate my brother’s wedding seven years ago. The decline was evident.
Tenderloin bums encroached on Union Square. Tents sprouted on O’Farrell Street sidewalks. As if they were in Lima thirty years earlier, my parents were warned about leaving their hotel.
Since they were married, they’d loved San Francisco and visited often. After this experience, they pledged not to go back. And they didn’t. Who could blame them?
During the next year, urban uprisings would increase. Donald Trump remained a lightning rod. Bolsonaro was elected in Brazil. Les Gilets Jaune erupted in France, and protesters swamped Hong Kong.
One again, authorities needed a way to crack down. When the new decade dawned, they found it.
This article was originally published on Premium Insights.
