Thanks for the two days of rest, Gentle Reader. I needed them more than I can say. Now back to the show.
First, let’s have a colorizing quote. There have been few plaints more widely shared than this one, from Paddy Chayefsky’s script for Network:
I don’t have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It’s a depression. Everybody’s out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel’s worth. Banks are going bust. Shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street and there’s nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there’s no end to it. We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, and we sit watching our TVs while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that’s the way it’s supposed to be.
We know things are bad — worse than bad. They’re crazy. It’s like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don’t go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is: ‘Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won’t say anything. Just leave us alone.’
That movie is forty-eight years old, yet its central theme, expressed above by maverick newsman Howard Beale, is as fresh as the morning dew: Things are bad. Not only that, they’re getting worse, and private American citizens feel powerless to do anything about it.
Would anyone care to dissent?
John Whitehead can be a bit screechy at times, but he has things to say, and he doesn’t mince words:
“We the people” have become the new, permanent underclass in America.
We’re being forced to shell out money for endless wars that are bleeding us dry, money for surveillance systems to track our movements, money to further militarize our already militarized police, money to allow the government to raid our homes and bank accounts, money to fund schools where our kids learn nothing about freedom and everything about how to comply, and on and on.
This is no way of life.
It’s tempting to say that there’s little we can do about it, except that’s not quite accurate.
There are a few things we can do: demand transparency, reject cronyism and graft, insist on fair pricing and honest accounting methods, call a halt to incentive-driven government programs that prioritize profits over people, but it will require that “we the people” stop playing politics and stand united against the politicians and corporate interests who have turned our government and economy into a pay-to-play exercise in fascism.
The whole piece is eminently worth your time. I quoted the segment above for its tone, and as a demonstrator for how an intelligent, passionate writer whose perceptions of things are entirely accurate can nevertheless miss the point.
Whitehead’s key question is “Who Owns America?” It’s a good one. There are some 330 million of us at this time, and most of us “own” a little something. But “ownership” in the original sense has largely been destroyed. NB: Those will be the last “scare quotes.” I’m going to try to avoid them from this point forward, as I’m tired of replacing the caps on those keys.
For example, I own a house and grounds… subject to extortionate property taxes for which I get nothing in return. I own two cars… neither of which I can drive without first complying with government licensing, registration, and inspection rules, all of which come with fees. I have a decent fund of savings… but God help me if I should try to spend any of it; the sales taxes in my corner of the country are ruinous. You might be able to say the same things.
So there’s some reason for Americans to feel hedged in by the Omnipotent State. But few of us contemplate how it came to be this way.
Among Whitehead’s takes on our current malaise are several j’accuses aimed at big business. As I’ve already extracted a large quote, I’ll simply recommend that you read the rest of his essay for yourselves. You’ll find the thrusts at large corporations, both foreign and domestic, quite easily. Whitehead’s statements of observable fact are quite accurate.
Whitehead also cites identity politics as a factor in our deterioration. There’s no question that this is a pernicious influence. The collectivization of virtually everything according to racial, religious, and sexual identities is just as destructive to social peace as the collectivization of production and commerce is to prosperity and security. However, politicians love it; it greatly simplifies their vote-buying sprees.
You might be asking yourself “If Fran agrees with Whitehead on all of that, what is it he disagrees with?” And you’re right to do so. The time for that has come.
None of the political, economic, or social diseases enumerated in Whitehead’s essay can be fought directly. A frontal assault on most of them is impossible. Even when it’s possible, the battle can’t be won that way. The reason is simple: they are not primaries but resultants. They came about because of bad decisions made long ago about things far more fundamental.
Think of the evil phenomena discussed in Whitehead’s essay as the symptoms of a disease, rather than as the disease itself. Good physicians don’t treat symptoms; they strive to identify the causative agent, the bacillus, virus, or allergen that brought it about, and to attack that directly. Once the causative agent has been vanquished, the symptoms will gradually disappear.
I shan’t go deeper just now. (Rest assured: I will.) The point of this piece is to pose a question. I could ask it thus:
…but after reflection, I think it better put thus:
More anon.
2 comments
I cannot know where you intend to take this, but your premise does provide additional fuel to add to a thought that coalesced earlier today. As it presents a means to seek a solution, it thus may be worth your consideration, so I’ll present it now.
First, though, let me posit that a (the?) fundamental error is found in human ego. And yes, it is a disease when unrestrained. It demands feeding, becoming insatiable and inevitably destabilizes.
Humans seeking power for its own sake, even incrementally as the Fabian-like Progressives have, inevitably leads to Lord Acton’s maxim and its consequences.
At the link at the top, my commenter from England provided us a window to the depths officials there are going to hide reality so the public remains complacent.
And that suggests fear and trembling in high echelons.
We have seen before that when too much power has been centralized, those who wield it liken it to having a tiger by the tail.
What that suggests is many in the inner circle of power are wishing it wasn’t so. They’d love for the public to take back some of it. But they dare not say so just as no one dared caution Stalin. Those who survived tenuously under Stalin’s rule went to extra lengths after he died not to allow such power to centralize in one man in the Soviet Union ever after.
As I suspect that we are nearing a crossroads where there is fear that one man could wind up in power, Pray for the wisdom on how best to make use of this conundrum. I certainly do daily. I’d love to hear the thoughts of others on this matter.
What must be done to lessen the fear of those currently in power so they are willing to letting go? How, with Heaven’s help, could we begin to restore checks and balances to our system of governance?
Sir,
Regardless of the causes of these various phenomena (and believe me when I tell you I have spent most of my adult life trying to unravel the mess that has led to these days), I would venture that the time for analysis is done. We are, I think, past the point where understanding will avail us of much.
To wit, it doesn’t much matter whom is responsible, ultimately, for these things. Nor is it of use to know whence came these details, decisions, courses, designs, and affairs. Such understanding will not make any difference when it comes time to deal with the consequences. This is precisely because, there is no way to divert these events.
There is a line from the first Matrix movie. The final showdown between Agent Smith and Neo, in the subway station, is underway. At one point, Agent Smith has Neo in a headlock between the rails, and a train is coming. The light of the approaching train begins to illumine the area, and Smith says, “Do you hear that, Mr Anderson? That is the sound of inevitability”.
That is the sound we are now hearing. I very early on noticed that the drivers of the events I was certain I would be confronting later in life, had all been activated before my birth. The implicit momentum gathered by those measures meant that, by the time of their scheduled appearance, there would be nothing available to stop them. Whatever program they supported, would be executed. End of story. 30.
In the end, what this came to mean to me was that my only choice was to prepare as thoroughly as possible, to use the time I had been given to try and educate others (which has normally amounted to simply providing assurance that a problem exists), and to stay as focused as possible on these objectives.
At this point, the only decision left to make, in my humble view, is to determine one’s comportment and actions given certain stimuli. To have concluded that all we need to do is to vote harder for the other guy, or to attend a TED talk, or buy an EV, or whatever else people think will save them (or make them feel better about themselves), is patently nonsensical.
Denial is rampant. Wishful thinking is not a plan. Hope, while important, is also not a plan.
From the Book of Righteous Return Fire, Chapter 2, v 5-6:
“Blessed are they who, when Death comes, focus only on the front sight”.
Diligentia. Vis. Celeritas.