A hat tip to Fred “on everything” for an entertaining ramble on why we’re totally finished. I find Fred a fun and easy read and since he has a hundred years or so of experience, first writing the police beat and then other segments of journalism, he is fully capable of writing on any subject at any depth he wishes to take. I even spent $2.99 on one of his e-books from Amazon the other day. I hope he keeps writing on everything for years to come – if he doesn’t get marked for a detention camp like most of the TBP Monkeys here about.
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November 2, 2012 by Fred Reed
We are doomed, saith the preacher, and should accommodate ourselves to it. In times of growing governmental power, protestation at some point becomes futile. Little is served by standing in front of a charging Mongol army and shouting, “No! You should reconsider! Perhaps some other course would be advisable. Let’s parley….”
Complaint is useless. It is too late. It booteth not. We are done. The Mongols ride. America comes apart at the seams. The country turns into something altogether new, new for America.
In high school, I read Shirer, first Berlin Diary and then The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. I had little idea what I was reading. A naval base in rural Virginia is not a hotbed of historical understanding, or any understanding. I knew nothing of Weimar or the Spartacists or the Treaty of Versailles. Still, I dimly grasped that a theretofore civilized country with great rapidity turned into something horrible. It was not an evolutionary change, like the Industrial Revolution. Brahms to Goebbels in a decade.
Something alike happens in America, and one wonders—I wonder, anyway—how can this be? In little more than a decade, the Constitution has died, the economy welters in irreversible decline, we have perpetual war, all power lies in the hands of the executive, the police are supreme, and a surveillance beyond Orwell’s imaginings falls into place.
These observations are now commonplace. It is almost boring to read of them—yet they proceed apace. Where we go, we go fast. Already against the authorities there is no recourse. Should you talk back to the police, you will spend the night in jail.
I sometimes wonder whether there is not some malign force in play, some diabolical miasma with a sense of humor that, having brought the Soviet Union down, amuses itself by turning the United States into the same thing. Or maybe it is just that if any state that can become totalitarian, it will.
Or maybe it was just a chance simultaneity of enabling events. Communism died in China and thus ceased to protect America from the withering competition of a populous, intelligent, and industrious race. The internet and easy transportation allowed American companies to abandon ship and head for cheaper climes. They did. Huge countries unexpectedly began a meteoric rise (if meteors rise), chiefly the BRICs. Big once-American corporations became free-floating transnational beings, loyal only to themselves. Open an apparently American laptop and you find that the screen and memory come from Korea, the hard drive from Malaya, the CPU from an Intel fab in Ireland, the whole thing assembled in Taiwan. America cannot stanch the bleeding. Corporations rule the country, and go whither they will.
Have you ever thrown a stick for a dog, which loves to chase it but, when he comes back with it, cannot bring himself to give it to you to throw again, although that is what he wants? The United States cannot let go of its empire. It fights war after war, constantly losing, bleeding money it doesn’t have, because—because it can’t let go. The military itself, an upgraded WWII force, badly unsuited to modern war, cannot let go of its glorious carriers and obsolescent combat aircraft. Governments too can suffer from arteriosclerosis.
And now the Pentagon growls fiercely at China, like an aging terrier at a Rottweiler pup. The world changes. Minds do not. Some minds do not.
Domestically, the storm likewise approaches. Desperation encourages desperate measures, a hard line, and invites the notorious Man on a Horse.
Economically, the country has trapped itself. It is bankrupt in all but admission, but it cannot spend more prudently. If it cuts welfare in the cities, riots will ensure and elections be lost. If it cuts the bloated federal bureaucracy, a form of welfare, the dismissed will add to an already dangerously high number of the unemployed. And elections will be lost.
Cut the military? It and its parasitic industries are so large, so deeply embedded in the fabric of the country, so rife with influential people with families to feed, that reductions are not possible. The suggestion of even minor and usually fraudulent cuts is greeted by predictions of dire but unspecified consequences. Minor cuts are not what are needed.
The dog cannot let go.
It is said that democracy depends on an informed public. This is to say that democracy is impossible. In the American case, blank ignorance of anything outside the borders leaves people easily manipulable. The genius of the American political system is that it is not necessary to suppress inconvenient information, but only to keep it off television. So few people will encounter it as not to matter.
Giving people the choice between Candidate A and Candidate A, neither of whom addresses the real problems of the nation, is to grant them the influence they would have had in the Habsburg Empire. But it keeps them quiet.
It would be interesting to ask the general public: “Which of the following Arab countries is suspected of trying to develop nuclear weapons? (1) Turkey (2) Pakistan (3) Iran (4) Afghanistan (5) None of the above.”
Nonsense is ever a firm basis for politics. The American public believes itself to be free, to have a spirit of rugged individualism, to live in a democracy admired by the world. In fact Americans are not particularly free and becoming less so by the minute, are not individualists but herd consumers formed by a controlled press, and do not live in a democracy.
And totalitarianism comes. This is no longer the assertion of those dropped on their heads as children. Daily we read of more weaponry for the police, more surveillance authorized by courts, more unlegislated powers for Homeland Security. Currency controls fall into place to prevent people from fleeing the country with their assets.
In this direction, I think, lies the future. It is perfectly possible to store every email sent, every purchase made except by cash, every withdrawal of cash; to institute airport-style “security” for trains and buses; to monitor any conversation by telephone; automatically to track cell phones and read license plates and store it all. We are close. We are very close.
Protesting is pointless. No governmental mechanism prevents the headlong progress of things that would have sickened Thomas Jefferson. In the presidential debates neither Candidate A nor Candidate A has said, so far as I know, a word about the tightening watchfulness.
The only reasonable approach is to lie down and enjoy it. Which I shall do.
Maddie's Mom says:
Thanks Muck. Yes, a good read…
followed by a heavy sigh…..
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2nd November 2012 at 9:39 pm
TeresaE says:
I’ve loved Fred for years. This struck me, “…It is said that democracy depends on an informed public. This is to say that democracy is impossible. In the American case, blank ignorance of anything outside the borders leaves people easily manipulable. ..”
Americans are not just blankly ignorant about the world, they are blatantly ignorant about our own country.
They have, by and large, given up and are willing to accept any bullshit that any civil “servant” feeds them. It makes me sick.
Evidenced by today at the bus stop. The kids got a new afternoon bus driver this week. Three of the kids (that we know of) have complained that they were screamed at because the elementary aged children were not able to manipulate the POS windows which were opened when the bus pulled up to the school. Exact same story told by all three (three different ages, 1 girl, 2 boys, not friends) to their mothers.
Instead of going to the school, or signing off on an email to the principal, the other two went and picked their little darlings up from school.
We’re so screwed. Fred’s right.
Thanks Muck
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2nd November 2012 at 10:23 pm
Roysyl says:
This country could be adequetely defended at one tenth the cost of the present Dept of Defense if it was only defense. Maintaining it’s present course it should revert to its original name, The War Department. It would appear we are trying to establish an Empire, however this is not the case.
All other countries established forigen colonies for the purpose of establishing a source of raw materials and a market for finished goods. Some was for establishing fueling stations to facilitate transportation. Not so with the USA.
Our efforts are in support of the MIC (Military-Industrial Comple). We attack countries populated by little brown people with old obsolete equipment that would be useless against a first world force. As this equipment wears out we replace it with new high expensive gear and still get the shit kicked out of us by little brown men with AK-47′s and IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices) because we don’t understand Fourth Generation Warefare.
In addition to replacing worn out equipment at taxpayer expense we destroy their infrastructure and give sole source (now no-bid) contracts to subsideries of defense contractors at tax payer expense. Broken window anyone?
During previous wars about 10% of the force saw combat, 1 million out of 10 million saw combat in WWII, 50K out of 500M in Nam. Now the ratio of bullit stoppers to non combatents is much higher as support functions have been contracted out to defense contractors at tax payer expense.
Spell check still out so live with my poor spelling and typing errors.
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2nd November 2012 at 10:51 pm
Kill Bill says:
It started with class warfare.
Yet one side never knew about it.
Until the side that started it shot itself in the foot and died.
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2nd November 2012 at 11:33 pm
Irascible Old Fool says:
I fear that every member of this blog/board/forum is on notice as a malcontent. If not now, then in the future when our archived posts are read by human eyes looking for potential threats to The New Way Of Things.
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2nd November 2012 at 6:32 am
Novista says:
IOF
They are already outnumbered, they just don’t know it yet. For the vocal minority here, there are more, albeit silent, but learning the nature of the beast. For now, the beast has had useful idiots who will surely be ‘thrown under the bus’ as The Collapse continues — so the beast will generate more enemies.
It’s like a Minsky moment in sociological terms, the instability unleashed will have unintended consequences they never imagined.
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2nd November 2012 at 7:04 am
Oscar Mannheim says:
Fred Reed and I are the same age, both wrote for Lew Rockwell and are both expats. We think very much alike, more so with every passing year. I believe I’m a bit more pessimistic than he, or have been for a longer period.
I live in a country in which totalitarianism is moving ahead apace. A scant eight years ago, it was nothing like what it’s become. I’m sitting here waiting for the “building inspector” (a kid with a diploma but no license, but he has relatives in the town hall) and a licensed draftsman so I can submit “plans” (and pay for a permit and building tax) for an addition to my son’s house, which is on my property. The addition is an attached garage, something a twelve year old could build… Wait, once upon a time could build. The taxes here pay for a FSA that makes the US look like a place run by Scrooge, and for a vast army of public employees and indoctrinators, but what they don’t get is that the producers will soon be tapped out and that they themselves will tax themselves out of their own village, forced to move to the boons.
And like Fred, I know there is likely no stopping it, not here, not anywhere, so I’ll kick back in my porch chair and enjoy my own life for all that remains of it, happily growing food I could afford to buy without handouts, creating an attractive landscape along with my son and dtr-in-law, all the while planing how to introduce the “Monkey-Wrench-Gang” approach to town hall, soy farms and the FSA. Then again, why bother? The Monkey Wrench Gang on steroids runs the country!
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2nd November 2012 at 8:57 am
Maddie's Mom says:
Malcontent.
I like it !!!
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2nd November 2012 at 1:51 pm
Bob says:
The cynical part of my mind says ‘We have the planes, ships and missles, and you have our promise to pay you in the future…”
Similarly, our youth can say “we have our health and decades to live, and you have your systems that you pledged our future earnings to…”
Too bad, so sad…can you see the coming defaults, bankruptcies, repudiations and jubilees? The anger, recriminations, violence and wars?
The terrible thing about money is that it compels you to do things you do not want to do.
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2nd November 2012 at 11:35 am
Eddie says:
Fred seems to have found a nice place to live in Mexico..and has family and friends around. I wish him well.
For those of still here in Austin, prepping seems more sensible than lying around, though.
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2nd November 2012 at 12:50 pm