“As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”
(H. L. Mencken, writing for the Baltimore Evening Sun on 26 July 1920)
Although this quote was written many years before, it was not until the election of George W. Bush to the presidency that it seemed that indeed, the “chickens had finally come home to roost” and Mencken’s prophesy had in fact been fulfilled,
This was followed shortly thereafter by a change in the economy from the first (inherited) budget surplus in almost one hundred years into a seventeen trillion dollar deficit, and the near-collapse of the American, and eventually, World Economies whose bailout was carried on the backs of the working Middle-Class to protect the privileges of those whose short-sighted greed and excess had caused it.
(It would have been far cheaper and more logical after all, to put the bankers and the legislators who abetted them in jail, buy the houses from the banks at cost, rather than at their added ballon-payment interest rates, and let the people pay back the same government that would have saved the bankers, rather than their homes, for instance.)
But of course, the nationalization of that much real estate to do something effective to aid our own people and save the economy without regard to the protection of a corrupt group of privileged insiders would undoubtedly end up being labeled as “Socialist” and we have already been conditioned to hate even a little potential Communism far more than an endless amount of Corruption.
But it wasn’t until the election of 2016 that perhaps the most sinister aspect of that predication, which had somehow gone unnoticed became glaringly apparent, although it is in the first, not the last sentence that our doom was prophesied.
“…As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people…”
It took the mind of an only marginally intelligent or sane home-grown political strategist who had built his fortunes upon treachery, lies, smoke and mirrors, emotional drama, blackmail, dis-information, denial and fraud, being totally without any scruples, and little substance to mange to become a culture-hero able to align and rally paranoid, anti-intellectual religious simpletons, racists, jingoistic xenophobes, misogynists and most businessmen into one unified voting body politic in order to get himself elected to the presidency of a country so full of angry, fearful, superstitious and mean-spirited pricks that his victory was guaranteed long before the first ballot was cast.
And “the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last….”
(Even if only by being at best considered by too many who saw him as “the lesser of two evils.”)
Given the choice between even a nominally intellectual or educated usurper of the will of the people, with her own history of fraud, lies and deceptions who at least preached tolerance and understanding, and a clearly unbalanced and emotionally retarded snake-oil salesman:
…Always bet on large groups of stupid people to do the bidding of the sort of cynical crook who will convince them of things he himself does not believe, but thinks they are ignorant enough to accept.
…Always bet on those charlatans to channel the hatred, fear, and resentments of those so enslaved by their own beliefs that they profess to even love their collars and chains; who will do no end of evil at his bidding and surrender the very rights they profess to love, to protect what they are allowed to call their freedom.
…To never underestimate the potential for the tyranny of evil men to prevail.
(After all, many, if not most of the entire animal kingdom will go so far as to kill or even eat each other under the right circumstances allowed by their respective tribe or pack, much like what humans call Justifiable Homicide.)
Animals however, rarely kill anything they don’t eat, (except for the males, whenever mating rights or territory are involved) and they don’t have to hate their dinner in order to kill or eat it.
It should not have surprised the Liberal/Intellectual Left-Behinds that no matter how blatantly false or illogical the pronouncements or actions of this Mussolini-esque harlequin, no matter how loud their protests or indignations (as well as those of the rest of the world), nothing changed amongst his supporters, who managed to keep him in power and seemed as ubiquitous as Christ on the Cross, Mickey Mouse, and Coca-Cola.
…And their anger, hatred and fear was as vast and unlimited as the Pacific.
Then, suddenly, several months before his re-election, in the middle of what promised to be the mother of all last stands of liberal opposition determined to prevent his re-election (which was undoubtedly doomed to yet another crushing failure), within three days time, first the Federal Reserve Banks were destroyed and rendered radioactive by terrorists for almost purely psychological purposes, and then The Armageddon Virus drained the world banking systems of all of their collective assets, and finally rendered the entire Internet, as well as any and all computers using it useless.
Much like Stuxnet, it contained many interlocking Zero-Day vulnerabilities and Doomsday self-destruct sequences targeting not only the computers themselves, but also any equipment connected to or controlled by it.
In a world devoid of either computers, Faith, or Money, the infrastructure of the Western world collapsed in less than a week, with no police or troops to control the riots or looting, and no firemen to put out the flames or paramedics to take anyone to the failed hospital systems.
No public safety, public or private schools, electricity, clean running water, solid waste treatment plants, mass transit, mass media, or grocery stores, but plenty of mass hysteria.
No Social Security. No unemployment compensation or disability checks. No public dole of any kind.
By the time that he became the first president to commit suicide, there was no news media in any form to report it, few interested in reading it, and no one ready to step up to the plate to assume the chain of command of a wrecked nation in flames.
Of course, it was only a matter of time before the natural ascendancy of self-determination, ruthless pragmatism, life-sustaining skill-sets, and as always, blind luck and questionable circumstances would produce the leaders, movers and shakers, producers and reapers of the boundless opportunities created by way of mass economic re-distribution, but it would be an agonizingly long time at best.
And maybe…just maybe for the first time since the beginnings of recorded history, it would not be determined by wealth, position, social status or privilege, inherited aristocracies or fortunes, sex, race, religious, or ethnic affiliation…at least not at first.
(Keep in mind, it’s not so much that human nature was changed all that much, but it would of course, take time to establish who’s gang was the most powerful; even if only for the fleetest blink of a second, that field was leveled long enough to provide a window of opportunity for the truly smartest and the fittest to not only survive, but flourish and thrive….)
This is the type of self-determinism that would have given Heinlein an erection (were he still alive) while he tried to use “the present state of affairs” to explain to the ghost of Ayn Rand the paucities of Objectivism, now that Reverse Evolution had been stopped dead in its tracks.
In the blink of an eye, the perspectives of nearly every living human on the planet changed, although generally in proportion to just how much privilege they had lost.
Americans, the most pampered and spoiled of all, went from whining about pay raises, real or imagined sarcasms, their feelings of low self-esteem, their endless blame-shifting and refusal to accept responsibility for their own present circumstances, feeling unappreciated or undervalued, or the insensitive remarks of anyone in general, to being genuinely thankful for not being killed, raped, and/or eaten, let alone worrying from where their next meal was to come.
They had taken so much for granted for so long that they forgot:
> how good it is just to not be a part of the food chain, or
what it takes to be a real top predator.
> what it’s like to be totally dependent upon and responsible for their own thoughts and actions to determine the length and quality of their lives.
> that nothing is either forgiven or forgotten, much less guaranteed.
> that you do not require forgiveness for Sins invented and created in someone else’s image.
> that only your family, clan, or tribe will be there to pick you up and help you get back on your feet when you fall…if you are lucky.
> …the rest will only be there to pick your pockets and bones.
> that every day is Judgement Day.
> that no amount of money will replace the memory of your everyday lives as your family grew up and you grew old, or the fact that you learned to value it too late.
> what they gave up when they traded their lives for money, and their Instincts for Reason.
> that they don’t have to ask permission, apologize, or face denial of their rights of freedom and movement to pursue their desires.
Yes, undoubtedly, most people in very poor health would not suffer for very long, with no money to be made by keeping them alive like vegetables on a farm, or by planting them elsewhere for longer periods in smaller, far more expensive patches of real estate with only lawn maintenance to be factored.
Yes, it was also found to be true that many of the diseases and maladies of their artificially increased lifespans were induced by a lack of exercise, bloodless violence, stress, and thankless pursuits of objectives completely removed from their own activities of daily living, perhaps even giving credence to long-debunked myths about how your conscience somehow punished you for your own wrongdoing and its associated, accumulated guilt.
They learned that by eating or drinking too much to try to subvert appetites for other more natural, and life-affirming pursuits, one induces or at least encourages Type II diabetes, congestive heart failure, and hypertension.
…that “Only in America” could a “Couch Potato,” let alone a six-hundred pound human incapable of feeding itself exist at all.
…or that no medication can cure the depression caused by the paralyzing realization of the falseness, emptiness, and futility of anyone’s life unless they take arms against a sea of tormentors and the slings and arrows of outrageous fortunes bred by false desires, ignorance, addictions, and suffering.
And finally, most, if not almost all of the money they became convinced they needed to buy possessions to fill holes in their spirits as big as Existentialism itself was as unnecessary as the imaginary false Hierarchy of the (New) Needs by which they had been hypnotized or the long-gone understanding or memory of Maslow’s originals.
They soon realized that lofty ideals alone would not protect anyone, because Enlightenment and Compassion can only stay the executioner’s hand when it is under the control of the victor.
First, one has to survive in order to live long enough to savor one’s existence. Sentience, Enlightenment and Compassion are acquired tastes.
A more accurate modern translation of René Descartes’ original hypothesis might have instead been “I think, therefore I desire that which I do not need, thereby I suffer in pain, and fear, and therefore I am.”
“God (sic) protect me from all the Good People…especially your followers.” (unk. origin). The depth of their self-righteous hatred, fear and evil knows no bounds.
So much for “…the inner soul of the people…”
Be careful what you wish for.
Sayonara Y’all…
Namasté
नमस्ते
Chazz Vincent
06/16/2017
(out-of-sequence; chapter tbd later…also please keep in mind that true to my own genre of Enhanced and Fortified Non-Fiction, this piece starts in my somewhat altered reality of the here and now as well as the there and then before launching into the indulgences of my apocryphal visions of what the future may hold.)
dreamlanddancing 