I just re-upped my subscription for a 2nd year, and articles like this are why (completely separate from the also-worth-it Jonestown & Whose America podcasts). Particularly struck by: 1. Roman parallels to modern America: onetime successful landowners displaced by mass immigration, which drives down wages and consolidates enterprise in a…
I just re-upped my subscription for a 2nd year, and articles like this are why (completely separate from the also-worth-it Jonestown & Whose America podcasts). Particularly struck by:
1. Roman parallels to modern America: onetime successful landowners displaced by mass immigration, which drives down wages and consolidates enterprise in a few powerful hands while relatively impoverishing others. I was once a loathsome radical libertarian who believed “complacent” Americans had no right to labor that could be done for half price by an immigrant. Now I understand that, “yeah, if I were supporting my family on $40/hr, and now a Guatemalan will do any of those jobs for $20/hr, I’m not taking a 50% pay cut, selling my house and never taking another vacation for the luxury of keeping my job.” The bipartisan free market view of the 80s, 90s and 00s is an economically correct one that has gutted the country and strip-mined its culture, because it is an incomplete/utopian vision of progress.
2. The geographically mobile economic nomad point. Our family has done well with this but you’re right: “local” culture and values are mostly extinct, replaced by hyper mobile paycheck-mercenaries. There was an old PBS special in which a northeastern linguist-academic lamented the disappearance of Philadelphia’s (and PA’s) *multiple* accents, which were different even between neighborhoods in Philly. If only she could have lived to see that most Texans you meet no longer even have an accent. And values, once local, and inculcated locally in schoolrooms and churches and civic clubs, are now national/international, and inculcated on screens and enforced by Western intelligence communities.
3. The idea that your gardening windfall (“it’s the same price for me to buy from WMT as it is to tend a garden”) is understandably shrug material for you, but panic material for any non-corporate farmer. As soon as that’s true, it’s lights out for millions
4. CIA involvement in culture. The more I read about the IC of the midcentury, the more I realize that the virtuous America I fought for as a Marine in the 00s probably hasn’t existed since WWII, and maybe not even then. To think that the Church Committee failed to address most of it, and what it did address largely just encouraged the IC to be more covert in its activities, and that they’re now gaining confidence that they can be bolder in their strong-armed tactics as it seems nobody can/will stop them...
An addition to #2 about our new peanut butter culture. Virtually all culture is a fake and place-less imitation of some authentic culture that preceded it. See new construction: when it’s not a tribute to the styles of the ancients, much of modern architecture is a take-off on the sharp angles and clean lines and “form over function” of 1960s design. Everything in Hollywood is an economically-minded prequel or sequel or remake, and now even the genres are collapsing only into Marvel or Star Wars, or trying to become the next Marvel or Star Wars. Every developing burg has the same businesses: gourmet coffee shops, craft breweries and CrossFit. We are now like aliens without our own culture, but who take our childlike understanding of what authentic culture is and generate a still-place-less kabuki impersonation of lost design.
... or Tradcaths not realizing medieval society would still see them as chumps and spiritual lightweights in their communities... or even people like me who hate to realize the Byzantine-like empire where you couldn't bother a senator for an important matter because he was having spiritual ecstasy while praying near his icons... isn't coming back.
Regarding your fourth point, I think this is something many military men of our generation (you, Darryl, and I) have had to grapple with. I was born the same year as our illustrious host and have had many similar life experiences. Some cultural things I am sure we experienced during the heyday of the 80s stuck with our life choices later on, in early adulthood when we didn't yet have the capacity to check the premises we grew up with. For those who weren't around in the 80s, it truly was a triumphant time, especially if you were a kid who was regularly exposed to the Cold War by its appearances in media like Top Gun, or any Stallone film, but not to the criticism of the era. I spent my whole life wanting to be, and becoming as soon as I had a chance, a naval aviator, thanks to the impression the former movie had on me as a child. That is was largely and openly funded by the Navy as a two hour recruitment ad was something I both knew and didn't care about. (Some of my later commanders got started in the Top Gun era, and talked about the humungous surge in Navy recruitment that didn't taper off until the mid-90s.)
By the time I was ready to go fight, 9/11 happened, and what began as childhood fascination and desire for adventure, took on a moral purpose. I spent the next decade chasing "terrorists" (I am using quotes not to minimize what many of our enemies did, but to highlight that we'd be sent to kill anyone so long as intel handed them the moniker) in a multimillion dollar government aircraft.
It wasn't really until the fall of Afghanistan that I really reflected upon the mission that made up my entire youth. It was the rage, and feeling of disgrace and abandonment, that really made me stop automatically trusting the benevolence of my government. It took almost no poking around to see how ridiculously misplaced my trust had always been. There are a lot of TLDRs here that Darryl has helpfully pointed out over the years. That democracy is oligarchy with more steps. That while the MIC is staffed largely by moral patriotic people, the thing itself is a metaphysical devil. That there is no low our intelligence agencies won't stoop to for ends that cannot even be properly understood unless malice is attributed. That our political actors are just that. That the ultimate bread and circus isn't the NFL, fast food, or reality TV, it is our elections. That we, a proud and free people, were willing to give up everything over an upper respiratory virus at the behest of liars and charlatans.
The list could go on, but what I am trying to say is that the generation who bore the brunt of the war on terror was ours. We were in the unique place of having our childhood filled with a culture of unabashed pro-American sentiment, went on to fight a war whose timing was so perfect, it had to be planned (this was the hardest pill for me to swallow and the hardest to gather the courage to see the truth). For those of us who took part, many gave our lives, but all of us left a part of our souls out there. And for what? Certainly not the pre-WW2 America (or earlier) we thought we were fighting for.
I think there is hope though. Do you know why - even though our government keeps getting caught with it's proverbial hand in the Epstein island temple, with no punishment in sight, while our media does everything possible to make sure real malfeasance is never brought to light, and our intelligence agencies take part heavily in both - the propaganda of America as a good country still works? It's because the citizenry of America, the little people, are decent. I'd say their biggest sin, in general, is naivety, and trusting the people in charge. Just strike up a conversation with a stranger in line at the grocery store, or in the dentist office, or wherever, and you'll see that a random sampling of your fellow citizens will turn up good, friendly people. People who, for the most part, will go their whole lives never bringing harm to another by purpose. This is what makes it easy to believe we are (and our government by extension is) the good guys.
I wonder what happens first. That enough of the real good guys get wise on who the real bad guys are, or if the whole thing collapses before that. My guess is the latter will do everything to make sure things go tits up before they get dethroned. It's just their way. Should make for an interesting couple of decades.
As for the question of whether we'll see another "80s" in the near future, I really don't know. I think our overlords would like that, but I think people might be even more disillusioned than they were in the 70s, as weird as that may sound. The reason is because of people like Darryl. Back then, you really had to go out of your way to find non-mainstream information, and since it was basically impossible for those people to reach an audience, the CIA had an even easier time at discrediting them. Bear in mind, they invented the term "conspiracy theory" back then to smear people who looked into the utter implausibility of the Warren Report. The traditional barriers to reaching a mass audience are lowered (despite the best efforts of the oligarchy), and as a result people like you and I can get good, reliable information that smashes regime narratives.
Weirdly enough, having not seen a movie in at least five years, I decided to watch the new Top Gun out of some curiosity, but more as something of an obligation. I will admit, it was actually a great piece of storytelling, along with some of the best aerial photography ever captured (using crazy, miniature, computer stabilized cameras that would have been a pipe dream when the original was released). As a former naval aviator, I've never experienced anything that so closely matched the experience of the cockpit. Praise aside, the reason I bring up the movie is to say that I doubt it will produce the same recruitment surge as before. The reason being is that while the movie was basically superior in every way, as a movie, than the first (another hard pill to swallow, lol), the environment is different. It felt so out of place amidst of the continuous losing streak America's been on. It would be like if Top Gun came out in 1973 instead of 1987.
I watched it with my dad and told him after that the premise you are forced to accept is that America is the good guy, and that it's perfectly moral for them to launch a preemptive military strike on another country, because of a, and I quote, "Multilateral NATO treaty", whatever that means. The movie mercifully does not dwell on this, nor should it. Regardless of the absurdity of the premise, the characters force you to root for them. Why? Because they are like the good guys we know all around us. The normal Americans who are decent and honorable. If you've ever been in a Navy squadron wardroom, the actors did a great job of capturing that environment specifically. The whole movie only makes sense thematically though if the American ruling class (or ruling trash) is good, and it's not. I like to think in the alternative universe populated by the likes of Maverick, and Goose, and Iceman, that America is the good guy. That's a bigger act of escapism than the flying.
Sorry for the wall of barely structured text. I guess all I can say is that I hope that the people with no power can create a movement that demands transparency and accountability for the ruling trash (I'd say how, but it would be a fedpost) before it's really too late, maybe it already is. And, at the very least, as JFK allegedly put it, to shatter the CIA into a thousand pieces. Then we can live in the alternate Top Gun universe!
4. Apologies Marine for my really dumb maybe childish examples... but I remember getting annoyed by "and then after facing the demons in battle they were corrupted..." in most of the horror video games I play as some jaded BS... but there is definitely something to the idea no one comes back from war with evil (whether spiritually or political) unscathed. The American founders were right to eschew war and want nothing to do with it unless in defense of their great nation.
I just re-upped my subscription for a 2nd year, and articles like this are why (completely separate from the also-worth-it Jonestown & Whose America podcasts). Particularly struck by:
1. Roman parallels to modern America: onetime successful landowners displaced by mass immigration, which drives down wages and consolidates enterprise in a few powerful hands while relatively impoverishing others. I was once a loathsome radical libertarian who believed “complacent” Americans had no right to labor that could be done for half price by an immigrant. Now I understand that, “yeah, if I were supporting my family on $40/hr, and now a Guatemalan will do any of those jobs for $20/hr, I’m not taking a 50% pay cut, selling my house and never taking another vacation for the luxury of keeping my job.” The bipartisan free market view of the 80s, 90s and 00s is an economically correct one that has gutted the country and strip-mined its culture, because it is an incomplete/utopian vision of progress.
2. The geographically mobile economic nomad point. Our family has done well with this but you’re right: “local” culture and values are mostly extinct, replaced by hyper mobile paycheck-mercenaries. There was an old PBS special in which a northeastern linguist-academic lamented the disappearance of Philadelphia’s (and PA’s) *multiple* accents, which were different even between neighborhoods in Philly. If only she could have lived to see that most Texans you meet no longer even have an accent. And values, once local, and inculcated locally in schoolrooms and churches and civic clubs, are now national/international, and inculcated on screens and enforced by Western intelligence communities.
3. The idea that your gardening windfall (“it’s the same price for me to buy from WMT as it is to tend a garden”) is understandably shrug material for you, but panic material for any non-corporate farmer. As soon as that’s true, it’s lights out for millions
4. CIA involvement in culture. The more I read about the IC of the midcentury, the more I realize that the virtuous America I fought for as a Marine in the 00s probably hasn’t existed since WWII, and maybe not even then. To think that the Church Committee failed to address most of it, and what it did address largely just encouraged the IC to be more covert in its activities, and that they’re now gaining confidence that they can be bolder in their strong-armed tactics as it seems nobody can/will stop them...
An addition to #2 about our new peanut butter culture. Virtually all culture is a fake and place-less imitation of some authentic culture that preceded it. See new construction: when it’s not a tribute to the styles of the ancients, much of modern architecture is a take-off on the sharp angles and clean lines and “form over function” of 1960s design. Everything in Hollywood is an economically-minded prequel or sequel or remake, and now even the genres are collapsing only into Marvel or Star Wars, or trying to become the next Marvel or Star Wars. Every developing burg has the same businesses: gourmet coffee shops, craft breweries and CrossFit. We are now like aliens without our own culture, but who take our childlike understanding of what authentic culture is and generate a still-place-less kabuki impersonation of lost design.
... or Tradcaths not realizing medieval society would still see them as chumps and spiritual lightweights in their communities... or even people like me who hate to realize the Byzantine-like empire where you couldn't bother a senator for an important matter because he was having spiritual ecstasy while praying near his icons... isn't coming back.
Regarding your fourth point, I think this is something many military men of our generation (you, Darryl, and I) have had to grapple with. I was born the same year as our illustrious host and have had many similar life experiences. Some cultural things I am sure we experienced during the heyday of the 80s stuck with our life choices later on, in early adulthood when we didn't yet have the capacity to check the premises we grew up with. For those who weren't around in the 80s, it truly was a triumphant time, especially if you were a kid who was regularly exposed to the Cold War by its appearances in media like Top Gun, or any Stallone film, but not to the criticism of the era. I spent my whole life wanting to be, and becoming as soon as I had a chance, a naval aviator, thanks to the impression the former movie had on me as a child. That is was largely and openly funded by the Navy as a two hour recruitment ad was something I both knew and didn't care about. (Some of my later commanders got started in the Top Gun era, and talked about the humungous surge in Navy recruitment that didn't taper off until the mid-90s.)
By the time I was ready to go fight, 9/11 happened, and what began as childhood fascination and desire for adventure, took on a moral purpose. I spent the next decade chasing "terrorists" (I am using quotes not to minimize what many of our enemies did, but to highlight that we'd be sent to kill anyone so long as intel handed them the moniker) in a multimillion dollar government aircraft.
It wasn't really until the fall of Afghanistan that I really reflected upon the mission that made up my entire youth. It was the rage, and feeling of disgrace and abandonment, that really made me stop automatically trusting the benevolence of my government. It took almost no poking around to see how ridiculously misplaced my trust had always been. There are a lot of TLDRs here that Darryl has helpfully pointed out over the years. That democracy is oligarchy with more steps. That while the MIC is staffed largely by moral patriotic people, the thing itself is a metaphysical devil. That there is no low our intelligence agencies won't stoop to for ends that cannot even be properly understood unless malice is attributed. That our political actors are just that. That the ultimate bread and circus isn't the NFL, fast food, or reality TV, it is our elections. That we, a proud and free people, were willing to give up everything over an upper respiratory virus at the behest of liars and charlatans.
The list could go on, but what I am trying to say is that the generation who bore the brunt of the war on terror was ours. We were in the unique place of having our childhood filled with a culture of unabashed pro-American sentiment, went on to fight a war whose timing was so perfect, it had to be planned (this was the hardest pill for me to swallow and the hardest to gather the courage to see the truth). For those of us who took part, many gave our lives, but all of us left a part of our souls out there. And for what? Certainly not the pre-WW2 America (or earlier) we thought we were fighting for.
I think there is hope though. Do you know why - even though our government keeps getting caught with it's proverbial hand in the Epstein island temple, with no punishment in sight, while our media does everything possible to make sure real malfeasance is never brought to light, and our intelligence agencies take part heavily in both - the propaganda of America as a good country still works? It's because the citizenry of America, the little people, are decent. I'd say their biggest sin, in general, is naivety, and trusting the people in charge. Just strike up a conversation with a stranger in line at the grocery store, or in the dentist office, or wherever, and you'll see that a random sampling of your fellow citizens will turn up good, friendly people. People who, for the most part, will go their whole lives never bringing harm to another by purpose. This is what makes it easy to believe we are (and our government by extension is) the good guys.
I wonder what happens first. That enough of the real good guys get wise on who the real bad guys are, or if the whole thing collapses before that. My guess is the latter will do everything to make sure things go tits up before they get dethroned. It's just their way. Should make for an interesting couple of decades.
As for the question of whether we'll see another "80s" in the near future, I really don't know. I think our overlords would like that, but I think people might be even more disillusioned than they were in the 70s, as weird as that may sound. The reason is because of people like Darryl. Back then, you really had to go out of your way to find non-mainstream information, and since it was basically impossible for those people to reach an audience, the CIA had an even easier time at discrediting them. Bear in mind, they invented the term "conspiracy theory" back then to smear people who looked into the utter implausibility of the Warren Report. The traditional barriers to reaching a mass audience are lowered (despite the best efforts of the oligarchy), and as a result people like you and I can get good, reliable information that smashes regime narratives.
Weirdly enough, having not seen a movie in at least five years, I decided to watch the new Top Gun out of some curiosity, but more as something of an obligation. I will admit, it was actually a great piece of storytelling, along with some of the best aerial photography ever captured (using crazy, miniature, computer stabilized cameras that would have been a pipe dream when the original was released). As a former naval aviator, I've never experienced anything that so closely matched the experience of the cockpit. Praise aside, the reason I bring up the movie is to say that I doubt it will produce the same recruitment surge as before. The reason being is that while the movie was basically superior in every way, as a movie, than the first (another hard pill to swallow, lol), the environment is different. It felt so out of place amidst of the continuous losing streak America's been on. It would be like if Top Gun came out in 1973 instead of 1987.
I watched it with my dad and told him after that the premise you are forced to accept is that America is the good guy, and that it's perfectly moral for them to launch a preemptive military strike on another country, because of a, and I quote, "Multilateral NATO treaty", whatever that means. The movie mercifully does not dwell on this, nor should it. Regardless of the absurdity of the premise, the characters force you to root for them. Why? Because they are like the good guys we know all around us. The normal Americans who are decent and honorable. If you've ever been in a Navy squadron wardroom, the actors did a great job of capturing that environment specifically. The whole movie only makes sense thematically though if the American ruling class (or ruling trash) is good, and it's not. I like to think in the alternative universe populated by the likes of Maverick, and Goose, and Iceman, that America is the good guy. That's a bigger act of escapism than the flying.
Sorry for the wall of barely structured text. I guess all I can say is that I hope that the people with no power can create a movement that demands transparency and accountability for the ruling trash (I'd say how, but it would be a fedpost) before it's really too late, maybe it already is. And, at the very least, as JFK allegedly put it, to shatter the CIA into a thousand pieces. Then we can live in the alternate Top Gun universe!
4. Apologies Marine for my really dumb maybe childish examples... but I remember getting annoyed by "and then after facing the demons in battle they were corrupted..." in most of the horror video games I play as some jaded BS... but there is definitely something to the idea no one comes back from war with evil (whether spiritually or political) unscathed. The American founders were right to eschew war and want nothing to do with it unless in defense of their great nation.
Well said and love the imagery of “strip mined culture”. DC writings eliminate a lot of distractions and cut to the core of issues.