500 Miles

With this post, another milestone is reached -- 500 in all, in the short space of less than a year and a half. I guess that works out to about one per day, whatever. I'll repeat the old Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times". Even though I have become thoroughly disillusioned with the "end times" faddists, I can't help but think that the current era does represent a sea change of sorts -- and I say this more on the basis of economics than politics. After all, the politics of the New Deal era were at least as radical as those of Obama & Co., if not more so. Back then, what we persist (mistakenly) in calling "capitalism" had already been relegated to the -- to quote George W. Bush -- ash-heap of discarded ideas. Back then it was a match to the death between communism and fascism, as championed by the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, respectively... with the New Dealers looking on in dismay, fearing that the wrong variety of totalitarianism might win out. But thanks to FDR and Pearl Harbor, etc., the right variety won out, and New Dealers were able to continue their infatuation with communism for 45 more years, until that fateful day when the Soviets basically said, we're tired of pretending that all this crap works, so we're just going to give up and let someone else have a go. The shock and dismay that overtook the halls of the Ivy League at that point! And thank goodness that Alger Hiss was still alive to see it... as was Richard Nixon. We always suspected that the New Dealers, and American liberals in general, were disappointed that this country had not gone all the way in its initial drive towards communism -- that so much of the economy had been left to the predations of "capitalists" and "businessmen" and "free enterprise". America was, in other words, an underachiever -- a slacker and a laggard on the world political scene. And thank goodness Obama & Co. have gained power just in time to remedy all of this! Why, we might have been doomed to a relatively quick recovery from the recession, and a new period of prosperity. But as it is, we can expect the misery to multiply and be long-lasting, as was the Depression.

But on the economic side, the present troubles represent something truly new in American history -- namely the wholesale beggaring of the middle class, which really means its reduction to, for all intents and purposes, low-class, dependency status. The greatest act of theft, perhaps, in the history of the world has just been committed before our very eyes, and all the government can do is reward the perpetrators with even more largesse. And this is not to claim that there has not been, since at least the Civil War, a state of unholy matrimony between government and business -- only that now, for reasons known only to themselves, the powers that be have decided to do away with any semblance of a three-class society and change us, once and for all, into a society of elites and serfs. It is, as I have pointed out before, a mass murder of the golden goose -- because I contend that the rise and dominance of the middle class in America was never an accident, but was an essential element of the American experiment... and that without a middle class, that experiment is now officially terminated, and we will, from now on, resemble a Medieval or Asian tyranny more than any sort of true democracy. And as I've said, I'm sure the powers that be have their reasons... but one wonders if they are really as omniscient as they believe. And, do they really prefer to rule over an ash heap rather than simply being an elite -- but not all-powerful -- over a free people? That is how it appears. But we will know more as things progress -- because if one thing is for certain, it's that Obama & Co. are every bit as abject servants of the elite as any previous administration -- and more so than most.

And I suppose it would be too easy to just lie down, roll over, and refuse to have any more to do with this debacle -- even on the level of commentary. But with every bland, inane saying that comes out of the MSM, the hills cry out for correction, and clarification, and truth. If everyone would just shut up and allow this catastrophe to happen, it would be one thing. But the government, and the media, spend all of their time cooking up rationalizations, excuses, and justifications for what is basically an insane array of programs, none of which has the slightest chance of providing any relief for normal people -- only a further impaction of power and wealth for the elite. One must go on record -- because, ultimately, even this system, and the powers behind it, will fail -- and perhaps some future archaeologist will ask, as we are so fond of doing about the Romans or the Germans, didn't anyone realize what was going on? And the answer -- provided these words survive in some form -- will be yes, someone did -- but they were part of a minuscule minority, and all of their labors did little but to satisfy their own sense of truth and justice. Ah well... so be it. But it beats silence.