A bit over a month ago, I put out an update on Covid-19 (the rock star formerly known as “corona”), discussing the various theories as to its origin, progress, significance, impact (economic, social, political, etc.). I didn't claim that the story was concluded, and that we could say “case closed”, because we can't – and who knows when, if ever, we'll be able to? Covid-19 has turned out, truly, to be the “disease for all seasons”, and for all political, social, and economic agendas. It has become, in many ways, as defining a factor in the political life of the Republic as race, which is the sine qua non of American politics. As such it may turn out, in retrospect, to be more significant than the Great Depression, or World War II, or 9/11, in terms of the remaking of society (a process well underway at this point, and accelerating with each passing day). And this is all the more remarkable given that it was, as far as is known (or admitted), totally unpredictable and a complete surprise – although the conspiratorially-minded will beg to differ, and that's OK – they may be right. (Comparisons might be drawn to other plagues down through history – not in terms of severity so much as long-term impact in areas like economics, politics, sociology, international balance of power, etc.)
But operating in parallel with Covid, in a kind of bizarre symbiosis, was an outbreak of anarchy – or apparent anarchy – which, I would say, had few if any parallels in American history. Suddenly, major cities (and not-so-major cities – Kenosha? Give me a break!) erupted in violence, vandalism, arson, and a kind of bizarre no-show performance on the part of law enforcement – which caused certain “vigilantes” to take matters into their own hands. And the temptation was to think that, yes, this is it – the final reckoning – the beginning of the total breakdown of American society – Gog and Magog – the mother of all battles – etc. But then a funny thing happened. The minute Joe Biden was inaugurated it all stopped. No more riots, no more arson, no more “smash and grab” – it was as if someone had flipped a switch. Which is, of course, exactly what happened. (And, I might add, BLM demonstrations faded away as well, even though there had been no significant improvement in relations between the police and the black community.) (And Confederate statues – those few that remained – were no longer being torn down by angry mobs.)
So it was never about “racism” or “fascism” or anything else. It was about removing Donald Trump from office, and insuring that he would never again, and I mean never, attempt to intrude into the public sphere. Once that was accomplished – and Biden's inauguration was sufficient proof – all of these “anarchists” stood down, to a man (or woman, or whatever). There was peace in the valley. They were dropped off at wherever they called home, given a wad of cash or gift cards, told “well done, mission accomplished”, and that was it. Until next time. (Be assured, their cell phone numbers are on someone's speed dial. Watch for them to come back to life in certain select quarters during the mid-term campaigns.)
But in case you haven't noticed, what any of this has to do with authentic anarchy has yet to be determined. The few Antifa types that were rounded up by local law enforcement (prior to being released by left-wing prosecutors and judges) were, by and large, spoiled brats with suffocatingly middle-class backgrounds. Nary a wild-eyed, black-bearded, bomb-throwing anarchist of the old school could be found among them. They were, basically, rent boys (and girls) who were paid handsomely for acting out and throwing a tantrum suitable for a two-year-old. In this, they were truly rebels without a cause (as opposed to, say, demonstrators from the 1960s who may have been misled in some ways but who definitely had a cause – or, typically, more than one).
Find me an “anarchist”, anywhere on Earth, who doesn't dream of becoming the king/queen/whatever/ruler of a country/continent/planet populated by nameless, powerless slaves, whose existence is predicated entirely on their ability and willingness to cater to the ruler's every whim. No “Mad Max” scenarios for these folks – no way! Real anarchy is too chancy, too dangerous. No, this will be a highly-organized, exquisitely-refined utopia. (Think of one of our “social media” moguls being, basically, emperor of the world; that will give you some idea of what the garden-variety Antifa type aspires to.)
As I have said before, anarchy is totalitarianism in disguise. True anarchists are as rare as – oh, I dunno, albino chipmunks, or something. For all intents and purposes they don't exist. Because behind every impulse to destroy, there is an impulse to build – and to build according to one's specifications. Every man a Frank Lloyd Wright! Except without the creative genius. Wright built houses that people would want to live in – not everyone, but enough. They were willing to submit to Wright's sense of aesthetics, design, style, what have you – to suppress whatever atavistic notions they had been brought up with in order to conform to the vision of The Master. And frankly (no pun intended), one can imagine much worse masters – Frank (ditto) Gehry comes to mind, with his deconstructionist zeal. (When you live in a Frank Lloyd Wright house, you live with Frank Lloyd Wright, in a sense. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. When you live or work in a Frank Gehry building – well, let's say you're a good candidate for high-end therapy.)
The agenda, if you will, of the anarchist is to destroy all the old – all that which is – but not stop there. It must be replaced with something, because in their heart of hearts every anarchist realizes that total, complete, and perpetual anarchy is impossible. Order will sooner or later rear its ugly head – so the question then becomes, what sort of order, and – more importantly – whose order? The Bolsheviks had an answer for this, and it was put in place immediately – “Five Year Plans”, collective farms, spies on every street corner and under every bed, and so on (and the gulag – or a bullet in the head – for any naysayers). Anarchy giving rise to order – the important – nay, essential – thing being that the new order is built on a totally mistaken and delusional vision of human nature. So the agenda then becomes to – at all costs! – create a new version of mankind – the New Soviet Man, or, in the case of the Nazis, the Master Race. Which is followed, as the night the day, by a program of persecution against anyone who doesn't agree with the vision, or who actively attempts to thwart it. After all, when our leaders present a plan for Utopia – all set out in impressive 3-D models (“pedestrian-friendly”, “green”, "carbon-neutral", “sustainable”, etc.) – only an atavistic reactionary would dare to object. All traditional views of mankind – his purpose on earth, his destiny – have to take a back seat to the new vision, which is based solely on what can be seen and touched, i.e. “science”.
It has been said that “patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel”. Well, in our time, when patriotism, however defined, is sadly dated and teddibly out of fashion, we have a new version, which is “science is the last refuge of the scoundrel”. “Science”, that is, as defined by whoever has the most political influence. So science becomes the fetish of our times – that without which nothing is valid or arguable, and with which nothing is invalid... or needs proof. Science becomes, in other words, what “dogma” was in past times – a matter of faith. But if science is a matter of faith, what happens to that which we used to call science? It disappears, basically. It no longer exists, because it does not receive the imprimatur of... science! Yes, “science” becomes self-certifying, and thus no better than a commercial product that advertises itself as “the best”, or “new and improved”, or “guaranteed”, etc.
It is sad when science becomes a closed-off echo chamber, with no way in (for contradictory data), and no way out (for further investigation, with its inherent risks of contradicting what was previously considered “settled”). And yet, whenever anyone in government embraces what they call “science”, this is exactly what's happening. What they are embracing is, in effect, a new religion, and you'd better convert to it now or suffer the consequences. While at the same time, the remnant (those without fat government contracts and grants) practicing real science are ignored at best – or, at least as often, derided, scolded, shunned, and “canceled”.
(The irony here is that science – the real thing – and faith, i.e. religion – have not always been considered arch enemies. The Scholastics of the 13th Century were perfectly at home with both, and in fact celebrated the fact that the sciences and faith were perfectly compatible – and not because they dealt with entirely different subjects with entirely different methods, but because they were in harmony, and could complement one another. This all changed, of course, with the so-called Enlightenment, which drew a line in the sand between “science” (read: materialism) and faith (AKA “superstition”), and woe unto he who attempts to cross it. This attitude persists to this day, needless to say.)
----- o -----
So far, we've dealt with, basically, the history of one year in the life of the Republic, namely 2020 -- a year to which even a master of the absurd, like Kurt Vonnegut, could not do justice. Covid-19 was exploited for totalitarian purposes, and at the same time an epidemic of “anarchy” was exploited for the exact same purposes. In both cases, it was about instilling fear in the populace – fear and helplessness – and causing them to flee, in panic, into the waiting arms of the ruling elite (cleverly disguised as a “democratically-elected government”). One could say, in imitation of Winston Churchill, that “never before was so much accomplished in so little time by so few”. The ruling elite made a killing (literally in some cases) and consolidated its gains – and, in case you haven't noticed, those gains are still in place. The Ministry of Fear (a new addition to the Executive Branch) is alive and well, and perking along like a well-oiled machine. “Monkey Pox”? That's so last week. Count on them to come up with something else within the next news cycle. The point is that Covid-19 showed the ruling elite what the populace is willing to believe – and the riots showed them what the populace is willing to put up with (but not without limit – at least so far).
Think of it as one vast experiment. Not necessarily planned (in the case of Covid) but when the “crisis” struck, the mechanisms were in place to take full advantage of it. (If it wasn't all planned, it sure felt that way, and no one can criticize any “conspiracy theorist” for believing that it was.) And the juxtaposition of Covid with the riots of Summer 2020 was the perfect formula to instill fear as well as demoralization and despair. Convince the American public that they have nothing to lose by choosing totalitarianism, and that's precisely what they'll choose. Peace at any price! Anything for (alleged) health! Better to exist as a pod person than to stand tall and with self-respect. And converting the populace to a state of servitude? All most of them will feel is a faint bump, since they are already thoroughly anaesthetized by the media and the “entertainment” industry. (Throw in professional sports if you like.) (Go Steelers!)
But now wait – if the Antifa types, and their sponsors and supporters and facilitators, were not genuine anarchists, but were just softening up the battlefield, what does that say about the agenda of the people who are really in charge? Do they really want anarchy? A Mad Max-type world, where warlords are fighting over gasoline? That hardly seems like the basis for world domination. To put it another way – how low can we go before someone hits the brakes? At what point do these clueless Antifa types outlive their usefulness and wind up exterminated like so many rodents, the way the Red Guard was after their mission for Chairman Mao was accomplished? Another way of putting it is this: Given that the revolution is under way, how far does it have to go before someone decides that it's gone far enough, and lowers the boom?
Consider, for a moment, the casualties (to date, or soon to come) of the revolution:
Honest and legitimate elections – already a thing of the past, at least on the federal level and on many state and local levels. You kind of get a glimpse of how this works when one of the two major political parties, i.e. the Republicans, are accused of being “domestic terrorists”.
The rule of law in general, vs. diktats from the White House and Congressional committees. “Equal justice under the law” is manifestly extinct (assuming it ever existed). And for all intents and purposes the law has been replaced by the regulatory state, supervised by non-elected bureaucrats who nonetheless have police powers (and police forces, in many cases).
The whole gender issue (who or what is a male or female, and do those labels mean anything, and if not should they be abolished, etc.)
Parental control over the education of their children – explicitly prohibited in many public school districts
Freedom of speech (without “being canceled” or losing one's livelihood)
Freedom of association (now referred to as “racism” and/or “sexism”) (The key concept here is that there is no longer such a thing as a “private entity”, which can be run in any way those in charge see fit. Every organization – commercial, social, religious, whatever – is now considered a public utility, and hence subject to any and all laws and regulations governing membership and how they are operated.)
Freedom of religion (without harassment or discrimination)
Privacy (vs. the government monitoring your every move and transaction)
And consider also the things that haven't changed. The United States, which is in decline in every way (economically, socially, politically, culturally, morally) is still expected to be the world's policeman, and to “spread democracy” like Johnny Appleseed, except with unlimited firepower – and to act, for all intents and purposes, as the armed forces of Western Europe, Israel, and Japan. How long anyone expects this to persist – or even be possible – is a good question; a lot of delusional thinking is going on in this area.
Just this much gets us into the territory of absurdity and farce. Then you have things like the national debt, which will never, i.e. never, never, ever, be repaid, which puts us firmly in the hands of our creditors, the most prominent being China. Then we have the latest war by proxy – Ukraine (our guys) vs. Russia (evil!). Our foreign policy – and its operatives – belong in a circus freak show. It does seem that, for all of our pretenses, we are actually in a situation not unlike that of a beached whale, to which anyone can walk up and cut off a piece of blubber. We are a blundering, staggering giant (albeit heavily armed, dangerous, and unpredictable), and the smart money is on whoever can manage to tie us up and put us in a cage like King Kong.
But is this all there is to it? Is this what the Davos crowd has in mind? Just to nibble away at the good ol' USA until there's nothing left but a hapless populace just waiting to do the bidding of whoever takes over? Are we really to become a colony of the E.U. or of other more vigorous powers (like, um, China for instance)? (And you know what being a colony means, historically – a source of raw materials, i.e. wealth which is always spirited away by the colonial power, and a source of cannon fodder for whatever wars are in fashion at the time.) (You might have noticed that the cannon fodder part of this has been underway for a bit over 100 years now, but has been more pronounced in recent decades. As I've said before, we just don't do war right – the least we can do is show a profit!)
See, when I talk about the “ruling elite”, yes, there is that class in the U.S., but there's also that class elsewhere on the globe, and the question is which is dominant? Who controls whom? I think the answer, or part of it, is that our own ruling elite are not subject to old-fashioned feelings of patriotism, or even of nationalism; they would just as soon see us go down the drain as a culture if they can remain in control and in a symbiotic relationship with the ruling elite elsewhere. This is the globalist mindset, and it's no secret – it's preached to the rafters in confabs like Davos, not to mention other less-overt hideouts around the globe. (When certain members of the ruling elite go off radar for a while – days or weeks – you can be pretty sure they're having strategy meetings somewhere, and a major agenda item will always be “whither America?”) (Up until now, their position has been that they can't live with us, but they can't live without us. Watch for the day when they decide that they can, in fact, live without us.)
In other words, to the globalists, things like countries, nations, governments (“democracies” included – both the real kind and the make-believe kind) are obsolete and just get in the way of the agenda – as do things like tradition, ethnicity, religion, customs, etc. The ideal globalist is the person who has no roots anywhere on the globe – who is truly a “world citizen”, which means, basically, a citizen of nowhere. So how can you expect them to have any kind of loyalty to... pretty much anything? The American economy? Let it crash. American “values”, traditions, etc.? Please. (A significant milestone was reached recently when some domestic organizations and governmental bodies pronounced the American flag "racist” and a “trigger”.) The Constitution? That's a waste of perfectly good scrap paper – but it still serves as a fetish object, to preserve an illusion. The American citizens (or the pathetic subset called “voters”)? Perfect candidates for slavery and/or cannon fodder. And as for religion – well, we have camps for people who still subscribe to such nonsense.
Now, notice that in none of this do we find concern for things like “women's issues”, “gender issues”, “racial issues”, etc. Not even “climate change”, in fact. No – these are luxuries and hobby-horses – political clubs with which to smite one's opponents – and they will vanish the minute the consolidation is complete. No, the global elite doesn't give a rat's ass about your “identity” – they just push identity politics as a weapon – as a way of furthering the agenda. In the brave new world of their dreams, everyone will be equally oppressed and exploited – everyone will be equally part of a “victim class”, with only the rulers having any special privileges.
This is their dream. But is it possible here? One would hope not. One indicator is that it hasn't happened yet – and not for lack of trying. The left has been working on this since the Progressive Era – there have been advances and setbacks, but you can't say victory is complete – at least not yet. All communist revolutions are, allegedly, aimed at producing a “classless” society – which they do. Almost. What you wind up with are two classes – the oppressed slaves and the elite (in the Soviet Union they were known as the Nomenklatura). And actually, this is the real goal. The last thing on earth any good revolutionary wants is to wind up with a truly anarchistic society (a contradiction in terms right there). What they want is a society of serfs with them in charge – and please notice that, as always, the poor beleaguered middle class is nowhere in sight. It's not part of the plan, any more than churches showed up in Hitler's blueprint for a new, improved Berlin. If there's one thing all anarchists and totalitarians can agree on, it's that the middle class has got to go. (How one sustains a modern technological society with a complex economy without a middle class is a good question, which they never stop to consider, leave alone answer.)
----- o -----
So to return to the home front – American society is on the way down, in every discernible way. (Give me one example where it isn't. I'm waiting.) And yet, according to my preferred model, it's not just disorder and chaos. In fact, the disorder and chaos are only on the surface – they are allowed, if you will, in order to provide cover for the real agenda and for its promoters, as well as a distraction from the task of figuring out what is really going on, and doing something about it. True disorder and chaos – true anarchy – would not be something someone could turn on and off like a light switch, which, as I pointed out, is exactly what happened after the summer riots of 2020. And – just as “war is the health of the state” in the international arena, riots are the health of the state on the domestic side; they lead to ever more layers of law and regulation, which expands the administrative state, law enforcement, and the “corrections” (read: prison) industry.
So someone is in charge. Someone is pulling the strings, and they have their foot poised over the brake pedal, although they haven't touched it as yet. (They're still too busy flooring the gas pedal.) The question is, how much is enough? Or, how much is too much, at which point adjustments have to be made? (In the early days of the Soviet Union, those in charge eventually decided that a modicum of private property and private enterprise might not be such a bad thing, given that people were starving to death by the millions because of collectivization. Something similar happened more recently in China in the wake of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, which counted casualties in the tens of millions. This eventually led to a mash-up of communism and capitalism, which – incredibly -- actually seems to work, although purists would say that it's neither one.) (One could write a decent treatise on the conflict of visions between human nature as it is, and human nature as altered by revolution or by fiat. Human nature as it is tends to get in the way of Utopian plans – so annoying! But just try ignoring it. If there is one thing that is never learned throughout history, it is that human nature is the same – always and everywhere.)
To help answer the question of how low can we (should we, will we) go, we have to try to think about what the ruling elite (our own, and the globalists elsewhere) want. Obviously, they want control – and the more total the better. And they don't want any competition, e.g. loyalty to race, ethnicity, religion, language, tradition, etc. They are world citizens, and everyone else should be as well, and should like it – or be punished if they don't. But ultimately, a society composed of rulers and slaves can only be stable, and even productive, if the slaves are satisfied with their lot, or at least not inclined to open rebellion. Another way of putting this is that they have to be “deracinated” – made to forget (via propaganda, amusements, drugs, whatever) that there is such a thing as genuine identity rooted in the eternal verities – race, ethnicity, faith, gender, language, custom, tradition, etc.
This, by the way, is what “diversity” is all about. It's actually conformity in disguise, as in: You can be “diverse”, but only in approved ways, i.e. in some sort of artificial, play-acting, political sense. True diversity based on culture and tradition must be stamped out, and the memory of such things must be stamped out as well. I'm always amused at what happens when the “diversity” buffs find out what a given racial/ethic group really thinks of some other racial/ethnic group. You'll find them recoiling in horror! “Surely these nice people with their cool foods and quaint costumes and folk music can't be 'racists', or bigots, or 'haters'.” Right... (Back in 1966, a friend of mine and I drove through Yugoslavia, which was still one country at that point, and we were totally unaware of all of the visceral hatreds (going back centuries) that were lurking below the placid surface and just waiting for a chance to burst forth, as they wound up doing starting in 1991.)
In any case, it seems that the revolution is already well along – not just starting, which is how it appeared in 2020. Problem is, there are pockets of resistance – big ones, and they are deep. So let's say that that resistance, however it is manifested, eventually winds up successfully co-opted, suppressed, pacified, rendered impotent. It may still be there, but it won't count. And this is, in fact, becoming the position of the “deplorables” at this time – the ruling elite is content to, basically, ignore them, unless they start to wander off the reservation (like “attacking the Capitol” for instance). But will this sort of bizarre peaceful coexistence continue? Remember that to the totalitarian, just lack of resistance is not good enough – your very mind has to be cleansed of any negative thoughts (the nearest lobotomy clinic is as close as your TV set). The media are, of course, at the forefront of this effort, but there are still holdouts, and will they be tolerated or will they be hunted down the way the Biden administration has vowed to hunt down “domestic terrorists”, AKA Trump supporters, with the help of the military? It remains to be seen.
So we will go down, because we're already going down – but hitting rock bottom? Not on the agenda, in my opinion. After all, the ruling elite have to have something to rule, right? This post-nuclear, dystopian image of the isolated fortress on a mountain in the midst of a blighted wasteland – all very picturesque, but unrealistic. I suppose one possible turning point will be when there is no longer any resistance – and once again, the major communist countries did arrive at that point eventually (although it can be argued that the Third Reich didn't – but 12 years is not really a fair test). The price to be paid was, of course, gulags – prisons – killing fields – concentration camps – and so on. (Cambodia is my favorite example, because half the population had to be slaughtered by the other half before peace could break out. But once it did, by gosh, it was the real thing!) And ironically, it almost seems that the relative lack of resistance to the revolution that we see in America today might serve to prevent things from going that far. So far, in the relativistic sense, our revolution can be considered “soft”, and it may well stay that way. I mean, if the most prominent locus of resistance is outfits like the Proud Boys, we hardly have to worry about the military splitting into two warring factions (as it did in post-revolutionary Russia), or a significant counter-revolutionary force along the lines of the War in the Vendee (France). It would seem that brute force is not the first choice of our current revolutionaries, who are more technocrats and bureaucrats than soldiers (imagine Bill Gates, in a suit of armor like Joan of Arc, leading an army) (oops, sorry, I didn't mean to say that just as you were sipping your coffee). But they have weapons that armies down through history could scarcely imagine – TV, film, the social media, communication in general, and the surveillance state, which is now firmly in place.
Please note that, in terms of popular entertainment, there are two basic types of dystopia – the less-than-completely-successful kind, where there is still significant resistance (armed and otherwise), and the successful kind where drugs, brainwashing, catering to every carnal whim, etc. have done their work. Those among us who are gearing up for a good fight might actually wish for the former kind, but my bet is that the latter is far more likely – especially since most of it is already firmly in place.
(Next up – political and historical significance)
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