Our era of insanity (a short semi-rant)

[Cyrano]

After the end of WWII in 1945, an American middle class came into being. People were aided by the government in buying their own homes and in getting a college, or occupational education. It turned out that jobs were plentiful, paid well and offered health and retirement benefits. People could afford to buy cars. An interstate highway system was built and maintained. Our society seemed to be growing out of our adolescence. (Except, of course, for the insanity of the Vietnam War.) Thirty five years passed and in about 1980, dark clouds began to appear on the horizon.

During the next 25 or 30 years, Republican and Dino governments took it upon themselves to fuck the middle class and poor to the nth degree. Today, we’re very gradually starting to recover from that fucking, but once again, those who run the congress are intent on keeping us in near-poverty, if not servitude.

In today’s world, the ones who are being fucked the worst by the Republican Party continue to vote for them. And even if the Democrats hold on to the presidency and take back the Senate two years from now, the Huns will still be in control of the House and will do anything and everything to please their plutocrat masters. And they will of course block anything and everything that helps all the rest of us (also known as the American public) to improve our lives.

The current state of affairs is insanity. But there’s a reason we’re not all out there with torches and pitchforks. American mob control has advanced to the state where protesters can be easily dispersed (as we’ve seen in Ferguson, Missouri and so many other places). Shoot a few people here, tear gas a few people there and it’s over. And if protesters were to show up in multiple thousands, the powers that be have developed noise machines to the point where they can put out a high pitched, painful tone through loudspeakers that no one can withstand. It’s state-of-the-art crowd (peasant) dispersal.

So the bottom line is that we are virtually helpless to fight back against the powers that be. Or to put it more bluntly, we are watching the onset of Orwell’s “Big Brother” and there’s not a fucking thing we can do to stop it.

Then again, perhaps I’m being too negative. Perhaps this era of darkness will somehow pass and well see a renaissance. But I don’t know how many of us will be around to see it.

In the meantime, I’m doing my best to smell the roses, watch incredible Florida sunsets and not waiting for weed to become legal here. In other words, I’m trying my best to temporarily ignore the insanity and I’ve kinda dropped out for the time being. Life is too short to let the assholes of the world screw it up for you.

[upaloopa]

1. In my opinion the reason there was the middle class in

the fifties (I was born in 1946) was because of the Great Depression and WWII.
The technology developed to fight the war was incredible. The manufacturing base used to build war material was returned to building consumer goods. The steps to end the depression began to have effect.
People felt they owed a debt to returning veterans. Thus the GI Bill of rights.
Though the opportunities for white men were not available to minorities and women. It took the tumult of the sixties to begin to change that.
I believe the push back to the sixties' and to the anti war movement and to government programs intended to change the status quo brought about the Reagan Democrats who elected Reagan and started the conservative movement. A large part of that was the Johnson vs Goldwater campaigns which introduced conservatism to the masses. Also the change from mechanical to electronic ways of doing things played a big part in what happened to jobs.
None of this has any bearing on today I think.
If we are to have a progressive movement we need to stop looking back and feeling like victims and look forward to find out what to do today.

On edit: I think the progressive movement of the future will be led by the children of the women and minorities of the sixties. The obstacle has always been white men which I am one but I don't think I am obstacle . We are dying out. Get rid of road blocks to people's campaigns and voting and bring on the new progressive movement.

[ND-Dem]

2. I think the reason was the existence of the communist bloc as a credible challenge to western

hegemony.

[The2ndWheel]

3. The economics of the 1950's aren't coming back

It was an odd moment in time.

There are more people today, there are more people eligible for the workforce today, there are more jobs that can be done anywhere in the world today. That makes people cheap, unless you've got some kind of rare skill or talent.

Just like white men need to understand that they're not the be all-end all, Americans aren't needed in a global context, and people are increasingly not needed period.

Plus, we've got 7+ billion people on the planet today, and we'll do whatever we can to keep all of us alive, because we don't like death. That will mean an increase in human activity, which will result in more environmental issues. The interstate highway system is one of the worst things we've ever done in terms of the environment anyway.

Growing out of our adolescence? No, we just took advantage of a certain set of circumstances that we found ourselves in. Then variables changed, as life always does.

[Cyrano]

4. The change from an agricultural society to

an industrial one displaced millions of people, temporarily, but millions of new jobs were created by the industrial revolution.

Those industrial jobs are gone today and aren't coming back. But no one could foresee the jobs that the industrial revolution would produce, and we cannot yet see the millions of new jobs the digital revolution will create.

However, 7+ billion people on this planet are far too many and it's rapidly growing. At some point, it's possible that China's solution of one child per family may become universal law out of necessity. It seems to me that it's either that, or we're headed toward a "Soylent Green" world.

[The2ndWheel]

5. Right, and the cycle will continue

And if you're caught in the displaced zone, well, life is all about timing, and it ain't fair.

One thing the industrial revolution still had was a sense of place. Not as much as an agrarian society, but still there. Especially in the 1950's. I don't think it's a coincidence that union membership was at its all time high during that period. Then the world opened up more, and here we are. Sure, there are still strong unions in Europe, but European countries can also pay for so many social programs because they don't have to pay for a military, because the US taxpayer pays for what is the global military of the developed world. The US likes it that way because nobody can tell us no, and Europe likes it that way because they get to be seen as a utopia.

In the digital revolution, it's all increasingly placeless. Or at least the end product of it is. We still have to carve up the planet for the resources. It's also no longer just men competing against men for jobs, not just against everyone in your own country, and not just people all over the world that can do the job just as well as anyone else can and anywhere, but we're also increasingly competing against the technology of the digital revolution, which, by all accounts, is more advanced than before.

All of that happening against the backdrop of physical space on the planet. Wild nature serves no purpose for digital humanity.

7+ billion people and growing. Before any drastic steps are taken, we'll do our best to bring everyone that is already here up to current standards. Which will require more resources. We'll try to educate more women so they have more opportunities than just giving birth. Which will require more resources. Provided the energy is cheap enough to get all that done. If it is, we'll have plenty of environmental issues. If it isn't, we'll have plenty of environmental issues.

[Cyrano]

6. This may sound like a bit of science fiction, but

humanity must start to colonize space.

It's not inconceivable that terraformed colonies can be set up on the moon and Mars. As our technology advances, we'll be able to move farther out, perhaps even to the nearest star system.

I don't want to start sounding like one of the ufo nuts on the H2 channel. However, it's a big galaxy out there and it's past time for us to figure out how we're going to get there.

JFK said, "Let's put a man on the moon." And nine short years later, a man walked on the moon. The only thing holding us back is ourselves. (And Republicans, along with their brain dead voters, who don't believe in science.)

If the Wright brothers had lived during the Inquisition, they would have been burned at the stake. But it wouldn't have stopped humanity from eventually learning to fly.