The election is upon us. As this season of the greatest show on earth comes to a close are we looking forward to a better world or a longer slide down the dystopian rabbit hole of the last four?
It didn’t really begin in 2016, of course, but shit hit the fan so hard and in such volumes in 2016 it’s going to be the year we all remember. Aside from the historians who study these things; they can debate if it began with 9/11 or the financial crisis, or back in the Clinton years or even earlier. But for most of us 2016 is going to be our inflection point. Towards a better world or the end of the world depending on your political persuasions. But either way it was the start of some sort of new world order… or was it?
You see 2016 is when most of the world got a glimpse but some people have known about the plans for a New World Order for much longer. We were warned before I was even born. The shadowy powers behind the curtain were exposed by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson in their seminal work The Illuminatus! Trilogy [wikipedia.org]. But many didn’t listen. I wasn’t born.
I had been born when, a few years later, in 1982 another attempt to pull the curtain back. But, I was only four in 1982 when Steve Jackson Games released Illuminati [sjgames.com]. But I was too young.
It wasn’t until 1994 when Steve Jackson Games tried again, releasing Illuminati: New World Order [sjgames.com] as a trading card game.
In 1994 I was old enough to understand and to see behind the curtain. To know who the players were:
To understand the groups involved…
And to understand their tools:
Alas, no one is keeping the things up to date: Brexit, Trump, Hilary’s emails, Harambe, QAnon, TPP, Elon Musk, Amazon, i-devices… and so much more. How will people know the truth? Or are we all doomed to be puppets?
Spider Jerusalem explains the incumbent candidates plans…
Less than two weeks to go to the 2020 US election… greatest show on earth, the US election; can’t make this shit up: megalomaniacal fascist vs demential pederast both up to their ears in corruption nepotism. Or so social media “the feeds” as Spider Jerusalem would scream, tell us. Or at least tell me as best as I can follow in my personal filter bubble.
Actually, you can make this shit up, and Warren Ellis did, in his comic Transmetropolitan [wikipedia.org], specifically in the The Year of the Bastard story arc where the protagonist, Spider Jerusalem takes on both the incumbent and challenger in a eerily predictive dystopian presidential election. How eerily predictive? Well… the candidates are neo-nazi/American fascists, fake smile authoritarians, nepotistic, corrupt scum bags. Either straight up spewing their white supremacy or hiding their secret cabal of power faces behind a made-for-the-media facade. You have to read it; it’s drug addled cyberpunk crazy written at the turn of the century under Clinton and Bush the younger and is somehow more relevant than ever. I mean when you set aside the fact that eating tank grown people and injecting Ebola is day-to-day normal in The City. It’s not for everyone…
This is the fourth presidential election I have watched from afar. And each one, with the exception of 2012, seems like one more step along the path to some sort of end-of-the-American-experiment. The polarization and breakdown of what made the system work is soul crushing.
Ok. Enough election depression for the day. But I have one more election inspired trip back to the 90’s to post before November third. Oh the antici……pation.
I’m sure it’s not an original thought but I think the reason so many people don’t trust the government or any authority and are so high on conspiracy theories is they watched too much X Files back in the 90’s.
My older daughter is watching the X Files and its realise that everyone is Mulder now days. Everyone is lying and there is some grand conspiracy to hide the truth from the public. There is a bunch of shady old men behind the curtain orchestrating the grand conspiracy.
Too many Mulders and none of them listening to any of the Scullys.
“Mulder, the Internet is not good for you.”
Dana Scully, The X-Files, Season 10: Mulder & Scully Meet the Were-Monster
I’ve been very lazy and not posted anything here in a month or so. Not that I don’t have things to say but I’m working full time from home and the idea of sitting down in from of the computer to write a blog post has been, um, unappealing. Anyway…
I’m going to take the easy way out and post the transcript of a conversation with a friend over WhatsApp about the state of the US. My friend is Swedish so his view is totally non-American and I’ve lived outside America for 16 years so mine is colored with overseas experience.
The conversation was over a week ago, so the trigger is old news; the shooting of two police officers sitting in their patrol car in LA:
beggs : That’s Compton. Been like that my whole life.
beggs : But, yea the US is imploding…
N██████ : Last time I think the west was at this stage was domestic left wing terrorism in the 70s
beggs : Let’s see what happens come the election. See if we have an outcome and people accept it.
N██████ : And I count for democracies, not in dictatorships, like Greece or Spain
beggs : If things really go south with the US election and Britain fucks Brexit again then we can rephrase it to “last time the west was at this stage was the facism of the 30s.”
N██████ : [RE: beggs: Let’s see what happens come the election…] Do you think the majority middle will stand up and deny the extremes their ability to wrench havoc
N██████ : [RE: beggs: If things go south with the US election…] Very likely that strong right wing dictatorships would arise
beggs : The biggest problem will be that many places will take days to count the mail in votes. They legally can’t start till the polls close on Election Day in places. And it’s manual often too. So we won’t know for several days… and mail in voting skews Democrat by about 20 percentage points most years according to something I read in The Economist.
beggs : So Trump could declare victory on Election night based in votes cast that day in swing states and then a few days later they announce he lost due to mail in votes, hence all the bitching and fear mongering about mail in voting. I can’t see trump accepting that, he just can’t accept losing anything.
N██████ : I heard a theory about what the real goal of China and Russia is
N██████ : they don’t care who wins, they only want to create distrust in the process
N██████ : cause that could create a more authoritarian system in the future
beggs : Maybe but I don’t see either wanting a more authoritarian US, I think they would prefer a more chaotic and divided US. Too distracted by its own domestic shit to care about playing global cop. But Trump is perfect if they do want more authoritarian. Can’t stand to lose and totally willing to use force against anyone not stoking his ego.
N██████ : Yea, case in point he creates chaos
beggs : As for the cops getting shot: I haven’t read about it but some gang banger shooting cops in Compton is par for the course. But protesters blocking the emergency room and changing let them die… this is a major funk up. Discrediting the valid arguments and protests of BLM. The movement lacks a visionary leader like MLK. Someone who can turn the anger into a constructive push for chance and hold the masses together so it does not become a mob.
beggs : The last time we had substantive change in institutional racism in the US was in the 60s. And the sustained, (mostly?) non-violent, non-mob, non-looting protest movement was key to that. Burning down buildings and shooting cops does not bring about change. Just proves the other side right, you are a menace. As long as you are a violent menace they hold the moral high ground and can write off the “protests” as riots, as a problem to be cured —by force— not as a symptom of the larger problem which needs to be addressed. cure.
And since I’ve waited so long to post this I can add this conversation, triggered by the first debate:
N██████ : I think there is a small risk the USA could get into a civil war, it’s just crazy
beggs : Really? I didn’t watch the debate. Was it that bad?
N██████ : It was like a 5 year old screaming in the sandbox
beggs : It was the same last time. He just would not shut up.
N██████ : Due to all the normalization of his behavior over the years we have almost completely lost the idea of how bad he really is
N██████ : But that is the behavior of the online era
N██████‘s last comment is spot on. Trump really is the personification of how people “talk” online: tl;dr, “my opinion is best”, “I’m right, you’re wrong”, “you’re a Nazi”… Trump is the real world personification of a name calling, alternative fact spewing, know-it-all, troll. The debate was one step from someone invoking Godwin’s law [wikipedia.org]. And I’m surprised someone didn’t, I guess it’s cause Trumps supporters are most often called out as fascists and Biden was trying to be more… political? Dignified? Fuck I don’t know. You’re not supposed to straight up call your opponents names. You’re supposed to disagree with their position not their existence. Trump has normalized so much shitty behavior for a politician.
