I keep hoping that I've been dreaming. I keep hoping that the growing spiral of bad news, wars, bank failures, collapsing economy, shrinking pay, vanishing rights and cartoon character leaders and candidates are all just a figment of my very active and detailed imagination.
I keep hoping that I'll wake up someday, and that the last 7-some-odd years have been a long-drawn-out nightmare. I'd wake up, and my money would be worth more, I would be able to afford to buy a home, no one is being killed in a pointless war, our economy would be fairly sound, and our leaders are solid, sane, and mostly reasonable.
In my dreams... No, the reality is that we do have cartoon characters for leaders and candidates, celebrate stupidity and denigrate intelligence, consume mindlessly, and have squandered our standing in the world. Now, foreign businesses are picking at the unraveling threads of our banking system, and we are no longer truly sovereign. The nightmare is real, and the decay of the last 7 years has been incredible in its swiftness. Even Rome took more time to fall.
7 years is not that long. 47 years seems like a lifetime- my lifetime- and things were radically different back then. We had a healthy middle class, an active and engaged citizenry, smart people were actively engaged in building our ability and reputation- we were going to the moon! If someone of the early sixties were placed in a time machine, they'd probably be horrified by the state of our Union today.
Talking heads scream at each other on the TV. Hate-filled screeds pollute the radio airwaves. Political campaigns become parades of ads full of half-truths and sometimes outright lies. Candidates proudly raise their hands when asked who does not 'believe' in evolution.
We the People are no longer capable of standing up for our rights- if we're not shouted down by the noise machine of the media, we're beaten down by our own police. We've been silenced, and worse, punished for speaking out. A citizen of 47 years ago would be appalled at how much we lost, and how much power they still had.
It's not a long stretch to imagine what the reaction would be to certain candidates if they'd been presented 47 years ago. "No way!" and "Are you kidding me?" would be the almost universal cry of horror. Then the chorus would start: "Not experienced enough!" "Too religious!" "Too undecided, too wishy-washy!" "Too partisan!" "Too corrupt!" They would not at all be afraid to discredit such people and keep them out of office. Sadly, Nixon was the last of such people to feel the collective wrath of the citizenry, unveiled by a press corps who was doing its proper job- reporting the actual facts and not just making noise and confusing things. Corrupt people actually feared reporters back then- not because of their lies, but because they were capable of shedding light on dark places.
But that isn't true any more. Our country is slowly decaying into some sort of 21st century feudal state- with mega-rich corporations on one side, and a mass of disenfranchised and endebted serfs on the others. The pattern is already in place, and our government is serving as the Judas Goat which is leading us to our fate.
Think about it: Would an empowered and educated citizenry tolerate 'Freedom Cages'? Or put up with the smoke and mirrors of modern politics? Would they let our country be taken away- bit by bit- and owned by foreign interests? Would they permit themselves to be bamboozled by credit card peddlars and shady mortgage lenders who end up owning not only their home, but their entire lives?
Knowledge is power, and those who are in power understand this- and so they've been actively dumbing down our education system- and with it, the capacity of our current and future citizens to stand up for themselves- for decades. "No Child Left Behind" is the final coup-de-grace in the fight to literally stupify people into mindless and obedient serfdom. Our kids will definitely be worse off than we are, and we who are late-boomers and Gen-X people are already realizing that our salaries no longer buy the same things or have the same value as that of our parents. We're already in the cauldron, and the fire is lit. Our kids, subjected to even less education than we were- and at a much higher cost- will have no idea what is happening to them- they'll willingly follow whatever leader feeds, houses and entertains them. They are becoming serfs.
It's that old bread and circuses thing- writ large in high definition.
I see a stark choice ahead- do you want to be a serf or a citizen? I was born a citizen, and I intend to die with the same status. But we who are not white, male, rich, religious, or well connected and morally corrupt and hypocritical are rapidly being turned into serfs. Our rights are being peeled away, layer by layer, in such a careful way- moderated by FUD- that we're unaware of it. Hell, we even welcome the invitation to take our shoes off at the airport to be searched! Our future wealth is draining out of our hands- how much money did Fanny and Freddie rob youryour retirement of? Do you know? You should. You're going to have to work twice as hard and as long to earn what you need to make up that loss- plus more to try to maintain the financial cushion so you don't slide over the ever approaching edge.
Citizens stand up for themselves. Citizens fight back- and win. The people who are in power cannot have that, and so have been deliberately dismantling the very edifices that guarantee an empowered and informed citizenry. We are being herded into serfdom, and some of us actually welcome it- because thinking for ourselves is so hard!
Modern serfs don't have to think for themselves at all. They get fed pre-digested pabulum from the media noise-and-smoke machine and corporate-owned leaders- lies, more lies, and half-truths. Add generous lashings of cavorting half-naked celebritoids (in high def!), alongside snarky people trying to put one over other snarky people on 'reality shows' to win some money, and you have the 21st Century bread and circuses that are needed to keep serfs from actually living the examined life.
Our kids are being educationally dumbed down, and then being forced to mortgage their futures for more essentially useless education that leaves them just as bewildered and unprepared for real life jobs as before, as well as being in debt up to their ears and more malleable because of it.
Serfs get lots of credit card offers and shiny things with headsets waved at them, so they can block out the world with downloadable thumpa-hump tunes- that propagate popular memes. These shiny things break quickly, necessitating another trip to the store and another swipe of the plastic, making sure that they do not ever free themselves of debt. (Cash is frowned upon, and large amounts are flagged- if you have $10K or more on your person, you might be up to no good!) Serfs are urged- sometimes forcibly- to Buy More Stuff, and are looked upon suspiciously if they do not, or worse, think for themselves and try to get others to do the same. To act like a citizen instead of a serf is a Bad Thing in our culture- and would-be citizens get branded with titles like 'elitist', 'intellectual' and 'liberal'.
50 years ago, those three words were compliments of the highest kind- and at least two of them were almost considered job requirements for higher office. Not any more. Serf-herders of our modern times fear such things, and do their best to eliminate such people before they gain too much power or popularity.
Modern serfs may no longer have to physically swear fealty to their lords and masters, but instead they are bound by the actions of the people they put into office (and buy stuff from) to accept a declining standard of living.
It isn't too late to start reversing this march into feudalism. We still have the ability to push back, to redirect the course of our lives and that of this country. I'd like to hope that a decade from now, 2008 will be seen as the nadir of our collective history- the point at which the citizens woke up and said 'enough!' and did something about it.
I can still dream.