The End of the World as We Have Known It

Today is a sad day on both sides of the Atlantic.  To paraphrase a comment I saw on Joe.My.God.:   On the same day that Britain leaves the European Union, America leaves democracy behind.  Nothing good will come of this.

Well, for 75 years the broad, sunlit highway that arose out of the fire and blood of the Second World War was a pretty good ride.  We were lucky to be born into that time.  It was always a route under construction, and subject to detours and lane closures - but despite all the bumps in the road, it seemed, to me at least, a fundamentally stable, generally progressive, and blessedly prosperous time for the middle and lower classes in the Western world, who by thrift and steady work could live more easily and comfortably than anyone ever had before, even in the golden palaces of kings and emperors fabled for their wealth and power in ancient times.

The poor were and are always with us, of course - but many millions of my parents' generation who started life in rural or urban poverty were able by wit and grit, and a bit of good luck, to achieve a very comfortable old age, and even leave a sizeable nest egg for the next generation.  (Sadly, this was not the case in my particular family, but that is another story, of no interest to anyone but me now.)

Prosperity and the growth of scientific knowledge led to miraculous advances in medicine and technology that nearly eliminated the famines and diseases and poverty and unceasing hard labor that had been the scourges of mankind from the dawn of history.  Not to say that there was no suffering, pain, or worry - despite the spread of peace, progress, and general affluence, there were still tears, toil, struggle, and sorrows to contend with in human life, high and low, rich or poor, which is simply our lot in this imperfect world, where the bitter must always be taken with the sweet. But on the whole and in the main, it was a mighty good time to be alive, when you consider how very much harder and more perilous life was just a hundred years ago.

(Whether the soft, effortless, push-button life we have come to enjoy is truly good for us in a moral and spiritual way is a question I defer for the time being to the philosophers.)

And until quite recently, there was, it seemed, good reason to hope that mankind's upward progress would continue indefinitely.  Despite the unending to and fro of politics, it did seem that the people at the top - most of them, most of the time - were essentially sane and decent, sincere and responsible people who profoundly respected the rule of law and the time-hallowed constitutional order.  And who were certainly not the tools of any foreign power - unthinkable!

But goodbye to all that - I'm glad I am an old man in the sunset of life, with no posterity to worry about.  I'm also glad that my parents aren't here to see the corruption and negation of their ideals, and the moral degradation consuming our government, our politics, and many other areas of life, all across the political social spectrum.

As I heard the ever-chic and lovely Joan Collins say in an interview a few years ago, reflecting on the rudeness and crudeness of modern life:  I don't like this century.

I'm taking an extended moment of silence here on the Blue Truck to reflect on the dismantling of the Western world order that once seemed so enduring. Of course the human race will go on and on as it always has, despite every kind of calamity in ages past - you know how those breeders are, come hell or high water - but the going on will not be very nice at all, I fear.  That is, unless you fit into whatever new order shakes out of all the dreadful conflicts to come, nation against nation and fanatic against fanatic.  And there are always plenty of folks ready, willing, and able to fit in, no matter which way the wind is blowing.

Maybe I'll return next week with a more optimistic attitude. But then again, maybe not.  My voice doesn't count at all in this mad world, I know.  And even in better times, I have never really fit in - too liberal for the conservatives, too conservative for the liberals, too educated for the lowbrows, too provincial for the highbrows, and always an individual, not part of the In Crowd, never one of the cool kids.  A sometimes lonely state of being - but tant pis.  It suited me, I suppose.

I am an old man, retired from the tumults and contests of life, and like an old dog on the front porch, content merely to sit in the sunshine and watch the traffic whiz by, without the slightest urge to run after it, even if I had the strength to do so.  I have lived my life and danced my dance, and now it seems I have outlived my time:  a stranger in a strange land.  A chill wind rises, and the brief candle flickers.  Who knows what tomorrow and tomorrow will bring, for good or ill?

Nightmare World: Facebook Wants Your Bank Account

I'll be honest with you, fellas:  Much as I try to keep a stiff upper lip about the decay of civilization, there are days when any attempt at optimism seems hopeless, and the vision of a nightmare world that surpasses anything Orwell ever dreamed of seems not merely imminent, but already present.

Facebook is not your friend, despite the happy college-kid face it presents to the world.  They now want to "partner" with banks to "improve customer service" and "benefit the consumer."  If you believe that, you are a fool.  It's a business, a huge, sprawling, corporation without a human soul.  A corporation is a machine to make money with - like any tool, it can be used for good or ill purposes.  But what all corporations want is to increase their stock prices and dividends, and too many corporate leaders tend not to care if any and all consumers get screwed in the process - hey, too bad, it's progress, wheeeee!

"Privacy" notice I got a few days ago from Google.  Even what your or I watch on YouTube or what places we look up on Google Maps are all tracked under the unceasing, unblinking eye of Big Brother, and filed in his unforgetting, ineradicable memory.  
If Google can follow your every stray thought, who else can too?  And is?

I could go on and on and on about the madness that has engulfed us all in the last 25 years since the advent of the Internet - and even though some antisocial types, like me, have never joined Facebook, there are who knows how many other companies, like Google, and countless little ones nobody ever heard of, all busily digging into everyone's privacy every minute of every hour of every day.  There is in fact no privacy left in the world for anyone, except maybe for some of those lost tribes in the Amazon jungle, and even their remote little world is being steadily invaded.

And it's not merely things that you think of as data-sharing sites.  There's also the ghastly Internet of Things, which to put it another way, means that your car, your refrigerator, your dishwasher, your microwave, and just about any other electronic gadget can in fact be made to spy on you and report everything you do, every word you say, and how you spend every second of your life, waking or sleeping.

From "sponsored content" about harvesting your privacy from the Internet of Things at Politico, 7/16/18.  Click to enlarge.

And every utility - electricity, gas, water - is produced, distributed, and metered by mini-minds that can also be misdirected or shut down.

And furthermore, every last one of those devices, in your home, or at the power plant, can be unlocked and controlled, probably, by some teenage hacker down the street or some spymaster on the other side of the world, with a few taps on a keyboard.

Just last year, somebody in Dallas broadcast a radio signal that activated all 156 of the city's tornado alarms, an amazing feat of digital malevolence.  Lily Hay Newman reported for Wired:

The Dallas incident fits with the broader uptick in infrastructure hacks around the country. From electric road signs to emergency text alert systems to suburban dams, hackers have targeted vulnerable structures with increasing boldness. And while the Dallas sirens did have some alarming secondary effects—over 4,000 calls to 911 flooded the city's emergency response lines for several hours—it's nothing next to the real danger that hacks like these could cause.

"There’s a steady drumbeat of these types of attacks and they’re all pretty benign right now, but what’s next? Is it water? Is it sewage?" says Chris Pogue, the chief information security officer at the data analysis firm Nuix. "Let’s not waste the potential lessons learned by saying it’s an isolated incident."

I don't want to be part of this nightmare.  And I don't want to be part of this ugly, vulgar, hate-filled century, which I'm afraid will one day make the horrors of the 20th century look like a Sunday-school picnic.  But what can any of us do now?  We walked into the enticing trap of the Internet willingly, all unsuspecting, and now the doors are closing on us, it seems.  One day, sooner than you think, Siri and Alexa and other talking boxes will not be optional - they will be required in every home.  Maybe even in every brain.  And then the last hope of resistance - of truly independent human personality - will have vanished.

And it won't be fresh-faced, innocent-looking types like Mark Zuckerberg pulling your strings.  It will be the ruthless, power-hungry leaders of the left or right - when they have a good grip on you with the ruthless digital hand, it won't much matter which side they are.

You may say, "Oh, Russ, you're just being melodramatic, don't get so excited, just chill."  Well, okay, boys - if you all don't think there's any danger to worry about, you just sit back and relax.  While you can.

But when a day comes that your bank balance is zeroed out, your credit cards too, and your car won't start, and you have no electricity - unless you do as you are told - for gosh sakes, don't come whine to me about it, "Oh I never dreamed this could happen."

It can.  Be afraid.  Be very afraid.

You have been warned.


P. S. -- Of course, I could be wrong. So was Orwell, so was Bradbury, so was Forster, so was Wells, and so were a lot of other writers who have rung the alarm bells about present trends and coming events, if you look only only at the small details of what they prophesied.  I don't have the talent for spinning a fascinating yarn as they did, either.

Nevertheless, no one doubts that they were right to sound a warning.  Forewarned is forearmed.

Catching Up to Speed

Just a note to let you guys know I'm still alive and well; just been a bit overloaded lately with one thing and another. But now spring is here, the sun is shining, birds are singing, and looks like I'll be getting back up to speed with this blog before too long.

Appreciate all your good thoughts and wishes, you guys are the best.

So many good things have been happening since I last posted; got to send a shout out to Iowa and Vermont, who both legalized queer love in recent weeks. And say, how 'bout them Navy SEALS who rescued our sea captain from the pirates last week? Way to go, men.

And 'course I'm proud as punch of our President and First Lady who wowwed the crowds all over Europe; even the Queen seemed impressed, and broke protocol a tiny bit to put a motherly arm around the First Lady. And hey, that surpise visit to the troops in Baghdad was a very cool idea. So are the beginnings of reform in healthcare, education, taxation, and the economy.

Yup, the 21st century is finally off to a good start. But here's two of today's news items that show how some folks just don't get it: while Obama unveiled a grand "Vision for High Speed Rail in America" - waaaaaaaaay long overdue in this country - the dumbshit, butthead Republican Governor of Texas, Rick Perry, mentally stuck on some 19th century woodburner, is stoking the flames of secessionist talk. Which is waaaaaaaaay out of date. Can you say Appomatox? He's just pissed because him and his money-grubbing Republican friends are getting turned out to pasture, no more feeding at the public trough while they send the working class down the chute to the slaughterhouse.

Meanwhile, even more out of date are the "Tea Party" tax protests that just took place around the country. Oh man, that is like sooooo 18th-century, ya know what I mean? And WTF are they hollering about, anyway? I just filed my tax return, and come to find out my taxes went down this year about 500 bucks or so. And besides, just where the hell were all these brilliant patriots when Dubya and his economic-royalist cronies were screwing up the economy royally and running this country straight into the ground, huh?


One news article I just saw quoted a protester at one of these tea parties, carrying a sign: "Welcome to Sweden." I nearly fell out of my chair laughing, we're not even close. And like, would that really be so effin' bad, pal? Sweden's way ahead of us in lots of good things, has been for years.

Although I have to say I kinda lean more towards the French model in a lot of ways - healthcare for everyone, the most energy-independent country in Europe, a 35-hour workweek - and the President made a point of praising the French high-speed rail system in his announcement today.

One final note: this doglover thinks Bo looks like a great pick for First Dog. Gotta love the rainbow lei, too. Haha.


That's all for now, guys. I'm not ready to start daily posting again just yet, but maybe soon. Meanwhile, good vibes to all y'all. Get out and have some fun, enjoy the beautiful weather and mild temps. I'll have to get you some pics of the garden the roommate and I been working on. Later guys . . . .