“1996 is the past too, listen to me!” – 12 Monkeys
Chuck Norris was dropped twice as a child: once on Hiroshima, once on Nagasaki.
Pugsley and I were off driving to an event today. As we motored down the road, he said, “Hey, what were the 1990’s like? I was on YouTube® and saw some commercials from then.”
I paused. Since he was born after the 1990s, it was absolutely foreign to him, except as he had seen in media and popular culture. But how to describe it? I mean, the Dole/Kemp ’96 website is still up (LINK), which is convenient, since Bob is now 96. But the 1990s was so much more than that.
“Well, we had won the Cold War. The 1970’s were about the economic wreckage from the oil shocks and inflation from removing gold backing to the dollar. The 1980’s were the last stage in the Cold War – the idea of nuclear war being 45 minutes away from ending civilization was common.”
I skipped mentioning that we’d come within a single person’s decision to launch nuclear weapons and start a world war more than once. I didn’t want to put him in the mindset of a total war. Heck, let him have his own ex-wife.
“The 1990s saw the end of the Cold War when the Soviet economy collapsed. We had, to a certain extent, defined ourselves by our enemy. In some sense, American mean not a Soviet communist. But then, we won. It was all over.”
Joe Biden knows in his heart that he is the only one who can defeat Ronald Reagan this November.
I paused, thinking about the old Mark Twain line that most people can’t tell a good thing from a bad thing, but kept going.
“We then looked around and wondered who we were, since there weren’t any Soviet communists to not-be. I think the answer we came up with was that we were shoppers. The purpose of America was to be the site of endless suburbs surrounding cool shopping malls. Heck, it’s probably not a coincidence that the Mall of America® opened in 1992.”
Looking back, I am in awe of how innocent we were, how free of strife we were – the First Gulf War took months to prepare for, but only had about 96 hours of actual ground combat with 156 Americans killed in battle. To put that in perspective, 65 troops died in the Gulf from accidents during that same time. The first Gulf War was about as lopsided as a velociraptor in a room full of kittens.
“It was unique, because the United States was sitting alone as a superpower both economically and militarily. The country was prosperous. We were even closer to a balanced budget than we ever have been since Andrew Jackson was president. I think Americans began to miss the struggle. Rock music went from a joyous celebration of freedom and beer and girls in bikinis and Cherry Pie to complaints about teenage angst.”
I didn’t jump into discussions of the Fourth Turning (The Economy, The Fourth Turning, Kondratieff, and You.).
Kurt Cobain has now been drug-free for 26 years!
“Somewhere in there, we had a chance to look deep inside ourselves to find our soul as a nation. Religion seemed hard, so we decided the answer was Twizzlers®.”
What I didn’t say was that was the beginning of tearing the nation apart. By the time George W. Bush beat Al Gore in an election that was so close it went to court, the Left felt that they had the presidency stolen from them. That, along with the Clinton Impeachment, rubbed the Left raw so by 2000 they were madder than Dick Cheney on a dove hunt.
I suppose that the 1990s were also the last stage of the innocence in America, and the slide into terminal decline began here. Sure, we’d already gone from “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” in the 1960s to “I Wanna **** You Like An Animal” in the 1990s, but in 1996 an actual American President, a Democrat, thought that marriage was something for a man and a woman to do.
The Mrs. thinks I’m crazy, forgetting she’s the one that married me.
Wild stock swings, a housing crisis, and wars that kept tens of thousands of American troops in Afghanistan and Iraq for more than a decade followed, and the great rift I have written about in numerous posts (Civil War, Neat Graphs, and Carrie Fisher’s Leg) widened.
But all of that is prelude to the Day America Died: May 28, 2020. Sure, the time of death is up for debate. And everything looks the same, taxes will be due next month, and the ammunition and bagel shop still accepts United States Federal Reserve currency.
Inertia is like that. The old forms persist, even after the reason that they were invented disappeared. Even after the Greeks took over Egypt, they still used the term Pharaoh. The Senate of Rome ceased to be the Senate, but managed to stay in existence until at least 600 A.D., long after the fall of Rome. I still own a comb.
Like I said, I still own the comb. I just can’t part with it.
On May 28, however, the Third Precinct building in Minneapolis was burned down. The revolution may not be televised, but it certainly is being live streamed. From there, protests, riots, and looting spread to dozens of cities in the United States, and even across the world. Certainly, there were peaceful protests as well, but the vision we’ll remember was burning, looting, and destruction of public and private property.
It was and is obvious that the goal of the Left is simple: they want to burn it all down, every system, so that they can fundamentally transform the country as a whole. Transform into what? The hints aren’t even subtle: the “Green New Deal” combined with a wholesale rewrite of the history and legends that define America and “free” healthcare and money. The old America, the one that named an airport after John Wayne? That’s not “who we are.” Free speech that goes against the narrative of the Left? Also not “who we are.”
The Right seems to be done, too. The systems that should remove illegal aliens, don’t. They Constitution seems to be guided by “emanations and penumbras” that allow the meanings of words to take the exact opposite meaning when used in reality. For some reason, “sex” as written in 1965 was interpreted to include transgenderism which means the exact opposite of natural sex. One thing I’m certain of: in 1965 when they wrote the law, “sex” meant “transgender” to exactly zero lawmakers.
It seems as though the Supreme Court forgot that there is, sitting right near their own building, a whole other building full of people who could easily clear that up: Congress. But that seems unlikely, so the Supreme Court can just make up stuff if they want to. Because of nonsense like that, the Right is also done.
So, I was hopeful the Center hadn’t given up. I have a good friend who is more libertarian (small “L”) and he and I were chatting the other day. “They should vote all of them (Congress, President, all of them) out.” I wasn’t expecting this from him. But the Center is done, too. The Left is mad at Trump. The Right is mad at AOC, and the Center just wants everyone to shut up so they can grill in peace.
One time when we were backpacking the fire got away from us in camp. It was in-tents.
But belief is really important. We obey laws, at least in part, because we believe that we’ll be punished if we don’t. We trade dollars back and forth with each other for stuff because we believe that the dollars are money. We have a nation because we believe in it.
The math is simple. As soon as we stop believing that we have a nation, as soon as that faith dies away, we no longer have a nation. And by my guess, I’d say we lost that faith on May 28. Are police required for a country? No. We lived until 1834 before the first police force that looked like a modern unit was formed. Before then, it was a hodge-podge of volunteer day and night “watches” that looked for bad guys or danger combined with county sheriffs. Thing Mayberry, but with a lot more booze.
But law enforcement is required. If it doesn’t exist, citizens will protect themselves. The era of the rooftop Korean and the Modern Sporting Lawyer arrives once again. People will very quickly understand that in the absence of police that violence levels, especially in Leftist areas with restrictive gun laws, will skyrocket.
The other day I got bitten by a radioactive lawyer – I now have Power of Attorney.
That lack of belief in government is happening now. Maybe worrying about nuclear war wasn’t so bad after all?
The Modern Sporting Lawyer is soon gonna be the winner of the 2020 Darwin Award – avoiding any vestige of cover so everybody can see he’s not wearing a Hawaiian shirt, he’s wearing PINK.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/gun-toting-st-louis-lawyers-defend-mansion-blm-protesters-viral-video
There’s no snide remarks to be made about what happens when the triggers actually start getting pulled on both sides.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/praying-our-city-gunman-opens-fire-protesters-louisville-park
Where do we go from here? I agree, the 90s are now a virtual utopia that has all but vanished on the horizon in the rear view mirror. The question of “who do we shoot” has never been more pressing.
https://vdare.com/articles/the-old-america-is-dead-where-do-we-go-from-here
Great jokes as always, John. We certainly need them.
More bloodshed at CHOP:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8471219/One-man-dead-wounded-Seattle-CHOP-zone-shooting.html
Speed run communist revolution. Seattle IS gaming central…
Yup.
Thank you!
Trigger pulling? CHAZ has you covered.
But that’s OK. To inflame the mob, it has to be the right trigger pull.
Very interesting observations abut the effects of the Bush / Gore election and Clinton impeachment on politics today. It rings true to me.
Strangely, they both became near-billionaires after leaving office.
Hmmm.
It died in the early 1960s with the civil rights act. The United States of South Africa will be conquered by external enemies because nature abhors a vacuum.
The comrades will get the golden utopia they deserve under the new CCP management.
Mean girls and Jaden manbuns will find out what real oppression is and it couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of cupid stunts.
The Civil Rights act became a defacto second Constitution. Rights were available IF they didn’t contradict the Civil Rights act.
It has happened in the past. Wonder if they will like living on collective farms. One piece of graffiti I saw that is germane: “Liberals get the bullet too” next to a hammer and sickle.
The USA split once living in a red county versus a blue county became meaningful in the lives of ordinary people.
Well said. And it is. We went to a blue state, and were verbally attacked . . . for our license plate.
“The Mrs. thinks I’m crazy, forgetting she’s the one that married me.”
Me too – my wife married me as well. Married the Hell out of me in fact. Most married guys can relate to that remark …
Indeed!
I told her that joke tonight, and she laughed.
Donald Trump is the last Republican President of the USA.
After him, the deluge.
Yes. Or the Balkans. Or the Reconquista, American Style.
I lived through the last twenty eight years of the Cold War. My view (carefully developed over the course of three minutes it took to read this post) is I think we spent so much time and energy on defeating the Soviets that when the war was finally over, there were many who required an enemy to give their lives meaning. There were also a lot of disappointed Marxist academics with an axe to grind.
The two got together and decided the best way forward was to hate ourselves as a nation, and straight white dudes in particular.
I would agree that the nation ended when the fires and lawlessness started and those who swore an oath to Protect and Defend the Constitution couldn’t find it within themselves to do anything about it. Those in power simply laid down in surrender to the mob. There are still pockets of Law and Order (it’s not just a TV show) that might hold out. But the Big Idea of E Pluribus Unum is gone, and it will eventually be every heteronormative cis person for himself.
I wish I could be more optimistic, but like your wife, I’ve been watching too much news.
I think we were so busy fighting commies in politics and overseas that we ignored the communist takeover of the education and storytelling institutions. And the bureaucracy.
By 1999 we were a conquered nation. We just didn’t know it yet.
Keep in mind, there is rebirth. What will we make?
John – – I think the Nation died much earlier than 28 May 2020. That day is just the date that the Coroner arrived to pronounce the Nation: dead, deceased, gone, done-for, Tits-up, dirt-napping, etc.
I really believe the poison was administered by Teddy Kennedy who helped push through the “Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965”, also known as the Hart–Celler Act.
His legislation made the USA import millions of zero skilled persons who brought zero to negligible value to the Nation in terms of skills and abilities. Note that I am not saying all immigrants brought zero or negligible value/skills, but the vast majority came with little to advance our Nation. Some applied themselves and played by the rules and became valued members of our society and clearly became “Makers”. But far too many became drags on the economy, the schools and did not contribute to society…….they joined the legions of “Takers”.
Saw recently a bumper sticker that put into perspective the state of our Nation.
It showed a picture of Uncle Sam and then said:
“HE’S YOUR UNCLE, NOT YOUR DADDY.”
“But the news won’t help you prepare for 2021 when the aliens show up.”
You are joking (?), but I’ve heard good arguments that they will show up soon. Not real aliens, but an operation using deep fake video and controlled media to convince people to submit to a morally and militarily superior force (that doesn’t actually exist outside a recording studio.) As you imply at one point in your article, all it takes is for people to believe something is true. So if you see saucers landing on the White House lawn with Anderson Cooper proclaiming the alien messiah has come, don’t be too shocked.
We could trace the End much farther back. At a minimum, the 1965 changes to the immigration laws that allowed such a massive change in our demographics. Or back to the arrival of the Frankfurt School in the 1930s, which directly lead to so many people believing in the marxist nonsense required for CHAZ to exist. Personally I think it links back to our allowing the Federal Reserve to come into being. The money siphoned from that is what largely funds the activities that undermine real American values, with George Soros being just the most visible, not even the richest or most active. It’s also one of the earliest examples of something almost no voter or expert wanted, yet somehow the politicians elected by them enact it anyway. I wonder how that works?
Money and power. Money and power.
They do things for money to be elected, and will do anything for power, so they can keep power.
Your examples are spot on. But those are examples of when the cancer first showed up, not when it killed us . . . (metaphorically)
There’s been a lot written about the “alt-right”, and I’m reading more and more about the “control-left”. It just makes me want to “Fn-escape”!
I agree.
I wish we could go back.
No way but through. No way to stop our signal. No way to unsee.
Good news? You can still buy cookies!!!
We are entering a phase where regular people defending themselves will still get arrested but regular criminals will not, but I can’t imagine that will last long.
As others have said, while 2020 may be the year America died, the cause of death came much earlier. Yes 1965 but even before that. The passage of the 19th Amendment? The importation of people in the early 20th century that didn’t share any of our heritage or culture? There are lots of causes but the end is nigh.
What has been really interesting for me to is read my own posts from last summer and then try to imagine telling myself what was going on now. I wouldn’t have believed it, assuming the worst would be political violence at Trump rallies and then the big show kicking off after he loses.
Yes. The worst has gotten far worse in the span of 395 days since I kicked off the weather report. I am shocked how far, how fast the end has moved.
Causes are spot on, as usual, Arthur.
I have a “classical leftist” friend (you know, the kind who’s skeptical of immigration, because it hurts working-class citizens) who looks at these marches and protests and says “The kids are LARPing. That’s all. Someone invited them to dress up for a party, and they came. They don’t have any idea what they want to change. Most of the programs they want to see funded, by defunding the police? They’ve tripled in spending already, in the last two years. Under Trump. I don’t know why the administration can’t explain the good work that it’s done, but they’re too busy with purely political nonsense.” [LARP: Live Action Role Playing]
As was mentioned on another website (Unz?) the Left knows who they want to get rid of, and in what order.
We’re on lists, right now. Never forget that.
But, again, you can still buy cookies tomorrow.