Monday, December 17, 2012

Outside is America

This brewing gun control debate highlights the major underlying problem in the U.S. today - a complete and total vacation from reality. Only a country that has detached itself from economic reality for the greater part of the last 30 years could survive this level of moronic behaviour. Unfortunately, it's all due to the overwhelming dominance of the dollar as reserve currency which has subsidized this vacation; therefore, this level of willful ignorance will appear to "work" until it stops working entirely. At that point Americans will have to become like much of the rest of the world - fed on commonsense and reality, instead of fantasy, wishful thinking, and endless rivers of bullshit...

Even today, following the greatest gun-related tragedy involving small children, in U.S. history, there are still denialists and disinformers who continue to obfuscate and otherwise come up with specious arguments against any form of gun control. Let's see...the U.S. has troops in 140 countries, two ongoing military blunders, a $700 billion dollar military budget - greater than all other nations combined, more guns per capita than any other country in the world, a mentally unstable population overdosed on junk food and junk culture, PTSD veterans who are homeless but happen to be very proficient with machine guns, roughly several hundred thousand fully automatic weapons floating around in god knows whose hands, the most paranoid anti-government demented hillbillies you will ever meet, and now an economy teetering on depression with a middle class income already falling into the abyss. You don't have to be a fucking genius to see where all of this is heading - one need only pull his head out of his own ass - something the Lost Boys of the Idiocracy have not been taught how to do...Speaking of the Lost Boys, apparently these young men, over fed on junk food and junk culture, and numb from playing Call of Duty for 18 hours a day, are somewhat de-sensitized to violence. Go figure...

It's Only a Matter of How Many People Have to Get Killed, First...
Of course, this all leads to violent anarchy on a scale none of us can even imagine. Then one day some half asleep bureaucrat will come to the realization that there are three problems and one easy solution. Problem one - domestic anarchy.  Problem two, overstretched military commitments.  Problem three, no economy.  Solution? Bring all of the troops home and set up history's largest police state.  Fight fire with M1 tanks, drones, satellites and every other fancy toy the U.S. military has on offer. This past weekend I was at a holiday party with a former Secret Service Agent to my left and a "government" satellite expert to my right. Both gave every indication that Uncle Sam is already prepared for domestic anarchy. The Secret Service friend told me that the Department of Homeland Security has ordered 2000+ Armored Personnel Carriers for "domestic defense". Meanwhile, just read the CIA factbook on the state of the inequalities of the U.S. economy, ironically written by grownups who don't sugar coat their Faux News. To think that we need to go to the CIA to get a dose of reality - totally unbelievable:

"The onrush of technology largely explains the gradual development of a "two-tier labor market" in which those at the bottom lack the education and the professional/technical skills of those at the top and, more and more, fail to get comparable pay raises, health insurance coverage, and other benefits.Since 1975, practically all the gains in household income have gone to the top 20% of households. Since 1996, dividends and capital gains have grown faster than wages or any other category of after-tax income..." 

Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, the CIA doesn't publish its prediction as to how this unsustainable shit show all ends...