Whistling Past the National Train Wreck

Pointlessly rearranging the deck chairs

There are only so many ways one can say that America is collapsing. That the Fat Lady is nearing the end of her song. That we’re running on fumes. If Yogi Berra were around, he’d say it’s over. We had a good run, as far as civilizations go. We were the light of the world for a long time. Maybe even Reagan’s shining city upon a hill.

Yesterday, Jason Whitlock reported on one Dexter Taylor, a software engineer who was just convicted and sentenced to ten years for constructing his own guns without a license. Shades of January 6. Taylor is Black, by the way, for those of you to whom that matters. I don’t expect to see former crack dealer turned FBI informant “Reverend” Al Sharpton leading a protest about this particular Black man being a victim of injustice. Our record-setting prisons are overflowing with people like Taylor, of all races. People who most decidedly don’t belong behind bars. Having watched enough of those Investigation Discovery shows, and cops gone wild videos, I often wonder just how many actual criminals are in prison. The system devotes so much effort to framing innocent people, that they may no longer be capable of convicting truly guilty ones.

I could have titled this Substack Whistling Past the American Graveyard. Maybe I should have. But America 2.0 isn’t literally dead yet. On life support? Yes. With an almost certain terminal prognosis? Yes. I used the train wreck analogy because everywhere we look, things are wrecked. A sad vestige of what they were even a decade ago. It’s fitting that we haven’t addressed our Third World infrastructure for over sixty years. What you see is what you get now. America is in critical condition, and it looks it. You can judge this book by its cover. Give me your obese, your tattooed, your weezing, chronically ill with oxygen tanks and walkers. Wretched refuse indeed. Your endless migrants, who don’t speak English and urinate and defecate in public. What’s not to love?

A society is reflected in its leaders. And what leaders America 2.0 has! Our political “representatives” are so dedicated to not representing us that every piece of legislation they pass is assumed to be yet another figurative drone strike to the population. I’ve been a political junkie for over fifty years, and I couldn’t tell you when the last law was passed that benefited the People in the slightest way. That’s why libertarianism, and now anarchy, has become popular. The best we can hope for with these beloved statesmen (and stateswomen, and soon to be statetransgenders), is that they do nothing. That we pay them their generous salaries, and give them the lucrative benefits very few of us get, to maybe rape an underage page, or be bribed by a special interest group. Just don’t pass any legislation. Pretty please.

As I wrote recently in depth about, Americans also have to contend with the occupying force of militarized police officers. They are the standing army Thomas Jefferson warned about. They serve no function other than to annoy, harass, and sometimes kill the befuddled citizens who pay them. They are never there when you need them, and are incapable of solving any real crime. They are good at beating people (as long as you are a vulnerable target who represents no danger to them), planting evidence, and lying on their police reports. But people love them. Jolly coppers on parade, as Randy Newman called them long ago. The best you can hope for is to completely avoid any interaction with them. They are upholding the systemic corruption. Doing the bidding of their masters. Guarding the train wreck.

Our government agencies are all worthless, providing no real services other than to begrudgingly pay us back the money they stole from us (Social Security, Medicare, and Unemployment Compensation), or provide the benefits they promised (military personnel). But, like savage beasts that are always hungry, they must be fed. Paid better than those who pay them, and with much better benefits. While conservatives bemoan “welfare,” which was altered significantly under Bill Clinton, so that fewer people receive less money, they fail to see the federal government itself for what it is: a gigantic, entitled welfare recipient. Think of Reagan’s mythical Welfare Queen. Living it up with house money. Taxpayer money.

To paraphrase Rodney Dangerfield, private industry is no winner, either. Much of it would welcome back child labor. They hate the minimum wage. If we raise it, your Big Mac will cost $50 and all that. They’ve been chipping away at the best legislation of the twentieth century, the 1938 act that created the forty hour work week, overtime, sick and vacation pay. They don’t like paying their lowly serfs time and a half. Remember, this law only came about because of the pressure Huey Long put on the Left, to pass a thirty hour work week, with a month’s paid vacation for all workers. The 1938 act was a watered down version of his ideas, a compromise that was still far better than what workers had before that. Which was basically nothing. I think that 1938 act may have been the last good law, passed eighteen years before I was born.

Corporate America used to represent the epitome of conservatism. Now, they are at least as “Woke” as every government agency is. Say that men can’t have babies at your own risk. Object to some mentally unbalanced co-worker complaining that you don’t respect his/her/its ridiculous new “pronouns,” and be immediately “cancelled.” Without passing “Go” or collecting $200. Say “All Lives Matter.” Wear a MAGA hat. You’ll find that your right to “free expression” is severely restricted. I could never make it in any work environment today. Virtually every word I uttered would be a fireable offense under the “new normal.” And sociable guys like me would be in hot water constantly. Just smiling and saying “hello” to the wrong Karen is no longer permitted. Unless you’re Black. Then be as loud and vulgar as you like. Except saying “9/11 was an inside job,” or talking about the Jews in a loud voice, that is.

Our dystopian downfall might be a bit more tolerable if it had a nice soundtrack. This one doesn’t, because new music has effectively stopped. I don’t consider rap and the American Idol-inspired wailing to be rock or pop music. It’s like the Titanic going down, and the band decides to be fronted by Snoop Dogg and Cardi B. That’s not quite the same as Nearer my God to Thee. And we can’t even watch any good movies or television shows that critique or satirize the madness. That’s because this train wreck can’t even be mentioned, let alone criticized. So we’re forced to watch old movies and television shows instead. It’s a form of therapy, like digitized valium. That’s how I wind down at night. Get lost in that black and white world, with attractive people, simple values, solid acting, writing, and production values.

And then there’s the populace. Sure, there are millions of people awake now, to varying degrees. But millions more are sound asleep. If you try to act as their alarm clock, they can quickly become violent. Against all reason, they appear to like the present situation. They seem to feel there is hope for the future. They recoil at our re-pilled and black-pilled proclamations like we were holding them up at intellectual gunpoint. As e.e. cummings once chided his fellow poet Ezra Pound, who was obsessed with Jews, the Federal Reserve, and unnecessary wars, and involuntarily committed to a mental health facility for a decade by the government, “You bastard- you’re trying to get them to think!” Most people desperately don’t want to think. It’s an ignorance is bliss thing, you wouldn’t understand.

A citizenry basically has two ways to try and reform things. To abolish bad laws and “mandates,” get rid of corrupt leaders, and enact better laws that ensure better leaders. One is by the voting process. As should be obvious by this point, that isn’t an option here. ‘Murricans reelect some 96 percent of the worst people on earth to “represent” them every election. Either this is because they are incurably stupid, or because the votes aren’t honestly counted. Either way, we’re screwed. The other way is by legal redress. Judicial Review, which everyone except Thomas Jefferson, and me, seems to think is the constitutional way to do it. Donald Trump’s and Alex Jones’s show trials alone demonstrate that the legal system is hopelessly compromised, by criminally biased judges, unethical prosecutors, and brainless juries.

The judge in Dexter Taylor’s trial proclaimed that the Second Amendment didn’t exist in her court. These lordly judges seem to think that the courtroom itself is their property, that it belongs to them. Instead of “get off my lawn,” they yell, “you’re in contempt!” So the Constitution she is supposed to be upholding, which includes the Second Amendment, is irrelevant to her. That statement alone would instantly assure her removal from office in an honest society. This obviously isn’t an honest society. And it follows on the heels of all those Trump and Jones’ judges who have decreed that the First Amendment can’t be cited as a defense in their courtroom. All rise! Here comes ‘da judge, as they used to say when you could lampoon such things.

Some allegedly famous “social media influencer” named Haley Kalil, who has some ten million followers on social media, recently scoffed at the unwashed masses by quoting Marie Antoinette’s iconic “Let them eat cake.” And to think, I can’t even get 5,000 followers on the platform formerly known as Twitter. Now, it’s highly unlikely that young Haley has even heard of Marie Antoinette. She certainly doesn’t have the mental acuity to realize how that sounds. What she is representing. But some other celebrities, as crazed as they are themselves, became incensed enough at the remark to announce that they were going to subject her to the digitine- the digitalized guillotine. I’m impressed that any young celebrity knows the connection between Marie Antoinette and the guillotine. So I guess that’s a positive development.

If present-day Americans had anything of the mindset of the eighteenth century French, or the American colonists, then they would have long ago started sharpening some real guillotines. I must stress that I am not supporting guillotining anyone. I oppose capital punishment. Period. Whatever the French monarchy was doing to the masses in the late 1700s certainly cannot compare to the tyranny we see in America today, or really everywhere around the world. Taxes on tea and stamps are laughable compared to the unfair and unjust monolithic establishment present-day Americans must contend with. Someone in an American courtroom faces the same cruel and unusual punishment which is forbidden under the Constitution, every day in this country. And we still have that whole “taxation without representation” thing.

RFK, Jr.’s recent inexplicable disclosure that he had suffered from a brain worm, which caused him to lose some cognitive function, really hammered home how tragically comic things are. We have Joe Biden, so obviously suffering from dementia that he wouldn’t be trusted by the average nursing home to lead a transgender story time hour, and Donald Trump, who if you accept him at face value (which I don’t), has the emotional maturity of a twelve year old. And now Bobby, Jr. With a worm in his head. Not exactly Jefferson vs. Adams. But many- perhaps millions- still believe the “White Hats” are just around the corner. Despite no evidence of any good people in power anywhere, some still trust that they will save us.

So all aboard the American train wreck. It’s not going anywhere, but you’ll need to give your ticket to the conductor anyway. You’re forced to watch (and finance) inaction in motion. Just don’t point out it’s not moving. There are a lot of fellow passengers that will want to punch you for that. To them, it’s the best ride they’ve ever been on. Maybe they can keep this facade up a bit longer. Look what they’re doing with the stock market. Even evil magicians can work wonders. This is still the greatest country in the world. Love it or leave it. Pull yourself up by the bootstraps. Those who don’t work don’t eat. Choose your pronouns wisely. And stay on this wreck. We’re number one! And we prosecute dissenters.