CLOSING TIME

still standing


Our place in evolving civilization, that is not only changing all within civilization, but pulling all that was outside civilization into the fold, is taking us into uncharted waters like Columbus crossing the Atlantic every day. Whether or not there was anything to it, we believed we might have been moving in one direction and then the tech boom comes and changes all that went before, which was in change already. The 20th century's love affair with the New created a culture of the new that looks from today's perspective old. The 20th century was the cutting edge century like the prow of a ship breaking the water, charging ahead into the unknown every moment of every day. The momentum is still with us, though it appears to have taken a quantum leap in change, taking us since the computer into ways children can easily master, adults have a difficult time with, and old people don't even know it exists. Old people think of twitter as something a bird might do.



We're engaged in a level of changes now that seem to be incomprehensible to anyone not directly associated with whatever it is that's new. Keeping up is our way of life. In England one might scold another for not conforming, while here, one might be scolded for not keeping up. You're going to fall behind, lose touch, and the worst possible American nightmare, be an outsider. We keep up with the new, the new music, the new tv shows, the new writers. Pop culture is about what's new, keeping what's new in our faces, advertising all the time. Where the country landscape is trees, the mental landscape is advertising.



I find people expecting me to know about this cold remedy and that, all kinds of other things I could only know about watching commercials. A friend who was a psychotherapist once told me I know all about drugs. Her conclusion was drawn from my generation being a drug generation. I didn't bother to tell her, because I was a bit put off being taken for a clone of my generation, whatever that would be, that I don't know anything about drugs. People talk zanexes, quaaludes and other nonsense syllables, and I have no idea what they're talking about and don't care to. I'm not interested in having a dictionary of drugs in my head. I'd rather know the names of all the Zurich Dadaists.



Naomi Wolf's documentary film THE END OF AMERICA stays with me. She outlined the blueprint for closing down an open society. She takes for granted we understand 911 was an inside job. She gave ten criteria used by Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, and the American triumvirate, Rummy, Cheney and Bush. The blueprint in 10 easy to understand qualifications tell it in plain English we're in police state and there's no going back until the American Empire goes all the way, way too far, like in Germany, and the whole world comes down on USA and shuts us down like the Yankees did the Confederacy after the Civil War.



1. Invoke an internal and external threat.

2. Secret prisons where torture takes place.

3. Develop a paramilitary force.

4. Surveil ordinary citizens.

5. Infiltrate citizens groups.

6. Detain and release citizens.

7. Target key individuals.

8. Restrict the press.

9. Recast criticism as espionage
and dissent as treason.

10. Subvert the rule of law.



All of this came about while the citizens of what might have once been a democracy were mesmerized by explosions on tv. While American people slept in willful ignorance, the corporations took our government after more than half a century of lobbying, buying the laws to their favor, against ours. That's done now. We have a corporatocracy. The new from here on will be adjusting to the new social spectrum being set up, the ruling class and the peasantry. About the time we start accepting Malaysian sweat-shop wages, we'll get our jobs back. My disappointment with Obama is that he has done nothing to undo any of the above, has only enforced the legislations of the dark cabal. His disguise as the opposition to police state is wearing thin. I'm thinking now he never promised that, only launched a public relations scam of seeming.



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