Living Through History

            I’m old enough that I’ve lived through a lot of history. The Civil Rights Movement. The Moon landings. The birth (and death) of Rock and Roll. The Challenger disaster. The fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union. Los Angeles in the 90’s (including, but not limited to, the Rodney King riots). The first black President. The first black woman Vice-President. And now the whole nonsense of an attempted mob take-over of the Election process, aided and abetted by a sitting President. I hate sitting on the side-lines watching History take place. But I have a sneaking suspicion that no-one wants me to be out there making History. You think things are a mess now?

            I’m in a strange sort of position. I’m a Republican, but I’m not most peoples’ idea of a Republican. I’m actually a Centrist. That means I kinda like some ideas that each party has, I really don’t like a whole bunch of ideas that each party has, and quite frankly I think both sides need to pull their heads out of their asses and wise up. Because I’m a visionary, I have all kinds of ideas about how things should work. However, I would be the world’s worst candidate for any public office – mostly because I hate politics and I have no use for personal power. But like most people, I have way too many opinions – so I’m going to barf some of them out.

            We’ve seen a lot of political hay made through the use of social media. I’m sure that a lot of people would like to see that go away, but it won’t – at least not until social media itself implodes, which it will (and none too soon) – but I think it’s going to backfire on the politicians. You see, a lot of the way politics operates, and has for centuries, trades on the fact that the seats of power are far removed from the people and it takes a lot of effort for any citizen or group of citizens to get directly involved. A lot of ‘pork’ and corruption in government trades on this difficulty in communication. Not anymore. Now public opinion is instantaneous, volatile and often hostile. Worse, no politician who wants to win re-election (all of them) can afford to ignore the moment-by-moment ‘will of the people’. This one fact is going to change politics in unexpected ways, and forever.

            There’s been a lot of pundits during the Pandemic making dire predictions about the imminent collapse of the American Economy. They have been consistently wrong. They will continue to be wrong, because they have no idea what the Economy is. Wall Street could collapse, and the effect would be minor. Fortune 500 companies come and go with nary a ripple. The Fed can raise or lower the Prime Rate all it wants, the effect will be barely noticeable. The Economy no longer consists of these things. The Economy is people and people are now connected in ways they never were before. China is trying desperately to keep its people and their internet under strict control – China is doomed to fall because of this. We have passed the watershed point. Nationally and globally, no one and no government will be able to tell the people what to do or what to believe or what to think for very long anymore. The internet is the new printing press and the death of dictatorships.

            The American military has changed a lot, sometimes dramatically, from what it was when I was in the service in the 80’s. It’s about to undergo a radical change. As long as nations exist as fundamental entities, there will be a need for armies, navies, air forces and the Marines. But things are about to get confusing. Humanity is gathering itself for a leap off the home planet into homes throughout the Solar System and even to the stars. This is an impossibly large amount of territory for any nation or group of nations to control and defend. New governments will spring up on Mars, amongst the space colonies and the moons of the major planets. I think the move to create a US Space Force is a mistake, except in a purely defensive mode. However, I think we may see a move toward a purely non-partisan, non-nationalistic kind of peace keeping/police force throughout the Sol system – a kind of ‘Space Patrol’ if you will – that would answer only to the United Nations, if it answered to anything at all. Nations which would be signatory to a ‘Space Patrol Agreement’ would be required to reduce the size and scope of their militaries to purely defensive levels. Non-signatory nations would be advised that any aggression on their part toward their neighbors would be met by a swift and terrible response from the ‘Patrol’. This Agreement would be very difficult to create and ratify, but once done it would end the concept of Superpower political pressure. There will be huge resistance to this. Not fun.

            These are only the most obvious changes I see on the horizon, and as in any attempt at prognostication, I am certain to miss the mark on several predictions if I’m not just outright wrong. But being too safe in predicting means one is sure to be wrong. I will cover this later. For now, let me just state that I’ve begun to have a severe distaste for the old Chinese curse: “May you live in interesting times”. Interesting times, indeed.

pax et ama

TGC