NOW IS THE SUMMER OF OUR DISCONTENT

The summer solstice is coming soon, three years into the brave new world of nonstop international crisis and multinational coordination in response to Covid and Putin. Regardless of your personal opinion on the wisdom, honesty or necessity of either campaign, the results have been costly in multiple ways – trillions of dollars have been spent by various national governments and there has been massive economic dislocation all over the world – leaving major American cities with higher and higher levels of homelessness and street crime. The economic war against Russia has caused energy prices to rise dramatically, contributing to high inflation, and many of the weapons sent to Ukraine are finding their way into the underground arms trade, posing an impossible to quantify but very real threat to law and order all over the planet.

Within the USA, the two major parties continue their loud efforts to put each other’s leaders in jail. From the “LOCK HER UP” chants at the 2016 GOP Convention to the headlines this week, the two major parties have been calling each other criminals relentlessly, Personally, I believe them both, and I suspect that lots of people draw the same conclusion about our political class that finds a way to get taxes lowered and wars started even as they rant and rave about how them other guys are traitorous gangsters.

All of this adds up to an utterly gloomy world, and reading the thoughts expressed on this board is profoundly depressing. The emphasis here is on trying to find the Truth, which boils down to a discussion of sources and a reprise of Diogenes’ forlorn search for an honest man. Good luck with that, C99. Changing our collective fate through political or direct action is a dream beyond practical reach. The most pragmatic suggestions to deal with this sorry state of affairs are to grow your own food or to move to another country – like Mexico.

Instead of any plausible political strategy, the opposition, such as it is, tends to be limited to arguing about “facts.” A counter culture alternative narrative is crystalizing, comprised of debunking narratives about both Covid and Putin. In response, the power structure and its many mouthpieces call these asserted facts disinformation and there is a concerted effort to criminalize opposition.

The lack of any conceivable way to establish the truth or falsity of the competing narratives makes the current situation hopeless.

In 1980, Ronald Reagan locked up his election in a televised debate, when he posed this question to the American voter: “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?” High inflation and high unemployment were the daily reality and the voters answered the question by electing him President.

I do not believe that very many Americans think that the Covid and Ukraine campaigns waged by our society have done anything good for our daily lives. They are making things worse, as the depressing world situation demonstrates.

I contend that we should emphasize how shitty life in America is becoming, while attacking both parties as useless hacks who are using the government to make money for campaign contributors.

[Edited to delete a redundant sentence,