It's been four years since I last visited the country of my birth, the Shining City on the Hill, the country on the cover of my passport, the United States of America. That was an interesting trip. Sure, there were things to be angry about, and other things, many other things, to be horrified by. There were also, however, many signs that were encouraging. There were opportunities to hope for a return to sanity. Slowly, surely, but to hope that some of the negative trends in American society could be turned around, to hope that it would be possible to return to a condition that was more conducive to enhanced security for the greatest number of American families, and for the increasing numbers of Americans who had given up on ever being able to afford to have a family.
It was hard to be optimistic though. It was hard enough to hope that the American economy could ever again reach a condition in which everyone could afford food and shelter simultaneously. So many people are bereft. It's food OR shelter for many people. Good people, educated people, people of all ages with no mental problems, no drug problems, people with jobs that they go to every day, people who once would have had a nice life, but who are now forced to live in their cars.
The most encouraging sign on my trip to California four years ago was the American people themselves. Almost everyone that I interacted with was reasonable, considerate, and friendly. The record of that visit was almost shocking. Amidst the ruins of American society, individual people were still decent, hard-working, and kind. (I'll get to the “ruins” part momentarily.)
There were the little things, like buying a burner phone and a one month hookup so that I could make and receive calls and text messages during the trip.
First, I went to Fry's, in Manhattan Beach. I had loved this place for years. They had everything; if it comes even vaguely under the heading of “electronics,” they had a good selection of it. That place was deep. I found, and bought, the only DVD copy of “Godzilla Raids Again” that I have ever seen. It's almost impossible to find that movie. Original cut, letter-boxed, full length, in Japanese! (With subtitles.) Heaven at once. I say, “had,” because they are gone now. The entire chain. My best guess is that Amazon put them under. People are buying everything from Amazon now, everything from TVs to computers to electronic components to hot sauce.
I found the burner phones with no trouble and examined the selection. The problem was that someone had decided that everyone in the market for a burner wanted a smart-burner. A cheap substitute for your Samsung back home. They were all about $100, or more, and I didn't need that much phone. Pardon me, I'm not a penny-pincher, but nor do I enjoy throwing money away. As I was standing there looking at least confused, perhaps a bit annoyed, an employee came over. A very young looking Hispanic man, probably still a teenager. He looked a bit confused and annoyed himself. I told him, “these are too much phone for what I need. All I want to do is make and receive calls, texting would be nice, I'm only here for ten days.” He explained that these were what everyone seemed to want these days. “We used to have the cheap burners, but they're gone.” I thanked him for his help, and gave the smart-burners the “oh, what the hell” look, and the kid, with no change of expression whatsoever, says, “you know, let me go and take a look. Maybe there's one back there.” He was back in about five minutes with a small box, smiling for the first time in our interaction. “This is the last one. Thirty bucks!” Some typical Chinese company name, “Lucky Princess” or something. Perfect! “Where do I get the hook up?” He knew that too. “T-Mobile is the cheapest for short-term.” Great! There's a T-Mobile in the shopping center that my bank is in. And my pizza connection. And my Fatburger. And my Von's Supermarket, where my phone number from twenty years ago still gets me the discount prices. It's down the block from my old house.
Things went well at the T-Mobile. There were two customers, one lookie-lou, and one guy working on forms. The nice young lady says to him, “do you mind if I help this gentleman while you fill out the forms?” He says that's fine. I was set up and out the door inside of ten minutes with a one month unlimited calls and texts for thirty-five dollars. That's sixty-five dollars all together, and the help was first class.
It's true in many countries, and America is no different. Nearer the bottom of the demographic, people tend to be nicer. My next project put me in a position where I was asking for assistance from people further up the ladder. Much further. I held my breath.
But they were great too! I cashed in two old whole-life insurance policies that my father took out on my life long ago. At that point I was the owner, the insured, and the beneficiary. I got nowhere calling the companies, just stuck in endless menus, “to buy a new policy, press one.” When I got a person on the phone, they were no help. “What is the agent's name?” Honey, I hate to break this to you, but that was three corporate mergers ago, and the policies are from fifty to sixty years old, and the fucking agents are dead. When you get all the way up to corporate in America, you get no consideration at all.
So I looked up offices currently serving as agents for the current corporate entities holding the policies. In both cases, I didn't even call first; I just showed up. I wore a suit and tried to look prosperous. In both offices, I was welcomed with open arms, and introduced to a high-powered agent within minutes. These were small policies, very small, and I was just cashing them in, but both agents were very generous with their time and energy. They made some calls, verified everything, I provided them with a current address that would work, and then they both took some time to chat. I had both checks in hand within a week, and was able to deposit them while I was still in town. One guy even validated my parking. (That's not a small deal. The one that I paid cost me $28 for about an hour and a half.)
The second check to arrive got stuck in the bear trap. I have no middle name. My father, the original owner and beneficiary of both policies, did have a middle name. The check was made out to him.
When I arrived at the bank to try to deposit the check, my regular guy was not there that day. It was my last day in California. I scanned the open-plan desk area and focused on a friendly Hispanic man with whom I had a nodding relationship, developed over my two previous visits to the bank. I went over, introduced myself, and explained the problem. Bear in mind that my name is very unusual in its spelling, and even the first name is on the rare side. So there are not a lot of guys with my name, middle name or not. He thought about it, smiled, and said, this should work. “Just sign your name like it appears on the account.” He walked it over to a teller, and in a few minutes he came back wearing a big smile and handing me a receipt for the deposit.
This was 2018, and now I am suspicious that America has slipped into mass insanity, mental instability, and financial chaos just over the last four years. Although the signs were there.
Only four years! So, on to the RUINS.
We are in our third year of SARS-Cov-2 (COVID 19).
Russia is officially a gangster state, and now seems poised to grab another slice of the Ukraine. Kazakhstan just invited Russian military “peace keepers.” Belarus is in the “forget about it” column, and the three viable Baltic states are all on high alert.
Mr. Xi, over in China, has clearly decided that the old Chinese preference for soft-power takeovers wasn't working for him.
I must mention Trump. Please forgive me for bringing it up.
The global climate is rushing to its tipping point, its point of no return. You would think that the matter is no longer suitable for debate, but you would be wrong. Even with the fires, the floods, the droughts, the funnel storms, the atmospheric rivers, the entire new catalog of climate horrors, a vast swath of the population maintains with a straight face, if red-cheeked and angry, that that whole thing is a hoax. Probably a Chinese hoax.
The list of failed states grows longer day by day. Many countries are poised to join the list. These places generate refugees at a frightening rate.
Many countries, including America, seem to be deciding that democracy isn't the way to go after all. This list includes a few countries in the European Union, and at least one that has been on the short-list to join the EU. England is on its second bottle of vodka, washing down the last of that hundred Seconals.
People everywhere are on edge. Suicide rates are up. The entire world financial system is a house of cards. All of the markets are in danger of simultaneous collapse. Bubbles! Artificial Intelligence is a creeping threat, through things like autonomous murder robots, ubiquitous surveillance drones (often armed), CCTV, license plate readers, facial recognition, block-chain, Facebook's Metaverse, and a host of other mechanisms. Police are more on edge than anybody, and trigger-happy.
The surveillance society has become so pervasive that it's ridiculous. I don't know how they do it. I woke up one day last month and had a fleeting though that I should look up a certain thing on the Internet. I didn't say anything out loud, and I made no reminder note. When I turned on my computer, I didn't look for it right away. And yet, within twenty minutes I saw two ads focused on that thing. This morning I was sitting and talking with my wife about language acquisition, a popular subject in a household where I am studying Thai, half-studying Spanish, and always have German in the back of my head, while my wife is working on a second BA for fun, in English this time. I said one sentence in German, to make a point. (“Heute geht den [der?] Plan nicht.”) There were no computers in the room, but her phone was on, although dormant. When I returned to my computer, the first ad that I saw was entirely in German. (“Willkommen zu Ihre neue Stelle!”) I could read it easily, but it is very unusual for me to get ads that are in anything but Thai or English. How do they do that? It gives me the creeps.
Over just the last four years, the entire character of human society seems to have shifted in a bad direction. Think of the BRIC countries. That's Brazil, Russia, India, and China. Ten years ago, they were the up-and-comers, the future of the world economy. Think for a moment about the current state of those countries, and their four presidents. I'm sorry that I even drew your attention to that horror.
I still have many friends in California. Friends and relatives. Several of them are anti-vaccine, and have lost very good jobs for their refusal to cooperate. Three, to be exact. One has gone “off grid,” living now in a cabin in the woods, Unabomber style. Couples are talking about moving to other states. Divorce is in the air. People's children can feel all of this tension and it's not doing them any good.
Permanent homelessness has become a permanent feature of life in many cities. The response of government, large and small, has been, of course, hostile. Homelessness, and even helping the homeless, has been criminalized. It's all being handled in the most unchristian way, the most inhumane way, the most cruel way possible. Many municipalities have put spikes on all of the warm, flat surfaces! Dividers on public benches to prevent homeless people from lying down! Laws against standing in one place too long! I find the whole thing quite embarrassing.
The chaos and dysfunction that settled into our Federal Government during the Trump presidency also seems to have become permanent. Half of our politicians seem to thrive on it, and the other half seem either complicit or diffident. The Federal agencies are sleepwalking, and suffer greatly from weak leadership. The Republicans have insured that the Federal Courts are a total train wreck. I am under doctor's orders never to think about our current Supreme Court, so I will refrain from comment.
The great divide in American politics has hardened into permanence. I'm afraid to go back. I have a long, shiny paper trail marking me as socialist, progressive, liberal scum. I might not even clear the airport. There are people who would love to shoot me. That's overstating the problem, but if I started shooting my mouth off it would not be out of the question.
This gives new meaning to that old book title, “You Can Never Go Home Again.” In the micro sense, your old neighborhood, it has always been thus. But that's gone macro by now. That whole world that we knew and loved is well and truly gone.
What comes next? God have mercy on our souls.
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