freecounterpoint: Mad Max comes to California

Monday, July 30, 2012

Mad Max comes to California

9 comments:

Arelcao Akleos said...: "Add all that up with a whiny, pampered, influential elite on the coast that was more worried about wind power, gay marriage, ending plastic bags in the grocery stores —"

Ah, Versailles.; 7/30/2012 10:26 PM
Arelcao Akleos said...: Our culprit out here was not the Bomb. The condition is instead brought on by a perfect storm of events that have shred the veneer of sophisticated civilization. Add up the causes.
Our culprit out here was not the Bomb (and remember, Hiroshima looks a lot better today than does Detroit, despite the inverse in 1945). The condition is instead brought on by a perfect storm of events that have shred the veneer of sophisticated civilization. Add up the causes. One was the destruction of the California rural middle class. Manufacturing jobs, small family farms, and new businesses disappeared due to globalization, high taxes, and new regulations. A pyramidal society followed of a few absentee land barons and corporate grandees, and a mass of those on entitlements or working for government or employed at low-skilled service jobs. The guy with a viable 60 acres of almonds ceased to exist.; 7/30/2012 10:29 PM
Arelcao Akleos said...: Illegal immigration did its share. No society can successfully absorb some 6-7 million illegal aliens, in less than two decades, the vast majority without English, legality, or education from the poorer provinces of Mexico, the arrivals subsidized by state entitlements while sending billions in remittances back to Mexico — all in a politicized climate where dissent is demonized as racism. This state of affairs is especially true when the host has given up on assimilation, integration, the melting pot, and basic requirements of lawful citizenship.; 7/30/2012 10:29 PM
Arelcao Akleos said...: Terrible governance was also a culprit, in the sense that the state worked like a lottery: those lucky enough by hook or by crook to get a state job thereby landed a bonanza of high wages, good benefits, no accountability, and rich pensions that eventually almost broke the larger and less well-compensated general society.; 7/30/2012 10:30 PM
Arelcao Akleos said...: A coarsening of popular culture — a nationwide phenomenon — was intensified, as it always is, in California. The internet, video games, and modern pop culture translated into a generation of youth that did not know the value of hard work or a weekend hike in the Sierra. They didn’t learn how to open a good history book or poem, much less acquire even basic skills such as mowing the lawn or hammering a nail. But California’s Generation X did know that they were “somebody” whom teachers and officials dared not reprimand, punish, prosecute, or otherwise pass judgment on for their anti-social behavior. Add all that up with a whiny, pampered, influential elite on the coast that was more worried about wind power, gay marriage, ending plastic bags in the grocery stores — and, well, you get the present-day Road Warrior culture of California.; 7/30/2012 10:30 PM
Arelcao Akleos said...: The destruction of the middle class. An overwhelming inflow of immigration; beyond law or regulation.
The moral and intellectual collapse of governance.
The corruption of the culture.

Every the reliable 4 Horseman of the Versaillean Apocalypse. Doing their bit to keep the stinking peasants in their place.; 7/30/2012 10:34 PM
Tecumseh said...: As a kid, I learned about California by reading several of John Steinbeck's books: East of Eden, Sweet Thursday, Of Mice and Men. It was not rosy stuff -- rather, hardscrabble people trying to get by during the Great Depression. But I really was impressed by the underlying spirit of the characters depicted by Steinbeck.

Alas, it's not the same place anymore. The spirit is gone. What's left is a shriveled pinko dystopia.; 7/30/2012 11:01 PM
Tecumseh said...: Mr Rot's alter ego expands on the theme.; 7/30/2012 11:39 PM
Mr roT said...: I agree with a lot of this, but the problem with the US is that the whole culture is debasing itself. Rap is popular, goddammit. If the art most popular is the depiction of violence against the state and the organs of the state that preserve order, then what do you get?
Chaos and dissolution.
Dante put the popes in hell, but only corrupt ones. Now, good art is mocked or criticized as oppression.

AA, our friend Bennett liked Pink Floyd's "Another brick in the wall" when it was current. When I heard the lyrics
"We don't need no thought control.
No dark sarcasm in the classroom.
Teacher, leave those kids alone,"

I thought, "What the fuck? You shitheads probably don't like Bach and Dostoyevsky either since, for you, that constitutes thought control." I was amazed that a smart guy like Bennett would tolerate and even like that shit.
The fish rots from the head.; 7/31/2012 5:41 AM

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