An American Looks Back
April 15, 2011
The crushing of the air traffic controllers was the harbinger of things to come.
by William F. Dement
(for henrymakow.com)
William F. Dement is a retired Lieutenant Commander Narcotics Squad, NYPD. He was a high school history/government teacher in rural New Mexico. His email address is nywrit62@windstream.net
When I realize I am one year short of half a century old, I am trying to make sense of the wild ride which we all have experienced.
As a child I watched the realities of Vietnam unfold on our black and white Magnavox TV, as well as the inner city riots in Harlem and Watts, and for school we built models of the lunar module.
We were in Special Progress (SP) classes in elementary school where advanced math, science and reading were pushed-a product of JFK's New Frontier.
In the 70s I waited on long gas lines with my father and being a retired police Sergeant I watched him go back to work at the age of 60 to make ends meet due to inflation. There was a malaise in my home and in society, something unspoken; a hopelessness. By high school no one seemed to care, especially the teachers while school mates drank and drugged, yet we all somehow graduated.
The Reagan years renewed America. We were young and filled with hope. His "Morning in America" speech pushed Americans to get an education and work harder to compete in the global economy.
We rose to the challenge. I became a New York City cop while all my friends with no college behind them went to Wall Street and made five times what I did.
Still, we were all happy. The old style dating mores of courtship were replaced with "hooking up," and "one night stands." With a strong dollar European travel was downright cheap. We watched the fall of the USSR and the dominance of the technocracy in Silicon Valley. We watched Reagan squash the Air Traffic Controllers union and we all applauded. We wove the flag with patriotic glee when an invigorated military rolled into Panama toppling drug dictators and freed imprisoned American medical students on the little island of Granada.
In the early 90s George Herbert Bush was the avuncular figure in the White House. He led us past the nefarious Saddam and his fierce Republican guard.
During the Clinton years very few knew about NAFTA or could find Bosnia or Somalia on a map. I envisioned Clinton's new "service economy" as white collar jobs in banking and real estate. On the home front there were troubling blips that came across the evening news.
Most of us were too busy to really give it its due when we watched Waco unfold on TV as well as Ruby Ridge and Oklahoma City. As a police officer I relished the build up of police through Clinton's nationwide COPS program. Gone were the powder blue uniforms and ushered in were the militaristic dark navy blue.
In the late 90s I knew civil servants that between their 401ks, mutual funds, and home equity were paper millionaires. The "Tech Wreck" was my first glimpse that something was wrong. We were all brought down to earth as our portfolios crumbled.
Nut cases talked about Y2K and nothing happened. We watched as the Supreme Court determined the outcome of an election. We learned about "chads" and a "Compassionate Conservative" was elected President. In New York we viciously put down those "Anti Globalists," because we saw them decimate Seattle and it was not going to happen in Time's Square.
Then it was 9/11. From there it is hard to keep up: Homeland Security, the Patriot Act, TSA gropers, colorful flags denoting levels of terrorism, preemptive war, two far off wars and that American Flag lapel pin, "Mission accomplished," "You're with us or against us,"and other charged sayings.
Following 9/11 all eyes turned to Bill O'Reilly and FOX News where Americans were divided into pinheads or patriots.
There was a saving grace. Home prices soared. I thought my local realtor was on to something when he told me "Buy real estate. They ain't making any more of it." It was later on that I learned that Mark Twain had penned that saying almost two hundred years earlier. We heard about OPM (Other Peoples Money) and leveraging. Sadly many lost it all as home prices cratered.
The decade ended with bailouts to the Wall Street crowd , a long recession which never approached that dreaded "D" word, the nations first black President who promised "hope and change" which meant so many different things to the people who voted for him, an economic recovery, albeit jobs, and whispers of the fall of the dollar.
As we enter mid-2011 we hear whispers of 2012, the Mayan Armageddon prophesy, collisions with Niburu, and a host of natural disasters. I recall the myths of the lost nations of Atlantis and Lemuria and wonder what future generations will say about the lost country of Japan.
The dollar is tanking and gold and silver are soaring. It is now painfully evident to most of us that America is insolvent; that we will never pay off our enormous debt, that Weimar Republic, Argentina, and Zimbabwe style hyperinflation is now a distinct possibility for the Unites States.
Throughout my lifetime we have seen both parties outsource American jobs while we Americans rose to the challenge and did everything we were told to do; get an education and work harder.
I wonder if I was on the right side of history as we policed the anti-globalists in New York City. The crushing of the air traffic controllers was the harbinger of things to come. We have watched public unions collective bargaining rights squashed in Wisconsin and Ohio. We are not far off to the point where retirements are phased out and PSAs flood the television advocating the benefits of working to you drop.
America is now in a third war-this time with Libya. There are parallels to the fall of Rome; barbarians at the border, an over stretched military, corruption in the Senate, a devalued currency, and "Bread and Circuses." Americans are busy with Dancing with the Stars, the Octagon and Mixed Martial arts have replaced Roman Gladiator games at the Coliseum.
Snooky is paid 100 grand an episode for a reality show while teachers and firefighters are furloughed because city and state governments can't afford to pay them, Congress takes on Barry Bonds and steroids in baseball while they don't hold hearings on the outsourcing of our jobs, or discuss auditing or better yet, ending the Fed.
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Ty said (April 16, 2011):
Al the Satanist wrote:
"The American Empire is dying. Soon China will take the reins. Before that happens there'll be a lot of sacrifice. Ours is a long term plan and nothing will stop it. Our Prince is God of this world. His world is Our Temple. Always was. Always will be."
Yes but the Organic Christian American Republic is rising and has been since March 2010. Your prince may be prince of the world, but our God is the creator of the Universe who already defeated your prince as we await the creator/saviors plan that nothing will stop. You father is the father of lies, ours is the truth. As we watch China rise along the lines of another one of your mass programming films (Lord of the Rings) we are also aware it is unfolding right along those lines you programmed so you might maintain perception control until your end, which is soon. Yes, you will have your prince as chief executive and high priest of of world government, but we will have ours also and he comes on the heels of your god's short reign.