August 25, 2011
Is Las Vegas a Harbinger of the Future? "Bright, bright city gonna set my soul, gonna set my soul on fire..." (Viva Las Vegas)
by Bric
(henrymakow.com)
Las Vegas -- Anyone visiting Las Vegas for the first time is always amazed by the blazing lights at night and the constant traffic, bumper to bumper 24/7.
This is the place where people come to relax in the sun and party all night and gamble and drink and chase impossibly gorgeous Eastern European whores. The city thrives on pleasure of all types. Ask any cab driver for the nearest Chinese massage parlor that are rampant with illegal prostitutes, many of them trafficked and tricked into slavery. It's business as usual.
Everyone is on the take. The cops are a joke. Jaywalk and get gunned down with a barrage of bullets. Run an illegal drug or prostitute business and share the wealth.
Each new building vies for attention to attract the beautiful people and the hanger-ons who will fill the seats before the many slot machines. Slots have gone from a small 5% of the business to the the mainstay of the casino.
Before Detroit got the idea of replacing workers with robots, Vegas was way ahead with their assault on the human senses with every kind of mindless claptrap of a computer to make a person sit before it and empty their goods into a "friendly machine".
Kudos to the Casino Bosses as they turned their old coin fed mechanical monsters into stealth computers that address you personally as you slip your Casino Point Card into the slot and the money is slowly sucked from your account while you are rewarded with a new logo cap or "two fer one".
It's business as usual as the Casinos try to keep their stock prices from delving into the red pit of insolvency which is just around every corner.
HOMELESS
But never mentioned in the ads with half naked girls winking at you, past the blazing Strip and the famous downtown there is another area. This is the fasted growing segment of the city.
This is the new community of the one-time middle class. This is the growing population of pioneers who left the safety of their hometowns to pursue the dreams of better jobs and a real house or condo in the Land of OZ.
They heard the clarion call to riches and security and growth that the casinos promised to the young and beautiful and the semi retired hoary headed. Vegas became the fasted growing city in America. Amen!! And it grew and grew and grew. Then the cheap and easy credit came to a halt. The jobs dried up. The stock market burped and spit out the new homeowners who became the new homeless.
The bailouts started for those too big to fall. The others, too small to be helped, grouped together like magnets on a refrigerator around a common fence or alley.
Their rolls kept growing and Mayor Goodman (Good?????) would have his henchmen do midnight raids and swoop down on them: men, women, children all, and scoop up what was left of their worldly goods and move them down the street out of sight of the touristos who were swilling yard long margaritas looking for pleasure.
Well, the homeless camps are still being moved and they keep growing. Their inhabitants' stories are varied filled with talk of dreams of normal middle class life that burst like so much confetti in their faces as they tried to salvage what remnants of Wal Mart their shopping carts or cars would hold.
This is the New Vegas of broken dreams. If you want to know what is in store for many in the future as America unwinds and the banks lose their last bailout funds then just take a cruise to Vegas.....the New Vegas. It's easy to find. Just follow a man collecting cans, or follow a beautiful, hollow cheeked young girl or boy selling her/his body on the corner for a twenty dollar bag of pleasure. Welcome to the future. Viva New Vegas
Henry Makow is the author of A Long Way to go for a Date. He received his Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of Toronto. He welcomes your feedback and ideas at
