We The People…

Recently seen in a post, “Who is responsible for the current state of affairs? For the world as it is? — a capitalist dystopia offering nothing.”(Antonio Melonio)

My Brain immediately asked me, “why? Are we powerless like a cork in the waves?”

History has a lot to teach us about people's affairs, their influence on government, and of government abusing latitude with people as an excuse for a “better government.” Many people today refuse to see The “History of Civilization” as a compass to understand how we got from “there” to “here.”

History is the compilation of the human experience. I say “human” because it is the sum of people's actions and reactions by governments. The reactions of a government cannot be predicted.

Some “revolutionary governments,” like the USA, are created with “Humanity” in mind but with LAWS for the government by the people. Others are also revolutionary and created by “the people” with no limitations, and the government abuses Humanity (Hitler, Stalin, and Mao Zedong come to mind).

Those are the choices, and the rest of the paper will discuss how they come about and why we are where we are. The “WE” here is the “World.”

Nothing in this world is constant. Natural phenomena have wiped out whole species. How do we even know if there were intelligent beings before us on earth?

However, we go on thinking we are the masters of the universe and can even control “the weather?” As humans, we know “happiness isn’t compulsory, and nothing ever ends.” (A Boy Called Christmas).

The expression offered in the quoted post is a cause that is emotion-based, looking for a culprit and naming it without taking any responsibility. It is not based on a reality that understands “People” behavior. The sentence is a “word action” similar to the “actual actions” the Ku Klux Klan performed in their resurgence of the 1920s (thanks to Woodrow Wilson); the post goes downhill from there. Persecuting an “economic system while pushing a political cause, Communism as a better option.” I can’t help but think, do they know Communism is a radical form of socialism? People abdicate all liberties to live in that type of regime. “The State” is in charge of everything; people follow. Remember the “bread lines” in the Soviet Union? That is how basic a failed government can get.

Our Story

It took a village to get to us where we are, and it will take one to get to where we are going. The choice is for us to make. The Constitution is the answer. It is a set of LAWS that defines what the government is authorized to do. The trick for us is to “enforce” that law. Nobody has done that for 100 Years — since Woodrow Wilson imposed a creeping socialist system on us. We have been overtaken by “the Power of incremental seduction.” We are now restricted by whatever people we never voted for impose on us.

Today, nobody in this country enforces “Government by Constitution.” This would be “Regardless of party.” Pelosi and most politicians today use it like we use tissue paper to wipe our noses. They speak the words. In other words, they “talk the talk, BUT they do NOT walk the walk” (of the talk).

People’s movements have existed throughout history. The aphorism attributed to the 19th-century French socialist Auguste Comte is that “demography is destiny.” It could be expanded to say, “demography turns into destiny.” Why? Because people are bags of emotions walking around. One perfect example is what happened to Russia during and after WWI. We are still seeing the effects of that today.

This is part of the cycle of humanity, “People” feel optimistic/pessimistic about what the future may hold. Either mood (long-lasting emotions), on the extremes of the bell curve, provoked by demographic grievances, promotes new demographic changes through war, volume protests, or other means.

Protests, like we had during the 1960s, about the war in Vietnam. We can thank LBJ for converting a Kennedy “expedition” into a full conflagration that, in the end, he had to resign from a second term because he did not know what to do without sinking the country into indefinite debt. The “GDP Growth Rate” in 1966 hit 6.6%, the second highest in our history; only second to the war in Korea, 8.7%, excepting WWII, which has been the highest in history at 18.9% (The Balance).

How did all that affect our demographics?

The Vietnam War accelerated the mechanization of the agricultural industry. In 1970, 25% of the U.S. population lived on farms or in rural communities. Of those, 2.25 million men left to fight in Vietnam. Farms compensated by buying larger machines and concentrating on one main crop.

Controversy over drafting 18-year-old men who could not vote led to two changes. In 1971, the voting age was lowered from 21 to 18. In 1973, the draft ended, and the Department of Defense began relying on an all-volunteer force.

The war created distrust between the American people and the federal government. Several events related to the war revealed how the government had lied. First, the premise for the war may have been fabricated. In 1964, President Johnson declared that the Vietnamese had attacked a U.S. ship in the Gulf of Tonkin. In 1968, U.S. soldiers killed 500 unarmed civilians in the My Lai massacre. In 1970, Ohio National Guard soldiers shot four Kent State students who were protesting the Vietnam War. In 1969, President Nixon secretly ordered the bombing of Cambodia. As a result, many American people no longer trusted government leaders. The 1972 Watergate scandal only confirmed this sentiment. (“The Balance”)

For the adults at the time, it generated actions that otherwise would not exist (going to war, the aforementioned changes, for example).

For those of draft age (18 -25 mostly), kids out of high school, it created an unexpected reality and differentiation from others. Listen to “Credence Clearwater Revival, ‘Fortunate Son.’” The band became a source of protest-bible music during the war. The music gender was known as “Songs of Protest,” with Credence Revival, Joan Baez, Tom Paxton; Peter, Paul, and Mary; to name a few, spreading the word. Tom Paxton, in particular, highlighted President Johnson’s deceptions with his popular, catchy sing-along, “Lyndon Johnson Told the Nation” (1965), on YouTube.

Some Lyrics: “I got a letter from LBJ. It said, “This is your lucky day. It’s time to put your khaki trousers on. Though it may seem very queer, we’ve got no jobs to give you here So we are sending you to Vietnam.” Lyndon Johnson told the nation, “Have no fear of escalation, I am trying everyone to please.” Though it isn’t really war, we’re sending fifty thousand more To help save Vietnam from the Vietnamese.”

For those below 18, it created a new reality that otherwise would not have existed. Those close to age feared they would be drafted as soon as they turned 18. the war was going to be “quick.” It was NOT.

It can be said that with LBJ's demonstrated arrogance, America hit the apogee of its meteoric and legendary world power prowess. Our escape showed us eating humble pie. We have done this twice, in Vietnam and now Afghanistan. Based on this history, we can say with some confidence that well-led people with the “will” to win, as demonstrated by the Vietcong in the mid-1960s, the Taliban in Afghanistan, and the Ukrainians today, are nearly impossible to beat. What can we say for ourselves? At least today, we are backing the side with the will to win without getting involved. WHo knows about the future? Another government, another arrogant mistake?

So, one conclusion we can draw from these wars is “Governments learn nothing from past experience.” Who learns from Past Experience? PEOPLE. It is up to “us, the People,” to declare a government out of bounds when they truly are. We have to reinstitute the tool from our Constitution called “Amendments” and demand the government asks for OUR permission before they go into another “World Power” intervention.

Today, mood changes are becoming worldwide because we (person-to-person) communicate at nearly the speed of light throughout the world. After WWII, English became pretty much the “standard language.”

The History

In the mid to late 1800s, there was the “Bohemian” movement, people who seceded from conventionality in life. The movement arrived in the United States just as the Civil War broke out. According to Encyclopedia Britannica, Bohemians prioritized community living and artistic endeavors while rejecting certain constraints of mainstream society, such as money and social etiquette. However, the South was aristocratic in its behavior, with a strong sense of class distinctions. Woodrow Wilson was a child in Virginia and Augusta, Georgia, when the Civil War Broke out.

WWI broke out when Woodrow Wilson was President. The war was, by and large, a war of attrition where masses of people were killed in every battle that was fought; On the Western Front, France and the British Empire mobilized about 9M and 8.5M Soldiers, respectively, yet France suffered 73% casualties compared to 36% for the British. Russia fought on the Eastern Front alone and suffered 76% casualties. The war changed the world. The Ottoman Empire, created by the Sultanate in 1299, was abolished in November 1922 and ceased to exist.

Changes noted by History

Changes in the West

After the First Great War, the United States was in a great state of euphoria and denial even though prohibition was the law in 1920, later known as “the roaring 20s.” We were last in (April 1917) and first out of WWI (11/11/18). Like prohibition and people drinking anyway, there was an against-the-grain sense of action.

Many Americans chose to go to Paris, France, while others tried pushing cultural boundaries. The film “Birth of a Nation” in 1915 reflected and strengthened existing racism and, with a public endorsement of Woodrow Wilson, the Progressive Democrat President at the time, by default, also endorsed the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan that had been active only sporadically in the South following the Reconstruction in the 1870s. This public endorsement also signaled a resurgence in the North and provided ipso facto permission for renewed abuse of blacks.

In Europe, the war recovery was more austere; countries like France, which had lost a large swath of their youth in the war, worried about its demographic change.

It was Germany against the world (they had 65% total casualties within the “Central Powers”). Millions of people were killed before Germany ran out of people. It was a brutal war where both sides sought the fastest way to annihilate the enemy. However, Germany’s defeat became a humiliation of Germany in every way, from where they signed the Armistice (in a railroad car) to the reclamations made and restrictions imposed on the nation they had to live with.

Germany fought WWI with borrowed money. Their assumption was they were going to win the war. The loss imposed on them by the rest of the world added to the debt shame the Nation suffered. That huge emotional gap, the German pride vis-a-vis the shame, created the atmosphere that allowed the birth of Nazisim. An extremely innovative, if not malevolent autocratic, and despotic government that behaved with outrage for the world and concluded with the push to WWII.

Changes In the East

Meanwhile, on the Eastern Front of WWI, Czar Russia was slow and confused about its strategy and was unprepared for an enemy with great mobility. The Czarist system was out of date for the times. This created and accelerated regime change.

The Russians suffered great casualties and internally paid the price when the autocratic Czarist monarchy was overtaken by a “provisional government” (Mar. to Nov. 1917), meaning it drew a blank with the people.

This was quickly overtaken by the Bolshevik revolution (the people’s Majority party) that took over the government in 1917. Lenin organized the “ Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, which officially performed legislative and executive functions at the all-union, republic, province, city, district, and village levels.” (Britannica). Socialism was Born. It did not take long for Stalin to take over after the death of Lenin and turn Russia into a hard communist regime ready for war at any time, with the added external Nuclear capability and internal intelligence to match. It is estimated that Stalin killed anywhere between 30 and 60 million Russians. While Germany’s Hitler was a one-of mass-serial killer, Russia, and China, with their history created by Stalin and Mao Zedong, are still at it.

Demographics

It can be argued all the world upheavals, national or worldwide, have an origin in demographics. The “pocket economy” of people drives a lot of it. The differences can be anything, racial, economical, or intellectual. However, given the socio-economic environment umbrella, a government can be created. As we can see from history, feeding the masses what they want to hear can become something else. This is what has been happening to us for 100 years. Very slow for the masses to notice. However, our government today no longer works by consensus; it works by who has the strongest majority muscle. That is NOT the CONSTITUTION.

This strategy paid all the benefits the Bolsheviks needed by promising the people to get out of WWI, instantly becoming the political alternative for the disappointed and disenchanted people in the then extinguishing Russian Empire. However, when Stalin took over in 1922 (just five years after the takeover) and, in a cold-blooded fashion, killed all he considered opposition, the people became the means to his own paranoid ends. His grip was so strong and lasted so long that he extinguished what Russia was then. Today Bolshevism is no longer. Today “soviet” is no longer. Take a look back and see how the Soviet Union changed the course of world history or how Stalin single-handedly did that.

We are where we are in the world today because of Stalin and Mao Zedong. Putin can be said to be a “me-too” man. Why? Because Stalin radically altered the Russian demographics that Putin is using today.

During the quarter of a century preceding his death, the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin probably exercised greater political power than any other figure in history. (Britannica)

Where are they?

This is very well expressed in this YouTube piece.

Where Are “WE?”

As opposed to the post that published the subject sub-title and many posts written blaming the world “out there” for where we are, as a six-year-old would, we need to get our heads together and collaborate first to get our government to do the right thing. We must live and die by the Constitution that rules the government and that they are not following.

We are where we are because we allowed it to happen due to general ignorance of our Constitution and OUR role in it. “It isn’t the tool, you fool; it is how you use the tool that makes a difference.” Learned in a Lab at school. Capitalism is a tool.

There is no one and no one thing to blame but “US, the People.” There are no periwinkles in the sky that are to blame. No generically sunny images or dreams of sunniness get People to be “human.”

Our general concept, the one that the “churches” catechized into the general population, is that we are in God's likeness. Humanity, in that sense of the word, tries to get as close to that as possible.

Every day, each of us “people” wages a battle to be the best version of ourselves.

The referenced post author has described the three worse representations of humans in our history. We, the average people, have to fight for what is on OUR TABLE and not allow glad-handing politicians to pick us off the herd as Stalin did to our human counterparts in Russia.

We belong to the human race, but each and every single one of us is a “people.” there is a huge distinction. So far, the “coward” in us dreams out loud and blames any and all external factors. “Capitalism” is an external factor; it is not our government “system.”

When will we abandon the “silver spoon in the mouth” attitude, roll up our sleeves and work for what already belongs to us that the “coward” in us has abandoned?

The End

How anybody can say the world is where it is because of “a capitalist dystopia offering nothing” is beyond me. It disregards every one of us as capable of fixing what we have broken.

Responsibility — A duty, obligation, or burden. We are Accountable and Answerable for where we are. IT IS OUR CONSTITUTION —

OUR GOVERNMENT IS NO LIVING UP TO IT!!!

The Question is what Are YOU going to do about it?