{"id":55944,"date":"2020-12-09T18:37:23","date_gmt":"2020-12-09T23:37:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=55944"},"modified":"2020-12-09T18:37:23","modified_gmt":"2020-12-09T23:37:23","slug":"welcome-to-the-u-s-s-a-s-banquet-of-consequences","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=55944","title":{"rendered":"Welcome to the U.S.S.A.’s Banquet of Consequences"},"content":{"rendered":"

Welcome to the U.S.S.A.’s Banquet of Consequences<\/a><\/h3>\n
\n

The incontestable incompetence of the USSA’s monopolies, institutions and agencies is about to take center stage in 2021.<\/i><\/p>\n

When I mention that the U.S.A. feels increasingly like the U.S.S.R., a surprising number of people tell me they feel the same way.<\/b>\u00a0Welcome to the U.S.S.A.: United Simulacra States of America<\/i>\u00a0where everything is an absurdly transparent simulation with little connection to reality and dissent is crushed by an everpresent, ubiquitous\u00a0narrative police state<\/i>\u00a0enforced by the union of Big Tech social media, search and other monopolies and the\u00a0Savior State<\/i>:\u00a0do what we tell you and you’ll get a piece of our endlessly spewed trillions<\/i>.<\/p>\n

My colleague Mark Jeftovic recommended an insightful book on the unraveling of the USSR<\/b>,\u00a0Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It’s an academic book so there are the required servings of jargon and references to suitably opaque academic tropes, but beneath the conceptual clutter lies a profound analysis of how humans adapt to and navigate\u00a0a system that has lost all authenticity and survives entirely on the ceaseless marketing of artifice: in other words, the USA today.<\/b><\/p>\n

Of particular interest are the book’s personal accounts of dutiful Party members going through the motions of obedience as a means of enjoying their private friendships and lives.<\/b> Joining the Party’s machinery was a way to meet friends who you recruited for your committee work. Everyone went through the motions but nobody actually believed any of it: you did homework while “listening” to the endless canned speeches, you went out for coffee while telling the Party functionary that you were on Party business, and you worked on parades and activities that were a bit of fun despite the dreary official purpose which everyone ignored.<\/p>\n

\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Welcome to the U.S.S.A.’s Banquet of Consequences The incontestable incompetence of the USSA’s monopolies, institutions and agencies is about to take center stage in 2021. When I mention that the U.S.A. feels increasingly like the U.S.S.R., a surprising number of people tell me they feel the same way.\u00a0Welcome to the U.S.S.A.: United Simulacra States of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[23878,24078,587,827,848],"class_list":["post-55944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberty","tag-banquet-of-consequences","tag-charles-hugh-smith-2","tag-of-two-minds","tag-united-states","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=55944"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55944\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55945,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55944\/revisions\/55945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=55944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=55944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=55944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}