Neal tends to delete his blog posts. This one, The Orderly Anarchist, was written in Nov 2012.
Neal has been a Republican, a Democrat and a Libertarian. It all depends on what opportunities are available. Neal is more like a Doomsday Prepper, certain the United States is going to collapse.
The Orderly Anarchist
I sat up in bed. Afraid.
The end of the witching hour, midnight to 1:00 AM. I wasn’t here yesterday, I won’t be here tomorrow, so I guess this is safe. I hinted at Provincetown for the Halloween, the beginning of the hacker high holidays. Correct in spirit, but 3,200 miles off spatially – tonight it’s San Francisco, the other great bastion of carnival all year round.
We piled into the car, a hotel room reserved for anyone who ran out of gas. The others will drift in here some time before dawn, sleep a bit, then we go into the city for a while before we go … away.
I was busy on the hotspot all the way in, then I prowled the streets for a bit. I’ve spent a month or two here over the years. I always wanted to live here. Now it’s wild and strange, and I fear that’s just me becoming more of a Iowa farm boy the older I get.
The twenty six year old girl I picked up hitch hiking on the PCH one Sunday at Año Nuevo is now forty two. We had a nice day in Santa Cruz on the boardwalk, then she went her way and I went mine. Jackie, where ever you are, I hope you had a good Halloween, too. I still remember your last name, but … stalker freaks. I do not believe that episode has ever been mentioned in print.
What woke me up is what was said earlier:
Why do you resist? You know it’s going to collapse.
I know. I know I know. I have known for so long I managed to forget, day to day.
The light came on for me in the summer of 2007. I had found Dmitry Orlov by the next summer and I wrote U.S.A. To Collapse Like U.S.S.R. Did In 1991? I really thought our banking sector was going to let go with a bang after the oil spike. I’m amazed things have held together as long as they did.
Dmitry dropped from my Google Talk sometime over the last two years. I mostly stopped using it. Same for Stoneleigh; she’s been on the road, having talks like this.
“What we’re seeing is that the pie is shrinking; there’s not enough to go around. When the pie shrinks, when you have economic contraction, you also have a contraction of the trust horizon. What that means is that national and international institutions become stranded assets from a trust perspective. They lose political legitimacy; this leads to a great deal of social polarization. [..] People are more tightly defining what constitutes “us”, and defining “them” as some kind of threat.”
I have been getting the “let it go” signal for a while from the others. I attributed this to them being young and a bit foolish, but Sandy drowning Wall Street got them talking.
A generation that has guns but needs social security isn’t going to control anything for very long.
If it doesn’t happen in 2012 it will be 2016. We’re going to get another Bush and that will be the end. We’ll break up just like Russia.
Proof positive it’s coming? Brooks Bayne, proto-federalist, is the least crazy of the various right wing promoters that get mentioned here.
I accepted that we would crash long ago, I had hoped for a captain Sullenberger style wheels up landing rather than the Gameel al-Batouti method. They don’t care if it happens sooner rather than later. They count on youthful energy to overcome an aging, shrinking, hate filled fringe. I have my doubts.
I want the parts of anarchy that lead to back yard gardens, street musicians, and the wild burst of creativity of the occupier camps. The bit about being trapped inside a hegemony having a Byzantine failure? Not so pleasing.
One of the lessons of this season has been the graying of the back channel. Even the thirty year olds who should display more sense are filled with nihilism more appropriate for someone a decade in their junior. The very young are in their own little bubbles, bumping into each other, making their way as best they can. The fringe right, perpetual butt of my endless performance art, have never been able to discern what I did, what I am doing, or what might happen next. The fall of 2012 taught me that the young and restless who might get it, will almost certainly get it wrong, at least in terms of my intent.
Why am I still awake? After 2008, why am I still alive? Unfinished business, I guess …