Turning points

It’s difficult realising the significance of an event while it is unfolding, but I’m guessing 2020 will be one of those years that becomes identified as a historical land mark. We’ve already got the plague and economic depression, couple that with a sea change in societies’ attitudes towards institutional racism and you have a triple threat going on.

The first two obviously aren’t anything to cheer about, but potentially dispelling centuries of ingrained prejudice based on skin colour is a left field game changer. The fact that people are offended by the latest outrages so much that they will even ignore a global pandemic speaks volumes. It’s something people are willing to risk everything for, which is an incredible thing. Mind you, they probably felt the same when people got riled up about racial injustice in 1968 and 1992. The big difference this time is it’s not just the USA and it’s not just the racial groups affected that are standing up, and that’s a significant difference.

Like all births there is a lot of pain involved and some of the footage of the riots and looting is pretty stomach churning, from people on both sides it has to be said. Once the animal instinct takes over the cause is forgotten and we are back in the savannah fighting for existence. Some of it can’t be justified from any stand point, despite the nobility of the cause. But again this is nothing new. The French revolution was no squeaky clean fizzy party either as far as change management went, no matter how corrupt the aristocracy being removed were.

There is one small candle flame in the carnage though. The trend towards removing offensive statues is a great example of democracy in action, although the “silent majority” will say it’s just a bunch of scruffy anarchists causing trouble. For anyone who has ever experienced the “public consultation” process when public works are proposed, toppling a statue of some slave trader is the same reversed. The formal process forces something on you despite anything anyone says. The mob approach removes things without the need for any window dressing. I call that balance.

If there is one thing history tells us, it is that out of adversary something significant grows. So where is the world heading? Someone has coined the term “the age of bewilderment” to describe the current situation and I’d agree with that, so I have sought some input from above. No not Him, I mean my little guys. Now my little guys can’t predict the future, but their algorithms (based on historical modelling and the latest data) have coughed up a few potential outcomes, and any or all of them might actually happen:

Trump wins! Oh FFS – say it can’t be. But it might actually happen. At least 40% of voters will vote Republican no matter who the candidate is. They could put a goat up there and it would have a chance. And there are plenty of ultra-right wing religious nutters in the USA that believe he is a tool of God brought in to speed up the second coming of the Messiah, who will vote for him because they believe they will go to hell if they don’t. Well… at least they got the ‘tool’ bit right. So “democracy” in the states actually applies to a wafer thin section of the population who are classified as the ‘swing’ zone. They are the ones who decide elections and they generally live in states like Florida and Pennsylvania. It’s that specific. Trump won on the votes a few thousand of these people in 2016. That’s the fate of the world hanging on Joe and Jane Doe from suburban Nowheresville PA. No wonder there are tiny extremist groups developing online that want to short circuit the process. Another four years of this narcissistic clown will bring biblical results alright – but not the ones those right wing nutters are anticipating. Just poverty, paranoia and mafia-style politics spreading like an uncontained virus. Yikes!! Next.

The revolution will be televised. It already is. Phone cameras take you right to the heart of the matter and will either draw you in or repel you depending on how you feel about the ‘cause’. At this stage it isn’t anywhere near as bad as it has been at other points in history in other specific events (Northern Island and Brixton in the 1970s and 1980s and Paris in the 1960s for example), but give it time and anarchy in the UK may become more than just a song. Then the army will have to come in, people will form crudely armed militias and Bob’s your uncle – you have the Middle East in Notting Hill, or the Champs Elysee, or Nowheresville PA.

Armageddon. Taking everything to its logical extreme, you get a complete political, economic and social melt down. Trenches are dug, bunkers are built and it’s down to survival of the fittest, or the most desperate. The Great Depression of the 1930s didn’t lead to an economic recovery. It led to the Spanish Civil War, the rise of Adolf Hitler and World War II. People latched onto a populist leader with an insane agenda because they were looking for strength and a way out. Buying weapons made more sense than buying food and ‘the enemy’ was defined for all to target. The roots are already sprouting in Trump’s America, and he is already recycling nazi symbols for use in his own campaign. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Utopia/nirvana etc. Ah, the relief. Everyone will have a moment of clarity, the plague will have a vaccine and world leaders will start playing nicely with each other. Right after millions die of war, starvation and disease. It was called the 1920s. It lasted about nine years. Maybe it happens once a century. Time will tell.

So as this is intended to be a music blog – check out this Frank Zappa tune from 1966. Still as relevant now as the day it was written. And refresh your memory with one of ours.

From 1966 when the shit was flying in Watts etc. Frank Zappa hits you right between the eyes with a rock of his own. One that stills strikes the right chords 50 odd years later.

Amerikaemia. Lest we forget.