Imagine if you had been involved in a serious car crash in 1980, and went into a coma–from which you awoke today. After getting over the shock of finding out that NFL star running back–and beloved Hertz pitchman–OJ Simpson killed two people and got away with it, and that Bruce Jenner–winner of the 1976 Olympic Men’s Decathlon, and the face on millions of cereal boxes–now identifies as a woman, you would still have to somehow make sense of what you are seeing on the nightly news.
If you saw Republicans decrying efforts to limit Russian aggression in Europe, college campuses overtaken by students supporting the efforts of Iranian militant proxy groups trying to destroy Israel, and Americans demanding that they be allowed to have the Chinese Communist Party track their personal data, you would likely ask if all of the US’s most dangerous enemies at the time of your accident had teamed up to attack us–and had won. How else could you explain willing complicity with those still dedicated to destroying us?
Your confusion would grow even deeper if your caretakers tried to fill you in on all of the history you had missed over the past 44-years.
When your accident occurred, the Iron Curtain still divided Europe. Tensions with the US were ratcheted back up as the Soviet Union had invaded Afghanistan and President Jimmy Carter decided to boycott the Moscow Olympics that year. It appeared there was no end in sight for the Cold War–and that the West could still lose it.
It would probably be hard for you to believe that just over a decade later, the Berlin Wall would fall, the Soviet Union would be dissolved, most of the Socialist regimes propped up by Russia across Europe would give way to democracies, and some of those nations would even become members of NATO. And it all happened without any shots or missiles being fired.
Like I said, at this point you would be even more confused. But the people of Russia found out that their previous systems of economics and politics hid the true status of their deteriorated nation. No longer feared by the rest of the world, Russians felt disillusioned–beginning a shift not back to Socialism but to oligarchy, as perceived strongmen like Vladimir Putin promised to return the motherland to its rightful place in the world through brute force. And part of that effort would include a ground invasion of neighboring Ukraine.
But that still doesn’t explain why Republicans, the party of Ronald Reagan–who was elected in the year you were left comatose, and who ran on a “get tough again with the USSR” platform–would be backing a Russian strongman’s blatant violation of international law and sovereignty. To understand that, you would have to be brought up to speed on Donald Trump.
When you lost contact with the world, Trump was a bit player on the New York real estate scene–and had not garnered much national attention. That would change with the rise of the tabloid media in the Big Apple and explode with “reality” television–where he was portrayed as a business mogul with a manufactured “no nonsense” style. And he parlayed that “all flash, no substance” persona to the White House–where he became enamored with the use of government power to line his own pockets, and especially intoxicated by the power his position granted him. Such is the desire for that power that he has cozied up to other autocrats around the globe–including the aforementioned Vladimir Putin–and wants to be just like them.
So those in the GOP who want to preserve their own sliver of power kowtow to his every desire. And the acolytes fed a constant stream of disinformation that portray the world only in the way that they want to see it are willing to take up arms to oppose anyone that rightly attempts to limit–or remove–Trump’s powers. Thus, the party’s acquiescence to Russian military aggression.
So how then did Iran succeed in gaining a strong foothold on college campuses and the Liberal Left?
At the time of your crash, Iran was holding more than 50-Americans hostage at the embassy in Tehran. Believe it or not, President Jimmy Carter was unable to negotiate their release for 444-days–after he had been voted out of office. And a military attempt to rescue them crashed and burned in the desert.
Since then, the country has set about funding and arming Islamic terrorism groups around the world–like Islamic Jihad, which killed 220-Marines and injured another 128 that were in Beirut trying to maintain peace in Lebanon during a civil war in 1983. And speaking of Lebanon, Iran also funds the group Hezbollah, which have been launching attacks against Israel from that country since 1992. And then there is Hamas, which is the elected ruling party of Gaza–and has also been attacking Israel since 1987. Their largest attack ever came last October–killing more than a thousand Israelis and foreigners–and has led to a full-scale response from Israel.
Now you are probably wondering, why then is Hamas getting such support from college kids and liberals, even those in Congress? Well, now it might be time to learn about Social Justice and Racial Identity.
You see, in the early parts of the 2000’s academics adopted a new theory that all problems afflicting non-whites are the fault of direct actions taken by white people. That theory has now permeated all aspect of academia (even whether or not 2+2=4). And anyone claiming oppression by those considered to be white are to be championed, regardless of their ulterior motives. In the case of Hamas, and their power base in Gaza, and their backing by Iran, that is the eradication of Israel–which in this case is considered a “colonial power”.
So great is the belief that Palestinians are without blame in the continuing series of raids and attacks, that Hamas is never mentioned by those demanding and end to the war–even if the group releasing its remaining hostages, surrendering, and giving up power in Gaza would actually bring that about. And if that isn’t hard enough to believe, there’s a group called “Queers for Palestine” that vocally advocate for Palestinian rule in all of what is now Israel–where gay rights are currently protected, but would be in grave danger if Hamas were to rule that same territory.
Now, about those protesters demanding that China have access to their personal information?
Ok, this is going to take more time than I have here to explain in full detail. But briefly, we now carry around cordless telephones that in addition to making calls also access a vast network of information and data. The most popular use of these phones is for something called “social media”–where users “broadcast” to the entire world video of what they had to eat, dumb things their cats do, their opinion on everything that has happened in the history of mankind, and a lot of pornography.
Anyways, one of the most popular “applications” is called TikTok (yes, they all have stupid names meant to appeal to 12-year old children). And those who use it get paid by advertisers based on how many people watch their videos. But the site also collects personal data–not just from the people posting the videos, but also those who watch them. And the company that invented it–ByteDance–is a division of the Chinese Communist Party’s Academy of Artificial Intelligence (yes, HAL from 2001 A Space Odyssey is becoming a reality). And as such can provide all information collected by TikTok to the Chinese Government.
It turns out that the people who post videos on TikTok don’t care about that security risk because they are getting paid. And the people that watch endless hours of videos don’t care because they are addicted. So when Congress approved a bill to ban TikTok unless it divest itself from ByteDance, all of those people started spouting talking points provided by the Chinese in full opposition.
Having explained all that, I would next offer to go and get a hammer…and put you back into that coma.
