History has always belonged to the winners.
Those who win the battles get to write the history books. The losers and the victims are often forgotten.
Today, that's changing. In the United States, the disenfranchised and the forgotten have found their voice. The establishment is under fire like never before. Challenges to the existing American status quo have come from both the right and left wings. I feel as if the Republican and Democratic parties as we know them will be both be extinct in less than 25 years. They will be replaced by the Establishment Party and the Anti-Establishment (or Resistance) Party.
Who will win?
The Establishment holds the power. Money is not a problem for the Establishment. They also have access to the channels of power and they know how it is dispersed. They can put down resistance in a variety of ways, from law enforcement to entertainment to drugs to the media.
The Resistance holds the people. And they hold something else: technology. They can organize using technology right under the Establishment's collective nose. They can spread ideas and fight oppression quickly and with originality. And they have the will and the moral assurance. That will carry them through any tough times.
America is fast splintering thanks to improvements in technology. Fault lines are forming along gender, race, religion, political positions, geographical location, and access to education, technology, and resources. And, of course, money. Through technology, they can join groups of like-minded individuals and gain exposure to ideas. They can work to bring about change on a national and local level.
I hear more people saying, "Well, fiscally I am a conservative, but culturally I am liberal." They don't join in lockstep with political party affiliation.
Even though prosperity is still all around, Americans can no longer count on a better life through persistence, good ideas, and hard work. The road is longer and tougher, with more obstacles. But life in New York is still better than life in Turkey or Somalia or even parts of Russia. The freedoms here are still more than can be found in most places in the world.
But we as a nation are heading, inevitably, to a totalitarian fascist state. Even if a revolution were to take place and topple the existing patriarchy, it is more than likely that democracy would not flourish. One needs to look no further than what happened in Russia after the Communists and Socialists overthrew the czars and nobility.
There will be, in the next decade or so, a charismatic leader or group of leaders who understands the forces in play and exploits them to gain power. Will that come from the Establishment or the Resistance? A struggle will take place, which hopefully does not mean an extended war. But sometimes war has a way of settling pressing ideological questions. It is a direction that I fear we are headed towards, and I also fear that nothing can be done to arrest it. I can only hope that the winners, the ones who will one day record the history of our present times, maintain the democracy and the freedoms that our country was based on.
But they should be expanded to all Americans. I will have more thoughts on this in my next post.
