Closer to the End Than the Beginning
This Frankenstein's monster of communism came with assembly instructions.
There has been a lot of talk about how much the American left loves and thinks the Chinese model of state capitalism and total control over society is the future. Many claim that through the actions of the Biden administration, we are seeing the beginning of that transformation.
That’s gonna be a no from me, dawg.
It is not that I disagree we are staring down the maw of the centrally planned, CCP state capitalism model, I just think we are way closer to the end than to the beginning.
Here is why:
1. China was a poor, third world country with little more than people as a resource, at least until Richard Nixon began the campaign for them to join the Word Trade Organization. Nixon's 1972 visit to Beijing and President Carter's subsequent extension of diplomatic recognition to China were major steps in bringing China into the world. In 1999, China finally was rewarded when they formally joined the WTO with the support of the Clinton administration. In those years leading up to WTO membership, the CCP studied how capitalist nations made money and how their financial systems functioned and as they prepared to dip their toes in the global markets.
The CCP knew they needed to establish financial success quickly, but they are, after all, communists, so they carefully, cautiously, and meticulously began to structure their economic systems in a way that they looked capitalist from the outside but could be tightly controlled from the inside when the time was right.
State capitalism was born with the merger of capitalism, a centrally planned economy (albeit with several, limited degrees of freedom) and the state.
2. After the money began to flow into the Chinese coffers, the CCP began to combine the economic sector and the legislative state (such as it was) with the security state. The Ministry of State Security began to spy on global corporations as they began to steal intellectual property, but more than that, they began to spy on the people and governments in the Western world. Much of the spying was unnecessary due to the fact the capitalist companies were more than willing to give secrets away due to the false assumptions the Chinese were headed toward free trade and a respect for international norms of intellectual property protection.
Big mistake.
The result was that the MSS was able to begin to weaponize their intelligence operations as a means of control over both foreign and domestic individuals and companies that were a little too independent and profitable. They used product ideas and technologies to create data gathering software that has allowed them, using seemingly harmless platforms like TikTok, to infiltrate America all the way down to their homes.
3. After thirty years of largely capitalist development, the CCP began to modulate the freedoms of the growing Chinese middle class through the creation of a system of social credit scores. The old way of breaking fingers and killing family members seemed all too draconian, so the CCP opted for a way to enlist the various organizations and businesses in China in a partnership with them to control the citizenry. Social Credit Scores were a way to create public/private partnerships so that people who spoke out against the government, got to carried away with the freedom thing or generally associated with people they shouldn’t be associating with could be denied goods and services by the “private sector” without the government needing to get their hands dirty. Social Credit Scores only work because the Chinese people have had a taste of freedom, prosperity and consumerism and having things denied them would be a disincentive.
If you critically examine where we are today, you can see how the US has used the security state against enemies of the state (the Mueller “investigation” and the sham prosecutions surrounding it are prime examples). You can now see how the Biden administration is creating dependence through handing out money for nothing left and right, addicting an entire class of Americans so that they will feel pain if it is taken away, and how they are beginning to persecute people who say things the government doesn’t like by censoring speech using the useful idiots in the social media space. You even see the public/private partnership in play when major corporations deny services to companies and people who aren’t on the communist train to nowhere.
Another feature are the struggle sessions and political persecutions/prosecutions for anyone the Democrats define as an “enemy of the state” – namely anyone who opposed them or simply does not show sufficient enthusiasm for their agenda. What is happening to people in the wake of the 1/6 event at the Capitol is evidence of state sanctioned persecution.
It is the China model all right, and it goes much deeper than just economics.
The progressive movement has been incrementally moving the US toward this model for decades. I doubt this was their specific plan, but over the many years, even when the Republicans seem to have won a fight, there was always a little (and useful) piece of communism left behind.
Barack Obama was the first modern socialist to recognize all the miscellaneous pieces lying about and have the power to begin assembly. Like Dr. Victor Frankenstein, after taking inventory, Obama decided he had enough body parts to start assembling his monster and unleash it on the townsfolk. It took some time to figure out the Ikea-like instructions, but Obama began to assemble the beast and begin the animation process. Unfortunately for him, he ran out of time and couldn’t finish the process. Hillary was supposed to complete it but was foiled when Donald Trump arrived, defeated her, and began to disassemble the monster, piece by piece.
But the beast was sentient and strong enough to kill the presidency of Donald Trump, in the same manner as the monster killed Victor Frankenstein in Mary Shelly’s tale. Now comes Joe Biden, Obama’s version of Igor, the hunch-backed lab assistant, a fiendish character who assists only himself, to finish the job.
Now all the seemingly unrelated pieces are coming together to form a CCP version of Frankenstein’s monster.
We are way down the road to the same kind of system as exists today in China, and the entities we traditionally saw as allies are, in fact, collaborating with the enemy.
As I said, closer to the end than to the beginning.
It truly is as bad as all that and more. I like the way you wove American Idol, Black Mirror, and Mary Shelley together. Sometimes even those in intellectual agreement with those of us able to get a glimpse a little farther down the road than most, need pictures to accompany the text. Well done.
I may have a solution to my "Word" problem and soon be able to post my reworked "What We Need To Get America Back On Track" as a document, rather than losing the entire thing to the *Oops! Something went wrong..." banner, 500 words in.
As more Americans wake up to the realization that we're rapidly headed for a North Atlantic iceberg, and they express their displeasure at school board meetings and local businesses, I'm hopeful the idea of an Article V Convention of states will appear as a lifeboat to those watching the glacial flotsam swell in their vison. I'm under no illusions that once enough concerned Americans see the impending disaster and do their best to alert the crew we're rushing headlong toward disaster, a CoS won't suffer the same fate as the TEA Party or 45's hysterical persecution. But maybe enough will realize the captain and crew are shoveling coal as fast as they can in order to get the boiler to redline and have disabled the rudder While the skipper is rearranging the furniture in between sniffing little girls hair and regaling True Believers with tall tails about hairy legs and 'bad dudes' name Corn Pop the ship of state's engineers and machinist mates are coaxing every bit of energy they can from the propulsion system so overburdened it's bound to blow. Unfortunately, mutiny may be the only way to ensure any of the passengers and ship survive.
God help us if we can't avoid that island sized hazard. Someone once told me, sometimes you must lose everything in order to gain anything. We still have lifeboats. The question is, can we fill them and navigate away from the danger. It didn't have to be this way, but the ease and success of our constitutional road map has lead to complacency and inattention. We may collide with the 'berg, but it doesn't mean we have to sink.