If I was a Calvinist I think I would interpret the current state of the West as a punishment from a deity.

In my parents’ era, life was hard, but opportunity was real. Technological change moved at a snail’s pace, and many working people saw communism as a viable alternative to the injustices that were part and parcel of the capitalist system. The Depression hit the weakest the hardest. War would be a harbinger of change that happened in plain sight that nobody saw.

The war restored industrial viability, and the harsh, abusive treatment of people looking for work had largely been checked by the continuing need for weapons and socks, so as the boys were recruited to kill Hitler or somebody else, the young women and mothers were given jobs in the brimming factories.

Against corporate plans, the Roosevelt administration conferred a substantial degree of economic stability upon the eager immigrant workers who believed they’d achieved their just rewards. A burgeoning middle class emerged, and all over, young Americans were making babies. This is where the euphoria of the parents became a toxin that the children ingested unaware.

The boomer generation has been called by a pseudo journalist “the greatest generation,” but it was really the sickest. Between the desperate immigrants petitioning for justice, and the adolescence of their pampered progeny, a vital truth had been exterminated, and it was replaced with a labyrinth of lies.

The impulse to listen and question and learn and decide was replaced by a voracious appetite to own. Schools were left to local communities where the blind are hired to lead the children to ensure their fitness for shopping. Television was the vehicle of the ruling elites, and it masterfully spoke to each single viewer as the only living soul. The very logic of television is to serve as a seductive invitation to learn who you really are, and to celebrate your worthiness to have whatever you want. This was a corporate wet dream.

While banana growing campesinos were organizing for a just social arrangement, the gringos from El Norte were assassinating their leaders and installing a puppet to hand their wealth to the wealthy colonialists. The Americans were largely unaware by design, but despite the best efforts of the political elites, idealistic intellectuals would write to inform the people, but the people were addled and comfortable, and bad news isn’t on their shopping list. So this is the brave new world where ignorance truly is blissful, and submitting is the only option.