Reflections on the Anti-Establishment Left

The abuses of the Bush Administration—and the capitulation of Democrats—has given rise to anti-Establishment liberals like Glenn Greenwald, Jon Stewart, Mike Gravel, Ralph Nader, Lou Dobbs, Cindy Sheehan, Michael Moore, Phil Donahue, and the folks at Counterpunch and Orion Magazine. Here’s my question: Will these people reconcile with the Establishment after Democrats gain power?

Anti-Establishment sentiment has never been more justified. Both parties support everything that constitutes the status quo: Empire, the Federal Reserve, the income tax, wealth redistribution, crony capitalism, managed trade, the police state, surveillance, the war on drugs, public education, open immigration, the two-party duopoly, incumbency protection, federal supremacy over the states, presidential dictatorship, “national greatness,” globalism, the religion of democracy, and—most importantly—opposition to all forms of radicalism that could threaten Establishment power (civil disobedience, jury nullification, secession, and self-defense against government thugs). Partisan politics is a divide-and-conquer strategy—a sham that distracts voters while the Establishment loots and controls them. The false dichotomy between Democrats and Republicans is perpetuated by useful idiots who make money by inflaming partisan passions.

Anti-Establishment conservatism had a brief heyday in the early 90s. A popular bumper sticker read, “I love my country, but I fear my government.” Waco and Ruby Ridge became rallying cries about a slide toward tyranny. The NRA was calling the ATF “Jack-booted thugs.” It all culminated in the 1994 Republican takeover of Congress—a massive and unprecedented public repudiation of Big Government. Even Bill Clinton declared the end of big government.

Conservatives abandoned radicalism for three reasons: 1) They were intimidated into silence following the Oklahoma City bombing; 2) They lowered their guard after the election of a Republican president. (National Review stupidly proclaimed, “The adults are back in charge!”) 2) They believed it was treasonous to oppose the President during a time of war.

Conservatives learned the hard way. Under Republican rule, government has become more expensive, corrupt, intrusive, and dysfunctional than ever. The abuses of the Clinton Administration pale in comparison to the lies and thug tactics used to promote Republican boondoggles like No Child Left Behind, the Medicare prescription drug benefit, and the transformation of the Middle East.

Will liberals make the same mistake? Some signs point to “yes.” Just as conservatives focused too much on the “wackiness” of Bill Clinton, liberals focus too much on the “stupidity” of George Bush. With Democrats set to dominate the entire government, the temptation to embrace Establishment power will be hard to resist. Just as conservatives rationalized federal power grabs in the name of defeating terrorism, liberals will rationalize them in the name of universal health care.

The problem with Washington is not parties or personalities. The problem is that power corrupts. Any government this powerful will inevitably be hijacked by special interests. The people can’t control the government if it’s too big and complicated for the average voter to understand, and there is no democratic mechanism that will force the government to serve the people. The federal government is a morally and financially bankrupt institution controlled by greedy special interests and power-hungry sociopaths. The worst rise to the top. One President’s abuses are a floor for the next President’s abuses. Parties don’t matter! Washington won’t be “cleaned up” if enough people write their congressman or join a fucking Facebook group. DC is overrun with hundreds of thousands of politicians, lobbyists, lawyers, judges, bureaucrats, and enforcement agents who will feed on the host population until it dies. The federal government is like the Terminator:

Listen, and understand. That terminator is out there. It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead.

Even libertarians need to abandon the notion of “restoring” the Constitution. We can’t storm the Establishment though the chokepoints controlled by the Establishment itself. The colonists first tried to petition Parliament based on their rights as Englishmen. When it became obvious the Brits weren’t listening, the colonists told them to get the fuck out. It’s time Americans said the same thing to all the parasites in Washington, DC.

Overall, I am optimistic about the prospects for radicalism on the Left and Right. First of all, the Internet has made it more difficult for a few useful idiots to mislead an entire movement. On the Right, there is growing sentiment that Iraq was a mistake, that the terrorist threat is overblown, that the neocon plan for world domination is not “conservative,” and that the modern conservative movement has failed. (Of course, a rebirth of conservative radicalism could be aborted by another terrorist attack—possibly orchestrated by the Establishment itself.) On the Left, I am encouraged by articles like this, which calls for progressives to abandon the “presidentialism” of MoveOn.org in favor of true local democracy. Finally, some anti-Establishment liberals are flat-out studs! Glenn Greenwald has too much integrity to sell out.

The wildcard in these scenarios is the economic crisis. If the Establishment collapses, they will probably make a last stand by imposing some variant of totalitarianism. All Americans should stand ready to resist a coup d’état with all due prejudice.

Just in case anyone cares what I think, here is my advice to anti-Establishment types:

Liberals: Don’t make the same mistake conservatives did! Don’t lower your guard. Don’t be seduced by power. Obama will not bring about a “new politics,” a “new social contract,” or a “new New Deal.” Four years from now, politicians will be making the same bullshit promises about schools, health care, inner cities, and everything else that is near and dear to your hearts. Nothing will change.

Conservatives: Don’t make the same mistake twice! Republicans won’t be “good conservatives” the next time around.

Libertarians: Grow some balls. Talk some smack. I enjoyed the Ron Paul Revolution as much as the next libertarian, but there will never be a Congress full of Ron Pauls. Take your pocket Constitution and throw it in the garbage. The experiment is over. The government doesn’t respect the Constitution, why should you? All governments have an inherent tendency to break through the institutional restraints imposed on them. When that happens, the people have the right and duty to resist.

Anti-Establishment types must officially abandon conventional politics and the futile strategies of compromise, incrementalism, and voting for the lesser of two evils. The people are sovereign. This means not only electing our leaders but also determining the structure of government itself. Democracy in its current form has no future. The future of radicalism is decentralization—a world of smaller political units where people can “vote with their feet” and migrate to those jurisdictions that best fit their tastes and preferences. Whether you’re a liberal, conservative, libertarian, or just some dude who hates politicians, you should be openly resisting the Feds and restricting political activity to the state and local level.

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Martial Law Update

Even CNN douchebag Glenn Beck is considering the possibility of hyperinflation, martial law, and global governance.

Be ready to kick some ass.

"All I need in this life of sin
Is me and my girlfriend." - Tupac

(His girlfriend was his gun. Tupac was awesome.)

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I Don't Like South Park

There, I said it. I am finally committing this act of pop culture blasphemy. I’m not trying to be contrarian. I want to like popular shows. I’m a big follower in many ways. If everyone else jumped off a cliff, I’d be yelling “Geronimo!” faster than you can say, “I’m Rick James, bitch.”

I like Trey Parker and Matt Stone. Baseketball was classic. I just can't watch South Park longer than 15 minutes because it’s too slow and repetitive. Consider the latest episode about Indiana Jones being raped by George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. I counted six scenes where a character denied the “incident,” then acknowledged it, then demanded payback. The premise is so outrageous it’s funny. But c’mon, six scenes of the exact same thing? Also, both South Park and Family Guy emphasize shock value at the expense of wit. Cartman’s zinger, “I’d rather be Chinese than a nation of unethical dick-shooters,” was the only line that stood out.

The Simpsons is rapid fire. About every fourth line is witty. Even a crappy scene will quickly transition to something else. You get the feeling that writers leave out a dozen lines/scenes per episode. With South Park, they think up one funny premise and try to stretch it out for 30 minutes.

Someone please explain to me what is so freakin’ great about South Park. This is a plea for help! I hate feeling left out. Like Patrick Bateman says in American Psycho, “Because I want to fit in.”

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It Can Happen Here

Administration cronies threatened martial law if Congress refused to pass the fascist Wall Street bailout. Think it can't happen? Martial law can be declared at the President's whim for practically any reason. Even now, America is a surveillance state, law enforcement is being federalized and militarized, and the military is policing the American people. Up to 8 million Americans are listed as subversives who can be detained under the slightest pretenses during a national emergency. (I would be insulted if my name were not included in this database already).

Historically, communism and fascism were embraced during economic crises. During the Great Depression, the Business Plot was a conspiracy by wealthy businessmen to establish a fascist dictatorship in the United States. Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler publicly revealed in 1934 that he had been recruited to lead the military coup—a claim later supported by a congressional investigation...

"It can't happen here," you might say. "Our government would never do something like that."

They already have! In addition well-known atrocities like Waco and the Kent State shootings, the U.S. government has long treated citizens like lab rats. Between 1910 and 2000, more than 20,000 secret tests were carried out against the American people. Many “subjects” died or lived to endure excruciating health problems. In the infamous Tuskegee Experiment, 399 poor black men were denied treatments for syphilis so that government scientists could study how the disease spreads and kills. The Pentagon has carried out secret radiation tests on thousands of non-consenting patients, including institutionalized children and pregnant wives of GI’s. Military personnel were used as guinea pigs in hundreds of atomic and hydrogen bomb tests. In 1968, the Pentagon tested a deadly bioweapon in the New York subway system. Prisons inmates are forced to participate in medical experiments. At least two-thirds of foster children take a cocktail of psychosopic drugs. From 1951–1961, the U.S. Army paid Israel’s health ministry to conduct radiation testing on sephardic children.

Of course, nobody can predict where the crisis will lead. As Michael S. Rozeff writes, "There are too many variables and too many scenarios, and there is no theory that comprehends the totality of reality." I'm just saying that a slide from soft tyranny to hard tyranny is a real possibility.

One thing is for certain: It won't happen without a fight. There are too many Americans who cling to archaic notions like peace and liberty, including radicals on both the Right (gun nuts, constitutionalists, Texans, Ron Paul supporters), and the Left (the ACLU and antiwar activists).

If it becomes necessary to kick it old school, which side will you take?

"People should not fear their government. Their government should fear the people." -V for Vendetta

Hat tip to Alex Jones, LRC, and a bunch of other people.

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Red People Like Nice Stuff

One of the more hilarious insights of Stuff That White People Like is that progressives and socialists tend to be very snobby consumers (organic food, hipster clothes, hybrid cars, alternative medicines). Without the stunning variety of "niche" products that only capitalism can provide, how would they get their sense of cultural superiority over the tasteless masses—or even their will to live?

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The Old Days Sucked, Hard

Sometimes we long for a simpler time. Intellectuals, especially, have a tendency to glorify the past and denigrate the present. Jean-Jacques Rousseau exalted the “noble savage,” saying, “Man is born free, everywhere he is in chains.”

Let’s get one thing straight: The old days sucked, hard. Before the modern era, life expectancy ranged from 20 to 35 years. One in four women died in childbirth. People had to work 12 hours of hard labor just to survive. They lived in squalor and filth. Extended families and farm animals lived together in a single room. Pests and rodents were everywhere. Famine and pandemics wiped out entire societies. The Black Plague killed off half of Europe. The Potato Famine reduced Ireland’s population by 25 percent. Even the rich had it rough by today’s standards. The best chamber pot is no match for a warm, clean bathroom.

I like sappy pics of baby pandas as much as the next guy, but let’s not kid ourselves about the nature of nature. A tipi provides scant protection against a tornado. The Aztecs were willing to kill their own children to appease the nature gods. Isabelle Dinoire needed a face transplant because her pet Labrador chewed it off. In Castaway, the only way for Tom Hanks to end the maddening pain of a simple toothache is to bash it out with a rock. Was anyone really surprised when the “Crocodile Hunter” Steve Irwin was killed by a stingray barb?—the dumb fucker based his whole career on taunting wild animals—or when Sigfried and Roy were attacked by one of their own tigers? Even the best-trained dog is going to snap at people occasionally. Replace “dog” with 600-pound carnivore—and throw in flashing lights, smoke, and a cheering crowd—and that “snap” becomes a public mauling.

Nature kicks its own ass on a regular basis. Even before the appearance of Man, 99 percent of all species went extinct. Tectonic plates shift. Asteroids smack into the planet. Ice sheets cover the Earth for thousands of years. Geological history includes several mass extinctions where more than 50 percent of species disappeared in a short time. The Permo-Triassic extinction nearly wiped out all life on Earth. Even humans had a brush with extinction 70,000 years ago. The Earth itself is destined to burn up in 5 billion years.

Human beings have never, and will never, live in harmony with nature. It is a myth that Native Americans did so. They littered and had garbage dumps. Some tribes burned entire forests to increase their future yield. They hunted many birds into extinction and severely reduced populations of fish, elk, and other wildlife. According to University of Utah archaeologist Jack M. Broughton, wildlife returned to “fabulous abundances” in California only after European diseases decimated Indian hunting populations starting in the 1500s.

The litmus test is a rat infestation. With the critters squeaking and scurrying about, do you live in harmony with your new housemates or call the exterminator? Exactly. Life in the old days was a constant trial of pain, hunger, misery, ignorance, fear, and loss. It was “a brief and brutish life at bare subsistence, devoid of hope or promise.”

Primitive societies were not all spiritual and lovey-dovey. As Ludwig von Mises notes, “All history, evidence, and observation of the lives of primitive peoples is directly contrary to this view…The solitary peasant of remote valleys shows none of that noble harmonious development of body, mind, and feeling which the romantics ascribe to him.”

Ernest Becker sums it up nicely:

The peasant’s equanimity is usually immersed in a style of life that has elements of real madness…an undercurrent of constant hate and bitterness expressed in feuding, bullying, bickering, and family quarrels, the petty mentality, the self-deprecation, the superstition, the obsessive control of daily life by a strict authoritarianism, and so on. As the title of a recent essay by Joseph Lopreato has it: “How would you like to be a peasant?”

The civilized world is fucking great. In 2006, a group of 80 nomads wandered out of the rainforest in Colombia. The Nukak- Makú basically came out of the Stone Age. Juan Forerio described their adjustment in a camp set up by Colombians:

Are they sad? “No!” cried a Nukak named Pia-pe, to howls of laughter. In fact, the Nukak said they could not be happier. Used to long marches in search of food, they are amazed that strangers would bring them sustenance…One young Nukak mother…said she was happy just to stay still. “When you walk in the jungle,” she said, “your feet hurt a lot.”

Yeah, no shit! You should try this stuff called Chapstick. It’s awesome! Helmut Schoeck:

The myth of the golden age, when social harmony prevailed because each man had about as little as the next one, the warm and generous community spirit of simple societies, was indeed for the most part just a myth, and social scientists should have known better than to fashion out of it a set of utopian standards with which to criticize their own societies.

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In Defense of Ignorance

Intellectuals like to blame the world's problems on “ignorance," as if education is the key to peace and progress. First, being uneducated does not make one "ignorant." Like Snoop Dogg said, “A lot of people like to fool you and say that you’re not smart if you never went to college, but common sense rules over everything. That’s what I learned from selling crack." And second, history's most notorious killers were intellectuals who were cheered on by fanboy intellectuals the world over.

Mussolini had an astonishing number of intellectual followers. Hitler had some of his largest followings on college campuses. Teachers and professors participated in some of the more grusome excesses of the SS. Academic publications in Britain refused to publish George Orwell’s accounts of the communist purge in Spain. Western intellectuals continued to support the Soviet Union long after its brutality was made known. Bertrand Russel wanted the West to risk a descent into barbarism by following the Soviet example.

It’s not just the leftists. Conservative intellectuals support war and the draft because they supposedly promote the “virtues” of sacrifice and patriotism. Neocon scumbag Andrew Roberts defends virtually every atrocity committed by the British and American governments during the 20th century.

Writes Paul Johnson, “The association of intellectuals with violence occurs too often to be dismissed as an aberration.”

This association is explained by intellectuals' shared belief that human nature can be improved. Hitler, Lenin, Mussolini, Pol Pot, Mao, Trotsky--all were trying to create a New Man. Intellectuals have always felt called to mold society according to their personal preferences. Albert Nock called it “a monstous itch for changing people.” This goes all the way back to Plato’s Republic. Furthermore, Intellectuals are quick to resort to violence because they are moral relativists; they believe that might makes right, and that the end justifies the means.

It is the dark dream of intellectuals that Man can be purified through pain. Stalin said, “You can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs.” Bertrand Russell wrote that Man’s salvation could only be built in the firm foundation of “unyielding despair.” In the Saw movies, the Jigsaw Killer puts his victims into deadly traps from which they must escape via self-mutilitation. He believes that those who pass his tests will have a new appreciation for life—and that those who fail deserve to die. This is the sick mind of the intellectual.

Intellectuals are cowards who refuse to admit the violent nature of their own ideologies. They love the State because it can do their dirty work. One of my college professors said that every young person should be required to “serve” the nation in some capacity. This concept is inherently totalitarian. It implies that the State owns the people and can dispense with them as it pleases. He said, “I just see nothing wrong with asking people to sacrifice.” I said, “You’re not asking them. You’re forcing them.”

What happens to people who break the law? They go to jail. What is the #1 reason people don’t want to go to jail? Ass-rape. So, by implication, Professor Jigsaw wants to threaten people with ass-rape to mold them into better citizens. I doubt he would personally threaten to rape someone, but he has no problem with the State doing it for him. He’s a scumbag coward pervert.

Why are intellectuals such assholes? What is their major malfunction?

Intellectuals suffer from a deep-seated inferiority complex. They feel entitled them to wealth and prestige, but most people don’t care what they have to say. In a free society, Steve Jobs and Lebron James get more respect than all intellectuals combined. It’s this gap—between their own sense of self-worth and society’s estimation of their worth—that makes them so dangerous.

Intellectuals get no respect for a reason: They don’t do anything. They publish abstract nonsense in obscure journals and preach wacked-out theories to hungover undergrads. They feel left out. They’re losers, and they know it. The call for an “alternative” social order is just a power grab. Intellectuals want a system where they can have the power. They promise it will be fair and equal, but as the pigs said in Animal Farm, "Some are more equal than others." Very few conservative intellectuals have served in the military. I doubt that Professor Jigsaw spent a year of his life cleaning up graffiti. Intellectuals always promise a utopia for the common man; history shows it's always precisely the opposite.

Most intellectuals are despicable human beings. Paul Johnson looked at the personal lives of Rousseau, Marx, Ernest Hemingway, Bertrand Russel, Noam Chomsky, and others, and found common threads of aggressiveness, cruelty, deceitfulness, egotism, hypocrisy, self-righteousness, and cowardice. The only proletarian Karl Marx ever knew in person was the poor maid who worked for him and was never paid, except in room and board, for her labors.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Bill Clinton’s commerce secretary, Jeffrey Garten, once said that Paul Krugman “behaves like someone with a massive chip on his shoulder.” Again, it’s not just the leftists. Consider Bill Buckley, the architect of the modern conservative movement. (How’d that turn out, by the way?) After his passing, Peter Brimelow wrote an honest obituary describing Buckley as a vain, vicious, vengeful, overly sensitive, deeply insecure, drugged-up, social-climbing plutocrat. (And if you think that defaming the dead is not classy, know that Buckley did the same thing to Murray Rothbard.)

Those who profess love for humanity treat everyone around them like crap. Those who see only ugliness in their fellow man are the ugliest of all. Intellectuals are pathetic, lonely, bitter, pathological, hateful, lying, envious bastards who want to enslave or destroy mankind. Maybe it’s not a lust for power. Maybe it’s just a nihilistic hatred for the world. What every intellectual shares is a deep-seated contempt for the common man—his values, his lifestyle, and his very existence. They hate plumbers who make more money than they do. They hate Wal-Mart, NASCAR, and US Weekly. They hate people who worship some zombie Jewish carptenter from Nazarath. Most of all, they hate being ignored.

For the common man, there’s only one rational response: Hate them back. Like Carl said in The Simpsons episode when Springfield revolts against the rule of the Mensa Society, “Let’s make litter of the literatti!”

Maybe the common man doesn't "believe" in evolution, but at least he believes in human nature, right and wrong, making an honest living, and minding his own business. That makes him morally, socially, and intellectually superior to most intellectuals. The common man does not need to be enlightened by intellectuals; he needs to destroy them. There’s a great bumper sticker that reads, “My kid beat up your honor student.” It’s time to beat up the honor students, old-school style.

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On the Fence About Gossip Girl

I can’t decide whether or not Gossip Girl is in a sophomore slump. The show is still awesome, but it’s quickly running out of storylines. GG has fallen into the trap that has destroyed many a teen drama: All the storylines are based on relationships. After every character hooks up with every other character, the show has nowhere else to go.

Already, Dan and Serena have broken up and reunited about 14 times. (I still don’t get why they broke up this last time). Writers today can’t think up decent storylines that don’t involve dating or hookups—the one exception being Friday Night Lights. Really, does anyone care about Jenny’s internship with the fashion designer? If they can’t think of a decent storyline for Jenny, they should just kill her off. I’m a busy a man. I don’t have time for teen dramas with shitty subplots.

The bro-mance between Chuck and Dan was well-executed. I liked how they set it up: Dan wanted to explore his wild side, and Chuck realized he had no real friends. But now this storyline is used up. They can’t go back to it.

Introducing new characters won’t work, because all the basic archetypes are already represented. Remember in the second season of The O.C.—when Ryan’s brother is released from prison and moves in with the Cohens? It was the same exact dilemma faced by Ryan in Season 1—a troubled teen adjusting to life in posh Newport Beach—except with a slightly different haircut. I knew right then and there that The O.C. was finished. I can’t fathom how it lasted 3 more seasons—or how Dawson’s Creek lasted 6 seasons with it’s Pacey-Dawson-Joey love triangle. Kids today will watch anything, apparently.

Saved By the Bell was all about Zach’s shenanigans—Zach getting out of detention, the Bayside-Valley prank wars--and it's still in syndication after 20 years! Even 90210 had decent non-relationship storylines, like Steve’s quest for the school’s “legacy key”—preposterous, but entertaining nonetheless.

I still love GG for now, mainly because Chuck Bass is the coolest teen villain since Johnny Lawrence in The Karate Kid. I’ll keep an open mind , but I’m not optimistic.

You know you love me. XOXO.

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EVERYBODY PANIC

Since the dawn if the Industrial Age, people have feared that the modern world is spiraling toward destruction. None of these doomsday scenarios has come true. Here’s a quick rundown.

Overpopulation. In 1798, Thomas Malthus predicted that the word’s population would grow faster than the food supply, leading to mass starvation and chaos. In 1968, Paul R. Ehrlich predicted it would happen in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1980, the Carter Administration predicted it by the year 2000. It never happened because people learned how to grow more food on less land. If advances in farming productivity continue, the world will be able to feed 10 billion people with half of today’s cropland.

The population is projected to grow from 6.6 billion people today to about 8 billion in 2050 and start declining to 5.5 billion in 2100. Global birthrates are falling because the world is getting wealthier. Rich people play golf; poor people screw.

Water. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has predicted that water shortages will trigger bloody conflicts in the 21st century. Not likely. The last “water war” was fought 4,500 years ago. As Alister Doyle notes, “International rivals sharing waters…have generally favoured cooperation over conflict.”

“The simple explanation is that water is simply too important to fight over,” said Aaron Wolf, a professor at Oregon State University. “Nations often go to the brink of war over water and then resolve their differences.”

In the U.S., water withdrawals peaked in 1980 and have been flat since. Entreprenuers are developing innovative technologies like low-cost drip irrigation systems and seawater agriculture to stretch and develop freshwater supplies.

Biodiversity. In 1970, Dr. S. Dillon Ripley, secretary of the Smithsonian Instituiton, predicted that somewhere between 75 and 80 percent of all animal species would be extinct by 1995. In 1980, Paul Ehrlich predicted that 15 to 20 percent of all species would be extinct by the year 2000.

In recent decades, a handful of known species extinctions have been vastly exceeded by the number of species that have been observed and described over time. Scientists have counted between 1.5 million and 1.8 million species, and up to 100 million might exist. In the last two decades, the number of known mammals has grown by 25 percent—and that doesn’t include Bigfoot! Patrick Moore, founder of Greenpeace: “In fact, to the best of our scientific knowledge, no species has become exctint in North America due to forestry.”

Even a worst-case scenario wouldn’t doom mankind. Martin Jenkins from the United Nations Environment Program: “In truth, ecologists and conservationists have struggled to demonstrate the increased material benefits to humans of “intact” wild systems...”

Landfill Space. In the 1980s, we were supposedly running out of places to put our garbage. Today, there is an oversupply of disposal space.

Deforestation. The planet’s overall forest land area has hardly changed in the last 60 years, U.S. forest area is about the same as it was in 1990, and forests are expanding in much of the developed world.

Air Pollution. As Ronald Baily notes, “Air pollution in the U.S. has been declining for decades and even China’s notoriously bad air pollution may be decreasing.”

Economic Collapse. In 1848, Karl Marx predicted that capitalism’s internal contradictions would lead inevitably to worldwide communist revolution. In the 1930s, the “stagnation” theorists said that modern economies would mature to the point where there would no jobs. In the 1970s, a copper shortage was going to destroy all economies based on electricity. Also in the 1970s, the Arabs were going to own half the U.S. In the 1980s, Japan became new threat. In the 1990s, Microsoft was going to take over the information superhighway. Needless to say, none of this crap happened.

Technology. My favorite doomsday scenario is that machines will exterminate or enslave mankind, a theory expressed most eloquently by The Simpsons’ Professor Frink: "You’ve got to listen to me. Elementary chaos theory tells us that all robots will eventually turn against their masters and run amok in an orgy of blood and the kicking and the biting with the metal teeth and the hurting and shoving."

The Terminator predicted Judgment Day in 1997. Termintor 3 pushed it back to 2004. It’s now 2008, and a Japanese-built robot is getting attention for climbing stairs. Run for the hills! Computers will never become creative, autonomous, or self-aware, because anything built by humans is going to break. Spaceballs:

Colonel Sanders: Out of order?! Fuck!
Dark Helmet: Even in the future nothing works!

Besides, enslavement by robots might not be so bad. The cylons on Battlestar Gallactica can make me their slave any day. Rowr!

In an article for Wired magazine, “We’re All Gonna Die!” Gregg Easterbrook makes a good case that none of these scenarios measure up—chemical weapons, germ warfare, particle chain reactions, runaway nanobots, black holes, shifting magnetic poles, supervolcanos, sudden climate change, and asteroids. He quotes John Maddox, editor emeritus of Nature, who wrote in in 1972, “most apocalyptic claims are dubious, inflated, or have such a low likelihood that rational people need not think about them.”

Tainted Products. Most consumer scares turn out to be false alarms—power lines causing cancer, cranberrys causing cancer, the alar-in-apples hysteria of the 1980s, the dangers of nuclear power and DDT. Pretty much everything is both a cause and cure for some kind of illness. Cell phones don’t cause cancer, then they do, then they don’t, then they do again! Coffee is bad for you, then it’s good, then it’s sorta good and sorta bad. The bottom line is that Americans are living longer, healthier lives than at any time in the past. Most companies know that it’s bad for business to kill their own customers.

Oil. The Peak Oil theorists argue that civilization will collapse when the world begins running out of oil. Princeton geologist Ken Deffeyes predicts “war, famine, pestilence and death.” Colin Cambell throws in “the extinction of homo sapiens.” However, similar predictions were made in 1855, 1919, 1928, and the 1970s. It’s now 2008, and we’ve only consumed 18 percent of the world’s oil and gas.

Another fear is that a “price shock” could destabilize the U.S. economy. In truth, the economy is highly adaptable to changes in the price of oil, and the price of oil is very resistant to political manipulation. Political turmoil in the Middle East would not threaten our way of life.

Epidemics. Oprah Winfrey once claimed that one in five heterosexuals would be dead of AIDS by the 1990s. It is now clear that AIDS is confined mostly to high-risk groups. Ebola, Sars, Bird Flu—none has lived up to the hype. The “obesity epidemic” was a total fraud. Severe obesity affects only about one in 12 overweight adults, and it it does not present a significant mortality risk. Furthermore, people in the overweight category have a lower risk of premature death than do “healthy” people.

Moral Decay. The media fuels an endless stream of moral panics with sensational stories that turn out to be bogus or exaggerated (pregnancy pacts, rainbow parties, Internet predators). In truth, rates of violent crime, divorce, abortion, and teen pregnancy have been dropping for years or decades. Social critics have been predicting the imminent collapse of Western civilization for 150 years, but we’re still here! Elvis, the Beatles, Black Sabbath, NWA, Jerry Springer, When Good Pets Go Bad (that was my favorite), Grand Theft Auto, Celebreality, Mixed Martial Arts—each supposedly represented a “new low.” No, no. We haven’t hit rock bottom yet—not if I have anything to say about it!

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