J.D. Moyer

sci-fi author, beatmaker

Tag: fascism

Three Things Trump Can’t Do

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On November 21

In Culture Rants/Shares, Politics

I promise this blog won’t become a 100% Trump-rant, but there are big geopolitical events afoot. I’ll be chewing the Trump cud for a little longer.

This essay from science fiction author Charles Stross gave me some big-picture perspective. Reactionary populism is a global problem, and the Russia-as-puppeteer theory may have legs. The “U.S. won the cold war” narrative is looking laughable at this point. The Kremlin has a long memory, and plays a ruthless international chess game with decade-long turns.

Now we have an administration that is not only politically conservative (in an extreme way, with the intention to roll back women’s rights and civil rights) but also potentially incompetent, led by a president with a history of criminality and corruption. Trump’s corruption and impulsiveness worry me just as much as his ideology (which, like Bannon’s, is flexible and opportunistic). Reckless decision making, cynicism, cronyism, corruption, and a failure of leadership could lead to economic collapse and systemic breakdown. Could it be as bad as what we’re seeing now in Venezuela? I think our checks-and-balances will probably save us from that fate, but the same forces are at work.

Across the pond we have Brexit in the UK, and anti-immigration sentiments all across Europe. Global reactionary populism. Terrorism is also a massive problem. What’s happening to our planetary society? I think we’re seeing the convergence of at least six macrotrends:

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Watching Open Source Destroy Capitalism

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On January 15

In Alternative Economics, Culture Rants/Shares, Music Business, Utopian Speculations

Theft, or post-capitalism?

About twenty years ago one of my college housemates, Jerry, had an idea.

“What if you could send music over the internet?”

This was the age of 2400 baud modems that made crazy high pitched noised while they tried to connect to the internet. My 20 megabyte external hard drive for my MacPlus computer had set my parents back about five hundred bucks. High quality digital audio files were about the same size as they are now (about ten megabytes per minute of audio). In other words, I couldn’t even fit a single digital audio track on my expensive hard drive — I worked exclusively in MIDI.

So I forgive myself for my lack of vision at the time. I thought Jerry’s idea was ridiculous, and I let him know. Digital audio files were way too big, bandwidth was way too narrow. It would never happen.

Jerry persisted. What if a music file could be compressed? What if bandwidth increased? He pointed out that it would change everything about the way music was distributed, maybe even the way it was made.

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How To Avoid Fascism and Restore Growth in the United States

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On October 19

In Culture Rants/Shares, Money/Personal Finance, Politics, Utopian Speculations

" Democracy is beautiful in theory; in practice it is a fallacy." -- Benito Mussolini

Historically, prolonged extreme concentrations of wealth and outrageous income inequality tend to play out in two ways:

1) Violent Leftist/popular revolutions, such as the French Revolution, the Chinese Cultural Revolution, and the Russian Revolution.

2) The rise of a Fascist state, as the elites use “fear of the other” to gain support for policies that suppress freedom and democracy, and increase coercive control of the impoverished masses.  Fascism never rises without support of the elites.

In the United States, with its strong pro-capitalist institutions and values, we’re more at risk for fascism than we are for violent Leftist revolution.  There are strong currents of popular fascism in the racist, xenophobic blatherings of Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh.  More and more our lawmakers are controlled by corporate interests.  Disturbing incidents where police and military are used against U.S. citizens are on the rise.

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