I signed up with Facebook during the Lockdown of 2020, at first to create some publicity for my most recent book, Divide the Country!. Then I realized that I could keep up with old friends whom I will probably never see again, but still care about. Then I realized that Facebook also works as a sort of media-aggregate. Facebook-members around the globe publish personal accounts of events in their locales. They also upload videos and photographs; so why bother with TV when Facebook has it all?
The caveat, of course, is that viewers have to accept the ugly with the beautiful. Videos of alpine scenery in Switzerland share FB space with the war-torn Middle East. Frolicking-wildlife videos share space with earthquakes in Japan and tsunamis in the Philippines. All of these media formats in one place. It's fantastic and intimidating.
Bloggers post photos of sunsets from the Big Sur, mountain lakes in Colorado, or short videos of the famous Galleria, in Milan, Italy, a fantastic shopping arcade. Thanks to drones and GoPros, you can sweep a pretty beach, or opt for close-ups inside a volcano. Boys and girls still post selfies, but not as often as they once did. Bloggers often use FB in order to vent their anger at individuals or institutions. FB even offers its members a change to respond to these attacks.
The supply of entertaining material on this one website is just endless. For me, age 71, the newness of Facebook can never wear off; but it does more than that. The international blogger-culture keeps FB viewers up-to-date with world events, and often presents videos and photos ahead of the world's news agencies—much of it eyewitness footage.
Facebook offers one last important service: it presents a political forum like no other. Day after day, bloggers battle each other over important issues, like economic inequality, sexual inequality, racial inequality, or any other subject that comes to mind. Some of the bloggers get serious financing; or how else could they afford the fancy graphics and wide distribution?
Some of the bloggers exude a "Don't mess with me!" level of hostility; so plan to cross the street if you encounter them. One blogger threatens to throw the wealthy to Killer Whales; another wants to give them an elbow in the jaw. It reminds me of revolutionary rhetoric from the late 1960s, when a variety of radical groups wanted to overthrow the U.S. Government by force and violence. Now the radical movement has moved mainstream, thanks to Facebook.
Facebook bloggers offer their viewers very different perceptions of living conditions in the United States of America. On the one hand, radical types say living conditions in America are bad because predatory billionaires have turned the working-class into the working poor. The radicals condemn the billionaires for hoarding real estate, which inflates housing prices, and keeps the working poor propertyless.
Other bloggers counter that living conditions in the U.S. are as good as anywhere on the planet, and back up their claim with statistics. They say that middle-class salaries in America are very good, as much as $77,000 a year. The "Average Salaries" image lists amounts in British Pounds. £46,000 is about $58,000. The "Mittelschicht" (Middle-Class) image lists amounts in Euro. The spread ranges from 28,000€ to 72,000€, or about $29,475 to $79,200. In the global competition for best salaries, the U.S. scores about fourth in the World; and all of its contenders are mini-nations like Singapore, Switzerland, and Luxembourg.
More worrying for someone like me, who wants to see the Left and the Right govern themselves as independent nations, neither shows no sign of wanting an independent nation. When I enquire if that is their intention, to stick together, they just react with consternation—why I would suggest such a thing—as if it is entirely off the table. The bloggers assure me that a nation of their own is not what they want. They want the whole schmier!
Obviously they can only get it over the dead bodies of innocent Americans. I can only surmise that neither the Left nor the Rich has a clue how they would govern a nation. The Left operates from a thirst for payback, while the Right hates for anyone to disturb their comfort zones. We've really got a problem here.
