We are approaching the end of the post-WW2 epoch. This epoch brackets the life and times of the baby-boomer generation, now in their seventies with only a few remaining years.
This was the epoch of progress, marked by peace, optimism, recovery, and achievement. Emerging from the horrors of World War 2, the West built a new era, free from global destruction, blessed with vast prosperity and dramatic improvements in well-being for most. Transistors, computers, and space travel were invented. Starvation, many diseases, and race and gender discrimination were eliminated. This could justifiably be called the epoch of human progress. And it is collapsing.
Most epochs start and end in war. The epoch of discovery started in 1815 after Waterloo and ran until 1914. This epoch was characterised by the invention of electricity, flight, the motor car, the telephone, and many other modern marvels. The epoch of catastrophe started in 1917 and ended a mere 22 years later, in 1939.
In my opinion, 2020 marks the end of the epoch of progress, and possibly the start of the epoch of collapse.
Ironically, the concept of progressivism is destroying the benefits of progress. The old enemy, socialism, conceived in the British library, born in Russia and matured in China, is now infesting Western civilisation.
We have the Ukraine war providing the martial bookend of this period of relative peace. The threat of nuclear armageddon has not been wielded since the early 1960s. Thousands of civilian deaths, meat-grinder trench warfare and indiscriminate bombing of civilian populations make this war an epochal catastrophe.
Many revered and respected institutions simply collapsed in the face of the Covid threat. Hallowed concepts such as freedom of speech, movement, religion, bodily choice, all evaporated like a shallow puddle in the heat of government authority and fearmongering. Large swathes of the medical community, previously revered and respected, revealed an authoritarian underbelly. Governmental institutions like the World Health Organisation, US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, Federal Drug Administration, National Institutes of Health, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, not to mention their South African counterparts, were all deeply complicit in a campaign of lying and corruption on an epic scale.
The intelligentsia became stupid. They abandoned reason and restraint in deference to an appalling philosophy based on victimhood, racism and gender confusion. Schools and universities were infiltrated and perverted. New words like “woke” and “cancel culture” became ubiquitous. Most of our august institutions of higher learning are now an embarrassment to themselves and to posterity.
The global warming farce is draining the West of its vital energy supplies, to the delight of her enemies. In an orgy of self-righteousness, gullible “activists”, uninformed teenagers for the most part, put pressure on pliable politicians to adopt lunatic ideas. If implemented, their ideas would guarantee the dawn of the epoch of collapse.
Echoing the ignorant mistakes of legislators in the 1930s, governments in lockstep with banks and financial behemoths invite an economic collapse to rival the Great Depression. All the many benefits that free markets and free trade brought to the world since the 1960s are being squandered in a vain and hopeless pursuit of so-called social equity. Economic collapse and social collapse go hand in hand.
Is there any relief from this gloomy litany? Is there any hope to be had?
“Cometh the hour, cometh the man.” Who can save us from these turbulent times? I offer four unlikely candidates, all men, all white, all older than 50. One hoarse, one inarticulate, one unemployed, and one gravelly-voiced.
These are the four hoarse men to fight the epoch collapse.
Robert Kennedy Jnr
Afflicted by a medical condition that results in a hoarse and raspy voice that makes every word he utters sound painful and forced, he is on a mission to become the next President of the United States. He has the cachet of the Kennedy name, long experience as an environmental litigator, controversial views on big pharma, and a powerful intellect. He is working incredibly hard on his campaign, taking virtually every platform offered, and effectively spreading his message.
Elon Musk
Elon is the outstanding figure of our time, immensely rich, immensely creative, immensely well-known. He owns Tesla, SpaceX, Twitter, and a variety of other leading-edge companies. Prodigiously smart, he nevertheless has a challenging style of speech, often hesitant, staccato, and difficult to listen to. He appears to be honest, blunt and forthright, and does not tolerate fools gladly. He has that rarest trait of powerful people, a sense of humour. As he has shown with his Twitter acquisition, he can use his vast funds, decisive management style and considerable skills to make a real and profound difference.
Tucker Carlson
Tucker Carlson is the honest broker of the American right, and the bête noire of the American mainstream media. His show on Fox News regularly attracted more than three million viewers, sometimes more popular than the entire line-up of competing news channels, until he was unceremoniously fired for undisclosed reasons. He is unafraid to speak uncomfortable truths, to tear down shibboleths, to say what others will only think. He does not have any speech impediments that I know of.
Joe Rogan
Joe Rogan is an American Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) champion and commentator, podcaster, comedian, actor, and former television presenter. He hosts The Joe Rogan Experience, a podcast in which he discusses current events, comedy, politics, philosophy, science, and hobbies with a variety of guests. He has a $200 million contract with Spotify to host his podcast. Wikipedia claims that, in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, his show promoted discredited Covid treatments and used false anti-vaccine claims to dissuade people from Covid vaccination. In other words, he was right when Wikipedia was wrong. He is the ultimate representative of the common man, respected, thoughtful and often outrageous.
Can four men change the arc of history? Can they succeed where so many others are hopelessly failing? John F Kennedy, RFK junior’s uncle, remade the world in three brief years. Elon Musk has remade three different industries into the most successful conglomerate ever. Tucker Carlson can successfully capture the attention of millions consistently. And Joe Rogan is big enough and ugly enough to leave an indelible mark on the story of our time. And all of them are not currently politicians.
The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend, the IRR or of the Free Market Foundation.
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