Are we living in dystopia?

Not even close — but

let's learn from history this time
We've been here before, and worse. We can still turn things around in
America — but we must decide we want to

By BRIAN KAREM
Columnist

The next world war has begun.

Or perhaps, if you're a philosopher, you'll say our ongoing existential

conflict continues.

Either way, on the annual Day of the Dead, (celebrated as a joyous

affirmation of life, no less), the world is a hot mess.

The hot side of that is visible in Ukraine, where this week Russia
doubled down on its threat of nuclear conflagration, sparking a New
York Times report that senior Russian military officials have recently
discussed how and when to use tactical nukes in the Ukrainian theater
of war.

At the same time, North and South Korea exchanged missile fire off
each other's coastlines. North Korea stands accused of shipping
weapons to Russia for the continuing war in Ukraine (demonstrating
how desperate Russia is becoming). Iran is reportedly threatening
Saudi Arabia and China is threatening Taiwan. There is considerable
unrest in Africa. There is an Ebola outbreak in Uganda, COVID
concerns remain high across the globe and scientists tell us that
climate change has screwed us all. Inflation is a worldwide problem,
largely because of the pandemic and the war in Ukraine. To top it all
off, the largest oil companies are projecting record profits. And, yes, I
realize how many times I've had to write that sentence in my lifetime.

Of course the ongoing Republican narrative in this country is that all of

this is President Biden's fault, and what remains of the Grand Old
Party will solve the problem with cuts to Social Security and Medicare
if they take over the House and the Senate after next week's election.

That's it. That's their solution.

And by God, they're sure they will prevail, or at least they want us to
believe that — because if they don't prevail, we all know they will
scream "election fraud" and encourage more violence.

President Biden finally and firmly spoke to that Wednesday night,

calling out Donald Trump and his MAGA supporters (a minority of the
Republican Party, or so Biden informed us) for the "Big Lie." As for
Trump specifically, Biden said the former president had fanned the
flames of sedition, "abused power" and put loyalty to himself above
loyalty to his country. It almost sounds like America is becoming a
dystopia.

Some believe we are already living in a dystopia, while others believe

that would be more like a "Mad Max" movie, or like the half-forgotten
1975 classic "A Boy and His Dog."

Those who dwell in the daily news of unrest may ask: What would you
call attacks against women, minorities and people of different faiths,
different sexual preferences, different religions and different lifestyles,
by a minority that represents authoritarian interests and money, if not
a dystopia?

Our morning newsfeed is not filled with tales of wonder so much as

tales of woe. We don't get news about settlements on the moon or
Mars, or discoveries that enthrall the planet. Instead our news feed
makes us uncomfortable. Elon Musk takes over Twitter, and social
media makes us even more uncomfortable. An evidently disturbed
42-year-old man breaks into Nancy Pelosi's house and attacks her
husband with a hammer — and it isn't just an apparent assassination
or kidnapping attempt directed at the speaker of the House, but an
attack on sanity and democracy. What else would you call a man
physically attacking someone old enough to be his grandfather? The
GOP has some randy asides, poor attempts at humor and various
conspiracy theories to explain it. And they want to fill you with fear and
hatred while spreading their misinformation. Musk did no one any
favors by bringing his tone-deaf analysis to Twitter. Yes, for many, the
news is bad and apparently getting worse.

But in fact we've been here before — and within my lifetime.

Let's revisit 1968. The year began with the Tet Offensive in Vietnam —
a significant setback for the U.S. military campaign. Martin Luther King
Jr. and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated. The rise of Richard Nixon
began shortly thereafter. North Korea captured the USS Pueblo.
During an Olympics medal ceremony, Tommie Smith and John Carlos
raised their fists in a silent demonstration against racial discrimination
in the United States. Riots raged in Washington, Chicago, New York,
Detroit, Pittsburgh, Kansas City, Louisville and Baltimore following the
King assassination. I remember "riot warnings" broadcast on radio and
TV, warning us to stay inside. As a child I imagined a roiling, boiling
mass of humanity rolling through my neighborhood like something
from a Mad magazine cartoon drawn by Jack Davis. The riots in
Louisville, as it turned out, were exacerbated by misinformation about
civil rights activist Stokely Carmichael's planned visit.

In November, "Star Trek" aired American television's first interracial

kiss. The year ended with a greeting from the astronauts aboard
Apollo 8, Frank Borman, James Lovell and William Anders, wishing us
all a Merry Christmas as the crew became the first to travel to and
orbit the moon. "The moon is essentially gray, no color," Lovell said as
he gave the first closeup description. "Looks like plaster of Paris or
sort of a grayish beach sand."

All of those events occurred under the overarching umbrella of the

continuing threat of nuclear conflagration as we spoke of "missile
gaps" in the arms race with the Soviet Union. Once a month at school
we conducted "duck and cover" disaster drills. An ominous-sounding
siren blared and every student dutifully filed out of the classroom in
single-file. Then we'd face the walls in the hallway, sit down and put
our heads between our legs — that was supposed to protect us,
somehow or other, from a Soviet nuclear bomb.
Every day seemed surreal. We talked constantly about the war in
Vietnam, which I was convinced I would grow up to serve in, and likely
die. I ate my morning cereal digging around for rub-off stickers from
"Yellow Submarine," while wondering if I'd ever see adulthood. Allen
Hemburger, one of the most decent men I ever worked with in news,
remembered slogging through rice paddies that year while serving in
Vietnam. "I heard about Apollo 8," he said, remembering that he'd
realized one night on patrol that he was using the moon to guide his
movements through the jungle. "I realized there was quite a distance
between here and there," he said.

So by those standards 2022 doesn't seem like a dystopia to me. It

seems like more of the same, brought to us in acutely painful fashion
by the likes of Musk, who purchased Twitter at an inflated price to
match his inflated ego, so he can crow alongside the other robber
barons who own media companies. Yes, social media has definitely
helped spread the fear.

When I was younger I read Isaac Asimov's science fiction classic

"Foundation," which warned us: "Violence is the last refuge of the
incompetent." That sounds a lot like geopolitics today. It describes
Putin in Ukraine. It describes Trump and his raging troglodyte
incompetents, who use social media to try and terrify us into the
submission they could not achieve with traditional media. They are like
cancer cells thriving in the unregulated dark places of human
communication, driven by the need for power, raging insecurity, prolific
ignorance and the delusion that anyone who thinks differently is a
threat to human existence — or at least to their personal wealth.

'Tis madness. But it is the particular madness spread by the rich and
the powerful to keep us fighting with each other while they continue to
make bank. And we fall for it every damn time.

The rich have exploited the poor for far too long. I want that word to
reach as many people as possible. So I have no problem using Twitter
to criticize Twitter. I have no problem selling books through Amazon
that speak to the evils of concentrated media ownership. I'm merely
returning the exploitation delivered by the rich at the cost of the poor.
Some may call that exploitation. Some call it justice. Pick your poison.
It's the most expedient way to get the word out. I won't leave Twitter
and I won't avoid Amazon. I also won't use either exclusively. Who
knew that Facebook would eventually seem like the lesser social
media evil?

The media czars of today are nothing more than the robber barons of
old. Single ownership of such a large concentration of content
distribution must be regulated when the business is news, media
content and other forms of communication, especially information
meant to educate or inform the public. Certain standards of service
must be applied — or better yet, let's bust up the monopolies.

We don't yet live in dystopia, but we are afflicted with the fear and
insecurity that has raged inside the human heart and mind since we
crawled out of the caves. Today we are dealing with long-standing
problems that the Republicans would love you to believe were created
by Biden and his administration. I can't think of one of those problems
that actually began under Biden's watch — not inflation, the war,
climate problems, gas prices, antisemitism or anything else. The roots
run deep and we have been forced to deal with these things over and
over again because we refuse to learn from history. Donald Trump and
his minions in the Republican Party exploit those problems to their
own ends precisely because we don't learn our lessons.

John Kirby, press spokesperson for the National Security Council, told
a Zoom gaggle with reporters on Wednesday that we need to grasp
the key issues. I asked him to outline the "big picture" when it comes
to Republican claims about Biden's responsibilities for our current
geopolitical problems. Reminiscent of Jason Robards in "Parenthood,"
Kirby said that many of our problems have been with us a long time
and we can never "spike the football."

To keep to that metaphor, we have to build teamwork and engage

everyone, even our enemies, on issues we have in common whenever
we can. Violence isn't the answer. Working together is the only
solution and Biden has sincerely tried to model that course of action.
"The president believes no one nation" can solve the world's
problems, Kirby explained, and is "pursuing opportunities of
cooperation" with many countries around the globe.

The founding fathers never had to deal with the specific complexities
of today's world, but history has not taken us far away from the
fundamental truths that they faced, and we still face today. Some
people are selfish. Some are scared and some want to take food off of
your plate and put it on their own. Some of those people are in power,
and quite a few of them shouldn't be.

By building "alliances and partnerships, even limited ones," according

to Kirby, the president believes we can avoid the worst aspects of the
dystopia we all fear.

We are less than a week away from finding out how this will play out
over the next decade, or perhaps much longer.

Once again: Vote. The U.S. remains the most viable option for
forestalling dystopia — if we can manage to retain our democracy and
show the rest of the world that a government of, by and for the people
can work against all odds — and against the authoritarian leanings of
the worst of our own politicians.

For perhaps the last time in my lifetime, the choice is still ours to
make.