Americans are a weird and violent lot. We're also proud of our nation to the point of sin. So much so many of us are convinced no one else in the world can out match us in fields such as justice, science, medicine, education, and productivity. In many of those areas statistics and results demonstrably prove us severely out done by loads of other nations, but pointing those facts out in certain venues will draw protests and charges of being anti American.
A lot of it stems from our history of immigration. From the very beginning of the republic people from Europe and other continents have come here in droves seeking a better and safer life. This continuous flood of immigrants has convinced many of us we are not only the greatest nation in the history of the world, but everyone on the planet wants to live here. The fact that billions don't stuns and confuses scads of Americans to no end.
That includes the rabidly xenophobic crowd now in charge who want to severely limit immigration from places where the population is, let us say, non Caucasian.
However, we shouldn't get bogged down with the immigration question at the moment, or our taste for brute violence which is well documented. Given what went down in the Nevada desert yesterday we should probably focus on the weird part of the American psyche.
On June 27th of this year a guy named Matty Roberts set up a Facebook, "event," titled, "Storm Area 51, They Can't Stop All of Us." Area 51 is, of course, a secret Air Force facility so enigmatic it is at the center of a huge swirl of conspiracy theories. For years those barely on the fringe of normal thought and behavior have claimed it houses the wreckage of not only other worldly spacecraft, but the remains of extra terrestrials who piloted them. The hyper strict security surrounding the site only compounds these wild speculations.
Much to Roberts' surprise within weeks two million people posted they would attend his, "event," and another million and a half said they were interested in attending. The media at large took notice and suddenly hordes of yahoos storming Area 51 seemed an actual possibility.
The Air Force was concerned enough to issue a statement saying people shouldn't attempt to enter the secure facility because, you know, every sign on its perimeter not only says entrance is not permitted, but also, the use of deadly force to carry out the order is. Two different Nevada counties prepared emergency declarations in case they were overwhelmed by huge crowds. A stunned Roberts went online to assure everyone, especially the authorities, his event was meant to be a joke and he was not going to be responsible if anyone was injured, or shot while trying to pull off the stunt.
Luckily for him and whatever monetary assets he might have, practically everyone who said they would attend were in on the joke. Yesterday, D-Day at Area 51, was attended by just a few hundred strange souls, many of them clad in cheesy costumes, but all of them demonstrating safely outside the gates. Less than six were arrested. One for urinating in public, two others, somewhat perplexed Dutch students, for trespass after they actually did make it onto the grounds.
Unfortunately Americans haven't always been in on the joke. In October, 1938, Mercury Theater on the Air ran an adaptation of H.G. Wells, "War of the Worlds." The format of the show, an orchestra concert interrupted periodically by realistic news bulletins of increasing mayhem, threw thousands into panic. Police arrived in force at the CBS studios in New York. The phone switchboard lit up with people in a panic wanting to know where and how fast the Martian military was advancing. Producer John Houseman later talked about how silly it was. He pointed out it took the Martians only 45, or so minutes of air time to launch from their planet, land on earth, and mount an attack to which American forces, after a cabinet meeting, responded en masse.
In 1999 millions of Americans began to stockpile food, water, and--you guessed it--ammunition in advance of the Y2K millennium bug. The thinking was, because computer programmers everywhere had fucked up, as soon as clocks turned 12:01am on New Years Day every computer system on the globe would crash. Midnight came and the world rolled on without a hiccup. One Russian observer noted, only Americans had the time and money to worry about such things.
Then in the late aughts places like cable TVs History and Travel Channels came alive with broadcasts ominously warning us the Mayan long count calendar was ending on December 21, 2012. This, many a commentator postulated, meant the world was done. Hollywood responded with a big budget movie about the impending apocalypse which was released in 2009. We were in Belize, which is home to the southern part of the Mayan empire, in January, 2012. We asked the locals about this. The impending doom was news to descendents of the Mayans. In their minds any American who thought it true was nuts. December 21st came and went and as we can see, nothing catastrophic happened, at least not until November, 2016.
Given all this nonsense is it any wonder certain people and powers know how easily we are manipulated. They understand far too well we're a nation of media driven hysterics who will jump into any wildly insane theory then obsess on it until it is time to move onto some other outre happening.
And those happenings don't have to be about downed ETs, invading Martians, or Mayans. Sometimes they simply have to involve those who have different religions, political beliefs, and skin tones from ourselves.
Yes, it is sad, but given our history, deep down, we all know it is true.
sic vita est
9-21-19
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