Blackmail may be the death of us. Unless we’re saved by… Mexico

First - a one-paragraph example of one thing you could do: volunteer to be a local precinct election official or poll-watcher. The training is minimal and you could help ensure an honest vote, in the fall. Yes, it's mostly retired folks.  So? Consider talking some honest, smart retiree you know into doing this, especially in "swing" precincts. Just knowing such sharp-eyed folks are on the job could force the cheaters to try elsewhere! Think about it?

Now our main topic: I’ve long wondered if our civilization is tottering because of one devastating crime, above all others. 

== Blackmail == 

Elsewhere, I describe how it’s the best way to suborn an enemy nation. Other forms of corruption have boundaries… the official you bribed may say: “that’s my limit for this year,” or “that’s too much betrayal, even for me.” 

But the blackmailed person is locked in. And every added thing he does for you makes him ever-more your slave. 

There is a way for the blackmailed person to escape… by coming clean. By openly and publicly confessing, or cooperating with honest civil servants to entrap the blackmailers. But that requires guts. And patriotism of a degree we seldom see, even on a battlefield. Then there’s rationalization – often the blackmailed or coerced person justifies it all by converting to passionate belief in the blackmailer’s cause -- the Patty Hearst Effect. Or the Moscow embassy Marine guards. Or George F. Will.

Hence a warning!  If you find yourself embarking on a career in politics or any other area of influence, be wary of entrapment!  That lucky ticket that's too good to be true. That strangely convenient opportunity to cheat in some small way that you think is unobserved. That alluring member of your sex-of-preference who comes on to you... the methods are myriad and highly, highly developed. See where I describe the cycle, in detail. And the one thing I don't disrespect about Mike Pence is his keeping the ultimate defense talisman nearby -- his wife.

Above all, the blackmailed person – even if repentant -- must overcome a devastating sense of loneliness. There may be hundreds – even thousands -- of men and women, in Washington alone, who writhe within such a trap, imagining they are alone. Many of those betraying America, as we speak – and I’ll talk about the wave of inexplicable treason, below -- are probably steeped in isolation, with a sense of no-way-out. Blackmailers will push that feeling, never letting their slaves realize a central, redemptive truth --

-- that there is a path to salvation. I offered this method to President Obama, and he could have transformed America, but it never reached his eyes. Now, I am about to appeal to the next idealist who could use this maneuver to save his own country… and possibly the world.

== An open letter to the President–Elect of Mexico ==

Dear Mexican President-Elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador,

Would you consider a proposal/suggestion offered by an impudent science fiction author from Upper California? You face incredible problems and obstacles to fulfilling your vow and overcoming rampant corruption, giving citizens hope and confidence in the honest rule of law. Indeed, classic corruption is the least of your problems!

Far worse than bribery is blackmail. Whether a person was originally entrapped in some small misjudgment, or willingly did something awful, the man who is blackmailed is far easier for evil ones to control than someone who is merely greedy or venial. Indeed, there is strong reason to believe that blackmail pervades every government on Earth, and - lately - has thoroughly suborned the United States of America.

There is a way out of this! You - personally - could set an example to the world. Simply declare amnesty for the first twenty men or women who come forth into the light with profound information that could transform Mexico!

Yes, there must be standards. Let’s say they must surrender most of any ill-gotten gains. In order for it to count, they must tell-all! Name others, including their blackmailers. There will have to be guarantees of safety, witness protection and possibly foreign refuge. Arrange these, along with safety from prosecution. Indeed, if their revelations bring down higher figures, then promise 10% of any seizures, as a reward.

Promise that the first who come forward - bravely - to confess and to reveal, will not be known as pardoned criminals, but as heroes.

What do you have to lose? Is twenty enough? Make it a hundred! If no one steps up, then it cost you nothing. If this unleashes a wave of pardon seekers, make sure the brave ones who step up first get special honor. Some may accuse you of setting up pardons for cronies. But that will die down, as a tide of revelations sweep forth! Also note, you need no legislation to issue pardons… though legislation will surely follow.

For safety’s sake, issue an Exclusion List. Ask Law enforcement agencies to write down those criminals they have already built strong cases against. You can name a hundred men whose pardon requests will not be honored. Can you think of a better way to single them out and terrify them into making a deal?

Oh, this is not a new proposal. I have put it forward for many years, to no avail. 

But you are a special case. You are committed to eliminating the corruption that has ruined civil life in Mexico. Alas, people expect – cynically – that you will just slip into a familiar pattern, either that of the sellout presidents before you, or that of Chavez, Erdogan and Duterte. There will be overwhelming pressures to go in either of those directions, so you must find something that will propel the idealistic momentum right away, and unstoppably. 

This one thing would prove the cynics all wrong, from the very start!

I have plenty of other proposals, but this one is so simple and blatantly obvious that it needs no further explanation. Think. Nothing could possibly alter that situation as swiftly and effectively as a sudden and cleansing wash of light.

== Back in the U.S.S.A…. ==

How deep does the betrayal go, in America?

This long and terrifying piece finally broaches publicly what many of us have known and said. That the "Russia Thing" probably goes far deeper than even Trump's loudest critics dare to say. Those critics may be trying hard not to sound like Alex Jones, whose wild ravings make "conspiracy nut" an appellation any moderate American would shun. But what if that's the aim of Jones and Hannity etc.? 

There have been dire conspiracies in history. And yes, cries of conspiracy bear some burden of proof. (Jones/Fox never show scintillas of evidence, after 25 years of "Clinton investigations.")  But as proof piles skyward that Donald Trump's cabal are - at-minimum - mafiosi, when do we get permission to extrapolate the trend? To reckoning on the worst?

Yes, this article goes a bit over the top, in places. Heck I have, too, by calling this "phase 8 of the Civil War." But even accounting for that, how can you shrug off the trend? When every single US strength that won us the Cold War is being systematically dismantled? From our alliances and science to strong institutions, citizen confidence, trustworthy media and the moral high ground? When every fact-using profession – all of them - is under attack by Rupert Murdoch's cult? 

One such betrayal, or two, or a few, might have excuses like "stupidity' or 'dogmatism." But when all actions push in the same direction, I invoke Goldfinger’s Rule:

“Once, Mr. Bond, may be happenstance.

"Twice could be coincidence.

“Three times is enemy action.”

It's been a lot more than three times! Read this piece. And stop softpedaling or saying "he exaggerates." Yeah, maybe he does, in a few places. And it is past time we err a bit in the same direction. Or we're the stoopid ones.

== Are they planning to abandon us to our fates? ==

Okay, we’ve seen several types of traitors in this essay. Those who are avidly and actively helping foreign tyrants to bring down our Great Experiment… those who have been suborned or blackmailed into it. There’s also the classic duo of the Confederacy. Zillionaires who want a return of aristocracy and the populist-idiocrat millions who are in it for tribal reasons… no amount of heinous behavior is intolerable, so long as the Fox-confederate media tell them it’s okay. And especially so long as it galls the damn liberal or “fact” elites.

But what about those fact elites?  Are they necessarily on our side? Or might they also be conspiring against the West?

In “Survival of the Richest,” Douglas Rushkoff assumes the worst… that the betrayal of human civilization by aristocracy has two parts.  The dullard troglodytes of the right, who aim to topple our enlightenment in a microcephalic dream of restoring feudalism… and the smart billionaires, who are giving up the fight and fleeing for sanctuary.

Ah… sanctuary: as in the movie “Logan’s Run”?  We’ll return to that.

But first Rushkoff talks about interviewing a number of rich techno-transcendentalists (my term) who support things like life-extension, mind-uploads, mental augmentation and other ways that humans might move beyond present limitations. I have known a lot of these fellows for a long time. So has Rushkoff, so let’s hear what struck him:

        

“That’s when it hit me: At least as far as these gentlemen were concerned, this was a talk about the future of technology. Taking their cue from Elon Musk colonizing Mars, Peter Thiel reversing the aging process, or Sam Altman and Ray Kurzweil uploading their minds into supercomputers, they were preparing for a digital future that had a whole lot less to do with making the world a better place than it did with transcending the human condition altogether and insulating themselves from a very real and present danger of climate change, rising sea levels, mass migrations, global pandemics, nativist panic, and resource depletion. For them, the future of technology is really about just one thing: escape....”

“They were not interested in how to avoid a calamity; they’re convinced we are too far gone. For all their wealth and power, they don’t believe they can affect the future. They are simply accepting the darkest of all scenarios and then bringing whatever money and technology they can employ to insulate themselves — especially if they can’t get a seat on the rocket to Mars.”

== Sorry, it’s not that simple ==

Look, I like Doug Rushkoff. But this oversimplifies out the wazoo. Sure, anyone can see that large swathes of oligarchy care only about the re-establishment of 6000 years of feudalism. Hence they use lavishly-paid propaganda-shills to demonize every single fact-using profession (name one exception), from science and journalism to the FBI and officer corps. 

And yes, many of them know they are risking planetary genocide and ecocide, and many are plotting their safety bolt holes.  I know several of those guys, and their favorite spot is… Patagonia, where land prices have spiked from poverty to resort levels, as they buy up everything from ranchitas to whole mountain ranges and watersheds, stocking them with arms and helicopters and bullion. 

(One fellow asked: "I have one problem that keeps me awake at night - if civilization falls, how do I keep my guards loyal?" In fact, I do know how. But the guy balked at my consultation fee. Fine. Go without sleep! The thought makes me smile.)

By comparison, the techies buying citizenship in New Zealand and financing “seasteading” experiments are actually kinda mild, even endearing.

Doug Rushkoff finishes his interesting (if hyperbolic) essay with an ultimate truth: “Being human is not about individual survival or escape. It’s a team sport. Whatever future humans have, it will be together.”

Absolutely. It will take a flat-open-fair civilization - like this utterly unique one - to get out to the stars. That shared dream will see some creative types a tad richer than all the other rising boats, and that's fine.

Alternatively, if that wonderful civilization is stolen from us, there is no place -- on Earth or off -- where the thieves will be able to hide.