New Silicon Graffiti Video: ‘Forward, into the Past’
In last week’s video, we explored how the progressive movement of the 19th century set the stage for what Tom Wolfe dubbed “Starting from Zero,” in which millennia of knowledge could safely discarded and the CTRL-ALT-DLT keys be pressed to reboot mankind.
What could go wrong? Well, other than the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, WWII, Communist China, Communist Cuba, Communist Vietnam and Communist North Korea.
Fortunately though, America managed to avoid a complete Start From Zero, and Europe and Japan were lucky enough to be rebuilt by mid-century American liberals still relatively confident about the benefits of western civilization.
But Harry Truman, Secretary of State George Marshall, and JFK all left the building long ago. What passes for “liberalism” today, is anything but; it’s much more interested in, as Hillary infamously said in 2004, taking things away from you for the common good.
Hence the systemic attempts to ban:
- DDT
- Nuclear power
- Hydroelectric dams
- Guns
- Light bulbs
- Domestic oil drilling
- And on and on, because everything is either caused by global warming, or causes it.
And thus, in the second decade of a new millennium, progressives against progress force us to boldly march…Forward into the past!
Click on the above video to watch; a handy portable/embeddable YouTube version is available here. For 60 or so previous editions of Silicon Graffiti, click here and just keep scrolling. And thank you once again for your continued readership (and viewership!) over the last nine years of blogging.
It would have a very different meaning if the lightbulb being smashed in the video were a twisty one.
THANKS A TRILLION for what you are doing. Relatable relevant history lessons.
Ed Driscoll, the best.
The EPA just regulated the amount of mercury that can be emitted by coal burning power plants on an attack on coal. At the same time, government requires the use of the CFL lights which contain mercury and will be eventually become more of a hazard in the home.
Phosphates have been removed from dish washing detergent so dishes need to be rinsed in hot water BEFORE they are put in the dishwasher.
Low flow toilets have caused problems in the sewer system in San Francisco. The sewers are not getting enough water to flush them.
Ethanol is required in our gasoline. It INCREASES pollution, decreases gas mileage, increases food costs, requires subsidies, and damages engines.
But the good thing is that it makes liberals FEEL good.
Liberals lead a very twisted life …
dude..
you forgot the Khmer Rouge of Cambodia… Pol Pot made the Cubans look like pikers. Though it’s just more.
When do we get to go back to the future?
D,
It’s a fair cop, but I figured the Khmer Rouge were included in Vietnam and its aftermath.
As far as going back to the future, that will happen when DC and the blue states get leaders who reject 1955-era Galbraithian central planning and the reflexive urge to ban first and not bother asking questions later.
Seeger was an idiot. In those small villages someone his age would have been turned out to die.
Was? Thanks to advances in American (more or less) free market medical technology, he’s still kicking at age 91.
They are not only attempting to ban modern life, but they want to replace it with the oldest, failed technologies of the past. Wind (see pictures of Greek windmills) and , of course, the Dutch windmills. And the Dutch have decided to give up on the modern turbines as useless. Wind worked for grinding grain and pumping water, but it is too intermittent and unreliable to produce power for a modern country, since it requires 24/7 backup with a conventional power plant. Solar energy does a good job of heating water, when it shines, but the sun still goes down every night and there still are clouds. Unless there is a remarkable breakthrough in battery technology, something that no one conceives of today, the energy of the day cannot be stored. The use of ethanol(moonshine)to run a car goes back to the early 1900s, That’s your advanced central planning. Brilliant.