Helter-Skelter

In his book, Helter-Skelter, the prosecutor in the Charles Manson "family" murders, Vincent Bugliosi, recall the insane metaphysics that drove some drug-crazed and lost California kids to begin committing some of the most gruesome and notorious murders in American history.

Bugliosi borrowed the title from a Beatles' song that appears on an album released without cover art or a title, and that has come to be known as "The White Album."  The song itself is also famous for a claim that it is the first ever use of harmonic "feedback" sound, intentionally, as part of music.

But Bugliosi's book (novel?) captures, perhaps inadvertently, his readers with a far more insidious and nefarious grand design scheme, something that he borrows from the twisted mind of none other than Charles Manson himself.  The term "Helter-Skelter" was to describe an apocalyptic, eschatological war.  But not just any war -- a war over resources or borders, for example -- but a race war.  And that thought caught on in the 1960's and continued through the demographic changes America is experiencing to this day.

But it has been, at least thus far, a cold war.  A "cold" Helter-Skelter -- where battles are pitched not in massive numbers of troops and movements, but in small skirmishes, using proxies, much like the United States and the Soviet Union waged (or perhaps, continue to wage) for years in their own Cold War.  And it is deeply ideological.

Make no mistake about it, Charles Manson was crazy.  But he may have been on to something, at least in the sense of ideological forces, money and power forming alliances and struggling to mold society each in their own way.  This war, at least, seems far more interesting than one that is openly and actually violent.

So who are our warring powers today?  Well, clearly, there is an effort underway by the extraordinarily wealthy to preserve that wealth.  The past 30 years has seen the consolidation of the super wealthy on a massive scale.  Part of it is the consolidation, through mergers and acquisitions, of many corporations in America that once operated independently.

When aligned under the same ownership, they all began singing the same tune.  They all began serving the same master.  This became ultimately apparent when the media companies began being acquired by industry.  Then came the wars, and President Eisenhower's farewell address flickered across once-dead black-and-white television screens again, although this time lost in the recesses of You Tube.

The military-industrial-media complex was just one arm of the extraordinarily wealthy to serve a unified ends -- the ends of their owners.  Only now the owners owned all of them, up and down the supply chain, and across different industries.  There are, undoubtedly, other arms as well.  The prison building industry and some of the entertainment industries play an equally important, and far more subtle, role in the goals of the super wealthy.

And what are their goals?  That's easy.  To continue to consolidate and preserve that wealth, and to keep the pieces in place necessary to continue amalgamating more wealth.  And where is this "more wealth" to come from?  Well, it can only really come from the public sector, or the Middle and Lower Class can be squeezed even further to get more from them.

We have seen the attack on government waged in vitriolic, banshee-screaming tones.  Foot soldiers have somehow perceived that the government, the only entity able to stand up to the uber-wealthy, is somehow taking something from them, and so it is declared the enemy.  There is little to offer them but pity.  And much of it.

And what the Middle and Lower class are all tapped out? What then can you take from them, squeeze out of them further?  Well, that's an easy one as well.  All men have labor, John Locke chimes in.  So you make them work more and harder and for less.  And, in this way, you can squeeze even more wealth out of those who really have little to none.

And so you use the military-industrial-media complex, and you use the entertainment industry, to get as much labor out of them as possible.  And you hone all of these things for that one goal. Now the drums of war are beating again.  Now (again) we have the greatest threat ever to walk the Earth looming over the homeland.  We are worried we "may get hit again."  Eerily, the workers fall into line.  " Tell me, tell me. tell me the answer  . . . "

Over and against the extraordinarily wealthy, there is another movement.  It is a reaction to the massive amalgamation of wealth taking place.  But it is divided, still searching for its compass.  It is parts of the U.S. Middle Class and Lower Class trying to unite ideologically to counter their extraordinary dispossession at the hands of the uber-wealthy.  It largely comes in the form of a reactionary, Rightist, militia-type mobilization, with the "Don't Tread of Me" flags reappearing.

But its attention is diverted from the uber-wealthy to the scapegoat they have erected to deflect attention.  So this reactionary movement of the common man becomes an anti-government orgy.  The anger that would normally be reserved and directed at those who took from them is instead focused on a non-sentient administration of society's goods and needs.  Ironically, it may be the only thing that could counter the uber-wealthy.  But they have that cut off as well.

And this movement of the common man pitches back and forth, struggling internally to understand who is its enemy.  "Do you know the enemy?" is the Green Day song so appropos.  It has formed into "Patriot" groups and Tea Party organizations.  But it still can't seem to get clear in its mind who it is standing over it.  Like the primitive beast, it holds the sides of its heads and moans.  The noise is too loud to focus.  The diversion is complete.  The uber-wealthy are safe.

For now.