Discover more from The Obsolete Man
I was flipping through some old notes over the weekend and came across a quote that I hadn't thought about for some time.
“This may be the year when we finally come face to face with ourselves; finally just lay back and say it—that we are really just a nation of 220 million used car salesmen with all the money we need to buy guns, and no qualms at all about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable.”
- Hunter S. Thompson, 1973
Well, it may have taken a little longer than Mr. Thompson predicted, but in light of the events of recent years, it seems that more and more people are finally beginning to understand just how accurate that statement was.
It’s inevitable. Corruption and subversion of once trusted institutions is the guaranteed outcome of a society that abandons objective truth and morality. When we reward con artists or look the other way when we recognize a scam, we incentivize more of it. But like all cons, a tipping point is eventually reached and the ruse falls apart. It looks like most of society will be left holding the bag this time around.
Wrath
John Steinbeck witnessed a similar moment in the 1930’s and wrote about it in his novel, The Grapes of Wrath. The novel follows the Joad family of Oklahoma as they join the millions of destitute farmers of the plains states, fleeing the disastrous effects of the Dust Bowl droughts of the 1930’s.
Once-flourishing farming communities were laid to waste. Impoverished families across the heartland were left with no option but to try to make it to the west coast in search of whatever work could be found. Steinbeck devotes an entire chapter of the novel to the description of the crooked used car salesmen in these dying communities. Sensing desperation, the vultures have seized the opportunity to fleece as many desperate, fleeing families as they can into spending their last few dollars on dangerous and worthless cars.
A few excerpts:
In the towns, on the edges of the towns, in fields, in vacant lots, the used-car yards, the wreckers’ yards, the garages with blazoned signs—Used Cars, Good Used Cars. Cheap transportation, three trailers.’27 Ford, clean. Checked cars, guaranteed cars. Free radio. Car with 100 gallons of gas free. Come in and look. Used Cars. No overhead.
"Those sons-of-bitches over there ain’t buying. Every yard gets ’em. They’re lookers. Spend all their time looking. Don’t want to buy no cars; take up your time. Don’t give a damn for your time. Over there, them two people—no, with the kids. Get ’em in a car. Start ’em at two hundred and work down. They look good for one and a quarter. Get ’em rolling. Get ’em out in a jalopy. Sock it to ’em! They took our time."
Owners with rolled-up sleeves. Salesmen, neat, deadly, small intent eyes watching for weaknesses.
"Watch the woman’s face. If the woman likes it we can screw the old man. Start ’em on that Cad’. Then you can work ’em down to that ’26 Buick. ’F you start on the Buick, they’ll go for a Ford. Roll up your sleeves an’ get to work. This ain’t gonna last forever. Show ’em that Nash while I get the slow leak pumped up on that ’25 Dodge."
"Get ’em under obligation. Make ’em take up your time. Don’t let ’em forget they’re takin’ your time. People are nice, mostly. They hate to put you out. Make ’em put you out, an’ then sock it to ’em."
Flags, red and white, white and blue—all along the curb. Used Cars. Good Used Cars
"Today’s bargain—up on the platform. Never sell it. Makes folks come in, though. If we sold that bargain at that price we’d hardly make a dime. Tell ’em it’s jus’ sold. Take out that yard battery before you make delivery. Put in that dumb cell. Christ, what they want for six bits? Roll up your sleeves—pitch in. This ain’t gonna last. If I had enough jalopies I’d retire in six months."
Hot sun on rusted metal. Oil on the ground. People are wandering in, bewildered, needing a car.
"Sure, we sold it. Guarantee? We guaranteed it to be an automobile. We didn’t guarantee to wet-nurse it. Now listen here, you—you bought a car, an’ now you’re squawkin’. I don’t give a damn if you don’t make payments. We ain’t got your paper. We turn that over to the finance company. They’ll get after you, not us. We don’t hold no paper. Yeah? Well, you jus’ get tough an’ I’ll call a cop. No, we did not switch the tires. Run ’im outa here, Joe."
These people have always been with us. Steinbeck and Thompson weren't describing a new character in American life. In his quote, Hunter Thompson was simply making note of the ascent of the back-alley grifters to the halls of power and positions of influence they now occupy. Of course, Thompson didn’t mean literal used car salesman, at least not exclusively. The "used car salesmen" of modernity take a thousand different forms. Maybe the most charitable term we could use for these people is The Middlemen. The Middlemen have infested every aspect of life in this country. Each could just as easily impart the wisdom of their craft in the same way that Steinbeck's salesmen did.
Taxes
Setting aside the questionable legitimacy of our income tax system in the first place, another layer of graft has been securely attached. Tax preparation services actively lobby to keep tax codes Byzantine and unapproachable to anyone but themselves.
"Wouldn’t want to get audited after all, better pay off the people who made that audit a possibility in the first place. Make sure it doesn’t happen to you..."
"What are you gonna do about it? The government isn’t interested in having the citizens watch their tax dollars more closely. You might start expecting something for your money. No, all the right people get their kickbacks, we've made sure of that. They’re all quite happy with our racket."
Cars
Want to purchase a non-used car? No problem. Just go down to your local Middleman and make sure he gets his cut first.
"You didn’t think you could just purchase a car from the people who built it did you? Of course not!"
"Dealership owners like us have been lobbyng for decades to make sure that you’ll have no choice but to go through us."
"It’s illegal for car manufacturers to sell directly to consumers because it would create unfair competition to us third party dealers. It’s just sound economics"
"We have a right to wedge ourselves in between you and the products you’d like to buy, don’t question it."
Realtors
Want to sell your house? Or maybe buy one?
"It's really not something you can easily do on your own."
"You see, our unions have bought the legislation necessary to make that very dangerous for you to do yourself."
"In fact, you’ll need to give us a very large cut of your sale while we do almost nothing."
"Oh, and It’ll be a straight percentage of the sale too, regardless of how much time or work we actually put in. 6%-ish sounds about right to us".
Creditors
Still want to buy a house or car?
"Well, let’s just check your credit score... "
"Yeah, around 1989 we decided that you needed to make use of our usurious credit offers consistently in order to qualify for any financial services."
"Hope you don’t ever get behind on those or we’ll charge obscene interest you'll almost certainly be unable to keep up with."
"In addition to that interest, we'll be sneaking random fees into your bill, just to keep you on your toes"
"Try to fight any of this and you'll damage that score we’ve arbitrarily assigned to you and held you accountable for."
ABC
All of this scam talk is getting depressing. I'll bet you could go for a drink.
"Well, we at the statehouse have decided that alcohol is a dangerous societal ill."
"That said, the state has got plenty to sell if you want it."
"You’ll have to buy it from us, though, since we’ve prohibited anyone else from selling it."
"Booze is the state’s racket, stay in your lane."
"You live in a state without Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC)? Don’t worry, we'll be sure to just slap an exorbitant tax on that private sale being made."
"Why? Because the government says it’s bad, so you should pay more."
"The state definitely has no conflicting public health interest here. We certainly aren’t taking advantage of addicts by extorting them to fill ouir own coffers or anything."
Doctors
Speaking of your health. How’s that going?
"Need to get something checked out? We at Insurance Inc. are happy to get between you and your doctor for an exorbitant fee."
“Between you and me though, you don’t want to see that doctor anyway, he’s not the same since he started hanging around with those pharma reps."
“They just shovel cash at him all day while he shovels pills at you. It’s a good deal for us, though, since we can just raise your premiums and never address your problems with anything but more drugs."
"What you'd call a self-feeding system"
“Everyone’s getting rich here!..…well, except for you. You’ll actually become very sick and poor.”
"You’re welcome."
Lottery
Looks like you really racked up some medical bills there. You might need to win the lottery to pay all of that off.
"We at the statehouse have again decided to look out for your best interests. Gambling addiction destroys lives and families, after all."
"That’s why we’ve created a monopoly on it."
"Gambling is an awful disease, and that's why only we can profit from it"
"Also, the only legal game we offer is one with impossible odds."
"You’ll probably play anyway. We know this because we’ve spent millions of your tax dollars to pay advertising and marketing experts to game your addiction for maximum profit."
"That education we were also responsible for providing you with didn’t cover basic math for some reason, but who needs math when you could be an overnight millionaire?"
"Oh, and if by some miracle you actually win, we’ll take more than half of it back immediately."
"You’re welcome."
Today
The prevailing attitude through all of this is that in the minds of an alarmingly large portion of our society, people exist for no other reason than to be swindled. That’s how we get to our current state of affairs. The mass looting of a people who don’t see the game being played all around them. A steady drumbeat of lies and fraud, building in intensity over decades to the point that it can no longer be ignored. The lockdowns brought this into stark relief for many who had remained either willfully or blissfully ignorant. No one can ignore it now.
Network
The 1976 film Network follows the story of a nightly news anchor named Howard Beale. Howard snaps one day and decides to start telling his audience the truth. He gives voice to problems we face even today.
"I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression. Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel's worth, banks are going bust, shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street and there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it. We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, and we sit watching our TVs while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that's the way it's supposed to be. We know things are bad - worse than bad. They're crazy. It's like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don't go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, 'Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won't say anything. Just leave us alone.' Well, I'm not gonna leave you alone. I want you to get mad! I don't want you to protest. I don't want you to riot - I don't want you to write to your congressman because I wouldn't know what to tell you to write. I don't know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street. All I know is that first you've got to get mad. You've got to say, 'I'm a HUMAN BEING, God damn it! My life has VALUE!' So I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell, 'I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!'"
-Howard Beale, Network
The network is initially horrified, but they quickly change course when they realize that the ratings for the broadcast went through the roof following Howard’s outburst. The media sharks have sniffed out something real and human. Something that resonated with people at a deep level. They immediately try to commodify this and sell it back to the people. Howard Beale will now star in The Howard Beale Show.
Howard uses his show to continue speaking the truth to the people. He rants and raves at the lies of the system and the crimes of the elites. Eventually, Howard gets dangerously close to truths that the elite would rather keep the public from understanding. He is summoned to speak with a man named Arthur Jensen, President of the conglomerate which owns the network. Jensen lays out the truth for Howard Beale.
(I’ve included the text below, but I recommend watching the clip to get the full gravity of the speech)
"You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won't have it! Is that clear? You think you've merely stopped a business deal. That is not the case! The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back! It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity! It is ecological balance! You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multinational dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, reichmarks, rins, rubles, pounds, and shekels. It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today! And YOU have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and YOU... WILL... ATONE! Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beale? You get up on your little twenty-one inch screen and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM, and ITT, and AT&T, and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today. What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state, Karl Marx? They get out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories, minimax solutions, and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments, just like we do. We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale. It has been since man crawled out of the slime. And our children will live, Mr. Beale, to see that... perfect world... in which there's no war or famine, oppression or brutality. One vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock. All necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused. And I have chosen you, Mr. Beale, to preach this evangel."
Howard is in a state of shock
"Why me?"
"Because you're on television, dummy. Sixty million people watch you every night of the week, Monday through Friday."
All has been made clear to Howard Beale.
"I have seen the face of God."
"You just might be right, Mr. Beale."
Answers
Howard Beale is a figure most of us can relate to. Angry at the corruption, cruelty, and graft that runs rampant in our society, Beale hungers for a more honest and human existence. Beale channelled that anger into fiery rants and developed a following of likeminded people who were also angry and sickened by the endless lies and theft.
Howard Beale did not have an answer to any of it, though. There was no plan, he states as much. This left Howard vulnerable to anyone charismatic or forceful enough to sell him an answer. Howard's lack of focus and blind anger deliver him over to the very system which drove him mad.
Hold Fast
I won't pretend to have answers for anyone. We've all seen for ourselves the giant web of lies and scams that our country and world has become. What's to be done? That question is for each of us to consider for ourselves.
In my opinion, it may be that one of the world's oldest sources of wisdom can help us here. In Paul's first letter to the Thessalonians, he offers simple but undeniably effective guidance in weighing the truth and value of the words spoken to us by our fellow man:
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good."
1 Thessalonians 5:21
It may actually be that simple. Prove or test anything the world tries to sell to you before believing in it too fully. If you are lucky enough to encounter something or someone that is truly good, hold on to it. Understand the value of that goodness and treat it accordingly.
We aren't going to turn the world around by ourselves. Maybe that isn't what we should be trying to do anyway. It may be that the world will start to improve when each of us can begin to more fully appreciate the people in our own lives, the people right in front of us, and begin to invest ourselves in the betterment of those relationships.
There is an answer to the question that drove Howard Beale insane. That answer will be different for every one of us. We will most likely find it if we can let go of our anger about the state of the world. We must understand that the thieves, liars and tyrants which inflict so much suffering and wrong on the world have always been with us, and always will. If we can make peace with that knowledge and keep laboring to create more goodness in our own lives and in the lives of others, we'll each have our answer.
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“I'm a human being, I exist. And if I speak one thought aloud that thought lives, even after I'm shovelled into my grave.”
Living in the New Age of Shoddy.
Hold fast, indeed, those good things. It’s so easy to be distracted by the chickenshit and larceny all around that we lose sight of good things right in front of us. The helping neighbor, the community spirit, the local customs, these are what sustained our forebears. They will sustain us if we put our shoulder to the wheel and do our bit. The flim-flam men, the feather merchants, the peddlers of bullshit may slither through a world without borders or context, but it’s good to be reminded we don’t have to.
Great word! Thank you. As an aside, you encouraged me some months back as I was in a slump on the degree I’ve been working on for the last four years. I graduated at the beginning of this month. There were lots of people prodding and pushing me to get it done, and you were one of them. Thank you. That is something I will hold onto.