The Cheapening

Bros: America’s New Jews, part VI.

I. II. III. IV. V.
***
Smell that?

Take a big whiff. Yeah. There it is. That.

Phewwwwwww….

That…you want to label that scent a “stench” but it doesn’t feel right. You hesitate to define this foulness further until more information flows in.

The thing is, while you tell yourself to hold off before deciding that a problem exists, your gut is shouting to you, screaming from inside at the reverse side of your face about how none of this is normal. Your five senses back up your gut.

“This ain’t right, yo.” They all bellow out, in unison.

So, your survival mode kicks in. You remember the direct order to not trust your gut, under any circumstances. You push signals from your instincts far from your conscious mind. You ignore the sight in front of you: a United States of America that seems to be transforming. Mutating. Changing.

Cheapening.

Yes, The Cheapening is upon us. The Cheapening is not yet visible to the naked eye, but make no mistake: The Cheapening surrounds.

It’s insidious. Ominous. Cheap.

The Cheapening. Because yachts.

Compounded interest is a helluva drug.

As The Cheapening crept in, the social class called the Petty Bourgeoisie transformed into the Petting Zoo Bourgeoisie. Steve Jobs Disease ravaged Big Tech and Big Finance. Carter Burke replaced Ellen Ripley as the hero in the Aliensremake. The Fyre Festival happened, offering a way to look at it all.

To use an another analogy, the Cheapening is the Iraq War. As the ramp-up began in late 2002, the USA decided to fight that conflict on the…wait for it…cheap. Shrink the size of the invasion force. Outsource as many contracts to the corporate buddies as possible. Carve up the Defense budget to share with the shareholders.

The Cheapening cheapens everything. No facet of society is safe. Pathological greed drives The Cheapening to cheapen every possible thing.

In those days before The Cheapening, the not-as-cheap days of old, a sheltered and overpaid white guy who strutted into the room and announced to all that he was an “alpha male” would have gotten laughed out of said room.

Why? Because such a quality needed to be demonstrated, not stated. Back in more substantive times, to call oneself such an attention-getting term would have come across as sounding…what’s the word?

Cheap.

To The Cheapening, nothing is sacred. Not even family.

Before The Cheapening destroyed the Middle Class, no way would I have ever, ever felt empowered to weigh in on how some upper-middle-class white people fall short as parents. I’m 53. Never been married. Never had children myself. I should not feel okay chiming in on this important subject. Such a personal undertaking, a single guy like me should step aside and let parents parent.

But…The Cheapening happened. As this bargain-basement brand of fascism takes hold, I see younger folks truck with Nazi-esque ideas. Only the young’uns come from stable environments with lots and lots of cool things that many of their peers did not receive because of worsening income inequality. Seeing some kids’ misguided hatred made me want to pen thoughts on where moms and dads in the social class with the most advantages may be falling short. (Posts: here, here, here.)

Again: this is a subject I shouldn’t be addressing. But Nazi-incel-toxic-fanbros seem intent on taking a quantity-not-quality approach to fatherhood. Which makes me want to write about re-instilling quality, for the future’s sake.

World, please tell me you see The Cheapening as the threat that it is. Work against my country. Because those in charge of my country want to work against you.

I. II. III. IV. V. Earlier posts:
• Predatory capitalists need martyrs, too.
• Are you in your twenties and wondering what’s up with your parents?
• A gigantic thank you, from me to Rush Limbaugh.
• A hypothetical experiment using two bros who overuse the word “successful.”
• World events since I released my first book.
• Open letter to a selfie of my drunk-ass self, taken on August 11th, 2001.

I write fiction and have two dark comedies available, Fearkiller (Volume 1) and Notes from Trillionaire Island: Fearkiller (Volume 2), as well as Revolutionizer Alpha, the first book in a sci-fi series. I also wrote a story about God. It was weird, but then I decided to make the story and its sequel free. And all of the sudden, it didn’t seem as weird. Writing about God is much less weird when you write about God without charging money for it. Here’s my professional site, my trade.