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Maybe I need to make myself a little more clear.

Back in the 1970’s when I was in the service I had some interesting experiences. But for this little screed all I will say is that I would be absent from civilian life for month’s at a time with no contact with news media or other entertainment facilities.

When I would come back to the U.S. I would see more and more tensions in the street and especially in the news. There was NO good news it was always something it seemed that was designed to get certain “elements” of the populace more and more inflamed and willing to do acts that were at the least anti-social and at the worst totally illegal, rape, murder, etc.

And the “normal” citizen who just wanted to live peacefully and have and raise their children in the same way they were raised began to look at the cities, especially the inner cities where there had once been neighborhoods in a different light.

Gone or at least going was the sense of community and knowing that your neighbors could be relied upon if you needed help. Knowing that Mr. Johnson could always help if your bike needed to be fixed. Or that Mrs. Smith’s house was a good place to go if you wanted a cookie or a drink if you needed one.

Gone or going was the knowledge that as a kid you could go outside to play all day long in the summer and your parents didn’t have to worry about your safety because there were always the eyes of your neighbors watching out for all of the kids and keeping an eye on the neighborhood.

In any case life for the citizenry was changing in uncomfortable ways, for instance there had always been gangs of teenagers, but for the most part they were large groups of friends doing things together, now the media was showing and highlighting a different kind of gang. Teenager and early twenties who were to be honest, quite vicious and to get respect in the gang you had to be just as vicious or even more over the top in savagery. The Bloods and Crips come to mind immediately.

Movies were being made that portrayed these types of gangs and what appeared in the movies was being copied across the nation by “disadvantaged youth”.

An interesting thing occurred then, Charles Bronson and the Death Wish movie came out. He was called an anti-hero by the critics and the media. But I saw a cooling down of the rhetoric by the media and the tensions they had been pushing and prodding began to diminish and after Ronald Reagan was elected president it was “Springtime in America” again.

Now looking back through the filter of time I believe that the media learned an interesting lesson on how to effect the social dynamics of a country through small but near constant repetition of a message they wanted to present.

And they’ve been doing it again since 2001 and they are about to see the fruits of those seeds they planted come forth and I believe that they just cannot wait for it.

And this time... I’m not sure that it will be stopped or even just be allowed to die down. There is a prize, a goal they have been working for and they are not going to stop until they win it.

And the Losers will be the people of the United States who used to be the majority and considered to be the “Normal” ones. The people who believe that work will be rewarded and that their families and children are precious and are worth every bit of sacrifice to raise their children to be upstanding “Normal” adults who will in their turn have families of their own...