Ignorance was bliss - the early 1990s


Posted On: Saturday - February 12th 2022 8:16PM MST
In Topics:   Music  US Police State  History  US Feral Government



Now, I can't remember what got me thinking about that time and the reason to write this post. It was, like, a week ago. (I remember people didn't like, use "like" like that, so much, except for the latter purpose, if nothing else...)

Unless one is of the ctrl-left and/or a dedicated Communist from the get go, or lived in a bad time and place in history, he usually doesn't think of periods of his life based on what was going on politically. I could say that about my time in the early 1990s, right at 30 years ago. It's not that I wasn't already well aware of the politics of this country, thanks to lots of input from my Dad, but, I didn't obsess about it, much less have a blog (not an easy accomplishment in 1992!)

I was having fun then, and one could argue that it was my personal life that makes me remember this as still a pretty decent time to live here. However, I don't think it was that. I was struggling with money for some of that time, and I was struggling with other stuff for much of it too. What it was too, though, is that the early 1990s were a time before I personally realized that America was consistently headed in the wrong direction. This was before 3 big problems came to the forefront of my mind at least. I was young then, but even for most Americans, these 3 were not big issues yet at that time for the same reasons they weren't for me. They hadn't really metastasized, or we were all just not as aware, as say, a younger Peter Brimelow.

That name of course leads me to the issue that is most existential to American, the immigration invasion. Though the illegal Hispanic immigration had been big already - see 1986 Illegal Amnesty - Ronald Reagan's regrets - and especially right then during Senor Bush's* BIGGER amnesty, and it'd been over 25 years already since the Hart/Cellar 1965 immigration act, the numbers hadn't accumulated so much where I lived, anyway. You did see too many Mexicans around, and, yes, I was tired of seeing that. There were some big contingents of Chinese grad students and a few •Indians, but these, and other friends of mine at the time, were just a select very decent and smart people, who had not come over in massive numbers. Only one decade before this period, anyone from Mainland China was a rarity to be noted and met by the local dignitaries. No, I was nowhere near NY City.

I just didn't see what was coming. It was not, in fact, till over a decade later, that my Dad got through to me on the issue of the massive immigration problem.

Then, there was the continual increase in Totalitarianism. As I wrote in Part 2 of When did this country get out of control?, for me, it wasn't until the middle of the 1990s that I started to see that every question of freedom vs. authoritarianism seemed to go in the latter direction. In the early 1990s, all it had been for me was experiencing the Feral Gov't's blackmail of the States regarding the 55 mph speed limit and, later, the same with the 21 age limit for alcohol sales. There were still people, even in the US Congress of all places, that argued about the Constitutionality of proposed laws.

The US Gov't Waco, Texas murders were perpetrated in 1993, which gave us a preview of things to come. In my State, it was only by the middle of that decade that everyone was pretty much in agreement - yes, you can just stop cars at checkpoints, because, drunk driving. No violation of any Constitutional Amendment IV was even imagined, because who read that stuff anymore? Then, 9/11 happened, and things got much worse. By 2005, the SCROTUS said Kelo v New London "yeah, Big Biz can just go appropriating property, but the government's gotta help arrange it."**

In the early 1990s, I might have had a few pet peeves about government overreach, but I didn't see the big rise in Totalitarianism coming yet. Who did? (Well, Lew Rockwell probably, and Vin Suprynowitz - see "Papiere bitte!" - "Your papers, please!" and memories of Mr. Vin Suprynowicz*** - at least).

Then there was our country's foreign policy. The Cold War had just ended. We'd won. The money to be saved by not having to guard most of the free world ought to have added up to a lot. We had built up goodwill all around the world. What could go wrong?

Most Americans living in 1992 would have experienced that usually out-of-mind, but still existent, threat that the Cold War could one day go hot at the nuclear level for their whole lives until a couple of years back. Let's see, you'd have to have been born before 1942 or so to have some memory of a time before the looming USSR Cold War nuclear threat was around. So, that'd be anyone 50 or under knowing of nothing else bigger, foreign policy-wise, until just about then, 30 years back.

I've left off the internal Commie infiltration we see blossoming now with the Cultural Revolution in progress, the hard-left D-squad, and so on, because that is something that I wouldn't have even thought of in the early 1990s.

Of these 3 now-huge problems with our country, likely in the order I wrote about them in urgency (most to least), there wasn't nearly so much to worry about in 1990, or so it looked. Why would I, or my fellow Americans, feel a need to pay close attention to it? We all have a life to live. We know we will be mostly wasting time trying to solve the country's problems ourselves, and well, those politicians will hopefully not get too far off the rails.

After all, I did spend some time helping in the '92 Presidential election, and, of all things, it was a Democrat (his name was Paul Tsongas). Then, when Slick Willy pulled ahead, I supported Ross Perot for a while. You vote, you watch some Rush Limbaugh on the TV with a friend, you help out occasionally, you subscribe to a political magazine or two****, and you feel good enough about that. After all, it's just politics, not life.

Ignorance is bliss, they say. It's nice to not have to pay attention to it all. That's where I was in the early 1990s, politically. I guess most Americans were the same then and well before then. Most Americans seem to have been in blissful ignorance long since then too.

It's a great country when the politics interfere so little in life and don't seem to be any long-term threat. That was 1992. That's not 2022. How many Americans have come out of this blissful ignorance? Even if you still don't care about politics, politics really cares about you now. Sure, ignorance is bliss ...till it ain't.

Of course, some early '90s music is in order here, and on another venue, Mr. Alarmist embedded a favorite group of mine, The B-52's with a song from the '80s, but I can still use Kate Pierson here. This one is REM's Shiny Happy People from their1991 album Out of Time with Kate complementing Michael Stipe on vocals. I know I've featured this one before. What a shiny, happy time.



Yes, that Kate Pierson was something else! Wiki says REM (with Kate Pierson) performed this song on Saturday Night Live on April 13th of that year. I can find clips of rehearsals on youtube, but not of the show itself.


* It was a snippet of that guy's 30 seconds or so speaking in Spanish at some event in 1988 that turned me off of ever thinking of voting for him.

** This case got Peak Stupidity comparing China favorably to America on the issue of Eminent Domain in the post Fireworks from China.

*** First time I got his name right without copy/paste, and the other 2 of our posts in this series are here and here.

**** Yes, I shamefully admit it was National Review for about 5 years. Before that, it had been The American Spectator.

Comments:
Adam Smith
Tuesday - February 15th 2022 10:44AM MST
PS: Good afternoon, Achmed,

Quite a few radio tunes in the list.
I forgot about "Allison Road", thanks.

Also, Good ear there.
Name's unusual guitar tuning, D-A-E-A-E-E (both the top strings are high E strings) gives it that bit like a 12 string sound.

☮
Moderator
Monday - February 14th 2022 8:25PM MST
PS; Mr. Corrupt, I do remember that "Waco II" biker bar story, but I never got the full scoop. Thanks for that link. I may go for a paper copy.

Adam, I like the Goo Goo Dolls, but that "Name" especially, even though it was played like hell back then, is my favorite. It sounds like a 12 string guitar or different tuning or something. Great stuff. Of course I like that Rush. I may have forgotten those 2 songs for a while ... Joe Satriani reminds me of another instrumentalist guitar player, Eric Johnson, from that era, I think.

Regarding the Gin Blossoms, I have that album on CD and like every song on it. Because "Hey, Jealousy" was played so much then, my favorite is "Allison Road" which I put on this site a long time ago. That band played locally long past their time, maybe 8 years or so ago. It sounded pretty good still. Thanks for the playlist.
Al Corrupt
Monday - February 14th 2022 7:57PM MST
PS

I suggest you all check out Waco Pt. 2, as detailed in https://www.amazon.com/Twin-Peaks-Ambush-American-Outlaws-ebook/dp/B01FV1CZRI/ref=sr_1_1?crid=NXXG8EG8E3B1&keywords=Twin+peaks+ambush&qid=1644893753&sprefix=twin+peaks+ambush%2Caps%2C133&sr=8-1

Mr. Anon
Sunday - February 13th 2022 5:22PM MST
PS

@Moderator

I'll have to check out that book on Waco you mentioned. Thanks.
Moderator
Sunday - February 13th 2022 7:57AM MST
PS: Anti-Gnostic, maybe that can come under Communist infiltration - the feminism rot that is the reason White people greatly slowed down having children. However, the demographic suicide (I got about 3 posts on this - under what topic key is the question ...) could be considered yet another major problem.

OK, aside from the Globalism, the Feminism, the Communism, the rotting infrastructure ... WHAT HAVE THE LEFTISTS EVER DONE FOR US?!!
Moderator
Sunday - February 13th 2022 7:54AM MST
PS: Right, Mr. Blanc. The Global financial stupidity, or just Globalism in general, is a 4th big problem that I'd meant to include. The post got long enough, but I should have inserted that for completeness.

Maybe I'll stick that in, after all. Thanks. I agree completely.
Moderator
Sunday - February 13th 2022 7:52AM MST
PS: Mr. Anon, regarding the D-squad, other than my support for Mr. Tsonga, who understood the BS about a "service economy", I never had a D candidate I could vote for, nationally. In '92, with that Spanish-speaking bit, and not to mention tax increases, I was done with Bush, but there were other choices, as we both just mentioned.

I saw "Rules of Engagement" 15 years ago or so, and about 12 years ago I met Vin Suprynowitz in person in Las Vegas. I'd read his "Send in the Waco Killers" book already, and he gave me a signed copy of his "Ballad of Carl Drega".
Moderator
Sunday - February 13th 2022 7:48AM MST
PS: Adam, thanks for the link to the SNL gig and for the other music.

"Imagine if Ross Perot was president from 1993 to 2000...
And Ron Paul from 2008 to 2016..."

I'd have been OK with Pat Buchanan too, but he or Ross Perot would have needed some solid advice and education from Dr. Paul to stave off the financial stupidity - still well stoppable by 2000.
Anti-Gnostic
Sunday - February 13th 2022 6:56AM MST
PS I call the 1980s the Last White Decade. That energy was still there through the early 90s.

Then all the white people got old or stopped having kids.
Adam Smith
Sunday - February 13th 2022 2:13AM MST
PS: John Myung is one of the best bass players ever...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0bdaMa76I0

Just sayin'...

☮
Adam Smith
Sunday - February 13th 2022 1:50AM MST
PS: Not the early 90's, but still a better time and place...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tI-5uv4wryI

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Adam Smith
Sunday - February 13th 2022 1:31AM MST
PS: Me again...

Early 90's playlist...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdHhfhLBZLw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZurMSmPjYhY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUSpBAmSMb8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPNDPrIQyFM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJZX10baRKI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQOBUrRaPU0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ah5gAkna3jI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JqEL9SX-ps
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYtiDCXLAcQ

Not the 90's...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxRfbJvjsN8

Also not the 90's...
R.I.P. Paul Balon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z49t7c5cRmk

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MBlanc46
Saturday - February 12th 2022 11:07PM MST
PS I started to get a sense that something was wrong regarding Spanish-speakers in the US during the late 1970s, but I didn’t realize that it was going to be a catastrophe until the early 2000s. But, in addition to mass immigration, there is the other side to globalization: export of every job that can be exported to low-wage countries. That’s been going on since “Made in Japan” as far back as the 1950s, and really taking off in the 1970s. But it was ramped up by orders of magnitude with the big push for “Free Trade” in the 1980s. As a result, the US has lost a large part of it’s manufacturing capacity, both physical plant and human capital. That would take generations to recover in the best of circumstances; the circumstances that the US will face in the coming years will be far from the best.
Mr. Anon
Saturday - February 12th 2022 10:44PM MST
PS

"After all, I did spend some time helping in the '92 Presidential election, and, of all things, it was a Democrat (his name was Paul Tsongas). Then, when Slick Willy pulled ahead, I supported Ross Perot for a while."

I followed much the same political trajectory. I was an early Tsongas supporter in 92', then thought about voting for Bob Kerry, then ultimately voted for Perot (I never liked Clinton - I had him pegged as a sleezebag right from the start). I think I may have voted for a Democrat or two for local offices that year, but it was the last year I ever voted "D". Not that "R" is really much better.

And there has been speculation that Perot's campaign was a put-up job by the Democrats, to split the Republican vote.

I still believed in the system back then, and mostly believed the BS that we were told about it. Waco was clearly an overreach by the Feds, but I thought it was down to arrogance and negligence.

However now, I am quite open to the possibility (probability really) that the Feds more or less just murdered all those people (see the documentary "Waco: Rules of Engagement"). And I think it quite likely that Oklahoma City was a fed-op false-flag (see some of James Corbett's docos on the subject). The original draft of the Patriot Act was to have been enacted in 1995.

I agree that America in the 90s - though the rot was starting to show - still mostly seemed like America back then. It was a good time to be alive. Even after 9/11 I still had some hope for this country. Long about 2005 or 2006 I realized that I was living in a dying Empire and that it was only going to get worse, not better. Nothing since has dissuaded me of that.
Adam Smith
Saturday - February 12th 2022 9:45PM MST
PS: Good evening, Achmed,

When I saw your title for this post, I immediately thought of the “Shiny Happy People” song...
(Happy to see that you had it embedded...)

Here's a link to their SNL gig...

R.E.M. April 13th 1991...
(You'll find “Shiny Happy People” at 5:17)

https://vimeo.com/365329266

It was a much happier time (better time to be an American) then...
(not just 'cause I was so much younger, even though I was...)

Desert Storm, Ruby Ridge, Waco, The bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah building, The bombing of Kosovo and of course the events of September 11th, 2001, all proved to be very detrimental for the freedom and economic security of middle and working class America, but the population/immigration bomb has helped change American society in some radical ways...

https://www.google.com/search?q=u.s.+population+1990

80 million immigrants have changed America, unfortunately, not for the better...

Imagine if Ross Perot was president from 1993 to 2000...
And Ron Paul from 2008 to 2016...

With someone just decent and fiscally reasonable (better yet, responsible) in between...

America could be such a different, better, maybe even debt free, place...

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