What The Hell is Going On? A New Collection

This post is a first in the series of a new collection I am building around my previous book What the Hell is Going On? This new collection includes material from my book and new material that has been previously unreleased. Below is the original introduction with new material for the present.

2019 Forward

Our world is a seemingly crazy place. On the one hand, people’s lives are improving all around the world. More people have access to healthcare more than ever before, and we’ve seen improvements in drinking water, disease management, and life expectancy around the globe. The world of 2020 is much better than the world of just 20 years ago. However, this has come at quite a cost, especially if you live in a developed country. Wage stagnation and income inequality have taken their toll at hollowing out economies and personal futures. Things that people once took for granted, like well-paying employment and access to housing, have been wiped away. The heartland of the United States, the midlands of England, and other rural areas, once dominated by industry, have seen towns disappear as the jobs that supported them were moved overseas to foreign countries. The modern global economy is more integrated than ever before. This has led to a fascist backlash that has taken the form of Brexit, Donald Trump, and right-wing movements in continental Europe, in places like Austria and Italy.

Long-term trends in retirement plans, corporate debt, sovereign debt, and birth rates paint a troubling picture for the world economy moving forward. Capitalism has reached its zenith in this century, and it isn’t exactly the shining example of freedom and equality that many thinkers would have you believe. Capitalism has changed our world in numerous ways that we are only beginning to understand and experience. It has created outsized problems that most societies, even progressive European societies, cannot begin to solve with their strong social safety net.

Technology has changed our lives in ways that we could only imagine decades previously. While social networks have brought us closer, their lack of regulation and free-for-all nature have allowed lies, hate, and deception to spread quickly to billions of people. Social media has toppled governments, started genocide, and has affected elections throughout the world. That power is contained mainly in the smartphone. People can carry the internet, a wealth of information, and powerful communications, in their pockets, accessing them wherever they are located. More so than anything else, this constant connectivity amplifies whatever is blended through it.

This economic output has come at a cost. Ecologically, the planet has never been worse. There are worrying trends in temperature and climate changes that we do not fully understand and are often unprepared to manage. Agriculture and our relationship to the natural world are changing. A renaissance in energy has changed the landscape in North America and elsewhere. A relaxation of regulation on emissions promises more of the same.

However, while things might seem dire, there is great hope. There are specific and strategic things that nations can put in place to reverse these trends and create a container for success in the future. The only thing that is lacking is the political will to do so. The solutions are evident.

My goal in this collection is to take some of the signature essays from The Cameron Journal library and give the reader a picture of what is going on in our world. One of the biggest things I believe in is context. Events only matter when you understand what came before and what might be leading to in the future. Knowing where we now give us tremendous insight into the future, answers the critical question of why things are their way, and truly understands what is going on.

The world is confusing, and hopefully, this book will empower the reader to understand it better and navigate the news, world events, and their futures with the necessary information to stay informed and have the background to understand the news in context.

I have updated and revised the original essays in this book, and I’ve added some more information about different parts that would have been impractical for online reading. The essays are grouped by broad topic. Feel free to jump around in the book. You do not need to have read the previous work to understand any of the essays; they stand alone.

Have fun with this book, and if I have done my job, you will have a much better understanding of what the hell is going on.

2019 Introduction

If you are reading the daily news on your favorite device, the world might look quite dire. It seems like there are a variety of problems. As of this writing, we live in a world where the President of the United States is scandal-ridden, the economy seems to be doing well, but the wealth is not shared, and the environment seems like it is on the verge of collapse. There is a crisis in the insect population and the overall climate. There is a crisis within the economy, especially when the labor participation rate, those working, is so low. Right now, we have a tax system and an economic system that privileges the wealthy and those who control capital. The nation does not work for the general population who make, on average, $50,000 per year. We have a system that prioritizes those who make many multiples of that. It seems that there are innumerable problems everywhere, and policymakers are helpless to solve them.

This book was spawned out of a question someone asked me personally, “What the hell is going on?” Why is it the wealthiest, most powerful nation on earth cannot feed all of its citizens, keep up roads and bridges, educate its children, and keep the water and air clean?

I want to remind the reader that there is not a single problem discussed in this book that we cannot solve as we go through these problems. We don’t have to wait for technology to develop or hope something breaks through. We can solve these problems today. However, as a people, we lack the political will to elect people in power at the local and federal levels who are committed to authentically solving these problems. We lack the resolve to make tough decisions and develop radical solutions to move forward for the whole nation.

Context

In the two years of The Cameron Cowan Show, my focus was always on giving people context to what was going on. So much of our news seems to exist in a vacuum. It is hard to understand problems without fully knowing how we got here. Many people have no idea of history beyond their own lived experiences. However, when it comes to public policy, it can take years to develop, regardless of whether that situation is considered good or bad.

To understand what is going on and propose some intelligent solutions, we need to know how exactly these problems started in the first place and what the whole story is about any situation. This book aims to take some issues and give some context as to what is happening and give the reader a fuller picture of the world around us and truly understand what the hell is going on. The world seems bewildering, but I would argue it isn’t as baffling as the news might make it seem. We don’t have to throw up our hands and give up on these significant issues. What we need to do, as a society, is not to be afraid to take on substantial issues and begin the process of making the world a truly better place. America used to be the country that did big things. Americans have created powered flight, the assembly line, the cell phone, radio, television, modern media, and many other advancements. Even as a people, we put a man on the moon, launched a modern communications infrastructure, and even created a reusable space vehicle in the form of the Space Transportation System or the Space Shuttle. We did this with our powerful school system. We did this with the workers’ grit that painstakingly built these machines bolt by bolt. When Eisenhower could not quickly move from coast to coast, we made the interstate highway system. When we needed to transport things by ship, quickly and easily, we created containerization, a simple but revolutionary concept. There is nothing that we cannot do and nothing that we cannot fix. We can make a country that works for everyone, not just a few. However, it takes common sense solutions and an accurate understanding of our problems. We can open new opportunities for ourselves.

The world is changing. We now live in a multi-polar environment where there are a variety of powerful nations with influence. The world will not be the same as Pax Americana. However, we can take this opportunity to reset this country and chart a better path for the 21st Century than we’ve been on for 19 years. The 21st Century was filled with such promise as we entered it in 2000; however, much of the painted dream patina has worn off through war and strife. The 21st Century still offers hope. The whole world can and should do better. This book should fill you with knowledge and hope that you can have a better future. This book should empower you to approach your elected representatives with ease, speak knowledgeably on issues, and help push for change in your community. Over and over again throughout the United States. History, the efforts of a group of determined people, can create extraordinary change.

Women’s suffrage, civil rights, abolition, and many more social problems were solved through people’s work, just like the people reading these pages. This should be a guide to you and should activate you, empowered with knowledge, to begin the changes that are needed in this country.

Do not be discouraged by the problems that we face. The United States did not create a continental nation by being afraid to walk across deserts or homestead raw land. Those influential people faced challenges and built farms, railroads, and a civilization. It was not always done in the right way, especially considering the Native populations that suffered a terrible genocide due to this settlement. However, people overcame adverse circumstances to create the nation we live in. It’s time that we do the same. Our new manifest destiny is to manifest a new nation for ourselves that feeds everyone, educates everyone, and works for everyone and not just a few.

2025 Introduction

The world has certainly changed since this book first arrived in 2019—the original essays in this book date back to 2014. The world of the pre-pandemic almost seems like a foreign place now—a world without mask requirements, vaccine boosters, and a million more lives. Since then, we’ve lived through some tough days. I wanted to issue a new edition of this book with new material because I had some new ideas for things, I did not cover the first time. I was also able to make the book more functional. I aim to ensure that this book remains a handbook to the world around us. 

The march of capitalism has continued since I first penned essays on capitalism in 2014. Although wages have grown, they remain stubbornly below where they should be based on productivity growth and standard of living. The price of everything has skyrocketed since the pandemic, too. The price of housing is just now reaching a place where people can no longer afford a house. Gas prices are up, and groceries are ever higher. Americans are being squeezed by lackluster wages on one side and rising costs on the other side. This aspect of late-stage capitalism makes everything more complicated.

What’s more, these trends aren’t likely to abate anytime soon. Corporate America has indeed remained under the scrutiny I wrote about back then. However, little progress has been made regarding the fundamental economic structures within our society. Given the current course of our economics, we may soon not have a choice in this matter. If our monetary system is unsustainable, then it will have to change. This can be through peaceful and managed means or means far more horrifying. 

It is sad to say that much of what I wrote about in Death of the White, Christian, Heteronormative Narrative has come to pass. The situation with the missing men from the workforce has grown far worse. Meanwhile, new problems like Christian nationalism, Domestic Terrorism, and economic shifts have come to the fore of the national discussion. 

Although I fully stand by my essay on climate change, the situation with the climate and the new weather patterns has undoubtedly come a long way in the past eight years. Investors are taking companies on task with their environmental policies and pushing for companies to clean up their operations and find ways to do things more sustainably. This is undoubtedly progress. Younger people joke about how the entire planet is burning and that the climate will collapse before their old age. I don’t think that is a precisely accurate perspective on the situation, but the narrative around the environment can certainly cause that feeling. Fortunately, science is a bit more circumspect about the subject. The sad thing is that climate change is an overarching shadow behind the more pressing issues of our times. 

January 6, 2021, was a first in American history. We had always had a peaceful transfer of power. We were one of the few countries to enjoy that. However, thanks to the misinformation, disinformation, and mal-information of the Trump administration, Trump supporters attempted to seize the US Capital. Washington, D.C., has never been the same since. America’s national buildings were open to the public, and people could come and go as they pleased. It was a symbol of the nature of government toward the people. This openness has been replaced with security barriers and regular police. The National Guard had to retake its position on January 6. 

What do we do in these times? It can be easy to get exhausted in this time of constant crisis. Since the pandemic, mental health has become something nearly everyone is facing. The United States and the world seem confronted by problems within and without. As of this writing in March 2022, Russia’s devastating invasion of Ukraine continues. Ukraine is taking back some land, but Russia is not yet ready to withdraw from the fight. Only time will tell if the conflict will be peacefully resolved or if it will expand into a wider war. 

In my 36 years of life, I have lived through Pax Americana, the rise of transnational terrorism on American shores, a financial crisis, and a pandemic. Now, we must live through the potentiality of World War Three. It is difficult to say what people should do or how to confront these times. The best thing we can do is be aware of the world. The second-best thing we can do is look for small opportunities to make life better for others. This can involve voting for policies that improve American life. This can also include getting active in the community through your professional life or as a volunteer. There is little we can do individually, but as a collective, we are powerful. The power of the collective is only as strong as the individuals who are a part of it. It is the individuals who lend their personal power to the greater whole. In our ways, we each have to do what we can to improve many people’s lives.