Political Ramifications of Closed Temporal Loop Engineering

 

 The subject of time travel has been beat to death in every conceivable media format, including my humble but insightful and wise outlet. But after some deep, pointless thought, I feel the need to gather up the bones of this tired subject one more time and grind them to dust.

The reason for this foray began a couple of weeks ago while watching a documentary on wormholes. Which are theoretical connections between two distant point in space or time. The better description would be a blackhole that just happens to have an exit instead of dead end singularity crushing all in falling matter to an infinitely small point. Going massively simplistic but those wormholes are the only slightly feasible avenues to go backwards in time. Time machines, whether they be some H.G Wells Victorian-era looking device or a heavily modified DeLorean have no basis in reality.

A second impetus for doing another foray into temporal meandering had to do with a You Tube video I watched describing different points in history and what it would taken for a radical change in how those events unfolded. Yes, there were historical events that could have unfolded differently, radically changing the world. But these pivot points, according to the documentary, are quite rare.

For example armchair historians like me often speculate on what it would have taken to prevent the fall of the Roman Empire in the west. The problem being Rome didn't fall for just one easy reason. There were numerous interlocking factors that weakened Roman society to the point nothing could save it. Worse yet, even with the relatively minor factors some were so ingrained in the daily management of that civilization the average Roman couldn't imagine a different way of living. Off the top of my head the best example on that one would be the Emperor picking a successor. There was no established procedure, which often lead to bitter civil wars and enough palace intrigue to destroy the fabric of civil society. This says nothing about a foolish emperor picking a total incompetent or delusional psychopath to take his place.

Of course one of the possible historical points where events could have turned out differently was the American Civil War. Early in the conflict there were several times the Confederacy could have walked away with an easy victory. But as the war dragged on, and Union leadership improved the fate of the Confederate States became consistently darker.

My position is that the majority of historical events are like that or the fall of Rome. That there were just far too many combined factors that any one time traveling explorer could control. This includes such events like the outcome of the American Revolution and the rise of Hitler in Germany.

For the American Revolution, while Britain was the most powerful nation in the world at that time, the colonies were very far away making a set piece war quite difficult. While George Washington might have been defeated fighting the Brits by conventional means, a determined asymmetrical campaign would have eventually made the conflict too costly.

As for Germany, Hitler just didn't appear out of nowhere taking a wealthy and sophisticated nation down an evil path. Hitler's ideas and beliefs were common throughout Germany for centuries, he just used the circumstances of that time to his advantage to gain power. Someone going back in time and doing a John Connor on him would have probably lead to just another tyrant appearing in his place.

Understand that while Hitler had a talent controlling large numbers of people, his decision making skills when it came to war and logistics became increasingly insane as the Second World War raged. A less insane but more coherent Nazi leader might have been far more difficult for the Allies to defeat. In other words, while he plunged the world into chaos killing millions, someone else might have been far worse.

The same goes for our current real-life situation here in America. The Orange Buffoon is the result of decades of decline in the Republican Party. Just removing him will do nothing to correct the neared failed state condition of the United States Government. In fact, you can easily make a case that our national trajectory to our current situation began with the election of Richard Nixon to president back in 1968.

During that time we have a hopelessly intransigent Lyndon Johnson hellbent on victory in Vietnam. As support for the war here in the States goes sideways, LBJ is forced to abandon any plans for reelection. This sets up the big three of Eugene McCarthy, Hubert Humphrey, and Robert Kennedy pursuing the nomination in his place. McCarthy's campaign falls apart while RFK is assassinated leaving a damaged Vice President Humphrey to take the nomination after a disastrous party convention.

So with a little help from George Wallace, Tricky Dick wins big and becomes president of the United States. This sends all those peace, free love, and Age of Aquarius types into the great cosmic abyss to later evolve into the “Me Generation” of the 70s and dirty stinking yuppies of the 80s.

Before that a paranoid Tricky Dick sends his henchmen to the Watergate Hotel to do a little breaking and entering. This leads to Tricky Dick having to resign with Ford becoming POTUS and picking up the disillusioned pieces of an angry and disgruntled population.

President Ford, a decent man, loses the 1976 presidential election because the country is still a mess. Jimmy Carter, and exceptionally good man, becomes president but is metaphorically run over by circumstance setting the stage for Reagan.

Ronny Raygun has the stupid good luck to be around as communism falls apart leading to First Bush coming after him. A distracted and disconnected First Bush is replaced by Slick Willy who while an able administrator can't keep is overactive dick in his pants. This brings Second Bush up to bat who is around when the 9/11 attacks scare and piss off the country.

Feeling the need to crusade and secure the blessings of big oil, Second Bush goes into Iraq ultimately bringing President Barrack Obama to the scene. Obama not only has clean up the Iraq mess, he has to manage an economic Chernobyl so the Great Recession doesn't become the Second Great Depression. Oh yeah, during this time the Republicans have slipped into the Twilight Zone of far right conspiracies and totally delusional ideas of moral and fiscal superiority.

Here we enter the Age of the Orange Buffoon in 2016 as all those descendants of the Age of Aquarius just can't make themselves vote for what they see as the “lesser of two evils.” I could drone on about that fucked up mindset and comment about how even if the “lesser evil” bullshit is true letting the greater evil win is approaching suicidal nihilism. But instead all I'll write that the Orange Buffoon has spent his time in office busily and productively dismantling American democracy.

Getting back to the time travel/changing history gimmick, I believe all this could have been avoided with one “small” change in to past events. That change is preventing the assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy.

I hold that if RFK could have lived to win the nomination he could gave held together the blue collar Democrat types and the wacky peaceniks. George Wallace would still try to play the spoiler but the Kennedy legacy was exceptional powerful back then and might have been enough to send Tricky Dick to defeat and back home to California.

RFK's charisma and leadership skills might have been enough to forge an entirely different path for the country. His presidency could have cemented the reforms that began with his brother and were furthered by LBJ. It goes without saying that RFK would have almost certainly pulled us out of Vietnam quicker that Nixon.

There are times I feel the 1960s was the make or break era for the United States. In many ways America was at the pinnacle of its power and influence. Even with its systemic injustices our country, back then strove to do better, to live up to the principles set forth by every previous generation.

Don't get me wrong, we've never been saints and in fact we as a people are guilty of some hideous crimes. But I believe there was an overall desire to do better, to improve what we were given.

Now we seem to have not only given up but even abandoned the lip service we gave to our most cherish principles and ideals. We're a country now dedicated to increasing efficiency, maintaining an image, making greater profits, and worshiping the god of convenience. That if we can save a couple of bucks on a new coat we'll ignore that someone in China was forced into near slavery working in a factory with thousands of others in similar conditions.

The pinnacle of this mindset is of course the Orange Buffoon. To the small minded he is the epitome of the new American Dream. The Orange Buffoon is all image without a milligram of true substance. He is adept at playing angles and always ready to manipulate people for his benefit. But mainly the Orange Buffoon is exceptional good at hating and getting others to hate those that can't service him.

Even though the Orange Buffoon is much like Hitler in that he is the result of centuries of ignorance and unfounded arrogance, I believe he could have been avoided. That one small change in events could have pushed the world on an entirely different timeline. Of course, that different timeline would not have been utopia, it would certainly have its own flaws, disasters and persistent dangers. And yes, there would always be the chance that changing our history would lead to some darker event like nuclear war.

But right now if a wormhole opened up allowing me to save RFK, I would jump through and make sure he did not walk through that damn kitchen. It would be worth the risk to play god and alter our current dystopian present.