[Kat]
Is anyone else out there a "Jericho" fan?
When I first saw this "new" flag of the "Allied States of America", I thought, "WTF?" And, for the last few episodes, every time they show it, every time they take down the flag of the United States and put up the new flag, I can't help but have a feeling of queasy unease.
I guess that's the first question I would ask if we would have to reconstitute ourselves, would we choose a new flag? The Iraqis have tried to do it twice without much success.
I've been watching Jericho since the beginning. I don't know what other people think about it, but I thought it was an interesting exercise in what would happen if something happened to the central government in Washington DC. That thought exercise has interested me since a few months after the attacks on 9/11.
I have to say, while I realized what the targets were (finance, defense, government), it took me a while to really understand that, if they could have, if the final attack on the capitol had not been thwarted over a Pennsylvania field, they could have placed the United States in a seriously weakened political and economic position.
I played a game with myself about what the political fallout would have been. Would the states seek more power in the vacuum? Would we "balkanize" or return to some "Articles of Confederation"? Or, would we retain our constitutional concepts of government, adhering to those original principles until such a time as the central government could be re-organized? Would we accept, without question, the order of succession? Even it it meant, as in the Battle Star Galactic, the Secretary of Education? Would we organize immediately for new elections for congress?
Would our military command be capable of re-organizing for defense? Would we draw back forces to defend the "homeland" more closely? Or, would we, as we have done, take the fight to the enemy wherever he was? If we felt the need to deploy the National Guard across the country to maintain order or give assistance on a large scale, how long would we allow any form of martial law to be maintained? Would state governments, a new central government or any political entities be willing to give up any temporary power they might gain?
Who would come to our military and economic aid? Would our NATO allies ban together to defend us? Be willing to go the distance for a nation that had lost some of its formal programs? Who (international states) would seek to take advantage of our potentially confused and weakened state? Would it result in internal revolution or external world war?
As in Jericho, what would day to day life be like in neighborhoods, small towns and cities? Would people band together to form ad hoc security, governance and general assistance? Or, having accepted that most towns have put together an "emergency response" system, would we sit back and expect someone to organize for us, provide for us, food, energy, health and security?
One thing that I recognize is that I don't live in Jericho. Jericho is a small town with people who still live a somewhat "Jacksonian" life of independence and self-reliance. The town of Jericho, with neighboring towns being at least twelve or more miles away, is somewhat insulated from outsiders forming a bit of a buffer. Though, the end of last season certainly showed what could happen if communities would have to fight for or share limited resources.
I live in a suburb, near the city. Communities are much more closely situated, though the people are not so close personally. How much more intense would such a scenario be under those geographic and demographic pressures? What would internal migration look like? Would people migrate to cities where they knew other people were and believed had more supplies? Would others migrate out to escape the demographic pressures?
How would we view our personal assets? Would we see them as mementos? Or as potential currency in an economy that might resort to old style half-currency/half bartering?
What would our nation look like?
In Jericho's recent episode, those who sought political power joined with corporate power entities supported by private security companies to take and consolidate power. They used their power to strip local merchants of their freedom to trade, attempted to limit availability of products, including medicine, in order to control the population. They also attempted to use their "emergency powers" to take out any rivals or threats to their power through extra-judicial killings and imprisonment.
A small group of people got together in the local tavern and began to discuss the costs and benefits of Revolution. They talked about "taxation without representation" and the rights of free people. When someone asked what they were talking about doing, one woman spoke up and said, "Boston Tea Party."
Then the program went "Boston Massacre" with the killing of a deaf girl in her own house, along with her unarmed sister-in-law, by the very same "government" security forces who came into the house without legal writ or reason, violating privacy of the citizen and the legal protections against search and seizure.
Some might see some of the overtones of leftist and libertarian fantasies of a black ops, internal government grab for power shared by corporations and the recently minted "evils" of private security companies from Iraq, as a total detractor against the over all story. Then again, they portray the "citizen soldiers" of the professional army as honorable and still believing in serving and defending the people and the constitutional concepts.
It does portray the average citizen as being re-invigorated to our original ideas.
It is interesting that the town is organizing in a way that resembles our founding. Loyalists and Rebels.
The Revolution Begins
I can't wait for them to tear that "new" flag of the "Allied States of America" down.
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