Two Views on Post Apocalyptic America: Revolution and Jericho

Jericho and Revolution present radically different visions of HOW America reaches the post-apocalyptic state. They also present different stages of the post-apocalyptic civilization. Arguably, Jericho represents an earlier stage of what post-apocalyptic society will look like, and Revolution looks at post-Apocalyptic society after it has had some time to evolve and develop. Part of this arguably can be explained by the lack of electricity in Revolution's post-apocalyptic society. However, one can argue that the same lack of society will eventually occur in the post-Apocalyptic society of Jericho due to the massive damage wrought by electromagnetic pulses from the 20 nuclear blasts that destroyed American civilization.

There are two main differences between the show's post-apocalyptic civilizations however. The first is that in Jericho, the apocalypse is confined to North America, with the rest of the world unaffected and willing to air drop aid supplies to help survivors. In the world of Revolution, the entire world has been plunged back into the 19th century due the nature of HOW electricity was lost - a new weapons technology that went wrong. The second difference is in how the United States is carved into lesser nations. In both television shows, Texas is an Independent Republic, which is entirely realistic in today's society - it has a wealth of natural resources, a well-armed populace, and a history of independence. However, in Jericho, there are only two other nations: Eastern U.S. governed from Columbus, Ohio, and Western United States governed from Cheyenne, Wyoming and responsible for the apocalypse. In Revolution, the U.S. devolves into a number of other polities. These include the Georgia Republic, which encompasses all of the old Confederacy not absorbed by Texas, the California Republic across the Rocky Mountains, the Plains Nation, which the show implies is comprised primarily of reconstituted and growing Native American tribes, and the Monroe Republic, which encompasses all of New England, the Eastern Coast down to Maryland, and all the states bordering the Great Lakes West to Wisconsin.

In both shows Texas "saves" the other nations from being taken over through hostile action. In Jericho, the hostile action is an impending/ongoing war between the Cheyenne Government and the Columbus government. This war, and the nuclear detonations that destroyed over 20 American cities were orchestrated by an analyst for a "Blackwater/Xe" type private security company. He has now become President of the Cheyenne government and is using the remnants of the U.S. military under his command to wage war against the Columbus government. In the final episode of the show, Texas goes to War against Cheyenne, tipping the balance of power, once they receive proof that Cheyenne was behind the nuclear terrorist attacks.

In Revolution, Texas helps save the other nations from being conquered by the "Patriots," remnants of the U.S. government which fled to, or already were on, the U.S. Navy's Guantanamo military base in Cuba. They plan to take over through manufacturing crises, which they then arrive to "solve," thus earning good will. Their second step is to incorporate themselves into strategic towns, and indoctrinate young people through brainwashing techniques to join their army or become sleeper agents. Two of these agents try to assassinate the President of Texas, which is what bring Texas into a war against the Patriots which also involves the Georgia and Monroe Republics.

Jericho and the Yankee-Cowboy War

I recently rewatched Jericho, and had a thought related to a previous post.

In this post, I discussed the Yankee-Cowboy War as a paradigm for the shift of power from he Eastern Establishment based in Chicago, New York, Boston, and the industrial states (Yankees) to the West and Southwest (Cowboys) with its oil, natural resources and technology based sources of economic power.

Jericho unconsciously (or consciously?) mimics this division of elite economic power by dividing the surviving United States into Cowboy-dominated, Cheyenne, Wyoming-centered Western-United States, Cowboy-dominated Texas, and Yankee-dominated, Columbus-centered Eastern United States. Interestingly, it is the Cheyenne-based Cowboys who are the "bad guys," and the Texas-based Cowboys and Columbus-based Yankees who are the good guys. It's interesting to think that Texas-Cowboys are on the good side because Texas wealth and power is based as much on technology and market trading as it is on natural resources. Meanwhile, almost all of the Cheyenne-based wealth and power comes from natural resources only. This would play well into the growing hostility against fossil fuels in our society...

Jericho & The False Flag Meme

I was watching the Jericho series finale again today (TiVo Rocks!) and realized that the "9/11 Truth Movement" has succeeded in firmly planing the "False Flag" meme in our popular culture. False Flag refers to covert intelligence/military operations undertaken by a government and designed to appear as if they were conducted by another government or outside group. Until the last decade or so many historians considered the explosion of the USS Maine in Cuba a false flag operation engineered by the McKinley Administration to justify war with Spain to take over/liberate Cuba (in the past decade or so additional research has shown that the Maine's boiler probably exploded on its own accord, but there is no evidence of Spanish of American sabotage).

In Jericho, the false flag operation is conducted by officials at the Department of Homeland Security and blamed on Iran and North Korea, justifying the further perpetration of nuclear holocaust on these two nations. This furthers the meme of the "neo-conservatives" or members of the Project for the New American Century as war mongers against those two nations. This meme is based somewhat on reality, as it well known that neo-conservatives are international realists instead of Wilsonian idealists and are very concerned about those two nations' relentless pursuit of nuclear weapons and long range missle capability, (even to the point of entering space as Iran propose).

In the show, the shadow government's attack occurs in order to purge the government of the pervasive influence of Jennings & Rawl, an obvious proxy for Haliburton. This "Haliburton is evil and associated by Vice President Cheney" meme is very widespread throughout our culture, especially among the hard core left. It's amazing how sutbtly anti-Bush Jericho really is. After all, you'd expect that a show based on an American nuclear holocaust would really be more pro-killing terrorists.

Getting these memes (further) embedded in the mainstream culture is an enormous success for the 9/11 Truth Movement. It helps make people more receptive to their misguided conspiracy agenda.

Members of the 9/11 Truth Movement believe that elements inside the Bush Administration or federal government (or the Israeli government) engineered the 9/11 attacks. The typical motive for this alleged false flag operation frequently is attributed either to justifying a Middle East war over oil or changing the political issue matrix to benefit the Republican Party and ensure continued political dominance. Oh yeah, and to enrich the President's friends.

Now, the first reason is laughable. The Israelis are in a strong enough position to take care of themselves, and war is always an enormous drain on a nation no matter how necessary (WWII was a necessary war for example). The second motive is somewhat more plausible (though still absolute crap). Here's why: in late 2001 almost the entire political issue matrix was geared against the Republican party and its principles. Good economic times in the 1990s had produced not only a balanced budget, but one in large and growing surplus. People were happy and shifting their attention away from the international sphere and back to the domestic issues on which the Democratic Pary had an advantage. Additionally, a United States government able to pay back most of its outstanding debt and eventually pay it all off would prove economically damaging to the banking industry.

These facts provide a kernel of truth from which to grow an entirely ridiculs conspiracy theory based on any substantiated association or causality. The "theory" : the executive branch initiated treason against our nation in order to put its political party back in political advantage ensuring its own continued power and accumulating even more power by taking advantage of the extreme national culture shock of 9/11 to accumulate more power through the Patriot Act and other measures.

The History Channel showed a documentary last week called "The 9/11 Conspiracies" which explored the conspiracies and then offered rational responses to the execrable false flag charges.

These Truthers cling much to hard to the conspiracy meme of a "supercompetent federal government." We're talking about a bunch of guys who actually tried to kill Castro by giving him an exploding cigar. The same people who masterminded the disastrous Bay of Pigs fiasco in which they lost their nerve and declined to call in air support for the invastion, thus guaranteeing its failure. Plus there are enough potential whistleblowers in the government that any such conspiracy would have become exposed since it would have had to involve officials at multiple federal agencies. Even within the same Department, and especially within Homeland security due to the disjointed and spread out nature of its buildings, it is difficult to coordinate anything without the help of people lower down the food chanin than the "principals" (Administrators, Assistant Secretaries and their Deputies, Directors of Progams).

Jericho: An Illustration of our Deepest Fears

Jericho is the story about an American Nuclear Holocaust, told in an idyllic setting, leaves many questions unanswered at the end, much like Surface and Invasion did a few years ago.

(They too were conspiracy shows with season long arcs to maintain interest and slowly reveal the full conspiracy as well as its purpose. The mid-run format change of both Alias and Veronica Mars from season-arc to several mini-arcs throughout the season also demonstrates that we collectively are too impatient to apply to Jericho too watch a conspiracy unfold over that long a time period. This seemed to applies to Jericho as well.)

The Show
Jericho itself seems a relatively good representation of what could happen after a mulitple nuclear strike attack on the United States. Commications systems would break down due to the EMP pulses from the detonations, some towns and cities would remain relatively peaceful due to strong leadership, some would become dictatorial compounds, and the nation itself wold divide along regional lines as competing centers of power vied for supremacy. Learning why it happened would be of secondary importance for the first few months after the attack. The show implies that the man pulling the strings in Jericho, like the man pulling the strings in Traveler is deeply embedded in the Federal Government as, of course, an official at the Department of Homeland Security and is attempting to use the respective attacks to cause choas and fear out of which a New Order would arrive.

Thankfully the Jericho writing campaign resulted in seven more episodes being made for the fall. Hopefully the full conspiracy will be revealed in these episodes and we'll have an interesting resolution to the series.

The Cultural Implications of Its Cancellation
One of the questions regarding its cancellation is whether we collectively are we getting tired of season long story arcs that gradually unfold with a series of twists and turns? You could argue that the third season of Veronica Mars changed from the above mentioned format to one with several multiple-episode story arcs instead of just one. I do believe however, that Veronica Mars was one of the recent catalysts for the emergence of several season-long story arc programs such as Prison Break and Burn Notice.

My answer to the question posed above is no. The two shows mentioned above mentioned programs are the reason why. They are both well written and have compelling story lines within each episode along with an overarching goal towards which each episode moves the characters at a relatively fast clip.

DHS is officially the new FEMA . . .

. . . in the conspiracy community. Of course this may seem obvious 5 years after 9/11 and the resulting creation of DHS which, of course then became the new FEMA. It only took mainstream media culture (MMC) 5 years to officially catch up. (FEMA had played prominently in conspiracy culture for about 15 years prior to this).

I am of course referring to Jericho's revelation that the Department of Homeland Security is the party culpable for setting off the nukes and creating a new "emergency government."

I guess Rayelan and Theresa (and their associated communities) get it right sometimes.

A Blow Against the Mercury Causes Autism Conspiracy

Many celebrities and influential people have concluded that mercury (poisoning) is the cause of autism. In fact, Congressman Burton has been heavily involved with the campaign to link the two and used his Chairmanship of the Government Reform Committee as a pulpit to preach that view.

It now turns out that he was wrong.

Minus one for the Autism Conspiracy.

Jericho Returns! Vanished resurrected (temporarily)

I just learned that fans ov Vanished can watch the complete season (though cancelled) on the web. I am very excited to see this show unwind.

Jericho finally returns this on Wednesday. Last week CBS aired a composite episode to bring new fans up to speed and to remind current fans of the intricacies of the plot and conspiracy.Whose side is Hawkins on? . . .

Jericho has done a good job of integrating its website into the show (especially during the looooong hiatus). That has allowed the curious viewer to carefully review Hawkins' actions and determine which side he is on. It currently seems as if he is some part of Homeland Security (the successor Department of FEMA as the new bugaboo for some conspiracy theorists).

Regardless, I am anxious for the 12 new episodes in a row, but anxious that that may indicate there will be no second season. But really what you do with a second season except stretch it into a big rebuilding America thing and morph the show into some type of Peacemaker-type drama). And if there is a second season, I'll be watching.

Conspiracy Entertainment 2006-2007

This TV season has been especially good for conspiracy/paranoia entertainment, and featured three new shows. First we had the now-cancelled Vanished which looked to be a cross between the Da Vinci Code, Numb3rs and the X-Files (just the conspiracy of powerful string pullers, not the alien or supernatural aspects. It was quite good until cancellation. Next we had The Nine, which definitely had conspiratorial elements to it. Finally we had Jericho, the only of the three to survive. Possibly, because it centered on a very real fear: nuclear attack and what happens when communications collapses (not to mention the government).

And of course, the inimitable 24 which has returned with a fifth conspiratorial nightmarish day for Jack Bauer.

Of these four, the only two which are still on are ones that explicitly address the threat of terrorism, much in the same vein that Cold War films and TV mini-series were popular in the '80s became hits. It seems conspiracy's that ensnare government officials in non-terrorist activits is ok for our downtime reading, but the anti-terror alpha waves better be conveying terrorist-related conspiracies.

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PS Threshold made a short return on the SciFi Channel, but one year of episodes is not really enough to become a regular show without the creation of new episodes.