Squid Game, the New Orleans Massacre, and Debt Slavery
The coincidence of beginninng to watch Season 2 of the Korean series Squid Game and the horrifying events of last week in New Orleans has caused me to reflect more on the phenomenon of debt slavery in our culture. Like the indebted Asians recruited for the cynical amusement of billionaires in the series, the driver of the vehicle that mowed down mirth-makers on Bourbon Street was himself a victim of financial disaster and just as desperate to escape, in his own bloody way, as the game players. Shamsud-D had made choices as bad, perhaps worse than the Korean characters. Despite a six figure salary, he had plunged through three marriages and apparently numerous other relationships that not only depleted his impressive funds, but sank him deeper in the pit of borrowing that is even more alluring in our country than in Korea. In Asia, most banks and credit institutions tend to be more circumspect about loaning money to bad risk clients. Though the sums quoted in Squid Game seem astronomical, one must remember that the value of the local currency, the won, resembles the Japanese yen in that it is far below the dollar, so millions of won translate into thousands of US dollars. Nevertheless, the process is essentially the same. Jabbar was, moreover, assaulted daily on ubiquitous media by endless possibilities for credit cards, rollovers, payday loans, second and third mortgages, automobile-secured cash handouts, store accounts, margin trading, and betting come-ons. It is not surprising that the one-time savvy Shamsud-Din was thus enticed to fall into the pit of marketable debt that increasing drives our "good economy." Now even the corporations seeking ostensibly to alleviate and manage household debt are openly admitting that twenty-first century America runs more on what citizens owe than what they actually earn.
The New Orleans killer reacted in desperation, determined to try to rescue his existence as a success, even when it meant killing and being killed. Like the Korean game players, he was trying to reassert himself against fate, and like them, he could think of no alternative. Squid Game's second season emphasizes this point by including a character who, himself, had been a crooked debt manager, luring unsuspecting dupes into get-rich-quick schemes that stripped them of their assets, before falling for just such a trap himself. Jabbar may not have been lurking in alleys like some of the Koreans, but he surely faced the same menace of homelessness, as his three wives quarreled over the properties he had previously amassed and squandered. In some ways, he was even more rootless. While serving the shady "auditing and counseling" aims of his employer, he drifted between cities and states, rootless amid the gaudy exteriors, seemingly unaided by social agencies or the military he once idolized. Korea, like the USA, is a success-driven system, bombarding the rising successful people with spiritual and material glory, but quickly overlooking those who get tangled in the web of finance or deluded by their own dreams. There is little emphasis on balance, regardless of the time-honored concept of yin and yang embodied in the flag. It's strictly put up or shut up. Earn, spend, or get out of the way, and Devil (or geometrically disguised soldiers) take the hindmost.
One is forced to wonder if debt slavery is a paradigm for humanity's future. Will governments condone the exploitation of the debtors and allow them to be carted away in anonymous coffins to some obscure crematorium? Certainly the police commandoes in Squid Game seem outgunned, out-witted and hopeless against the hordes of mercenaries defended by the game-masters. I can recall from my past in Louisiana that chemical companies with their own "security" routinely blocked police or even firemen from coming onto their property and interfering with their private business. As in The Magnificent Seven, guns can be expensive, but humans to shoot them are cheap. Jabbar and the Las Vegas bomber Livelsberger experienced this for themselves in Afghanistan as they were moved around like pawns in the "Great Game" of geopolitics.
And yet, both men chose to try to solve their problems and reassert their identity and importance by means of violence, even if their primary weapons were the vehicles they drove rather than the handguns and automatic long weapons they brought along. This seems counter-intuitive and paradoxical on the surface. But on further examination, both men (like the ex-ROK Marines and Air Force fighters in Squid Game, carried with them another feature of military and corporate life in both the USA and Korea, compartmentalization of thought and value. It is all about targeting a reified goal. When one is taught to shoot a rifle, one is usually discouraged from thinking of the potential victim as another human being. Instead, one is urged to imagine the target as an inanimate object, a pumpkin on a fence post or a juicy wataermelon that will naturally splatter its contents when hit. Should the human shape be specified in the target, it is usually hidden behind a menacing mask, making the shooting of an enemy a legitimate "solution" to any problem. Any qualms about eliminating a human life are compartmentalized, hidden away in a mental "hurt locker" that fills up with more and more relegated guilt until it eventually bursts open in a crisis of PTSD. Any successful soldier goes through this process. One not need be a sadist who actually enjoys killing. Training allows even the reluctant to become complicit to the system. It is more efficient than most people can imagine.
Therefore, we should not be surprised if there are more and more developments that drive the failures of a debt-obsessed society to break out in violence. Squid Game shows conclusively that. whether individually or collectively, humans have a great deal resisting the erosive effects of compartmentalization. When game players are told that they take part according to their own free will and are free to abandon the games if they vote to do so, enough of them buckle because of the force of greed, pride, guilt, or any of a dozen other weaknesses, that they allow the games to go on. Nay, they demand it. They rant and cheer for the certain slaughter to continue. Debt fuels depression, self-accusation, abandonment, desperation.
Can our future Earth-based societies or society devise a way to defuse the smoldering time-bomb of indebtedness? Examples like that of Finland or Iceland offer some hope that humans can re-engineer economics in such a way to create a more balanced and humane environment. It will mean getting rid of many of the imperatives of geopolitics and corporate thinking. Yet that is not impossible. I yearn for a new kind of "solution" to appear in Squid Game, not just a "solution" that involves someone being shot or run over or exploded. There is still time.
MARSCON IS JUST AROUND THE CORNER
We've received our scheduling for panels at the Marscon conference in Virginia Beach - Norfolk for Jan. 17-19 and the schedule looks like a lot of fun. Jim and John will be serving together on sessions, as follows:
Friday Jan 17, 4-5 PM Speculative Poetry; 8-9 PM Reboots
Saturday Jan 18, 12-1PM Songwriting 101; 2-3PM Editing Hows and Whys; 3-4PM RPGs As Collaborative Storytelling
All events take place at the Holiday Inn Virginia Beach - Norfolk. Hope to see you there!
Happy Holidays From Virginia
Looking ahead to a greener season, Jim and John wish all our followers and fellow sci fi fans the happiest of winter holidays and a prosperous and delightful new year 2025. This photo was taken at Government Island in Stafford County, Virginia. As you can see, it was used as a quarry during the construction of numerous buildings in Washington DC, including the White House. It now serves as a forest refuge in the midst of Aquia Creek, a place of peace and reflection. What better place to wish for peace for all the world?
Hello Hong Kong
We salute you as science fiction fans and welcome you to the Forlani Universe. A short story, an essay, and three poems from our works have recently been published in the 9th anthology of Riverside Writers, Reflections by the Riverside. We happily invite you to check out this title on Amazon.
Hong Kong is a wonderful center for culture of Asia and the whole Earth. We look forward to learning more of the writing tradition that has made it so important to all of us who are interested in speculative fiction. Continue the good work.
HAVE YOU TRIED LIFE SENTENCE YET?
If not, what are you waiting for? It's only a top-rated space thriller filled with alien encounters of all kinds, dilemmas for humans to face, and the struggle for survival on weird and fantastic worlds. Get it right now on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Life-Sentence-Forlani-Saga-1/dp/0998172111
PROJECT BLUE BOOK, THE SERIES
Having just finished streaming the series, Project Blue Book, originally produced for the History Channel and now available on the Roku Channel streaming, I wanted to jump back into sci fi activity by sharing a few thoughts. Although the series credits the activity of Prof. J. Allen Hynek as its inspiration, it explicitly states that the influence is strictly fictional, rather than purporting to recreate real events. Various episodes cherry pick UFO events from the early 1950's, they are not presented in the real life chronological order in which they occurred, nor is Hynek's previous experience with earlier projects, such as Grudge, included in the fictional time line. Likewise, the identity of Hynek's coworker from the Air Force is not the same. Russian spies and open and covert ufologists are also included in the cast for dramatic reasons. Hynek's connections to Hollywood films of the succeeding decades are also shown in a very different light from reality.
The series does indeed present a speculative approach to many recorded controversies of the last years of the Truman administration and the earliest ones of the Eisenhower years. Some of the UFO reports are dismissed as elaborate hoaxes, though even these are often mitigated by some measure of doubt or unexplained factors. In particular, an episode set in the Kentucky hills is attributed to trickery on many fronts, including that of Air Force staff itself attempting to capitalize on false reports of aliens for strictly political reasons. Other episodes, such as those set in Roswell, Area 51, and Wright-Patterson Air Froce Base, are deliberately left to a much more open interpretation because of the huge gaps in reasonable assessment left by intervention from the Air Force or more secretive organizations.
Furthermore, the possibility of the existence of UFOs and aliens is lent a great measure of credence by the involvement of the fictional Air Force officer, Captain Quinn. He is shown experiencing personal close encounters of the third kind in a fighter jet over Washington DC, as well as in a submarine under the North Atlantic. This is rendered more powerful to the viewer by the fact that Quinn is presented throughout the series as being much more skeptical than Hynek. He is also shown as having a huge reserve of repressed emotions, to the point that he has an affair with a beautiful Soviet agent. If Hynek is the brains of the investigation, Quinn is the guts. For him to personal acknowledge proof of the "impossible" greatly increases the involvement of the viewer in the UFO continuum.
In a different way, the same may be said of the character of Hynek's wife, Mimi. First seen as a classic 50s housewife in the Harriet Nelson mold and usually relegated in opening episodes to an indirect experience of the UFO proofs and near proofs, she becomes more and more closely involved in the plots. As with Quinn, she also functions as an emotional conduit to the viewer. Her powerful concerns for her husband and son are set in contrast as she develops a deeper relationship with the spy Susie that culminates in a lesbian encounter. She functions much like the generally practical Han Solo in Star Wars when he mutters, "I have a bad feeling about this."
I would urge all sci fi fans to take the opportunity to stream Project Blue Book while this chance exists and to form and share their own reactions to this program, which unfortunately was cancelled before a season three could be produced. The acting and technical aspects of the show are first rate and will not disappoint. We plan to return to some particular aspects of the events portrayed in coming posts.
WE'RE GOING TO RAVENCON!
April 26-28 at Virginia Crossings in Glen Allen, Virginia
Jim and John will be reading from their works and talking on panels
Friday 4/26 6-7 PM Readings from the Forlani Saga
9-10 PM Jim and John: Panel on HOW DO YOU SANELY GOVERN
A MULTI-PLANET SYSTEM?
Saturday 4/27
10AM-11AM John: USING HORROR MOVIES TO EXPLORE STRUCTURE
11AM-NOON Jim and John: IT TAKES A VILLAGE:
THE LOGISTICS OF HUMAN COLONIES IN SPACE
1PM-2PM John: DCEU VS DCU
8PM-9PM Jim: THE SCIENCE OF PEOPLE
Sunday 4/28
NOON-1PM Jim and John: SCIENCE BLOOPERS AND IN STORIES AND MOVIES
