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YesterAir
Distant Drums from Across the Atlantic
By Eric Gilder and Mervyn Hagger
The broadcasting war against subjective collectivism
waged by Americans promoting freeborn individualism
via ideological manipulation of the European airwaves.
YesterAir is about the use of broadcasting as a political weapon of war, as used by the United States of America in the European Theatre, with a primary venue staged in the United Kingdom. It is a war that finds its origins in the English Civil Wars of the Seventeenth Century. It explodes into life during the Eighteenth Century with the words of United States Declaration of Independence, and then attempts to formulate its raison d'etre in the written words of the United States Constitution with its Amendments; but then it turns upon itself in the American Civil War of the Nineteenth Century, before taking aim in the Twentieth Century, at the unfinished business that became its point of origin.
In the passage of time, its motivation that began in the Seventeenth Century became obfuscated to the point where some wondered why the USA had ever been born as an independent nation, since their interpretation would point back to the monarchy of the British system as one ordained by God. But looking around the world of the Twenty-first Century, we now see the Globe being reborn in the likeness of America. The American mind-set is now Global. It is not restricted to the geographical location of North America. Consequently the Global architecture of the World's cities, its consumer product industry; mass entertainment, and its Global way of life, they all bear the same stamp: "Made in America".
The concept of the United Nations Organization, like its predecessor the League of Nations, also manifests that same stamp of being "Made in America", with its World Headquarters based in New York City. Now a new spirit of individual liberation is beginning to rise up in nations across Africa and into the Middle East. Even in China, which is no longer Chinese in appearance, there have been rumblings of political change in the wind ever since its first major uprising in Tiananmen Square. Far from this being the age of the decline of America, it is rapidly becoming the age of "American Choice", where even the originating stamp of 'America', can now be safely substituted. But just as bottling, soap flakes, and cereal companies (to name but a few), manufacture what appear to be competing products, they are all originating from the same source, and so are 'American brands'.
Like the Cola Wars of the Seventies, this is a full scale Global upheaval which nothing short of a natural disaster (far exceeding 'Global Warming'; earthquakes or tidal waves) to drum humanity back to a form of primitive lifestyle, will ever cause a reversal of this trend. Because like it or not, this is the "All-American Age" with a vision that far exceeds nationalism and religious fanaticism. America has now "taught the world to sing in perfect (consumer) harmony" (with apologies to Coca-Cola), and the tweaking of its success, continues to roll on in nation after nation. Even the starving little children used with somewhat callous disregard to raise funds on television, are often seen wearing the rejects of consumer brand-name outerwear.
YesterAir tracks the development of this War through its third phase which followed WWI and WWII and the desire to prevent a WWIII. Since the previous global conflicts had begun in Europe, and since the archipelago of the British Isles was the epicenter which created the original political fissure leading to the birth of the USA, it is Europe, and more specifically London, England where this war began, and it is to London, England that it returned.
This is a War based upon the premise that all human beings who have been born have the same freeborn rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It is supportive of the ideals expressed in the United States Declaration of Independence, and the development of the written United States Constitution with its Amendments, as the basis for society in which freeborn rights are in theory, guaranteed to all citizens. While application of the laws may be another matter, YesterAir compares these fundamental documents with the lack of similar organic written documents defining those same freeborn individual rights in the United Kingdom. Even though the USA has always delighted in the fantasy world of monarchy as expressed in such venues as Disneyland over which Mickey and Minnie have reigned, America took issue at the outset of its birth with the the concept of monarchy as a serious form of government, because it is the antithesis of a society that is capable of upholding the equality of freeborn individual rights as the foundation of a sovereign nation.
YesterAir reveals how the vinegar of its militaristic policies have often backfired, while the sugar of its consumer targeted campaigns have become a huge success. But America, the land of marketing promotion, has always known that before any advertising message can be printed or broadcast, the media has to be created. How this has been achieved against the wishes of European nations, and in particular the United Kingdom, is part of the fun side of this work. Rather than approach historical matters in a dry and unrelated manner, this book adopts the 'gonzo' style of writing that was pioneered by novelist Ed McBain in his classic work Blackboard Jungle, inasmuch that both Gilder and Hagger have become a part of this story which they have called YesterAir.