It is Gerald Celente’s business to connect seemingly random dots and show us the big picture they make.
He’s a trend-tracker, a forecaster, a futurist. He and the 25 experts who make up his Trends Research Institute, which is based in Rhinebeck, N.Y., draw on their knowledge in a variety of disciplines and cast their practiced eyes at more than 300 trend categories every day. And then they tell businesses and others what’s coming up and how to plan for change. They’ve been doing this since 1980.
Celente authored Trends 2000 and edits “The Trends Journal,” published four times a year.
Past bull’s eyes they hit: the 1987 stock market crash; the death of the Soviet Union; the incredible shrinking middle class; gourmet coffee.
Recent events sent me to the phone to call Celente and ask him what he made of these disturbing dots:
- Terrorism on our shores;
- The acceptance of a war conducted in secrecy;
- The frowning on debate or disagreement.
Celente was way ahead of me, and sent me the copies of “Trends Journal” to prove it.
In early 1993, the institute predicted a rise in terrorism “with significant strikes in the United States.”
And in the same year, under the heading “Crusades 2000,” they wrote: “Islamic anti-imperialism is developing into multitudinous open crusades that the United States and allied powers will defend against with Cold War righteousness. . . . Disenfranchised and indignant Muslims see no hope for positive change through diplomatic channels. Politically powerless under ossified monarchal or dictatorial rule, they see charismatic opposition clerics as their best chance of having a voice in their own destiny.”
And chillingly, in 1997, the institute wrote, “. . . A recurrence of World Trade Center-style bombing is likely to strike the U.S. and/or its overseas facilities following the failure of an Israeli-Palestinian agreement.”
As early as 1996, the journal noted that politicians cared more about domestic policies than foreign ones, that the American media had cut back on its coverage of foreign news and that Americans didn’t seem to care about it. “While intellectual isolationism in the past posed little personal or collective danger, in the Global Age it will soon prove costly and dangerous,” they wrote.
Not that we cared.
The institute also forecast “a climate of conformity” in the United States at the turn of the millennium, “a me-too nation bound by convention and hobbled by herd mentality.” Early this year, they wrote, “With docility and conformity as today’s honored behaviors, the penalties for countering convention or expressing serious dissent are too high a price to pay.”
This trend was called “Closed Minds 2001.”
All of which was keeping with many phone calls I and other public editors throughout the country have received since the war on terrorism began.
Some readers have taken this newspaper — and the greater media — to task for printing pictures of Afghan children on the front page, for printing stories about the protection of water supplies, for printing anything that doesn’t fall into lock-step with President Bush’s decisions. Several have vehemently noted their impatience with the First Amendment.
What gives?
Not surprisingly, Celente offers a multi-layered answer, starting with the last presidential election.
“Whether or not you were for Ralph Nader didn’t matter. But anyone talking a different tune was castigated as being an outsider,” Celente said.
“On the economic front, if you talked about the economy going into a recession, as I did before the beginning of the year, you were categorized as a gloom-and-doomer. If you didn’t believe in the ‘new economy,’ you were an old thinker.
“It was like that at virtually every level. If you were against globalization, you were marginalized and condemned by the media as a radical left-winger. And the talk shows — the level of vitriol and the venom being spewed is constant. There’s really a price to pay for speaking out. And it’s easier to parrot prevailing wisdom.”
In Celente’s estimation, the media and the public share responsibility with our elected officials for lack of understanding and preparedness regarding the events of Sept. 11.
“Before 9-11, Americans knew about every shark bite that occurred between the Fourth of July and Labor Day. They knew about a 14-year-old baseball pitcher who said he was 12. They knew every detail about every tropical storm in the making, and the unmaking of Gary Condit,” Celente said.
“How are we supposed to know about important global developments? It was the stated policy of every major network and newspaper to close bureaus, to close newshole and focus on lifestyle and away from world news.”
But it’s more than that, too.
“Americans are so willing not to hear about what’s going on in the world and their role in it, because often the truth hurts. They say the truth shall make you free, but only after you face it and go through the pain of it,” Celente said.
And what of not wanting to know, of placing blind faith in elected officials in times of war?
For the first time in our conversation, Celente’s voice rises.
“It’s do the job, don’t tell me about it, I don’t want to know the details,” Celente said.
“What should have been the major story (of last week) is that tapes never heard before from 1964 conclude that President Johnson and (Defense Secretary) Robert McNamara essentially knew the whole Gulf of Tonkin incident, which gave Johnson war powers similar to Bush, never happened. They lied to the American public and led the nation into a war full knowing the incident they said happened was a fake, a fraud and a lie. But Americans don’t want to hear of that, so it’s buried on A-18 of The New York Times, but it’s not on CNN or MSNBC. All of a sudden, Rush Limbaugh has lockjaw?” Celente said.
Finally, what can we draw from connecting these latest dots that contain elements of past trends?
Celente says, “You have a nation that’s going to be unadapt-able to change because of their inability to see the events of the world. Washington has already put censorship on. But spin doesn’t win.
“If we continue to take the course we’re on now, it will lead to a loss of America’s power and prestige. And that’s in terms of the political, economic and social. It won’t only hurt our global standing, but it will also hurt the country as a whole internally. It will put us in the exact same position as Sept. 11. We will be ill-prepared for what will happen next. You can put a good face on everything. But in the real world, spin doesn’t win, it only buys you time.”
In closing, he says, “Here’s the scenario: We’re on a Titanic of a ship called America. It strikes an iceberg. The captain tells you it’s unsinkable, strike up the band, we won’t go down. That’s what’s happening right now. We’ve hit an iceberg. Rather than deny it and blame the iceberg for being there, start looking at why we hit it and understand that it’s done damage.”
I ask Celente if anyone in the national media has called him to discuss any of this.
He says no.
