One of the most startling things to occur in bike racing for decades is the recent dominance of English speaking riders. It includes a crop of Brits that has never been equaled. They’ve got a Tour de France victory after a century of failure, Olympic gold, and a Sky team that is brutally powerful. They also have issues, featuring Chris Froome (South African) who has been embarrassing himself by repeated mouthing off about Belgian-born teammate Bradley Wiggins (last year’s Tour winner), and his own role as team leader. His manager is hysterically optimistic. We’ll see.

As someone who spent many years in the sport, I detest Lance Armstrong but appreciate the increased racing coverage he created. The races can be seen now, though hampered by a Brit downside: heavily accented British chat in its coverage. The Brits on bikes are full of fire, the old ones natter on about obscure historical events of limited interest. Phil Liggett is the Grand Mufti of this All England media gang, but the appeal and quality of his coverage is open to question. (So is his involvement with and commitment to Armstrong.) But the real problem is that we all age out.

A sport moves on, and most of yesterday’s tales are blown away. Not with the Brits, and I suspect that the British should not be allowed to comment on anything French. They never get it. A Hundred Years of the Tour de France is a misleading oddity, a simplistic  intern-level attempt to relate the racing to larger cultural/historical issues that are over their heads and waste time. Bottom line, there are genuine legends, and these are mostly slighted and flubbed.

The rivalry between Bianchi teammates Gino Bartali and Fausto Coppi came in a great era of Italian racing, before and after WW2. It’s a great story because they were equally talented and total opposites. Bartali, known as “The Pious”, was much loved. Peasants were said to kiss his tire tracks. The well named Fausto Coppi was devil-may-care, out of a Fellini movie, and established himself by winning a race at the expense of the sacred Bartali. Attacked by his Director, he replied: You said you wanted to see Bianchi green first across the line, and you did. Coppi also took a doctor’s wife as his mistress and had her to dine with the team, crossing just about every line there was. Lost on these Brits.

But the death of Tommy Simpson, a great rider and doper, on the hellish Ventoux climb, is covered in great, quite accurate detail, but it leaves out a key point. Dryer is Faster was a saying among riders at the time. Simpson, who went the limit in every way, was loaded on speed, and not drinking much. A soigneur of the time remarked that his blood was “thick as syrup” when he keeled over and uttered his famous last words: Put me back on my bike. Riders knew what had happened; they went on doping, but began drinking.

Another for-real legend was the emergence of Greg LeMond from under the dominance of Hinault, one of the toughest peloton bosses ever. Challenging him in the Tour (with a French team) was unthinkable. But after winning his fifth Tour, Hinault promised to support LeMond the following year. He lied. On his way to a record-breaking sixth Tour, Hinault wasted himself with a spectacularly Gallic ride, and paid for it when LeMond dropped the hammer the next day. Richard Moore’s Slaying The Badger is great cycling history. Moore is a Scot with an Irish name (and real cycling experience), not an old Brit promoter living in the past.

As one US pro observed, these Brits covering the Tour on TV are selling themselves as authentic because European, and that is not the case. The Brit relation to cycling is like the UK relationship with the EU, and if the sport is going to be understood here, TV commentary is an issue.

What’s the alternative? Italian coverage is the best, but a lot of Americans don’t speak Italian. My pro friend laughed at American Todd Gogulski for calling everyone a “guy”, but conceded he was preferable to the Brits. He is younger, smoother and more in tune with today’s racing. He also has legitimate experience, having raced with both LeMond and Armstrong as a pro; Liggett doesn’t have that. Never a pro cyclist, he was a promoter, though a good one. Pro experience gives insight and authenticity. Whatever his limitations, Gogulsky and other young American aspirant don’t inflict a Brit POV on this uniquely European madness.

We’ll be hearing Ligget and company, probably with American Bob Roll for laughs. Watch anyway. There’s no way these guys can destroy what’s going to be an epic confrontation between mostly Brit Team Sky and a group of Hispanic guys that in a pinch will may cross team lines to support two-time winner Alberto Contador if it comes down to him and Froome. He’s one rider who doesn’t need a manager on his radio telling him what to do.

He’s also the only rider I know of who laughed off Armstrong’s bullying while cleaning his clock in the Tour.

I spent a lot of time in the sport during the golden US decade, which began with George Mount and Mike Neel, who made hisgory by breaking top-ten in the 1976 Olympic (Mount) and professional (Neel) road races. That decade culminated with Greg LeMond’s first Tour de France victory, an epic very well described in Richard Moore’s Slaying the Badger.

In the last century important things were accomplished in America that couldn’t happen today. Eisenhower’s interstate highway system is one example – Ike would be seen as a big-government man. But the military is the best example of how things have changed. Traditionally, it was a government operation almost entirely, except for weapons production. Personnel were mostly provided by a general draft, which was avoided by some, though not easily. The army was democratic, mixing social classes as democracy does when it’s working. If you wanted a war, there would be resistance from a powerful middle class that didn’t want their boys (no girls at the time) getting killed for no reason. I served in that army and it was a better educational experience than earning my degrees.

But politicians will do what they can get away with, especially those from Texas, and Lyndon Johnson undermined that excellent army by outflanking Congress with the phony Tonkin Gulf incident, seizing war powers and plunging us into arguably the most catastrophic war in our history. Revulsion was widespread and intense, and it spanned all classes.

In the 1980s a change began, slowly at first, then snowballing. Privatization was the word: hire experts and save money. In this century we have a volunteer army that includes few personnel from families of influence. This undercuts citizen resistance to war. Added to it are mercenaries (remember the Hessians?), fighting with no effective governance. These are provided by a large and growing industry of private military companies/firms (PMCs/PMFs), and they have provided some of the most expensive and damaging services of any companies working with the federal government. The United Nations Mercenary Convention was intended to prohibit this, but hasn’t, owing to various word games and redefinitions, and the Geneva Convention rules have never been ratified by the US. Bottom line, PMCs/PMFs are very profitable for the mercenaries (creating morale problems with regular troops who are paid a tiny fraction of what mercenaries earn), and enormously profitable for their employers. Privatization also extends to hugely expensive military projects (remember the electrified showers?), and work formerly done by the Navy Seabees is also contracted out.

There have been many PMC/PMF scandals, none of them effectively prosecuted, because there has been little or no control of their fighting and security activities or the quality of their work. These companies operate in a legal limbo, and offenses that would normally result in court martial or lawsuit can’t be prosecuted. Blackwater (re-branded Academi) is the name people remember from civilian shoot-em-ups in Iraq, but the problem is endemic. Through lobbying, the industry is able to operate freely without repercussions. (Which is why Ike originally referred to the military-industrial-congressional complex.)

The Iraq war saw the full flowering of privatization, with profit streams going to (a) weapons manufacture, (b) mercenaries and (c) construction and other non-combat work. In this way, hundreds of billions in tax revenues was diverted to these corporations.

What does any of this have to do with Ed Snowden and PRISM? Intelligence and security are the new privatization revenue streams. Booz Allen Hamilton was Ed’s employer, and they never bothered to vet him for his privileged position. If they had, it would have been obvious from his activities that he was his own man, and had strong opinions about right and wrong. Snowden made no secret of his ideas and ideals, and a routine background check would have made it clear that he wasn’t your average dropout. People who claim he did it to become famous are saying more about themselves than Ed Snowden.

Whether Snowden is a traitor or a man practicing what Thoreau termed “civil disobedience” for the good of his country depends on your POV. But we do know one thing: Privatizing Intelligence hasn’t been a blessing for this country, but for giant corporations, just as with arms sales, mercenaries, etc. Privatization has become corporate welfare, because the military-industrial complex can buy all the Congress-people and Senators they need for what amounts to chump change – barely a rounding error for mega-corporations with multi-billion-dollar revenues. They can also blackmail them if necessary; they have the means.)

Then they do as they please. Lately it pleases them to put vital security secrets in the hands of bright but unpredictable young guys. We’re very lucky Snowden didn’t make himself rich with what he knew, and railroading him won’t solve the problem.

Strangely, Tea-people and OWS people are largely agreed on this. Go figure.

Our species being social, we form groups. In most cultures, these groups are formed by popular ideas, who we hang with, and economic realities – Haves, Have-Nots, and Have- Enough-to-feel-okays. That last used to be your middle class, which is shrinking faster than cheap jeans in a hot dryer. Some groups (Communist Party, Skull and Bones, etc.) require constant monitoring.

Briefly, when the Have-Nots are pushed to extremity it can be explosive, as in the French and Russian revolutions, and more recently in the near east. That’s obvious. What’s not obvious is the nature of class warfare, which keeps changing, like any warfare, as when America drove out the Brits by ignoring classical European methods and the Vietnamese drove us out with a very secret transport weapon – the bicycle. These days class effective warfare begin with propaganda.

Rule One is not to declare war. That serves no purpose and alerts the other side. Repeat – do not declare war. Rather, use media to seize the high ground. Accuse the other side of initiating hostilities. (See Hitler defending Germany against Poland, 1939.) In our century the other side is typically attacked as lefties, gays, commies, anti-capitalist, baby-killers, peace-mongers, un-American, etc.

Class warfare in the last century was crude and chaotic. Russia was a madhouse. In the US, the financial community raped the nation in a blatant, inefficient manner that left hundreds of thousands in the streets. One unintended effect was that when the system toppled in 1929, many Haves went down with Have-nots and Have Enoughs, making the process somewhat democratic. It’s fair to say that while the Haves won that battle, quite a few of them ended up selling apples and standing in breadlines along with the rest.

21st Century class warfare is different and more efficient. The collapse of 2008-9 had no roaring twenties with lots of social mobility and economic opportunity; it was a guided process that involved:

(a) media control (see Goebbels, Joseph)

(b) political infiltration and legislative action

(c) judicial support

Media control: the ‘liberal media’ are in fact mostly owned by giant corporations, and he who pays the piper calls the tune. This is simply done. Get people tangled up in religion, gay rights, birth control and the question of when a human being comes to exist and other such issues. As they become excited, you can pick their pockets more easily. Chanting class warfare when the Have Nots gather is helpful, and weaponry display can enhance the excitement. (The National Socialist Party was almost invariably better armed than their opponents.)

Political Infiltration is as old as time. Own the guys who make the laws. In the age of giant multinationals this is a minor cost. You can also rig voting requirements to eliminate Have-Nots without fancy ID, and there’s always gerrymandering. Political Infiltration gives legislative power, allowing repeal bothersome laws, like FDR’s Glass Steagall Act, which seriously hindered financial rapine and plunder. You can also bring the government to a halt. Good lawyers will advise your politicians on how to use the rules for maximum effect. The nation may suffer, but – and this is critical – if you are more concerned about money than the good of the nation, this is not the issue. Your money will be safely offshored, which is appropriate in a very international century

Judicial Support is often overlooked, and it can do wonders. It can conflate people with corporations. In a world of mass-media, it can also equate free speech (conceived in a time when even books were few and hard to come by) with massive super-Pac propaganda efforts. These can be paid for by anybody the Chinese, for example. This is the great blessing of controlling SCOTUS. SCOTUS is like the umpire. Own the umpire and you can’t lose.

And that, folks, is class warfare in the 21st Century. As ever it’s about money – only the tactics have changed. It’s smoke, mirrors, puppets and slogans. Forget pitchfork revolutions and just bend over. The pharmaceutical industry has drugs that guarantee it won’t hardly hurt at all.