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Is America Finished?
Like all great operas there is a beginning middle and end. Rumblings about America's operatic decline continue. In recent times it has lingered in the media echo chamber, even after the Don Giovanni crescendo of 2008.
Though the discourse of the immediate post GFC period has been concerned with interlocking partisan debates about whether Neo-liberalism or Keynesianism was the right course, the country and the world continues to flounder.
Just as the traditional trope of Orwellian nightmare is used to describe descent into a big brother state, so must the 'gibbonian vision' of 'the decline and fall' be affixed firmly to the American and European economic lapel in the wake of the great 'GFC'.
'GFC' is a scary word. It sounds like a disease that must be scanned, poked, prodded and scanned again. I well remember watching the crisis of AIG, Lehman Brothers and the other Financial Institutions whose subsequent bailout left the American taxpayer with a dry antiseptic aftertaste not dissimilar to hospital grade ammonia.
Whilst Uncle Sam lay prostrate in the hospital bed gasping for air, the most amazing thought crossed my mind. What comes next?
For Christians the Biblical account of 'Nebuchadnezzar's dream' in Daniel 2 articulates the broad 'whats next' progression of history from Babylon B.C. 605-539 through to Persia B.C. 539-331, Greece B.C. 331-168, Rome B.C. 168- A.D. 476 and the fractious Europe that is known as the 'feet of clay'. What then of that grand secular Empire whose exceptionalism finds form in the words Pax Americana?
Suddenly the preponderance of American power is set in stark contrast to the propagandized visions of her power so eloquently articulated by popular culture and the academe. The post World War II vision of 'American Peace' was magnified by the fall of the Berlin Wall. However from this point on wards the Western World fell into a deep political sleep that has been broken by the rude awakening of 2008-2009.
In essence the last 10 years of the 20th Century and the first 10 years of the 21st Century, mark a fundamental demarcation between the old cold war verities of 'American Peace' and the opening of an 'Asymmetric Century'.
This is an anarchic Asymmetric Century dominated by hyper-speed technological advance, rapid financial flows and a first and third world increasingly polarized by the conjunction of religio-political warfare. A guerrilla war incidentally that finds form in Iraq, Afghanistan and the incubators of blow-back across the wider region.
The question remains unanswered, Is America finished? The current US election cycle has offered up the definitive truth that there is a generational disconnection within the US electorate. With a Gen X, Gen Y and Millennial generation faced with the prospect of having to pay back the increasing Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security bills of the aging Baby Boomer generation, it looks as if the American Dream may finally be dead!
Barack Obama and Mitt Romney represent different sides of the same coin. So where is Liberty to be found? Ron Paul is on the outer, the third party candidate debates are not getting the mainstream attention they deserve. All the while the American Foreign policy juggernaut looks to be gearing up for the next military incursion into Iran!
It's no wonder 'conservative' writers like Mark Steyn have moved to the Jeremiah style message of we're all 'rooned!' to get the message out that the country and the world is facing the very real prospect of economic and political apocolypse.
Just like Giovanni, America hasn't repented of her sins and may well be cast into the fiery pit of economic and political hell. I often wonder what staunch leftist intellectuals like Gore Vidal would say if he jumped out of the grave to survey the latest attempts to save the American and the World Economy? 'I told you so' wouldn't cut it.
Ronald Reagan, though not the libertarian/anararchist ideal, did say something particularly pertinent. He said “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction”. Has America reached that point in time where she is past the point of no return?
What hope is there if the human spirit cannot rise to any occasion? What hope is there if creativity cannot be given free reign? Due ofcause to government constraints on the ability to think, write, debate and express oneself in any form? Where have the individualists gone? Those who pledge allegiance to the dignity of the human mind and spirit. A probing search is required for a kind of humble greatness that we all have within us. A humble greatness that is fundamental to the American idea, quite aside from the WE-isms we know are prevelent.
Discuss?
I used to be the man. Until I decided to stick it to myself - mothyspace
A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves. – Edward R. Murrow
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1W0pP6A8BE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlMuAuZ6DS8
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