End of the American Empire
Most of the themes in my novels relate to the slow dissolution of the American empire, eaten up by its internal acid of bickering and neglect of certain social issues, polarized by extremists and extremism in all directions away from the norm of the statistical distribution of human behavior, and living a nightmare of discordant blathering about things of little importance. These themes and this future seem to be a logical conclusion of where we are in our present. I don’t see any way out.
I’ve also treated these themes in a less fictional setting within this blog. As a way to summarize, let me list here, in stream of consciousness fashion, a few reasons why the American empire is crumbling:
A decaying moral backbone: when Vice President Cheney justifies torture by claiming it gets results and we, the American public, buy the argument, we are accepting an end-justifies-the-means policy…when 18,000 people die per year for lack of health care and we, the American public, say, “We don’t care,” we are effectively murderers…when populations across the globe are hit by natural disasters, war, pestilence, famine, and ethnic cleansing and we, the American public, turn our heads and continue to do business with the perpetrators, we are accomplices in murder.
A prevalent lust for money and power: the rape of the poor and middle classes in order to enrich the privileged few…companies and their CEOs making exorbitant profits…those same companies’ lobbyists controlling both houses of Congress to the extent that the lobbyist often writes the laws…Senators and Representatives using the funding from the lobbyists to perpetually stay in office…wizened Senators out of touch with reality, ignoring calls for term limits…Representatives gerrymandering their districts to ensure re-election, thus disenfranchising ethnic minorities and destroying any pretense of representative government.
An ignorance and lack of respect and understanding for other countries and peoples: the ignorance leads us to an unhealthy provincialism…the lack of respect leads to indifference, the overthrow of governments unfriendly to our business interests, a foreign policy of nation building, and now, the new military policy of pre-emptive strike…and we wonder why most of the rest of the world hates the US, leading some to want to destroy us.
The insidious virus of tribalism: as in Yugoslavia after Tito, we are dividing America into political or ethnic tribes, and the future of our country may be the same…not just red and blue states, but groups and minorities pushing all types of agendas, many included below, feeding on hatred and using emotional outbursts instead of rational discourse…up-state NY wants to get rid of NYC, Northern CA, Southern CA and middle CA can’t get along…paranoia and fear of a harmless speech directed at school children…NIMBY attitudes dividing communities and friends.
Religious fanatics spewing hatred and demagoguery instead of Christian brotherhood: megachurches filled with teary-eyed men and women willing to part with their meager tithes so the preacher can have all the latest audiovisuals to teach about the End of Days…pro-lifers that think killing an abortion doctor is the Lord’s work…millions that mistakenly think the Grand Canyon was part of Noah’s flood…those that say all men are equal in the eyes of the Lord, but clearly some are more equal than others.
Violence becoming the national hobby: the NRA and gun nuts that think an automatic weapon is required for deer hunting…public carrying of guns and facile access to them at gun shows so that in any firefight between cops and crooks, the crooks are better armed…sodomy and rape of minors perpetrated by priests and the subsequent cover-up by Church hierarchy…a drug culture and a drug trade making even our suburban streets unsafe.
Racism and lack of civility: white on black racism, black on white, minority on minority…lack of respect for the President – race-related or just sour grapes for losing an election?…yelling slogans and not thinking about what you’re protesting …violent confrontation instead of rational debate.
Education in decline: mediocre teachers teaching the same mediocre plans year after year…refusal to accept a merit pay system…teachers teaching subjects without little preparation in the subject area…only 180 days per year of largely rote learning…inability of our workers to compete with better educated workers abroad.
Infrastructure in decline: rotting away before our very eyes – no money to fix it…American people are no longer capable of a concerted effort…factions in the body politic make setting long term goals impossible…no sustainable interest over the long haul in making the US, and the world, a better place.
These are among the many themes that worry me. I won’t be affected much if we don’t solve them, but my grandchildren will be. And if we don’t solve them, these and many others, the American Empire will be lost to the ages, another bright light snuffed out by the winds of complacence, mediocrity, and hate.
