Many conscious humans know it is merely a matter of time before the American imperium collapses. We are witnessing preliminary signs of the fall as the corporate greed mantra of “profits over people and planet” has proven a tapeworm that has devoured our economy, democracy and culture from within.
Once upon a time, America had a substantive diversity of culture, but as Chris Hedges wrote recently, this culture was “systematically destroyed by 20th century corporations.” With the rise of the war-banking complex, the medical-insurance-pharmaceutical-junk food complex, the fossil fuel complex, and plethora of other hyper-powerful corporate institutions in our plutocratic system, Corporate Culture was birthed.
Corporate Culture automatically became dominant as the corporate media complex facilitated the displacement of regional cultural and intellectual heterogeneity with a homogenized, monopolized world view. Corrupt politicians and media tyrants intentionally propagated a fearful, complacent, consuming, conformist public willing to swallow quasi-democracy, military colonialism, massive economic inequality, environmental rapedom, and a corrupt healthcare system.
Over the past eight years, we witnessed the full embodiment of Corporate Culture. Since World War II, the permanent war economy has been unsustainably growing, but Dubya perfected this disaster with a multitrillion dollar war of aggression for Israel and arms, banking, and oil corporations.
Likewise, the corporate greed “philosophy” was quintessentially exemplified by Dubya on domestic policy as well. Essentially every policy was geared to primarily benefit the wealthiest one percent, including massive tax cuts for the superrich and handouts for every Big Business interest.
While traveling to Washington D.C. recently as a finalist for a Scoville Peace Fellowship, I was asked what brought me to the fellowship, and I unequivocally replied: George W. Bush. Prior to Dubya, I cared nothing for politics or religion. However, when his administration began selling a rushed war of choice to America, I could smell the 935 lies immediately, and began a crusade for truth and gnosis.
Just as Christ offered a perfect example of how humans should act, Bush offered an enlightening counterexample of how not to act. In the philosophical concept known as the dialectic process, there is a thesis position, followed by an antithesis, which ultimately leads to synthesis or a highest stage of truth. In this case, Christ offered the Law of Love as a thesis, and Bush offered the antithesis of hate, greed and fear.
As a human living after both these great teachers, I am fortunate to possess the capacity to comprehend the divine truth of their synthesis. From Bush, I learned exactly how fear, greed and hate function in our government and society, and by contrasting Christ, I understood the American deficiency of love, making Bush my greatest living teacher.
To apply the Christ-Bush synthesis, we must return to the fall of Babylon. We know the environmental systems that function as the most fundamental basis of a real, sustainable economic system are collapsing. Globally, rainforests, coral reefs, fishing stocks, arable soil and potable water are all in the process of destruction, pollution or depletion while human population continues exploding. Climate change resulting from Corporate Culture threatens to make large regions of our planet uninhabitable and agriculturally unproductive, forcing massive migration and vastly increased probabilities of resource wars.
In terms of the fake economy, most signs indicate collapse as well. After America outsourced our manufacturing industries and jobs overseas, primarily to dictatorships with violently suppressed labor power and environmental protections, we have increasingly become a fictitious economy. It seems now that we manufacture and export only arms, debt and death. Additionally, the Wall Street banksters have invented trillions of dollars in exotic “financial products”, such as derivatives, which offer nothing in terms of real wealth creation and serve only to further enrich and empower the economic elite.
This enormous house of cards appears to be falling with a titanic crash in Yekaterinburg, Russia. In Yekaterinburg, the six-nation Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) recently met to begin the displacement of the American dollar as the world’s reserve currency. Interestingly, America asked to attend, but was rejected. Russia and China, leaders of the SCO, want to end U.S. policy of endlessly printing money to fund our $1 trillion military budget, which is used to dangerously encircle them.
China is especially concerned considering they own over $1 trillion in U.S. debt and do not want this investment to become worthless with inevitable inflation. In a recent trip to Peking University, Treasury Secretary tried tell an audience that America had a “strong dollar” and China’s debt investment was safe, but was mocked with laughter.
Paul Craig Roberts, former Assistant Treasury Secretary under Reagan, finds these issues problematic as well, saying, “America’s economic troubles will rapidly accumulate if the dollar loses its reserve currency role. To protect the dollar…the U.S. needs to curtail…borrowing by…halting its gratuitous wars and slashing its unnecessary military spending, which exceeds that of the rest of the world combined…Cutting the budget deficit by halting…unnecessary military spending and reducing trade deficits by bringing jobs back to America are simple tasks compared to confronting inflationary depression.”
If China and the SCO continue losing faith in American leadership, and the dollar loses reserve currency status, the predicted impacts are dire. It is anticipated the inflated dollar will devalue drastically, the price of imports, including oil, will skyrocket, services will be slashed, and we will face an unemployment tsunami, among other nightmares.
Regardless of official reserve status, flight from the dollar is already underway. Trade deals have already been negotiated by SCO members to denominate trade in currency other than the dollar. China is also trying to unload their U.S. dollars by using them to buy businesses and natural resources globally. As professor Michael Hudson writes, China “realizes these dollars are going to be worthless pretty quickly.”
As expected, these fantasy-shattering developments are barely covered by the infotainment, corporate media monopoly. As Rome burns, America babbles about Michael Jackson, burns $1 billion in toxic Chinese fireworks, and prepares to waste many billions more on mountains of toxic Chinese plastic for the next reality-distracting holiday.
After the empire dies, there will be an enormous power vacuum, and either a redesigned cohesive state will replace it, or civilization will disintegrate into small tribes of people forced back to survival focus, some as small farmers, hunter gatherers or marauding pillagers. Should the latter scenario occur, numerous regional dictators are a probable outcome.
Should a cohesive state replace the old empire, it will likely take one of two forms. America will either swing further rightward toward fascism, guided by corporations and demons like Rush Limbaugh, Fox News and rightwing televangelists. On the other more hopeful, heavenly hand, America could become Christlike and establish a New Kingdom.
Emerson once said, “the power of love, as the basis of a State, has never been tried.” The greatest changes in American history have always occurred during great crisis, and perhaps with crisis of fallen empire, the opportunity to redesign America as a State guided by Love could become a reality.
Law, justice and politics are all functions of morality, and morality is answered most confidently by love. The American maxim would become: “Love is the Whole of the Law.” Realizing this colossal feat will require a revolution of consciousness. America, the supposed “Christian Nation,” could no longer mouth meaningless words like “I am Christian, read the bible, and go to church,” but must instead act Christlike in humble, loving service.
The loving spirit of Christ was never killed or crucified, only his body, and the Second Coming is merely a collective cultural choice.
