Double-shot Thursday

[pyesetz]

In my life I have been unable to avoid making some acquaintances among the US intelligence community.  Recently the acquaintance with the highest security clearance in my circle sent me this ominous message:

Work continues to churn along. I may have had a hand in saving some lives this week. If there should arise some hitch with the Canucks, consider a stint with the xxxxx [<- topsecret code]. You could do some good and get paid for it.

I am unable to disprove the hypothesis that this acquaintance is capable of creating a "hitch with the Canucks" by adding my name to a secure database of "citizens of interest who might be willing to work for us if they can be convinced that emigration is just too difficult" (see Berlin Wall, increase in East German GNP after building of).  But I have been avoiding a US security clearance for 25 years now (December 1980, to be precise) and intend never to get one.  Canada can grant me a clearance if they wish, and share my results with the Yanks if they think it appropriate, but I shall not deal directly with The Beast.

When I was in high school, we were taught to hate the Soviet Union because of its gulag archipelago, its mafia-style politics (loyalty and litmus tests over intelligence and competance), its preference for message discipline over truth, and especially for its one-party rule and the endemic corruption that unavoidably follows.  So basically we were taught to hate... what the US has become.  We have met the enemy and he is: Emmanuel Goldstein (just an alias for Karl Rove).

It was September 20, 2001 when President W. enunciated the Bush Doctrine: Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.  This despicable announcement was then followed by a horrible, frightening silence, as nobody of any note dared to mention that this doctrine is Fascist and the Leader of the Free World should not be saying such things.  Silence gives consent; since then the Constitution has become just a piece of paper that W. uses to wipe his ass.  It's four years later and I am still here in the States.  This is not what I had expected.

A message from Ted Kennedy

Comments

[warrenwolfy.livejournal.com]

Got a question for you though. Do you think that the United States has really gone downhill so quickly? Or is it just that the United States is starting to lag behind as they get passed by the pack?

The United States has a lot to be proud of in its history, but unfortunately most Americans I know can only explain why their country is so great by resorting to platitudes that were drilled into them as children. For example, they will proudly revere the Constitution, but they do so as if it were a semi-religious artifact with mystical powers that somehow oozes freedom and liberty. They cannot rationally explain what's so great about it.

The net result is that the U.S. seems to be a country that got ahead by being rational and visionary, but has become mystical and self-absorbed.

To me, this doesn't necessarily mean you're headed to fascism, but rather that the U.S. is setting itself up to get passed by the rest of the free world. Socially, in terms of liberty, that's already happened. Economically? That remains to be seen, but is still a long way off.

[pyesetz]

I don't think the US has "gone downhill" so much as it has finally allowed the 40% of the population who have authoritarian leanings to express themselves, after 30+ years in the closet.  The Theocons are not a new development, but merely the other side of American schizophrenia.  The USA was founded on fundamentalism and became successful through liberalism, so which one is the true national character?  Both!  And each group claims the other guys are unAmerican.

Jefferson wrote the Constitution in order to avoid having a national religion, but instead we got a national religion with the Constitution as its holy document.

Really, the national religion is about WINNING.  Bush and his team have been losing badly recently.  The poor response to Katrina (especially the ham-handed and ineffective attempts to keep all the dead bodies off the TV news) has broken the spell.  The tide of Fascism is receding for now, but it will be back, like Juan Perón, because so many Americans really want to vote for it.

As to how far off an Argentina-style economic collapse is for the States, see Billmon, who's been beating this lone-wolf-in-the-wilderness drum since November 2003.  Oh and he mentions Canada too.

[warrenwolfy.livejournal.com]

Although interesting, I also notice that those articles are introspective, predicting self-collapse. Yet the biggest issues I see are exernal ones. They're not as sexy, though, because they're many years away and thus not as much fun to shout from the rooftops. ;-)

The Chicago model of economics (ie. free-trade laissez-faire self-interest) has been the pillar of the US economy, and with good reason because it works. However, it's a system that can't be used to maintain 1st place if the rest of the world catches up in things like skilled labour, high-tech, and natural resources. That's what is happening, and in the long-term there's no indication that the U.S. will be able to avoid being passed by developing nations like China.

Not that it really matters overall, because it's not like the U.S. will suddenly go bankrupt, but they won't be #1 anymore. That will cause a shock to national self-identity.

If the U.S. loses its ability to self-justify its social system by saying, "Yeah, but we're the most powerful nation on the planet, so we must be doing things the right way!", then suddenly it will become apparant just how far behind they have fallen socially.

As far as the religious question goes, people believe that religion lowers crime and promotes morality. Yet the U.S. leads the western world in religion, crime, teen-pregnancy, divorce, violence, etc..., with the "red" states and Bible-belt leading the "blue" states. Although there's no evidence to show which is the cause and which is the effect (ie. does religion lead to immorality, or do people living in an immoral culture turn to religion?), from the external perspective of the rest of the world, the U.S. simply does not have any moral or religious authority.

But as long as their economy continues to be #1, the U.S. religious right doesn't need to deal with or admit this because they can always assume that God made them powerful because he wants them to lead.

Overall, I see things as this being the U.S. "golden age", much like the U.K. had theirs.