Empire to the Last

Pat Buchanan is more optimistic than I am. No, I don't mean that he's “starry-eyed”, far from it. But in yesterday's column entitled “Liquidating the Empire” he asks, basically, where we're going to get all the money to support the government takeover of the financial sector. “As Americans save nothing [I guess that's what will keep the government from simply confiscating our savings – hey, I'm glad I bought that PT Cruiser instead of socking it away in some sorry-assed bank!], where are the feds going to get the money? Is the Fed going to print it and destroy the dollar and credit rating of the United States?” Well, he doesn't answer that question, but you know my answer – yes, that is exactly what they're going to do. Because printing more money will result in “mission accomplished” (where have we heard that term before?), at least on paper – which is all that counts anyway, as this current crisis attests. What happens to the dollar and America's credit rating overseas is... well, it's what's already been happening to it, but on an accelerated basis. No one cared up until now, why should they care when the process takes a quantum leap? And by the way, is there any chance that the "big players" in the current crisis, and the ones to come, are already converting their holdings over to other currencies? I would be willing to bet on it.

But to go on with Buchanan's argument – he says budget cuts will be needed. But virtually everything in the budget is “untouchable” -- including pervo art funded by the NEA I guess – except! Ta-daa! Defense! Which means The American Empire, which may now have to be deconstructed in favor of keeping the other part of America – i.e. America – from dissolving into green goo. But ah, Patty me boy (fake Irish accent here), don't underestimate the perfidy of our elected, and even more our unelected, officials. They will, in fact, impose a life style on the average American that would do justice to Kim Jong Il, if it means keeping the Empire alive. Because the Empire includes... well, jobs, of course, and contracts to cronies, and pushing our weight around, and massive ego trips on the part of our "leaders", and flights of fancy on the part of the Wilsonian utopians who they serve, and, last but not least, Israel. Well, I don't mean that Israel is part of the American Empire per se, even though this is what the Iranians think. It's more like we're part of _their_ empire, and they simply will not permit us to shirk our duties, the foremost being to “defend American interests” in any rat-infested shithole in the Near East that might, if otherwise unattended, manage to slip a few Scuds into Tel Aviv. So no, the Empire not only does not “have to go”, it will not go, period. You have to understand the concept of “catastrophe” as explained by Jared Diamond – it's that short-sighted self interest will typically prevail even when it spells serious devolution or even annihilation of a society. We are on that road already, and have been for quite a while, the first significant wave of folly being, as Buchanan points out elsewhere, our entanglement in World Wars I and II. Yes, altruism (however defined) played a role, but if the war industries hadn't been behind it, it wouldn't have happened. And likewise now, there is no discernible benefit to any average American from the Empire (unlike with the British Empire, which really did raise the standard of living of the average Brit, at least for a while, as Buchanan has also pointed out). It's only about benefiting the people in charge – and that for only what remains of their life span. Future generations can go to hell, is the general attitude... and they will, but it won't be called that, just “the way most people have lived down through history”.