“Perhaps it is possible, especially in strange times such as these, for an entire people, or at least a majority, to deceive themselves into believing that things are in fact going well when in fact they are not, when things are in fact farcical. Most Romans worked and played as usual while Rome fell about their ears.”
– Walker Percy, The Second Coming
I shamelessly stole that quote from someone’s Facebook profile. I’ve never read Percy. All the same, it struck me as an incisive analysis of what’s happening right now in America.
It’s interesting to me that I’m studying the Fall of Rome in school while I’m watching the same thing happen in America. We’re not there yet, but there’s no saying how fast it will happen or how technology will influence the rate of consolidation or decline. If I had to make a comparison (and such things inevitably fall short, considering the differen cultural contexts) I’d say we’re heading from the Republic into the Empire stage. Obama is, as I said yesterday, our Julius Caesar, though instead of returning, unwanted by the Senate, to Rome, accompanied by his army fresh from the triumphant Gallic campaign, he will storm Washington, cheered on by the Senate, and order home our army from Iraq.
Regardless, he will become a well-loved hero who will gather power unto himself, and in the frenzy of public support, foment his role as imperator, thus suspending the republic and beginning centuries of American dictatorship, under which lewd behavior will be rewarded and Christianity will be persecuted, until at last the central government cannot support the expanse of territory and individual power centers (ie., states or regions) will break off into independent nations.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Letting my imagination wander, I see an interim period beginning in about 2011 where the government will have consolidate substantial economic, political and military power, all of which will be willingly given over at first by those who want a handout in a time of economic crisis.
This leads to the development of a totalitarian American Regime which becomes truly imperialistic (you ain’t seen nothin’ yet, hippies) recognizing the need to marshal resources, and aggressively moving to secure things like energy sources in other countries. We’d be smartest to start with Venezuela, because it’s close to home and has lots of oil. Mexico also has a lot, of course, though supplies there are dwindling.
Internally, we’ll be seeing increasingly unwelcome totalitarian control emerging in major urban areas - thin East German style, but with lots more hi-tech surveillance - and people will begin waking up to what they brought upon themselves too late to do anything about it but follow the curfew and steer clear of the Homeland Security jackboots. We’ll be seeing a lot of UAVs in the skies, and probably robotic patrol bots (they’re already using these in Iraq) and the level of communications monitoring that the conspiracy theorists are always clamoring about will become transparent as the government acts on it, perhaps invoking the “common good” as expressed through the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorist Act (which Obama has been said to support.)
Where things start to get dicey is the outlying areas - the rural parts, the midwest, etc. America is too big and spread out to really occupy, and we have an ingrained notion of freedom deep in our bones. I see government control sticking to major infrastructure routes and population centers, leaving the rest of the heartland to decay and foment into rebel groups which the government hopes will just devolve into insignificant militia bands, but could lead to serious secessionist blocs.
I could go on with my orwellian vision, but I’m starving. What do you think will happen, worst (plausible) case scenario?
(And yes, I realize this post is full of pretty stream-of-consciousness stuff…I’m just thinking out loud here.)
