'Sleepwalking into the imperial dark'

a must read from Tom Engelhardt and asia times online.....


"This can't end well.

But then, how often do empires end well, really? They live vampire-like by feeding off others until, sooner or later, they begin to feed on themselves, to suck their own blood, to hollow themselves out. Sooner or later, they find themselves, as in our case, economically stressed and militarily extended in wars they can't afford to win or lose.

Historians have certainly written about the dangers of overextended empires and of endless war as a way of life, but there's something distant and abstract about the patterns of history. It's quite another thing to take it in when you're part of it; when, as they used to say in the overheated 1960s, you're in the belly of the beast. 


It's not hard to see why. A loss of faith in the American political system is palpable. For many Americans, it's no longer "our government" but "the bureaucracy". Washington is visibly in gridlock and incapable of doing much of significance, while state governments, facing the "steepest decline in state tax receipts on record", are, along with local governments, staggering under massive deficits and cutting back in areas - education, policing, firefighting - that matter to daily life. (see nakedempires 200+ stories on the states here)


Now that we're so obviously there, the confusion is greater than ever. Theoretically, none of this should necessarily be considered bad news, not if you don't love empires and what they do. A post-imperial US could, of course, be open to all sorts of possibilities for change that might be exciting indeed. 

Right now, though, it doesn't feel that way, does it? It makes me wonder: could this be how it's always felt inside a great imperial power on the downhill slide? Could this be what it's like to watch, paralyzed, as a country on autopilot begins to come apart at the seams while still proclaiming itself "the greatest nation on Earth"?

I don't know. But I do know one thing: this can't end well". ..............read the full story here