With the drive to revolutionize the Democratic Party in full swing, I have to ask why should we not expect anything worse to happen? Why should we not expect the Ten Commandments to be in judicial buildings across this country? Why should we not expect the censorship of outside authors while our President openly panders to a state representative from Alabama whose book-burying proclamations are dangerously reminiscent of Nazi Germany? Why should we not expect the government to have every right to follow our every move and invade all our space for our own good?
Why should we not expect a major mess on our hands?
Over the past month, I have seen one consistent question asked time and time again: what is our country coming to? It's pretty obvious what it is, it's just there is a smidgeon of American blood in our bodies that keeps telling us that it can't possibly happen here. Face it - it's here, it's coming hard, and the only things we can do are fight it, and prepare for the massive clean up ahead of us.
In a past diary, I mentioned that we all need to be prepared for when the inevitable crash comes, because most of the American public won't be and it will be up to us to make it right. It sucks - nobody likes cleaning up after someone else - but that's life for us true, patriotic Americans. The big difference is that when our country fell on hard times, the whole world was also feeling the pain, the pain that spawned Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Luckily for us, we were the only major superpower spared of massive destruction during World War II. After Pearl Harbor, the war never really hit the mainland like it did in Europe and Asia. We were in the position to rebuild not only our own society, but have the rest of the world eager to join in on this great expansion of capitalism, freedom, and democracy.
It's déjà vu all over again as we find ourselves in a big financial, military, social crisis that threatens to rip this country in two like it did back in the 1860s. The difference now though is that the rest of the world, instead of migrating back, are moving forward, forging new stronger alliances, thankful for the Americans' help in the mid-20th century but content now on going at it on their own. Sadly, America today is being faced with only two options left - complete military annihilation of those that don't follow our example or do what we want, or throwing back empty, angry rhetoric such as "you will be needing us one day, you'll thank us!" The former will not due, as the rest of the world will see to it that their survival in this world will not be threatened by one country let alone any country. That leaves the latter, which the rest of the world laughs off saying, "Those funny Americans - they have no idea what's in store for them."
The sad thing is that for most of America, they are right. Those of us not in the know (which are more than 59 million Americans) have no clue what's in store for us, much less how difficult it will be to climb back up.
In another past diary, I talked about the film Easy Rider, in that the film has as much a place in today's society as it did 35 years ago. I also referred to today's easy riders as the credit-card imperialistic junkies, addicted to oil and consumption, fiscally irresponsible, and socially oppressive against those that don't follow their line of thinking. Like any addiction (which is what this is), there comes a point when it can no longer sustain itself, and the only way to counter it is by a massive rupture in society (killing or stealing to get what you need to soothe it) or a hard, hard withdrawal followed by the repair of the damage done by it.
We have had it good for so long, but it's going to be time to give the devil his due, and he's going to want payment - in blood and capital the likes of which many of us haven't ever seen or experienced. There is going to be quite a mess on our hands when it's all said and done, but I wouldn't necessarily expect something massive like Black Tuesday. The myth was that there were massive suicides when the stock market crashed, but from what I have read and heard that wasn't true. That day wasn't nearly as bad as history made it out to be - it just is written as such because that's when all our troubles began, and later reared their ugly head in the form of massive lines to soup kitchens. It would be some time after the crash when all the images of the Depression would start to materialize. I would expect the same for our troubles, with the only exception being that those images are already starting to take place.
Foreign students no longer find American universities appealing and prefer to stay back and study there. Most who do attend prefer to find work and opportunities outside this country, largely in part thanks to the massive outsourcing of American jobs overseas. Artists are finding their means of creating their work easier in other parts of the world besides ours, and foreign countries no longer desire to purchase our brand which has been severely tarnished by half-assed products and attitudes, no thanks to our current Commander in Chief. In addition, they are no longer looking at the dollar as their main means of currency in foreign trade.
The greatest tragedy that will come for this country is the one thing that today's Republican leaders have failed to see thanks to blinding ideology: the tables this time will be turned against us. Whereas foreign nations looked to us to help rebuild their societies after World War II, we may be forced to look to foreign nations to help us rebuild our society. In essence, we may be held as slaves to the foreign social and economic markets of the world that we have spent years shunning and disregarding out of our imperial hubris.
Of course, all that can be stopped with a simple push of the Nuke button, but what would that really give us? Nothing. No, seriously, nothing. No world, no resources, no life, no nothing - Armageddon. The Religious Right would probably want nothing more than this because their lives suck so much as it is with high health care costs, low job wages, and all that reality TV smut on their televisions that is turning their children into demons. But, the reality is that even for these folks, they do not want to be the one who instigated the liquidation of the human race, God's greatest creation. Though I try not to judge, I can't help but feel that God will have a special place in Hell for the one person, created in His image, who destroyed His creation. That bit of fear will probably make people think twice before wiping out the world, so all we are left is submission to other worlds, their markets, their policies, their actions.
And on that note, let me make one big prediction (of which I hope will not overshadow the depth of this article). I cannot help but feel that Osama Bin Laden understands American politics better than most Americans do. Why should Bin Laden need to attack us again when we are slowly destroying ourselves? Would he not be smart to wait until the Democrats retain power to launch another attack that will surely make the American public blame them for not protecting them, leading to a return to Republican power and a full-fledged police state? That's why, for some reason, I can't see Bin Laden launching another major attack here at home unless, unless, Osama is ready to go for the jugular and make a move that he feels will lead to a collapse of our country. I could be wrong and Bin Laden, just to show he still can, could attack us in 2005, or 2006. Still, as Democrats, we all need to be prepared for this, and make it perfectly clear that our lack of protection and safety and security (not to mention the lack of foreign sympathy should it happen) is strictly the fault of our grown-up Republicans who have the majority in the federal government.
If there is any silver lining, it is the fact that this country simply cannot continue forth like it has and expect to stay afloat as it has. Either this country will shatter itself with anarchy and chaos, forcing us to relocate elsewhere to pursue our dreams, or we will rise to retain our rightful place as the grown-ups in charge of this country. It is going to be quite a mess to clean up either way you slice, whether Bin Laden body blows this country or we do it to ourselves by our own arrogant idiocy. With this possible future in the back of our minds, we Democrats will need to come up with ideas in relation to that. We will need ideas to not only clean up the mess our Republican "friends" will leave behind, but to ensure safeguards, protections, and guarantees that such utter disrespect for ethics, culture, economics, health, the environment, and most importantly, the law, will not happen again on our watch. The complete disregard of law in our current body of government is very dangerous for our country, internally and externally, for what is a country without laws? Our policies toward the rest of the world will inevitably come back to bite us hard, and if we have any shot at regaining the world's trust again, major changes will have to accompany these new ideas. One way or another, in this world that is moving forward and not looking back (at us), the Right and current Republican party really have nowhere else to go but down.