The Big Picture –
By Glynn Wilson –
It would be ironic, if not funny, if the end of the American run of prestige and power in the world came crashing to an end because of the idiotic and corrupt actions of a mob boss dictator wannabe who got elected on the slogan “Make America Great Again.”
So far what Donald Trump has done in his second term looks more like Make America Fail Like Russia, another failed empire that faded because of the stupid and corrupt actions of authoritarian dictators.
It will be up to historians to write the full story on this in the future, providing there is a future and the concept of human history is not obliterated by the bots.
Meanwhile as I continue to read, think and write – because that is what I do – I found myself sitting in a camp chair by a lake this week as Spring arrives in Alabama and the trees and bushes began to flower and bloom, listening to a TED Talk in development by a world traveling friend about the end of the American Empire.
A flaming Katy blooming on Logan Martin Lake: Glynn Wilson
Two weeks ago, after he got back from his latest trip to India, it was a talk about what he’s discovered about all the world’s religions.
Not just by watching YouTube videos like most people these days, mind you. He’s been to all these countries and seen life in these places up close, like the Hindus in India and the Buddhists in Nepal.
He’s read about and visited many of the places where great empires once existed, from the Romans in Italy to the seats of power in France, Spain and the United Kingdom, as well as where the Aztecs and Mayans once ruled in Central and South America. He’s been all over and around China, and understands their legacy of empire as well.
Now he’s convinced this is the end of America. Too see if I could find something with Google to back him up, this morning I ran across this largely discredited book released in 2007 by heavily criticized author Naomi Wolfe.
The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot
I must say she makes a compelling case in the intro, and it did sort of feel like the end for America when the Bush Great Recession hit. But perhaps she was a bit ahead of her time in predicting a fascist takeover of America, since the American electorate responded by electing Barack Obama in 2008, and we were saved for a time and got eight more years to basically Rest In Peace as the economy came back to life.
Even after one disastrous term of Trump, the American people came through one more time and elected Joe Biden, who did things no one would could have believed, including finally passing a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill through Congress. I have friends here who still have jobs because of this. But they are in denial that it could all end soon because of Trump.
“I hope we wake up quickly because history shows it’s a small window in which people can fight back before it is too dangerous to fight back,” Wolf told Tucker Carlson on Fox News at the time. They did fight back, but have now capitulated once again to the fake news and dogma of the MAGA political right.
According to the promo of the book still on Amazon:
“In a stunning indictment, best-selling author Naomi Wolf lays out her case for saving American democracy. In authoritative research and documentation Wolf explains how events parallel steps taken in the early years of the 20th century’s worst dictatorships such as Germany, Russia, China, and Chile.
“The book cuts across political parties and ideologies and speaks directly to those among us who are concerned about the ever-tightening noose being placed around our liberties. In this timely call to arms, Naomi Wolf compels us to face the way our free America is under assault. She warns us–with the straight-to-fellow-citizens urgency of one of Thomas Paine’s revolutionary pamphlets – that we have little time to lose if our children are to live in real freedom.”
“Recent history has profound lessons for us in the U.S. today about how fascist, totalitarian, and other repressive leaders seize and maintain power, especially in what were once democracies,” Wolfe wrote. “The secret is that these leaders all tend to take very similar, parallel steps. The Founders of this nation were so deeply familiar with tyranny and the habits and practices of tyrants that they set up our checks and balances precisely out of fear of what is unfolding today. We are seeing these same kinds of tactics now closing down freedoms in America, turning our nation into something that in the near future could be quite other than the open society in which we grew up and learned to love liberty.”
If she had written those words last week, a majority of the American people and even many in the press might have agreed with her. Because that certainly seems where things are headed.
Stay tuned for more on this developing story. Will this really be the end of America?
As always, it will be up to the press – or what’s left of it – and the people.
For more detailed discussions of whether America is an empire, or an imperialist nation, see American Empire: A Global History by A. G. Hopkins; and Wikipedia’s page on US imperialism
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