What comes after the fall….

No thinking person would give you even odds that America will survive the next four years… looking at the way the dollar is currently falling, the deficits currently climbing and the irrational political power that is in place… the country may not survive the next two years… the question is no longer “if,” but, “when.”

Since it is inevitable, the question that should be addressed is what comes next…

Will it be occupation by the countries that own us? Japan, China

Will it be civil/religious war?

Just what is coming our way with the speed of fast moving train?

Bush gets elected by hook or crook, the cold civil war will heat up to a shooting war... and now it is not a matter of if, but when.

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Do you really think that is answer? How would I do it?

But sitting around and waiting for Armageddon isn't the answer either.

"America....Love it, or Change it".

a lot of things going on in my life....

every thing else....

thanks for the food for thought....

maybe they will steal it again next time, just as quietly. This is no Ukraine, as much as I would like it to be.

But it doesn't follow that people are powerless. Political movements grow from the bottom up. Local races matter. Who is the mayor, the city council, the state legislatures. Arguably, they are more important to the communities that make up this country. And these are people who you have a much better chance of talking to, who might return phone calls, consider ideas.

Look at the president all day and long-term depression is guaranteed. Much better to get involved - sit in on your city council, get to know the people who run the place you live in. Perhaps we can take back the country eventually, one city at a time. Its a thought, or a dream, at least.

But silly not to read the handwriting on the wall, just because you don't like what it says.

Denial is not heroic.

but neither is sitting on your ass, making doom and gloom predictions about things that may or may not happen.

George Bush is not the end of the world, nor is he the end of this country.

that laughed about our potential fall to the depths we find ourselves today.

And, we're still sinking. Or haven't you noticed?

Keep your head in the sand and pump sunshine up your ass if you want, you help nothing.

and what I think Your Highness.

I am touched that you took the time to peer down from your Ivory Tower and upon me here with the unwashed masses.

Go fuck yourself.

to fucking you. Even with all that sunshine up your ass.

Though I'd ask you to stay away from my ass.

Sunshine notwithstanding.

Thanks.

Just wanted to share.

But in what form exactly is still debatable. The federal government, with all of its corruption, is so far removed from the purpose and duties that the founding fathers established it to perform. It's now overdue for a major overhaul -- or collapse. We will likely see one of the two come to pass very soon, as the dollar crash will leave us bankrupt, in economic turmoil and at the threshold of a major depression. With the Neo-Conservative ideologues in power, however, we won't see the anything near the kind of solutions necessary to soften this nasty blow, or else to guide us through the immediate aftermath.

Unless there is a massive, popular revolution to take back the power from the neo-cons, the federal government may just weaken and fade into relative powerlessness. At this point, I seriously expect that many states will break away from the Union and either establish regional economic confederacies (i.e. the solid Blue New England Northeast, the Great Lakes states), or else elect go it alone as entirely independent republics (i.e. California & Texas). You might even see certain major cities (i.e. New York) establish themselves as totally independent city-states.

With the nation more divided than ever, none of the above is far-fetched anymore. What will really make things interesting, however, is how each region is going to deal with Peak Oil and the energy crisis it will bring. Solutions, whatever there may be, will almost certainly demand a return to local industry and perhaps regional cooperation.

The founding fathers never bargained for the course we have taken. There are serious articles being published about our future as a banana republic.

The sort of bounty we've enjoy has been a bit of a stretch. Not long ago, I remember a news clip of two Russian women fighting over a rotten potato - the last thing on the grocery store shelves. I also remember people laughing and joking, saying it couldn't happen here.

It most certainly can. And, if it does, the sort of smug arrogance and hubris and ugly-Americanism that makes cruel jokes about others and thinks we're immune to such things will finally be purged from our system.

At least we have that to look forward to.

my imaginings too dark to speak. my knowings of the past, of the patterns of the rise and fall of "great" nations. history is told by the winners, so how bout that? the losers wallow away on the pity pot laying blame here and there. the first thing the collective spirit finds is a group to hate.

That is a way to keep "law" and order. Christo-Fascism is gearing-up with the prefect mindset and rule system to cover the Great Fall.

All of the results will simply be attributed God's Will and any poor fate is because He has Decreed it! Who can reason or argue with that when becomes the agenda and goverment policy?

What difference does it make if your punishment is delivered by the new Inquisitors of the Regime or by seeming chance, or in the Afterlife?

Abandon the days of yore ye vermin! Burn baby, burn!

And it's bearing down on us like the one after 909.

That's no light at the end of the tunnel...that's a train.

voting booths should have a sign on them that reads:

Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.

You only get so many chances. We've squandered ours.

Everything's so fragile right now. It could be a natural disaster that tips the balance (like a pandemic), or a more direct result of our socio/political/economic folly that tips the balance. But our solidity is a facade...and, if we fall, we fall hard.

<snip>...we see a daily increase in the number of poor people, which today total approximately 51.6% of this country’s 35 million people. Yes, the strong Argentine currency permitted the National and Provincial Governments to spend more than what was really made available to them. Thus causing a structural destruction of the country...

Argentina, at one time, had a very strong middle-class, which was close to 45% of the total population. However, poorly managed governments with poor economic policies slowly crushed the size of the middle-class population.

“Post-effects” of the devaluation have...increased the crime rate, increased the number of kidnappings here, as well as the number of properties which have to be auctioned off...Most Provinces are completely bankrupt and in some cases are 3 months behind in paying “School-teachers” and other Provincial employees. I see no effort being made by these governmental leaders to reduce employees. No doubt the present national leaders strongly believe, and rightly so, that they would have complete chaos on their hands, as well as a social revolution, should the present unemployment rate go above 25%. And since no social security benefits are available to the workers, they now depend on governmental food programs, which provide a great deal of corrupt money entering into the pockets of those governmental people administering the program.<snip>

http://www.financialsense.com/fsu/editorials/2003/0304.htm

I think we'll have VERY hard times ahead but it'll be a wake-up call to everyone. Well, let me be optomistic.

I don't really blame them. In fact, it is those people that I am most concerned about. By all means, be optimistic. Project the positive. That is bound to help. But the people that never would've believed we'd be here today, if you warned them 5 yrs ago, are the same ones refusing to see where we are headed. They do not help anything.

in Shrub's case, a red nose and a couple rug burns.

Sorry, couldn't resist.

The Final Transition to BushPutinist Orwellian Tyranny.

Who can say what will be the trigger?

LIHOP/MIHOP #2?
National Bankruptcy?

Or will it be a slow Imperial Roman Squeeze, punctuated with "Moderate" Emperors that switch every 8 years who's names aren't always Bush*?

Hard to say. Something's coming and the world is trembling like it's 1938 or 1940?

The Sitzkrieg will soon be over, one way or another, I think.

Partition peacefully into a collection of 2nd class "powers", disarm, and join the rest of the world as civilized nations.

Could happen.....if we're lucky and brains outstrip our childish notions of "patriotism", "honor", and greed.

Right now it appears that the world has gotten sick of our 'leadership' and is doing something about it. They are doing it the smart way. Nobody wants to go against him militarily, so they are attacking economicly.

As the fall of the dollar continues there will be less ability to impose the Will of Bush on the world. We won't be able to afford it without large infusions of foreign money, and they sure wont give us that. The only other way to make war is to print money, which of course guarantees staggering inflation. Seems like they have pulled our teeth without firing a shot.

If the cabal decides to go the inflation route they are guaranteeing that the masses of people will experience hunger and homelessness, which will destabilize the government more. The one thing that the cabal has not learned from history is that when the masses become so poor that they "cant put food on their families", they will take revenge. It happened in russia at the start of the 20th century, it happened in france in 1889. It CAN happen here. This is an armed country in which culturally, we'd rather fight than talk, so the worse things get, the more danger the cabal is in. But they don't care, so they'll go down.

Scary, but almost inevitable by now.

after that, the streets and the cities will be more crowded with working homeless. There won't be much money around to buy consumer goods, so retail should nose-dive, and those "last-gasp" jobs will become hard to come by. A lot of people living together in the same house. Increases in crime and anger with fewer jobs and everything, including food, costing more.

Eventually, probably reactionary violence or protests against the people that the media define as the "culprits" - war protesters, Arab-Americans, gays, people who don't walk the straight and narrow. A while back, The Nation ran an article called "rust and rage" - which showed that while some areas of the country were getting poorer, the poor were actually going right-wing - protesting in front of a mosque and swearing allegiance to Kim IL Bush. Of course, this is the subject of Thomas Frank's (excellent) What's the Matter with Kansas?, too - you're actually seeing proletariat anger directed at liberals instead of the investor class shmucks who are moving all of their capital abroad.

As far as Bush is concerned - the only way to stabilize the balance of payments is to offset the current account deficit with a capital account surplus - which means that we have to get foreign money coming in to the country. But investors won't put money here when our Federal deficit is so large. And the only way to balance the budget would be to raise taxes (on the rich), and cut military spending. I don't give those two a good chance of getting buy Karl Rove and Cheney - they're going to fiddle and square dance while Rome burns. It's going to be rough, man.

"This ability to believe is rather weak in some circles, above all in those with money and education. They may trust more in pure cold reason than a glowing idealistic heart. Our so-called intellectuals do not like to hear this, but it is true anyway. They know so much that in the end they do not know what to do with their wisdom. They can see the past, but not much of the present, and nothing at all of the future. Their imagination is insufficient to deal with a distant goal in a way such that one already thinks it achieved.

They were also unable to believe in the victory of National Socialism while the National Socialist movement was still fighting for power. They are as little able today to believe in the greatness of our national German future. They perceive only what they can see, but not what is happening, and what will happen.

That is why their carping criticisms generally focus on laughable trivialities. Whenever some unavoidable difficulty pops up, the kind of thing that always happens, they are immediately inclined to doubt everything and to throw the baby out with the bath water. To them difficulties are not there to be mastered, rather to be surrendered to." - Joseph Goebbles, New Years Eve 1938

http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/goeb16.htm

letting in the illegal immigrants we should respond that they probably now own our country and might want to get rid of us!

They offer a number of ways our country could change radically. (and the book was published in 1997--eerie how believable it sounds now!) They make the point that states will feel the financial squeeze first, and may refuse to remit taxes to the federal gov't. This seems like a form of "economic secession." As to what it means in everyone's daily life, who knows? The usual advice is pay down debts, etc. and I'm sure that's a good idea. I do know this: for the first time in my adult life, I'm glad I'm a renter and don't have a house to lose.

while we still have time.

Maybe it is good I still have the Mao cap I bought in China????

(because they will technically "own" America) I'd be as uncomfortable as I am with the current gov't. Bad as our current gov't is, I wouldn't want to live in an occupied country.