The Decline and Fall of the American Empire: How to Fight a Decaying System
For the past thirty years, much of the civilized world has experienced a long period of peace. The Pax Americana, as many have called it, has redefined Western civilization. It has reestablished social hierarchies, maintained control over the vast natural resources of the Third World, and has, for better or worse, created a uniform economic and political system—a unilateral “globalism.” Much of today’s political establishment owes its existence, and protection, to the vast military defenses afforded by the US, whether it be in Europe, Asia, or the Americas. Since WWII, the US has promoted stability and liberty throughout the globe and we have seen the greatest leap in industrialization and human development in recorded history. However, the “American Dream” comes with a heavy price: economically, ecologically, socially, and on an ethical, human scale. Over the past few decades, the self-righteous justifications for the maintenance of such a system, born of the incredible devastation of the past century’s world wars, has slowly given way to hegemonic inertia, opportunistic avarice, moral rot and cultural malaise. From protector of world peace, effectively resuscitating Western civilization following WWII, the US has transitioned into a role as the major foe of human civilization, blindly leading the world into impending catastrophe. If we do nothing, humanity will surely die.
As an American citizen, I feel it my patriotic duty to raise the alarm surrounding my motherland’s suicidal death-wish for the world. This nefarious neurosis pervades American society, underlies her moral conscience and forms the basis for its foreign policy. I feel much affection for my fellow Americans, and much regret for having left the land of milk and honey for the travails of Aliyah, however, I have never once doubted the moral argument for my unrelenting desire to abandon ship. Upon reaching adulthood, my conscience rebelled against the confines of the American mentality and I knew at once that I could not resist the societal forces that overwhelmed my soul. I needed to choose either to concede defeat and lose myself to the pagan nihilism of American consumerism, or leave, and search for inspiration and salvation, for myself and the world.
Growing up in the US, I was taught never to question authority, especially the totalitarian authority of the state. Were it not for the state, I was informed, anarchy would reign and our security would be put at stake. As I grew older and discovered the depths of loneliness that I encountered in American society, I became disenchanted with the sterile stability that my country promised me. My emotionally-starved psyche intuitively rejected the superficial gestures of goodwill and collective spirit that such universal commercialism offered and I came to realize that however much I tried, I could never allow myself to submit to the lies that I was being fed since my childhood. No matter how much financial support I received from my well-off upbringing or societal pressures that I experienced in my close-knit professionally-minded community, I could not bring myself to accept such a reality. My pain became amplified through my interactions with others, less-privileged than I, who had suffered directly from the corrupt system, and I began to develop a sense of kinship with those who were able to see the Western establishment for what it really was: a menace to human existence.
I bear nothing but pity for those who insist on defending the virtues of this dying monster. I know how tantalizing it must feel to those who hold power to believe that one’s own virtues have granted them such privilege. I can also sympathize with the neurotic fetishizing of the human condition, of seeing the good in people, and in our current reality. However, such moralizing cannot justify the gross immorality that humanity currently represents. We have not yet changed our ways, we are the same beasts who participated in the World Wars and who threaten not only our own survival, but the survival of the entire biosphere. We have not taken stock of our vices and addressed our unholy tendencies towards pagan nihilism, violence and baseless hatred. Nothing in this world we inhabit has actually progressed. We live with the same base human impulses that we have consistently fallen prey to over the millennia, and no great leap of technology, no philosophical insight, will change the fact that we are actively taking part in our devilish demise. Why? Because we are unwilling to face reality and we are unwilling to question our beliefs.
Our reality, human reality, is plagued by many eternal questions that have yet to be resolved. We repress many of our collective fears and remain steadfast in our infantile attempts to assert ourselves in irresponsible and immodest expressions of adolescent angst. Our species has grown exponentially in the past few hundred years. However, our power structures have not well adapted and lack the depth and complexity necessary for maintaining order and collective wellbeing. As a species, we will need to look at ourselves in the mirror and make the required modifications in order to keep up with ourselves. Additionally, we must also quit running away from such metaphysical fears as humanity’s mortality and Earth’s finite resources, or else we risk losing everything before we even have the chance to live. Like most things in this universe, humanity’s biological clock is limited, and while our species may live for many more thousands of years, even eons, we must accept the fact that one day we will also go the way of many of our ancestors and cede our place in the world to other species. Either evolution will work in our favor or against us, but we will surely die, and most likely eons before the end of terrestrial life (if we don’t eliminate all of life in our stubborn attempts at immortality). We must recognize our place in Earth’s history and see ourselves once again as an equal part of the fabric of the living world—we are not God.
While the majority of humanity will see much wisdom in such ideas, many in the West, especially in the US, will most likely relate to my criticism as a projection of personal stresses, or as an ephemeral, mystical, ideology. For many in the West, such philosophical questions will seem childish and unrealistic. Many will wonder why we should think at all about our place in this finite world, with the material abundance and political stability we now experience strengthening our audacity to ignore our collective expiration date. Many in the West will struggle deeply with the recognition of our distant death, and will even fight such premonitions that would dishearten their workers and remind them of their own limitations. Instead, the West pushes on, outwards and stronger, propping itself up with meaningless ideologies and pagan religious constructs. The current establishment is unyielding in its desire to survive unimpeded, yet only through its demise can we rebuild our society around human specifications, as images of ourselves and not only of God.
Our acknowledgement of our humanity, our mortality, must be complemented with the conversely authentic recognition of our innate divinity, our Godliness. God cannot remain an ephemeral object, divorced from our material reality, nor can he be entombed within the confines of our mortal conceptions of human consciousness, however, if we are to successfully reestablish God’s kingdom on Earth, if we are to reassert his holiness over the devil’s banal, beastlike desires, we must believe that our lives, and humanity itself, have divine meaning. We cannot contrast ourselves with others or analyze our behaviors through scientific methods, but we can surely feel the humanity, and the divinity, of ourselves, and thus also the dearth of divinity that defines our current, unholy and robotic existence. It is the religious sense, the innate divine spark, that we must search out, identify and defend. If we let our human dignity die under the weight of our fears, we will never allow ourselves to find solace in our ultimate destination. Nevertheless, such intimate knowledge of God, some might call it prophesy, must parallel our dutiful upkeep of our natural surroundings, and our deep commitment to our human, material world. We may one day be worthy of true revelation, but only once we have redeemed ourselves from the slavery of our pubescent paganism.
In order to come to terms with our destiny, we will need the world to change. The reigning powers, including the West, stubbornly fight the truth and insist on their innocence, justifying their evil by threatening unholy anarchy. Reality, however, is on our side, and God has promised not to destroy our world. We must continue to believe in our divinity, and not that of the state, in order to one day rise against the system and resuscitate mankind. The US, on the other hand, must cease to exist. It is a state based on ideals of individual avarice, a blasphemous alliance of corrupt Christianity with private business interests, and childlike desires for world domination. Little by little, day by day, the US is losing its legitimacy not only to have a say in world politics, but to even exist as an independent state-entity. More and more of Earth’s peoples have begun to define their identities as anti-American and anti-imperialist. More and more of humanity has begun to see the US as a cancer and an impediment to world peace and a danger to the future of human civilization. As a result, the US has redoubled efforts to assert its power, through aggressively advocating for an expansion of NATO, manipulative dealings with Third-World countries (such as Israel and Latin America), or direct invasion. It has become clear that only by undermining US interests can the world actually progress.
Ironically, many in the US would agree with my assertions. Many in the US similarly feel abandoned, alienated, by an inhuman system unwilling to take account of individual humanity, and unburdened by collective misdeeds in domestic and foreign affairs. While the majority of American most likely will find what I write offensive, I sincerely believe that a large minority agree that the only way for us to move on from the Holocaust, and from the general corruption that plagues the world establishment, is for the West to undergo deconstruction and redefinition, a process that would see the US losing its sovereignty as an independent entity. The colonialist foundation for American independence would need to be uprooted and and we would probably see the US merging to form an equitable federation with other Latin-American polities. The specifics aside, it’s become abundantly clear to me that while I sympathize with those Americans who suffer from the same scourge of nihilism that I was traumatized by in my childhood, the majority of Americans still believe that the US is a force for good in the world.
I believe that the only way to fight the US is by utilizing the independence of sovereign states as sources of propaganda that could alter the way its citizens view their country. If European states, under US protection/occupation, would begin to broadcast anti-American sentiment, it would do much harm to the US’s status in world affairs and would eventually lead to the dissolution of American patriotic identity in the US itself. There’s no reason why we should fight the US through traditional means, however US “democracy” allows for a world of possibilities and for the ability of foreign interference in elections that could eventually alter the fabric of civic society. Russia had begun efforts to distort and purge American idealism through civil, legal channels, but the US fought back through campaigns demonizing Russia and pushing aggressively for the current war in Ukraine. However, if Western Europe were to turn its back on the US in a coordinated PR campaign against American imperialism, the US would have no political recourse and would have to surrender to its own democracy. Is it possible? Can we really expect hundreds of millions of Americans to rebel against their own country and vote for the dissolution of its powers? I believe that it is surely in the realm of possibility and is dependent on a large array of factors. As an American citizen, I see it as my duty to free my fellow citizens from enslavement to the “American Dream” and I only hope that humanity wins in the end.
“It is not by strength, not by might, but by spirit.” (Zachariah 4:6)