There is a true law, a right reason, conformable to nature, universal, unchangeable, eternal, whose commands urge us to duty, and whose prohibitions restrain us from evil. Whether it enjoins or forbids, the good respect its injunctions, and the wicked treat them with indifference. This law cannot be contradicted by any other law, and is not liable either to derogation or abrogation. Neither the senate nor the people can give us any dispensation for not obeying this universal law of justice. It needs no other expositor and interpreter than our own conscience. It is not one thing at Rome and another at Athens; one thing today and another tomorrow; but in all times and nations this universal law must for ever reign, eternal and imperishable. It is the sovereign master and emperor of all beings. God himself is its author,—its promulgator,—its enforcer. He who obeys it not, flies from himself, and does violence to the very nature of man. For his crime he must endure the severest penalties hereafter, even if he avoid the usual misfortunes of the present life.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
American influence abroad, as defined by the power and status of the U.S. empire, has been in consistent decline for nearly two decades now. Indeed, when the history books are written it’ll be clear that the dotcom boom and bust at the end of the 20th century marked the peak of U.S. imperial strength. Shortly after that bubble burst our nation was faced with the brutal and traumatizing 9/11 attacks, and the overreaction to this event unleashed a mass insanity across the American public from which we have never recovered.
Specifically, the attacks of September 11, 2001 were ruthlessly and immediately exploited by degenerate power hungry charlatans in D.C. and elsewhere to fear-monger an entire country to give up liberty in exchange for a promise of safety. With that devilish bargain our society committed cultural suicide.
As is so often the case with such terrible events, the worst of the worst took charge within our government and began to define the cultural narrative in fascistic terms. These sociopathic war mongers saw the terror attack as an excuse to advance their twisted imperial ambitions abroad, while also earning a fortune pursuing unconstitutional surveillance “opportunities” at home. This Owellian death spiral has been ongoing for over sixteen years now, and doesn’t skip a beat irrespective of who sits in the Oval office. It’s an unaccountable, corrupt and nefarious beast consisting of government, intelligence agencies, mega corporations and Wall Street. This is late-stage U.S. Empire, and it’ll consume everything it can in its path before coming to its inevitable end.
The American people have been fed endless lies for a very long time, and while people are starting to wake up, too many continue to fall for the same old deranged partisan nonsense. Obama was supposed to save us from Bush, then Trump was supposed to save us from Obama. Half the country now prays for some yet to be determined Presidential savior like Oprah to come rescue them in 2020. This is the definition of insanity.
The only way we’ll recover as a nation is if we take a long hard look in the mirror and see how stupid, arrogant and destructive we’ve been since 9/11. One year into the Presidency of Donald Trump, a person Democrats have labeled a Hitler-esque Putin puppet, and 55 Democrats (including Nancy Pelosi and “resistance” hero Adam Schiff) voted to give him and Jeff Sessions more unconstitutional surveillance powers over the public.
It’s so obvious these dishonest politicians in government are constantly lie to you, but many people simply refuse to admit it. The public loves to be endlessly conned along silly, tribal, partisan lines rather than admit that the rot isn’t partisan, but systemic. All sociopaths in D.C. have to do is tweak the message a little every four years to get people frothing at the mouth for a new savior. The reason we can’t have nice things is because too many of us are so completely gullible and easily manipulated by power-hungry crooks we paradoxically call “leaders.” The only thing these people are leading us into is a gigantic ditch.
Earlier today, I came across the following tweet and it summed things up perfectly for me.
Ok, no joke – 45.6 million Americans on “food stamps” in the NINTH YEAR of this recovery, with stocks at record highs. Something is very wrong with the official narrative. (This is not an anti-food-stamp tweet.)https://t.co/A0OztdixPa
— Rudolf E. Havenstein, Anti-Davos Man (@RudyHavenstein) January 16, 2018
It’s all a lie. All these leaders, whether they’re politicians in government or CEOs at mega corporations, they’re all lying to you. Things are not well and won’t get better until we grow up, take responsibility and stop being conned. If you don’t know who the sucker at the imperial poker table is, it’s probably you.
This is why I spent so much of the last year writing about how important it is to focus. on yourself. As individuals, we can’t control outside events and we can’t control the consciousness of others, but we can get ahold of our own minds and affect the world around us through our own actions. If enough of us focus on that as opposed to spending all our energy on external drama, things will get better.
Whether we think it’s a good thing or a bad thing, the U.S. empire is rapidly fading into the sunset. The signs are everywhere and are undeniable at this point. I don’t say this to fear-monger, but because I think it’s crucial people aren’t caught off guard by how much the world will change over the next 5-10 years.
As was the case with 9/11, it’s when we’re blindsided that we’re most easily manipulated by bad actors who want to control and take advantage of you. Let’s not be blindsided again.
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In Liberty,
Michael Krieger
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Michael, once again your absolutely right except for possibly the twenty year timeframe of the U.S. downturn. I think the tipping point was around 1968 with the anti-Vietnam protest marches and race riots.
One of your very best articles.
Agree completely.
Agreed!
Michael your analysis is spot on. The partisan left/right divide is false and works against the interests of the majority of us. It is exactly the same here in the UK. The Corbynites here are evangelical, they really do think that it will be different next time. Despite the long history of consistent failure by their beloved Labour Party, which is clearly controlled opposition and always has been. Well it is clear to anyone who removes their blinkers [blinders to US people?].
One minor quibble, you say: “Specifically, the attacks of September 11, 2001 were ruthlessly and immediately exploited by degenerate power hungry charlatans in D.C. and elsewhere to fear-monger an entire country to give up liberty in exchange for a promise of safety.”
I think that this is too kind to the perps. I would say that is was far more than exploitation. Rather that they created and managed the event from whole cloth.
Anyway, my sincere thanks for your consistently high standard of thought provoking work. Your Spiral Dynamics pieces point the way forward. It comes from within each individual and when we reach critical mass then change for the better will inevitably come.
agree with everything you said with one exception…9/11 was an obvious inside job false flag that was used for the ends you just described…I am stunned that you didnt know that… google zeitgeist the movie on you tube and 9/11 war by deception by ryan dawson also on youtube…it will become painfully obvious that 9/11 was orchestrated by the deep state / Mossad / CIA as their new pearl harbor and the ultimate excuse for the fake war on terror and the orwellian laws that followed…
I think Michael its even worse than you describe. You are correct about the non-partisan lying and such but it is not just the US empire that is in decline, it is the whole industrial age that is coming to an end. As net energy falls so must industrialism. The US began to fade in the 1970s after the US passed its peak of conventional oil. Everything else are just symptoms and aspects of the decline. For a long view of our situation I encourage you to read Lewis Mumford’s 1930s, “Technics and Civilization”(easy read) or perhaps Oswald Spengler’s 1917(?) “Decline of the West”(not easy but very prescient). For a more current view try Dimity Orlov’s “Shrinking the Technospere”, it includes suggestions for a useful response.
By the way, good luck trying to find stats on net world or national energy, as far as I can tell no agency is keeping track, willful ignorance one might suspect.
A small number of Americans who adhere to political atheism have been taking steps to insulate themselves and their loved-ones from the shock of this inevitable decline in U.S. hegemony. We have been labeled as “preppers” in an attempt to marginalize and dismiss us. I’ve learned to keep my head down, shut up, and observe, as it is a very lonely point of view that the author espouses. If you’re not holding a pitchfork in one hand and a torch in the other, you’re drawing attention to yourself in a country that is both very confused and very zealous at the same.
How right you are, Mr. K. The U. S. of A. (the Ignited States of “Oink!”) are headed to Hell in a handbasket. I am so glad that I left for Canada years ago before this rot had taken hold of the U.S. with such a stranglehold. I served in the U.S. Navy, honourably discharged, and what became of the nation that I thus served? Nada, zilch, crap. It has turned out so much worse even than I imagined as a young man, when I had grown so suspicious already of where the U. S. was headed.
Never get out of the boat. Absolutely goddamn right. Unless you were goin’ all the way.
It is interesting isn’t it? 9/11 coincided with the plans of the ruling class so well that you might think it had been orchestrated to replace the defunct Cold War with the War on Terror.
Martin Luther King