THE TIMES

This short comment overlaps the sentiment of my former blog. It was posted to the New York Times this afternoon as a comment on the David Brooks – Dick Cavett "discussion" comparing the present United States to Rome on the brink of its fall from greatness.

The "fall of Rome" appears in most textbooks (chirpily certain, oversimplistic, No Child Left Unbored) in 476CE and is attributed to the invasion of the Germanic barbarians. Of course Rome didn't fall; it moved. "The grandeur that was Rome" had scuttled east to Constantinople on the Bosporus much earlier, taking the Empire's center of power with it. Rome, itself, was left in the hands of the Germanic mercenaries who made up its military force. Blackwater, Incorporated, in Latin. Expectably, the privatized military deposed the Western emperor without difficulty. The larger power of the Eastern Empire gave it little notice. The citizens of Rome were accustomed to powerplay ups and downs and went on with Roman life. The outlying Empire was probably unaware of the shift for many years.

The Fall of the U.S. Empire won't be as mild and a good deal more confusing. We're probably experiencing it right now. Perhaps it's a good thing in some ways. We've stopped manufacturing our own goods (find an American wrench in a hardware store) and we're unwilling to discipline our habits. Not even our hophead addiction to Saudi oil. Our hope lies in our geography: we're a two-ocean nation with an extravagant interior waterway system. We once had the world's most inclusive railway system. We have massive stores of raw materials and noble educational institutions. If we fall, it may be our rebirth. But watch that first step: it's a doozy.

David Brooks began his half of the dialogue by describing a recent assignment that bounced around the U.S., during which he eavesdropped on other airline passengers.

We're all eavesdropping, David, polling day by day among our fellows, sussing out the mood of the time.

Most of us sense an unrest and dissatisfaction that never quite comes to action as it might have in the 60's. We're not outraged, taking to the streets, waving signs and sniffing tear gas. This mood is more alienating than binding. Most of us are hamstrung by a disquiet that amounts to despair. We shut down and shrink the world around us to something small enough, manageable, understandable. We contemplate our own navels more studiously, avoiding anything more than an occasional reflexive snarl at the news.

Some read this as the pampered narcissism of our time. More likely it's the way we avoid facts we don't want to face: the system is broken. The center will not hold.

We've seen the most spectacularly inept President in our history rampage across our national values and laws without check. We paused to elect what should have been a shining contrast to stupidity. But how much change occurred? This was the breakback blow, that Obama is merely another pol-chosen pol. The broken system is too powerful. We're all trying to avoid the awful truth that the bipartisan wrangling of Congress and flurries of temper from the White House are opera – a colorful distraction from the single party that controls the comedy-drama masks of the left and right wings.

There is only one party: corporate money that funds both parties and owns them, a strangely small cadre of power brokers at the center. It's not a conspiracy; corporate interests simply get what they need. They paid for it. And they pay for the razzle-dazzle of partisan politics as a smokescreen.

Our despair comes from the knowledge that we aren't part of a democracy – the candidates are chosen for us by the parties, really one party beneath the surface. When we were given the choice between two Skull-and-Bonesmen we should have smelled a rat. Or earlier when the wholly undistinguished, unqualified, ungraceful son of a recent President mysteriously gained in the polls.

This isn't a country "by the people, for the people." If we acknowledge this crushing and obvious truth, we're doomed. What do we do when the system is broken, all-powerful and doesn't act in our interest? If we even named that truth, we'd be left with the task of completely rebuilding a new system, culture, matrix of life. Unthinkable. So we accept by silence our lives in a chaotic but totalitarian state directed by quarterly profit and status quo which will grind on until the last penny is collected. Of course we're sad and listless. We've lost hope.


BRAXINOSO SPEAKS

Himself is still convalescing from a nasty flu. He's eaten nothing but chicken soup for almost a week. Naturally his mood is dyspeptic. Perhaps when he's recovered and hiking again, he'll resume his natural boyish ebullience and write about daffodils and birdsong and food. He's probably right about this decline but it was always so. His grandfather, a peppery and obnoxious man in his day, was certain that everything was going to hell in a handbasket. Has the situation changed? Impossible to say. At least the threat of nuclear obliteration seems to be off the table.