Three Things We can Do Now as the US Empire Ends

It’s premature, but Trump may be following my advice on Iran. All I did was lay out a path of least resistance, and in my experience, this is the most likely path followed by man and state. The trick is to perceive how how the “state” views “least resistance,” and how it defines “easier.”

Photo by Justin Wilkens on Unsplash

DC consistently does the easy thing, choosing immediate pleasantries over its peasants, preferring to borrow for wars and nice drapes over building for the next generation. Your willing sacrifice to the state is a precious curiosity, because the state itself sacrifices nothing and has no concept of the greater good.

As Kim Dotcom recently explained to Tucker Carlson, we have a government that spies, lies, propagandizes its population, constantly seeks to enrich itself, and is wasting its last breath fighting a losing battle to retain the label of global superpower while being crushed by $40 Trillion of unpayable debt. When that house of cards falls down, the whole world with be harmed, and what’s worse, the chance of the US using a nuclear weapon in lieu of paying back debt or preventing its collection is far higher than many people assume.

How we might mitigate a sudden or violent collapse of the empire, preserve what we value, reshape a new government, and survive the state? Are these things even possible, given this state of imperial decline? Probably not. In the book Deep Survival, Laurence Gonzales examines real world survival situations and tries to make sense of who lives and who dies. A key factor for survival is recognizing early on that you are in a situation where you are not going to be rescued, and you are going to die. Accepting and understanding reality somehow quiets the panic and sets the stage for rational, as well as experimental, thinking. Responsibility is owned, blame is forgotten, and the survivor is able to strategize effectively and solve the problems at hand.

Gonzales’ exploration of who lives, who dies and why is revealing and useful. However, if there is time or desire to reforge a republic from the ravages of empire, if we are graced with a controlled landing, given what we have to work with – here’s three things we might do now:

Repeal the 17^th Amendment. Why? Congressman Keith Self representing the Texas 3^rd District offers a resolution to just that, to ensure Senators speak for their states, not the highest bidder in Washington, which is usually AIPAC, Big Pharma or the MIC. We’ve repealed one bad Constitutional Amendment before, when Prohibition ended. The state’s interest in more tax revenue as well as a sharp national sense of hypocrisy both played a part in prohibitions repeal. Ken Burns points out that the 18^th Amendment prohibiting the alcohol trade was the only one that limited our liberty rather than expanded it. Not so fast, Ken! Given the outcome of the 17^th Amendment – extreme federal debt borrowed on the various states’ assets and the enormous level of hypocrisy at the federal level – we could do worse than another repeal of a Progressive Era amendment. Today, Senators serve long past competency – and in the case of Senator McConnell, past death – finally expiring in office. This has impinged on our rights to representation. The 17^th Amendment has limited our liberty to choose, and more than that, denied states their lawful Constitutional advocate and voice in Washington. We have only to look at the sudden death of South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, a war whore of the finest kind, and the quick Presidential phone call to the SC Governor requesting that Mr. McMaster appoint Lindsey’s sister to the Senate. There is no federalism where the legislative branch is castrated, severed from its natural source of testosterone and raw courage. Repeal the 17^th – states may again choose their two Senate voices, and ensure that they serve 50 capitols, and 50 unique sets of interests rather than genuflect to the whims of Washington.

Rarely Assemble the Congress. The Constitution requires the Congress assemble on the first Monday of December, once annually. While we the people have become accustomed to thinking that the US Congress “does the work of the people,” nothing could be further from the truth. Most of its constitutional duties relate to oversight of the executive branch in peace and war, and confirming treaties. The last time the Congress declared war was on 8 December 1941, when requested by FDR after the executive branch had done everything possible to invite a Japanese attack. That trick worked once, and the Congress has yet to declare another war, even as the US has engaged in nonstop war and military intervention ever since. The US habitually violates its agreements, and dishonors its treaties. What is left for the Senate, and the House to do, but rubber stamp executive pet programs, and those of major lobbies and funders? Instead of complaining that the Congress takes too many recesses and breaks, we should applaud them, and demand our Congressmen and women spend 90% of their time in their districts, and our Senators return to their state capitols – in both cases to get to know their real bosses. One consequence will be the development of regional – not party – alliances as neighboring states face similar challenges, and have similar opportunities. Another will be the difficulty for DC based lobbyists to effectively exercise our representatives, compromise them, or efficiently bribe them. Instead, we the people will find a more level playing field, and can more easily touch those we have elected, and assess their true value to us. Seeing closeup the sheer incompetence and fraud afflicting most of our elected class will inspire their betters to challenge them, directly on issues, and also via election.

Become Part of the Decentralizing Universe. Catherine Austin Fitts has an interesting new post where she defines two types of people by where they are intellectually, morally and economically. The Centralizing Universe is the state, corrupting because it has to be to remain in control, to consume ever more resources. Most of us unfortunately have at least one foot in this “CU.” On the other hand, the Decentralizing Universe consists of those “embracing individual freedom and economic activities that are fundamentally productive. Ideally, they have found a way to support themselves independent of large corporations, governments, and foundations.” It sounds simple, and good, and positive and optimistic and it is all these things. It is also an alliance, an intellectual militia, a creative economic machine, and a deep well of courage from which all may drink. Let us all quietly stand apart from the government kudzu, and help slash the vines holding our friends and neighbors hostage and fearful. Lean into the DU in a thousand ways. We are not fleeing empire, but nimbly avoiding its fallout as we build new community.

We sometimes see highway signs for “Fallen Rock” and “Falling Rock.” Technically these are two different things, and we are advised to avoid both. Our collapsing empire offers us the same signs, and we must travel accordingly. What links the three suggestions above is a “moving away” from the center of state power, and the establishment of new kinds of commonality that are not directed, leveraged, or controlled by the state.

A few folks we know have the same idea. If nothing else, we ought to step up our mental game for what is coming. Confucius explained “The beginning of wisdom is the ability to call things by their right names.” The state has proven incapable of leading us wisely, and our growing recognition of that cold fact is amazingly liberating.