Why does the "American Dream" appear to be everyone else's nightmare? Isn't our culture sustainable without nation-building, neo-colonialism, Third World privatization?
Truth be told, the real sign of excess in a civilization is when the rest of the world is enslaved in an effort to maintain that excess. And make no mistake, the Western World lives in excess. I can go outside my home right now and in little to no time find whatever I want or need, at two in the morning. Because we have somehow carved ouselves into this lifestyle of consumption and waste.
I'm no different. I was raised in this culture, and make no claim to be above its pitfalls. But I refuse to let these seemingly minor offenses trap me in the future. Imagine, if you will, the collapse of this great nation. Who on this planet will take pity on us? Which friend will likely lead the onslaught of foreign governments and multinationals usurping whatever resources exist after the fall? Every great society crumbles under the weight of its own expectations. In this way, we are no different from Rome.
We may imagine ourselves to live in an advanced, civilized, and modern world. We may even look back in horror at the shortcomings of our ancestors. At the end of the day, however, our current rendition of civilization may be remembered as being just as cruel and barbaric as those who came before.
Ethnic cleansing continues today, as does racial and religious intolerance. War is more profitable than peace, as has always been then case. Whole peoples and cultures are disappearing from the face of the planet, and all that we - the entitled West - can clearly think about are the financial implications of any given famine, war, or plague.
Instead of celebrating those among us who have in the last century attempted to lead our progress as a nation and as a world toward peace and technological/cultural/civil advancement - we have watched them die on television, ourselves becoming complicit as spectators.
The ugly, sincere fact of the hysterical blindness experienced by the "Baby-Boomers" has been hidden away by an accelerating economy founded on insidious industries like disposable consumer goods and weapons manufacturing.
Television, for all of its once abundant promise, now show little hope of connecting with its audience in a meaningful way. The internet has itself become a playground for advertisers, pyramid schemes, spammers and general agents of misinformation. Even still, the internet is devouring soon-to-be defunct mediums like radio and print advertising.
But we are fooling ourselves if we think that the tech-savvy progressives of the world are going to exercise any sort of authority when it comes to what is eventually done with this technology. That, indisputably, will be an issue ironed-out by multinationals, massive corporate entities capable of crushing whole economies, yet given the inalieble rights once reserved for human beings.
These are no longer mysteries to anyone. There is no excuse for being unaware of the encroaching dangers we face now. We, as a nation, are incredibly behind the world in terms of our adaptability to new planetary changes, including but not limited to global warming and the depletion of natural resouces. The 20th century witnessed man chance upon the notion that one must pave the world in order to make a buck.
Yet because of the avarice of a few and the lack of moral standing in those countless men who have led our country to this point from the days of Andrew Jackson - we are ill-prepared for the misfortune of our imminent collapse. And one would have thought that economic puppet-shows like the New York Stock Panics of the early 20th century, the depression, the 1970's recession, or our current pains - would have taught us money-grubbing rats to be more careful, to look out for the foxes loitering in our henhouse.
But we have been carefully bred to a point of complacency. It is not inherent in our culture to oppose authority the only real way you can. This is not a free country, I say, because not enough of its citizens own or know how to use a gun.
The media in general has been very effective in terms of clouding the real issues at hand. They could go on about all the petty goings-on in this country that they think has some sort of jounalistic or artistic merit. They'll fill your head with their words, their ideas, their comprehension. Pretty soon, all the works is done for you, and our difficult decisions shift from political stances to dining room aesthetics.
We are making a mess, and the unspoken expectation that my generation will somehow have the grace to pick up after the Baby Boomers while they enjoy their social security someplace warm - is entirely innacurate. There will be a shift in power, but I have a theory that it will not be as pleasant as Bush Sr. announcing cheerfully the "New World Order." Given that the Baby Boomers spend upwards of 500 Billion dollars annually on products meant to extend their lifespan, it will be safe to assume that many of them will die sooner they expect. Perhaps not as a result of violence, but rather of disease and economic malaise.
Because after the Baby Boomers disappear, so will the Middle-Class in America as we know it. Imagine everyone outside of the top 2% tax bracket jobless, homeless, and useless if they aren't borrowing more money. Instantly, that debt they had intended to help build their lives with backfires and eats them whole.
Plainly, debt is modern-day serfdom. It's more than a business: its a means of managing large groups of people. How to keep people consuming and producing, running the cycle until the next generation finds their shoes and follows suit.
Well, some slackers and wierdos and backwood nuts won't do it. Perhaps I'm a backwood nut, watching the country deteriorate with the malignant cancerous growth of Wal-Marts and shopping malls in every town. Millions of people in the city, stacked on top of each other and scared of everyone in their vicinity. And still they wonder why the rest of the world - while making a mess in its own right - seems a little more confident about the turning point in our age.
We, on the other hand, still can't explain to ourselves, much less each other, why a man almost universally disdained still holds the supreme office in our government. Let alone that he has staffed the executive branch of our feeble government with close friends and silent business partners.
So is it time to make a stand? No, that time has long since come and gone. Have I any solution to offer? Just remember this holiday season that in a few years time - when you no longer have the luxury of alternating current or running water - that these are the moments you will turn to when the cold world around you proves to be too much. Take nothing for granted, except that all good things - especially those things we have total confidence in - leave us in the end.
