State of Seige

This is America. An adolescent nation that has burned through the blessings and wealth granted at its birth: unlimited optimism, energy, intelligence and resources. An adolescent nation that chose to revel in the glory of its easy brilliance and power, rather than learn from the experience of elder nations and civilizations culled by the ecstasy of belief in limitless accumulation of wealth and power.

Ask any of the gods and souls that have watched this human race for millennia. Ask any global cousin who remembers when America was cool. The tipping point always comes, and balance is always restored. The fissure--call it Achilles Heel, weakest link, fatal flaw--is omnipresent and in time, predominant. The fissure eventually assumes its role as restorer of balance.

These United States of America are no exception. The fall of Rome took place over multiple generations, and the fall of my country of birth has happened within my lifetime. Twenty-plus years ago, when I wrote about the possibilities and prospects for Universal Heath Care the easiest and best solution--make the rich poor--was inconceivable. Now it's reality.

The Barbarians at the gates of Rome were uninvited Goths and Huns. The Barbarians at America's gates are our creditor nations. They were poised and ready to plunder our wealth when we invited them, one T-bill at a time, to cross our threshold. They never shook a single sword at us or rattled a single sabre. They watched us mummify ourselves with the paper of our own debt. Their ownership of our nation was a bloodless gift of our own greed.

We are in a siege state right now, and the consequences of our decisions are coming due. Our health has been eroded by the indifference of all and the greed of a few: We do not have the breath or body to fight. The lowest common denominator of our education has been driven to sub-basement levels: We do not collectively possess the education required to sustain Democracy. Our natural and economic resources have been devoured and digested by decades of imagined hunger without thought for replenishment: We do not have the money or materials to restock, let alone rebuild. And now we discover, in hindsight, that the most powerful among us--those that have had first and greatest knowledge of our siege state--have been anesthetizing our fears with distractions and platitudes while they cannibalize our very lives and livelihoods.

As will happen in any siege state, the common wells have run dry and the shared stores are empty. The community is starving while the few get fat. At some point, the disparity is too great to hide and the greed of the few is revealed. As is the case with America today, they have been discovered.

What to do. Acquiesce to debt? Collaborate with our creditors? Overthrow the regime? Throw the fat cats to the Barbarians? Declare national bankruptcy? Wait for hyperinflation? Sell California? Thin the herd?

Hope will not do. Hope is never enough. Hope is the opposite of action.

Change is no achievement, it is inevitable. Change does not even require action or participation.

Recovery is the new watchword of the day. We're trading in our expensive, debt-loaded illusions of prosperity for something called Recovery. Recovery from what? The answer is too heavy, ugly and dark to contemplate for long. It is a tar pit of accountability and despair that we are not strong enough to face.

Is it possible to recover without staring our reality in the face? Can we simply move forward toward new goals, or old goals with new direction?

Only if we learn.

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Dan Brown

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