Tuesday, December 25, 2007

"look on my works, ye mighty, and despair"

reputed to be an inscription on a block of stone, in middle of an african dessert. in fact, the author of the poem was commenting on the tendency of societies, no matter how puissant, to decay and die in time.

the course of the american empire is well advanced, the accoutrements of the republic are less able to disguise the imperial policies and internal repression than was once the case. the power and resources of the republic have been hollowed-out by over-use, the arrogance of the political class is less concerned to hide itself from the plebs, the citizen army of defense has become the aggressive army of colonial occupation. all that remains to do is the neutering of the election process through electronic counting.

one hopes that the american people will wake up, seize control of their nation from the grandees, and institute democracy. what a wonderful world that would be. but it won't happen.

america is leading the human race toward some mixture of 'brave new world' and '1984'. i expect the worst elements of each.

1 comment:

daggett said...

Interesting post. It may be interest that I have put the same poem to use on my own web-site.

(Happily, with the demise of John Howard, that page is a bit out of date now. Will rectify that in due course.)