What Does Collapse Look Like?

“Collapse” could mean the collapse of the US dollar or economy, the electrical or telecommunications grid, food distribution or all of the above. It could also mean the breakdown of federal political authority into local or regional units or of law and order into major civil unrest. In contrast, most analysts view failed statehood as something less extreme – a mere breakdown in specific governance functions.

People look to historical models of collapse – usually the Soviet Union, which fell apart suddenly, or Rome, which decayed slowly over centuries. Looking to the USSR as an example is confusing, in view of increasing evidence that Americans were misled about what the Soviet “collapse” really looked like. It’s true that Gorbachev and a lot of Communist bureaucrats were thrown out of power; that most of the Soviet republics broke away from Russia; and that state support of factories, collective farms, hospitals, and oil and natural gas production ceased.

However clearly the KGB (the state security apparatus) remained more or less intact and, under the new name Federal Security Service (FSB), remains firmly in control today. In fact, it’s no coincidence that Vladimir Putin, Russian’s prime minister and once and future president was a career KGB officer between 1975 and 1991. Or that most of his KGB cronies, who (with FBI support collusion) came to control most of Russia’s wealth as leaders of the Russian mafia and/or private entrepreneurs. (see http://money.cnn.com/2008/09/04/news/international/powell_KGB.fortune/index.htn and http://www.stoptheftaa.org/artman/publish/article_36.shtml).

Also see http://www.rferl.org/content/article/1078954.html. This is a Radio Free Europe site, but the fact that the CIA most likely wrote it makes it even more revealing.

I’m sure I don’t need to remind people of the billions of dollars of US and World Bank loans that disappeared into the pockets of the Russian mafia during the nineties.

The Gradual Decay Scenario

I personally believe American’s demise will be gradual – like Rome’s – unless food shortages or a major catastrophe, like Katrina or the BP oil spill, triggers mass insurrection. However unlike Rome, I believe we are looking at something that will occur over than decades, rather than centuries, owing to the increasing scarcity of essential resources like fossil fuels, water, topsoil and fertilizer. All that will happen is that more and more middle class Americans will find themselves leading third world lives, as they adjust to chronic joblessness, overcrowding, substandard housing, hunger, water shortages, and the illnesses (and early death) associated with such living conditions (TB, hepatitis, meningitis, whooping cough, measles, asthma, pneumonia, and infant diarrhea). At the same time, more people will die in extreme weather events (heat and cold waves, floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, and wildfires) associated with global warming.

Implications for Activists

As Vaknin, myself and others have noted, the mainstream media doesn’t report on the federal government’s failure to perform governance functions – or the increasing shift of political power to states, cities, and to a limited extent, citizen groups. Justin Raimondo wrote last week at Antiwar.com that our media is a branch of government. They don’t want us to recognize the declining ability of the US government to govern or our own increasing power. They want us to believe we are totally helpless and powerless and that our organizing efforts are destined to failure.

This means activists must consciously reject the attempt by government and the media to re-shape their reality. As Noam Chomsky insists, the power elite prefers to govern by controlling our consciousness. They create an illusion of democracy, through censorship and and disarming us psychologically with highly sophisticated propaganda. Their increasing reliance (since 1999) on police violence and direct repression (open government spying, repeal of habeas corpus, invasive airport searches and targeting of citizen activists with FBI raids and grand jury investigations) suggest the softer ideological methods are no longer work. In other words, they are a clear response to the growing strength of civil resistance movements.

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