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i think they're ground to paralysis. it seems that is a symptom of fading empires--driven by fear but without a coherent way of naming what's really causing it---the collapse of empire itself---trapped in fantasies about former glory, unwilling to face the future because they cannot face the present because they are unable to face the past.
the dynamic particular to fading empires is performed in an exemplary manner by the tea party.
the united states is in the binds it is in because of 40 years of neo-liberal domination. "reaganomics"---"free market capitalism"---"voodoo economics"---"the washington consensus"---blah blah blah. an epic failure by any rational standards.
now we are faced with ideological paralysis in part because there's nothing that's been advance to push neo-liberalism out of the way.
so there's miasma.
i don't see a way forward from the center.
i don't see any reason to compromise with conservatives because it is the ideology they espouse that's landed us here in the first place.
but they remain a very well-funded, well-organized and effective meme-generating machine, the right. so the corpse of conservatism continues to exert influence despite its track record of failure.
sometimes it is a bit depressing to look too hard at where the united states finds itself.
but some empires collapse very slowly. others in a few years. there's no way to tell in advance which trajectory any given fading empire is on.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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