ABSTRACT
The reign of the last of the great Western empires, that of the United States, is over. Although for many this would seem a preposterous statement, the US bears all the marks of a fallen power. The domestic population is more impoverished, unhealthy, illiterate and disenfranchised than that of any other major industrialized nation. At all levels of government, democratic constraints upon the powerful have been gutted, corruption and corporate collusion are the norm, and the people’s faith in their government and other institutions are at unprecedented lows. The media is thoroughly corporatized and dominated by mindless diversions, while what passes for journalism is simply the parroting of White House and Pentagon press releases, punctuated by calls to bomb other nations or by cries to persecute whistleblowers. Police forces are militarized, the armed forces are increasingly involved in protecting the “homeland,” and a monstrous system of surveillance is in place-the loyalty to empire is in doubt, and all of the world’s citizens are suspects. Most telling, despite driving the nation into debt with military spending in excess of that of the rest of the world combined, the United States Armed Forces have not won a war in almost 70 years. The rattling of the Empire’s saber is muted by a growing chorus of global opposition. This is what a fallen empire looks like.
