Greer - Decline and fall: the end of empire and the future of democracy in 21st century America

Praise for John Michael Greer

John Michael Greer writes with unsurpassed clarity about the predicaments of energy and economy mankind faces. And he does it with a wonderfully kind, genial, and wise spirit.

James Howard Kunstler, author, The Long Emergency and the World Made by Hand novels

The enormous virtue of John Michael Greers work is that his wisdom is never conventional, but profound and imaginative.

Sharon Astyk, author, Depletion and Abundance and Independence Days, www.SharonAstyk.com

When we find ourselves falling off the lofty peak of infinite progress, our civilizations mythology predisposes our imaginations to bypass reality altogether, and to roll straight for the equally profound abyss of the Apocalypse. Greer breaks this spell, and instead offers us a view on our deindustrial future that is both carefully reasoned and grounded in spirituality.

Dmitry Orlov, author, Reinventing Collapse and The Five Stages of Collapse

Greers work is nothing short of brilliant.

Richard Heinberg,Senior Fellow, Post-Carbon Institute, and author, The Partys Over and The End of Growth

Greer offers us not only an excellent read, but tangible tools for navigating the transition.

Carolyn Baker, author, Speaking Truth to Power, www.CarolynBaker.net

Copyright 2014 by John Michael Greer. All rights reserved.

Cover design by Diane McIntosh.

Cover image Fotolia (brueckenweb)

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Greer, John Michael, author

Decline and fall : the end of empire and the future of democracy in 21st century America / John Michael Greer.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Issued in print and electronic formats.

ISBN 978-0-86571-764-0 (pbk.). ISBN 978-1-55092-557-9 (ebook)

1. United States Politics and government 21st century Forecasting. 2. United States Economic conditions 21st century Forecasting. 3. United States Social conditions 21st century Forecasting. 4. United States Civilization 21st century Forecasting. 5. Democracy United States Forecasting. I. Title.

C2013-907409-0

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Contents

T HE DECLINE AND IMMINENT FALL of Americas global empire is the most important geopolitical fact in todays world. It is also the least discussed. Politicians, generals, diplomats, and intelligence analysts around the world are already wrestling with the immense challenges posed by Americas accelerating downfall, and trying to position themselves and their countries to prosper or at least to survive in the impending chaos of a post-American world. Outside the corridors of power, by contrast, few people anywhere seem to be aware of the tsunami of change that is about to break over their heads.

That needs to change. This book is an attempt to start a conversation that needs to happen, especially, but not only, in America a conversation about the end of American empire and what will come after it.

In order to make sense of the impact that the fall of Americas empire is going to have on all our lives in the decades ahead, it is crucial to understand what empires are, what makes them tick, and what makes them collapse. To do that, however, it will be necessary to bundle up an assortment of unhelpful assumptions and misunderstandings of history and chuck them into the compost.

a content-free verbal noise thats used to express feelings of hatred. The language of politics these days consists largely of snarl words. When people on the leftward end of the political spectrum say fascist, or Empire, for example, more often than not these words mean exactly what socialist or liberal mean to people on the right that is, they express the emotional state of the speaker rather than anything relevant about the object under discussion. Behind this common habit is one of the more disturbing trends in contemporary political life: setting aside ordinary disagreement in favor of seething rage against a demonized Other on whom all the worlds problems can conveniently be blamed.

The need to sidestep this habit makes it urgent to get past the currently popular custom of using terms like Empire as snarl words, and recover their actual meaning as descriptions of specific forms of human political, economic, and social interaction. Getting rid of that initial capital letter, arbitrary as it seems, is one step in the right direction. The younger President Bushs administration was able to disguise a stack of dubious motives and justify a misguided rush to war by converting the tangled reality of Muslim resentment and radical militancy into the capitalized abstraction of Terror. In a similar fashion, many people on the other side of the political spectrum have covered equally dubious motives and justified equally unproductive actions by converting the tangled realities of influence, authority, and privilege in modern industrial states into the capitalized abstraction of Empire. The so-called Global War on Terror, of course, turned out to be an expensive flop, and much of what passes for fighting Empire, though a good deal less costly in blood and money, has been no more productive.