A while back, I wrote verbosely about a concept that’s better described in one word: Endgame.
Justin Raimondo got me thinking about Endgame again this week when he opened one of his sterling rants with a reference to the final stages of the American empire.
The article he linked with the words “final stages” would seem like a little nothing to most people. The link takes the reader to a news item about the South Korean government buying gold. Only awarefolk would grok why Raimondo considers South Korea’s purchase of gold to be a sign of final stages of anything — a sign that Endgame is already underway.
In my ramble, I speculated that we might never see an “it” moment — a dramatic day when we can say, “Thar she blows!” and know Endgame has begun. Commentator Old Printer said he thought 9-11 was that moment. My gut said no, but I couldn’t articulate why.
I think it’s because big, dramatic events that come from the outside generally serve more as excuses than anything else. World War I didn’t really begin because some mad kid killed an archduke. The U.S. didn’t get into WWII because the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. And the fedgov didn’t go on a mad dash into perpetual war and police-state security because angry young men chose a horrific way of declaring their hatred.
Those events just gave rulers public permission to do what they were inclined to do, anyway. If we’re in Endgame now, it’s not because of those 19 murderous hijackers of 10 years ago. It’s because neocons (just the latest word for war-mad empire builders) were already waiting in the wings with their plans.
Barring some truly monumental catastrophe — eruption of the Yellowstone supervolcano, a full-scale nuclear attack, or a supersized Atlantic tsunami triggered by a landslide on the other side of the world — Endgame doesn’t come from outside, but from the actions of insiders.
Endgame isn’t initiated by opponents, but by the response of the “home team,” so to speak.
If Endgame for the U.S. empire is financial, the trigger event was more likely to have been the August 15, 1971 Nixon Surprise. Something hardly anybody noticed at the time.
If Endgame for the U.S. empire is military … well, the trigger could still have been Nixon’s unpleasant little zinger. Or even the creation of the Federal Reserve, since the combination of both events ultimately allowed the federal government to expand endlessly and without accountability, financing welfare and warfare with funny money and ultimately flaming out from the excess. In which case, Endgame began nearly 100 years ago, again unnoticed.
But that’s unsatisfying. In that sense, Endgame is nothing more than the eternal process of creation and destruction. We are always in it. And always at the beginning of the game, too.
Assuming it’s true, though, that the American empire is in Endgame, what are the specific signs? Not the trigger event(s), which we may never see, or may see only in retrospect. When you look around you every day, what events or attitudes do you see that say “It’s over”?
Or, if you don’t see Endgame underway for empire, what signs do you see that the current fall is more likely to be just another bump in a long road?