We Held These Truths to be Self-Evident

Written by Aetius Romulous

We Held These Truths to be Self-Evident

It's not that the facts don't speak for themselves. They are shouting. It's that the depth and complexity of the financial quagmire America finds itself in provides a dull, fuzzy cover of fog that medicates the panic. The sheer volume of growing problems, all malevolence and interrelated, has become a white noise of sorts. Every day a headline that confounds the senses in its scope and implications, every day replacing one of a different nature from the day before. Bad news it appears, has reached an accessible economy of scale.

ar_logo1 It's a blizzard. But beneath that blizzard of charts, graphs, and bold face type styles, beneath the acronyms and statistics and algorithms, in front of vein popping TV talking heads, virulent bloggers and scurrilous promoters, a million miles below and far away - are people. Far, far away in the real world where hunger hurts and shame destroys. The real United States of America where pride has become fear. Fear, anger, frustration and confusion.

"When I think of riots I think of disorganized mobs randomly breaking and burning things. What is coming will be focused and directed towards one segment of the population.
No what is coming is not riots but retribution."

- Anonymous Commenter

"When I was in HS I was taught that socialism was a form of communism/marxism and that it was bad! Today it's lauded as the only way to go."

- Anonymous Commenter

"sue those fuckers, thats such bullshit, god damn government
1984 is just around the corner guys"

- Anonymous YouTube Comment

"Bottom line, this economic crisis sucks, no body asked for it, the things we have to do aren't fun. But something has to be done or else it will get a lot worse. There is NO prefect fix. Since the banks are responsible for this, they should lose, pay us back and have a crap lot of regulations now. I get offended when people like you say we " hate" people taking responsibility. We do not want a free ride, we work too, own business, I do not like lazy people, but i will fight for those who have been taken advantage of. one can not make a blanket statement about an entire group and be accurate."

- Anonymous Commenter

"People, we're going to have to abandon free market capitalism for the working class, just like we abandoned it for Wall Street."

- Anonymous Blogger

A short thirty-six months ago there was a different mood. Screaming admonitions of doom and gloom did not make the headlines. Dire warnings of hell to come didn't even make the papers, at a distant time when "the papers" were read. Economic prognosticators of collapse and ruin were anonymous and unknown. Finance was an arcane profession of unattractive optics not suitable for TV. There was genuine pride in America, if that pride had been sullied somewhat by yet another disingenuous administration. But there was no doubt in those heady days that America, capitalism, God and democracy were omnipotent.

There were unemployed in 2007, as there always had been. The shiftless, the lazy, the invisible. People were losing their homes, but only as an unfortunate result of some personal shortcoming or other it seemed. Factory eyesores and rusty places of filthy industry were disappearing, thankfully, replaced by gleaming towers of dapper stockbrokers, bankers, insurance salesmen, and real estate parvenus. The parking lots were full of shivering silver German sports cars and durable Japanese minivans. Capitalism seemed to be chugging along, profits and bonuses and millionaires and billionaires with ever-bigger mergers and acquisitions and offerings. Heavily guarded and gated communities - torn breathlessly from fields and farms - signalled the triumph of the few. The Chattering classes chattered.

Only a handful of humans on the face of the earth knew what a derivative was, and not one of the rest could give a tinkers damn.

There were 137 million hard working Americans employed in 2007, and the unemployment rate averaged a respectable 4.8% throughout the year. While it was no fun being unemployed at the height of civilization, nobody gave a whiff for the millions of stories beneath a headline that never made the front page. Today, with 130 million hard working Americans employed the unemployment rate hovers around 10%. But for the first time we are realizing that numbers can lie, and are supposed to when they're bad. The millions of stories of hardship and shame that were unheard in 2007 had become tens of millions by 2010. A measly few percentage points enough to free the voices of the angry and dispossessed.

There were 20 million manufacturing jobs in 1980. Big wages, big benefits, big vacations, big retirement, big unions. There will be less than 10 million in 2010. There were only 13 million 36 months ago but no one cared. There were 250 Wal Marts in 1980, and over 3200 in 2007. A coincidence that went unstated, celebrated though by each and every American who professed fealty with their credit cards. After all, Wal Mart brought jobs, and municipalities were falling all over themselves to lure the big box retailer of foreign wares. A crown jewel of American economic greatness that sold cheap stuff to fuel the American dream. Minimum wage jobs paying less than $20,000.00 a year ballooned and filled out the statistics where the factory workers used to be.

An entire generation gilded and triumphant. Good times that we all thought would last and last. But they didn't. And while that cozy, crazy world has come undone, it is only falling, falling, falling. Drifting downward in a dreamlike suspended animation. Still alive, still breathing, shopping, working - but falling none the less. Falling for thirty years or more, hidden from view, buried in statistics and noise. Now, the papers scream, the talking heads talk, the blogs blog but for the vast majority, it's business as usual; tinged perhaps with a vigorous dollop of creeping fear, angst, and trepidation. After all, it's not the fall that kills you - it's the sudden stop.

"I'm not a financial person... I have always paid my bills on time and tried to live within my means. I have used all my rainy day savings because it rained. Now what. I am back to square one and I'm too old to start over, there is just not enough time to get back to where I was - and that was never more than "comfortable." I am one of those people who got laid off. Because of my age, later 50's, I believe I am experiencing age discrimination in my job search. Now what. I tried to raise my kids to be responsible and I think they are for the most part. Now I have a grandchild. I don't like the world I see coming for her. I have been a "go with progress" kind of person but the progress has become deceitful. Now what."

- Anonymous Commenter

"My DH has been looking for over a year now. There is nothing. Our local super grocery store had 11,000 job applicants last year for grocery bagging and register work and most of those people were professionals who used to make $60-$100K a year, but now willing to bag groceries just to make ends meet. He can't find a job anywhere. There were two, yes just two want ads in the newspaper last weekend both of which were for specific skills he didn't have"

- Anonymous Commenter

"If we see the end of this country it will come from the right and our failure to provide people with the basic necessities of life...Revolutions occur when young men see the present as worse than the unknown future. We are not there. But it will not take a lot to get there"

- Anonymous Blogger

Recession, depression, collapse, revolution. That is the natural progression it would appear. For most it is a flash fire that happens overnight. Tucked cozy into their suburban homes at the end of a long day, schoolbooks, shoes and coats readied at the door for morning, a few minutes of Letterman, swallow the sleeping pills, shut off the light, turn the back to the spouse then off to sleep. In the morning, chaos, violence, and insurrection. Just like that.

But it doesn't happen - "just like that". This not TV, nor is it the dull chronology of history books, where ages of angst and anger by millions of unaccounted for appear only in the seminal dates of detonation. The fall of Rome, The French Revolution, The founding of America. Nothing now but dates and places featuring the names of power and fortune that survived to write the book. Between that plodding chronology are the slow unwinding forces of society, the bonds that bind broken one small piece at a time, broken first and foremost amongst the population of unnamed and unrecorded many. We today are in that process, that much is clear. Far from the end, but where?

"If you can't solve your problems with one or two magazines of ammo, your problem is not a shortage of magazines. Your problem is a shortage of people on your side of the fight."

- Anonymous Commenter

"Economic depression cannot be cured by legislative action or executive pronouncement. Economic wounds must be healed by the action of the cells of the economic body - the producers and consumers themselves."

- Politician 1930

"Got God, Grub, Guns & Gold? Panic Early, Beat the Rush!"

- Anonymous Commenter

"But while they prate of economic laws, men and women are starving. We must lay hold of the fact that economic laws are not made by nature. They are made by human beings."

- Politician 1936

"Imperial collapse may come much more suddenly than many historians imagine. A combination of fiscal deficits and military overstretch suggests that the United States may be the next empire on the precipice."

- Historian 2010

The world is in crisis and America is at its heart. It is a crisis that has been maturing for a generation or more but we did not know it. We are well along the road already, closer to the end now than the beginning; not just living history, we are history itself. Forward, and no way other. It is indeed impossible to predict the future, but our common sense tells us that there is no going back. We now realize that we lived on a sea of credit that was unsustainable, even if it was not obvious as we plied the waves of impossible excess. We used to look forward to a perpetual morning horizon, but now it fills us with foreboding and dread.

The fact of the matter is that we are living in the teeth of collapse, this it; this is what it looks like. We are entering the fat part of the snake, having traversed its length for thirty years or more. The damage has already been done. The America we know has ceased to exist - has ceased to exist for some time now. Those who wring their hands and wail to heaven beat their heads against a memory and nothing more. The blizzard of noise and reports and analysis is the sound of their many defeats.

"Of concern to me is the unspoken alliance so many have with the Marxist Left now running the show. I'm sick and tired of the constant tearing down of what we were and are become in terms of classifying America as everything from "unjust"; "Imperial"; to an "evil empire". This serves the marxists who are about the process of "changing" America from our bad and evil selves into a more fitting utopian vision of totalitarianism and many who would be at odds with Obama and his politburo are actually doing his work for him in continuing to perpetrate the loathing and hatred of ourselves - so that when it is brought low by the regime in power - we are comfortable with it."

- Anonymous Blogger

"It's not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations. "

- Politician 2009

"Democracy... while it lasts is more bloody than either aristocracy or monarchy. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide."

- Philosopher 18th century

The economic situation is certain to deteriorate. Ten million more mortgages are going to get resolved somehow. Banks will fail, but some will not. Elections will come and elections will go. Corruption will go on, drones will be built, and people will go to work. Some will make a killing in the market. Some may even get killed. Old folks will die and babies will enter the world innocent and pure. The Yankees will win and the Lions will lose. Life will trudge forward as it always manages to do. But it won't be America.

America has already collapsed and won't be coming back. Americans are optimistic and challenge the future. Americans take charge, are arrogant in their righteousness, confident in their abilities. Americans are patriots and devoted to their constitution and their founding fathers. Americans fight amongst themselves and pull together when America is threatened. Americans are benevolent, caring, charitable, loud and obnoxious. Americans are not Republican or Democrat, Liberal, Conservative, progressive, socialist, communist, or fascist. Americans are American.

It's hard to say who these people are, these three hundred million frightened, angry, frustrated and confused who inhabit the once great land of America. Who are they? What kind of people will history remember them to be?

"There is only one kind of freedom and that's individual liberty. Our lives come from our creator and our liberty comes from our creator. It has nothing to do with government granting it."

- Politician 2006

"Constitutions should consist only of general provisions; the reason is that they must necessarily be permanent, and that they cannot calculate for the possible change of things."

- Statesmen 18th century

"We will always remember. We will always be proud. We will always be prepared, so we will always be free."

- Politician 1983

"God Bless America. No, no, no, God damn America, that's in the Bible for killing innocent people...God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme."

- Religious Leader 2008

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

- Document 18th century

Eventually, the economic tides will settle. Capitalism will have been transformed. Democracy will have been found wanting. Consumerism will have vanished to be replaced by something more sustainable. Trade and commerce will obey a new set of economic theories, religion will recede, and society will have been transformed. There will be hell itself to pay for many, but for many more life will tumble forward in a repetitious succession of work, school, play, love. Same as it ever was.

How much of that old America will make it through we can only speculate. But it is certain those former Americans who can adapt, change, think, and accept will somehow be there at the end. Still called Americans - but not American at all. As for the rest, they shall play themselves out of history battling for a dream, and against a distant vision.

Aetius Romulous

Historian, Economist, Accountant, Writer, and blood sucking CEO.

Born at the wrong end of the Baby Boom Generation - too late to enjoy the ride, too early to have missed it, and stuck in the middle with the mess.

Aetius writes and blogs from his frozen perch atop the earth in Canada, spending the useful capital of a life not finished making sandwiches and fomenting revolution.

It's a living.

http://screambucket.com/

aetiusromulous (at) rogers.com

The Shaena Project - Essays on the question of our world

Shaena was our oldest daughter, who once told me "I ain't much on thinkin'". Shaena was murdered on Valentine's Day, 2010.

Shaena sweetheart, thinking is important.

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