Fire Suppression

A few years ago I did some backpacking in California, including the northern 60 miles or so of the John Muir trail terminating in the Yosemite valley. In one stretch of forest, our group remarked on the amount of fallen debris littering the ground. We knew that the government agencies had largely learned their lessons about fire suppression resulting in more dangerous fires, especially after one in Yellowstone left soil so scorched that plant life was not properly recolonizing the area. Well this place was a vast tinderbox. Dry timber had accumulated to about knee depth, on average, across the entire floor. "If this thing ever lights up," we remarked, "it will be a complete inferno." A couple of months later, during the dry heat of mid summer, it did just that, fueling a wildfire severe enough to make the national news which closed down the trail and threatened to close down the valley itself.

Today, Sundance is picking up on a news piece by Maria Bartelomo on what he terms crossover - the president's domestic turmoil crossing over into his foreign affairs agenda. Specifically, the Chinese have decided that their best strategy for dealing with Trump is simply to wait out the clock - which reflects their national policy of dealing with America in general. They have decided that Trump is weak enough that they may not have to deal with him at all. He gets little support for his hardline stance against China, anything he does is likely to be undone by the next Democrat, and he may even be impeached or assassinated. Thus, they wait, because they detect weakness. Mutineers have gone unpunished. The scandal has been laid bare, yet nothing has changed. The media go on unhinged, the opposition still plots impeachment, and their voters remain spellbound. That the mutiny failed is not so significant as that it has gone unpunished. Trump has no power to punish, thus he is weak. Republicans in Congress going after Mueller should keep one thing in mind: the more they publicize the baseless nature of the Mueller Probe, while it remains unpunished, the more they encourage further mutiny against the president, because it only demonstrates that there is no downside to malfeasance: try, try again until you get lucky. It's a free-for-all.

On the other hand, the whole thing makes for a show of strength for the Deep State. Think of it: emails leaked that showed the leading Democrats are Satan worshippers who sold government positions, and they turned it into a mock public trial against Trump! That is some power. The big message may end up being that the Deep State is so powerful that it can engage in scandals of the highest order in broad daylight without fear of retribution. If we lift the veil and nothing happens, then we've merely relieved them of the need to operate in secrecy. The shadow government just becomes the acknowledged government.

The world is certainly noticing the American public circus. Debacles like the Kavanaugh hearing, the Russia Collusion hoax, and vibrant national debates over whether or not we can criticize formerly great American cities for becoming rat-infested, crime-riddled shitholes (literally, in some cases), are all signs of an America that is far too irrational to hold onto its global supremacy. Would-be emperors like Putin and Xi are certainly waiting for the end of American global hegemony. For most of its existence, America has operated under the Monroe Doctrine, which established that other empires were not allowed to hold colonies in the New World. Since World War II, that policy has extended to the whole globe: no other empires are allowed. While Trump the Usurper may be neutralized, his election reveals cracks in the edifice. As it turns out, the Land of the Free cannot be maintained in the face of the free flow of information, which is why Twitter and Facebook are in a frenzy to ban all dissenters.

For three quarters of a century the world order has been Pax Americana. The world's lone superpower has thwarted all challenges to its supremacy, and largely contained ethnic rivalries by intervening before they become violent and containing them when they do. The downside is that this world policing may just amount to a global application of fire suppression. Grievances don't wane; they accumulate. Rivalries don't fade; they fester. The only thing that has been forgotten is the horrible reality of war. The collapse of Pax America, especially if it is sudden, may open the gates to an era of violence not seen since the first half of last century. I believe old ethnic rivalries will flare up like wildfires. More, there is likely to be tremendous backlash against Americans after they are shown to be weak. While I often describe our empire as the Columbian Empire, composed of the District on the Potomac and us as her vassals, the rest of the world will not see it that way. Not only will Americans have to deal with the many millions of hostile non-Americans who reside within our current borders, but we will have to deal with the pent up rage of foreigners as well. The Chinese have been humiliated for centuries now at being subjected to western power. While many believe the Chinese will be less imperial than the west has been, as they are more insular, that may all amount to wishful thinking. If the Chinese ever start claiming their New World enclaves - places like Vancouver - as proper colonies, their treatment of whites is likely to become brutal.

Many in our circle, who see the signs of collapse all around, and who are even willing to state the verboten, still assume that it will be a slow, gradual decline. But consider the decades of global fire suppression, the resentment to mass export of cultural degeneracy, and the vulnerability of our brittle, interwoven economy to supply shocks, and the whole thing starts to look like one big tinderbox waiting to ignite.