Signs That Your Empire is Crumbling

David Michael Green - Wed 07 Feb, 2007

So. You've built yourself an empire, eh? Well, now you've got to do what everybody does when they have an empire, of course. You've got to worry about it falling apart, mate! Here are thirty-six sure-fire indicators that your empire is falling apart:

So. You've built yourself an empire, eh?

Well, bully for you!

What's next, you ask? Well, now you've got to do what
everybody does when they have an empire, of course.
You've got to worry about it falling apart, mate!
But how to tell for sure? Let me see if I can be
helpful. Here are some rules of thumb to keep in mind,
thirty-six sure-fire indicators that your empire is
falling apart:

You know your empire's crumbling when the folks who are
gearing up their empire to replace yours start blowing
up satellites in space. And then they don't bother to
return your phone calls when you ring up to ask why.

You know your empire's crumbling when those same folks
are cutting deals left, right and centre across Asia,
Latin America and Africa, while you, your lousy terms,
and your arrogant attitude are no longer welcome.

You know your empire's crumbling when you're spending
your grandchildren's money like a drunken sailor, and
letting your soon-to-be rivals finance your little
splurge (i.e., letting them own your country).

You know your empire's crumbling when it's considered
an achievement to pretend that you've halved the rate
at which you're adding to the massive mountain of debt
you've already accumulated.

You know your empire's crumbling when you weaken your
currency until it looks as anaemic as a Paris runway
model, and you're still setting record trade deficits.
(Hint: Because you're not making anything anymore.)

You know your empire's crumbling when "the little brown
ones" (thank you George H.W. Bush – certainly not me –
for that lovely expression) in country after country of
"your backyard" blow you off and proudly elect anti-
imperialist leftist governments.

You know your empire's crumbling when you can't topple
those governments and replace them with nice puppet
regimes – like in the good old days – even if you
wanted to. And you badly want to.

You know your empire's crumbling when one of their
leaders comes to the United Nations and makes fun of
your emperor, calling him the devil, and joking about
smelling sulphur where he just stood. And though a few
folks cringe, everybody laughs.

You know your empire's crumbling when just about your
entire military land force is tied up in a worse-than-
useless war launched on the basis of complete
fabrications, that every day is actually making you
less – not more – secure from external threat.

You know your empire's crumbling when almost half the
soldiers in that war are high-paid mercenaries, and you
don't dare institute a draft.

You know your empire's crumbling when you send soldiers
into war with two weeks training and a lack of armour,
and then you keep them there for three, four and
five rotations.

You know your empire's crumbling when a member of the
Axis of Evil can test missiles and explode nuclear
warheads, and all you can do about it is mumble some
pathetic warnings about how they better not do that
again or there will be consequences.

You know your empire's crumbling when you even think
that there is an Axis of Evil.

You know your empire's crumbling when a rag-tag
military hodge-podge of irregulars has you pinned down
in an endless fight you can't win, but also can't lose.

You know your empire's crumbling when you're too dumb
to even ban Humvees as a first step toward ending your
dependency on a foreign-owned crucial resource.

You know your empire's crumbling when you trade your
prior moral leadership on human rights issues for
global disgust at your torture, 'extraordinary
rendition' (a.k.a. kidnapping for torture) and the
dismantling of nine centuries worth of civil
liberties progress.

You know your empire's crumbling when you blow off
international law that you once helped create, and
undermine the institutions of international governance
that you once helped build.

You know your empire's crumbling when opinion polls
confirm that every month you're more and more despised
throughout the world.

You know your empire's crumbling when you can't even
pull off the hanging of a tin-pot murderous former
dictator without turning him into a hero.

You know your empire's crumbling when you're the
richest country in the world, but nearly 50 million of
your people don't have basic health care coverage.

You know your empire's crumbling when the World Health
Organization ranks your healthcare system 37th 'best'
in the world, just above Slovenia, and just below Costa
Rica. (And far below Colombia, Cyprus, Saudi Arabia
and Morocco.)

You know your empire's crumbling when instead of making
it easier for citizens to obtain a higher education,
you're making it harder and more expensive.

You know your empire's crumbling when your government
gives tax breaks to industries as a reward for
exporting your jobs elsewhere.

You know your empire's crumbling when the so-called
'opposition' party can't even turn that obscenity into
a viable campaign theme and use it to clobber the worst
emperor in your history.

You know your empire's crumbling when your middle class
has been stagnant for three decades, while the wealth
of the hyper-rich continues to climb through the roof.

You know your empire's crumbling when your reaction to
that is to exacerbate the problem by enacting tax
policies that massively increase further still the gap
between the rich and the rest.

You know your empire's crumbling when the predatory
class has taken over your government and is stripping
the country of everything not bolted down to the floor.
And then it sells the floor itself, as well, to
your rivals.

You know your empire's crumbling when you're spending
tens of billions of dollars you don't own on new
nuclear warheads and space weapons that don't work, to
be used against an enemy you don't have.

You know your empire's crumbling when one of your
cities drowns and your government does next to nothing
before, during and after.

You know your empire's crumbling when a massive
environmental nightmare is looming around the corner,
and your emperor not only ignores it, but claims it
isn't real while taking steps to exacerbate it.

You know your empire's crumbling when your emperor is
warned by a CIA briefer of an imminent terrorist attack
of vast proportions, and responds by remaining on
vacation and dismissing the briefer with the words:
"All right. You've covered your ass, now."

You know your empire's crumbling when the same emperor
drops everything to fly across the country from his
vacation home in order to sign a bill intervening on
the wrong side of a personal medical drama involving a
single family.

You know your empire's crumbling when gays and
immigrants are used as diversionary issues to keep
people from thinking about the pillaging of their
country and their wallets actually taking place. And 
it works.

You know your empire's crumbling when people are
getting more religious and less scientific, not the
other way around.

You know your empire's crumbling when your political
leaders start to be chosen by dynastic rules
of succession.

And you especially know your empire's crumbling when
the most idiotic child of one of the least accomplished
leaders in its history is not only crowned as the next
emperor, but is even revered for a time by most of the
public as a great one.

Rome? Britain? Spain?

At this rate we'll be lucky to end up like Belgium.

Regards 
David Michael Green
for The Daily Reckoning

P.S. to get The Daily Reckoning direct to your inbox sign up to our free e-letter or subscribe to our RSS feed!