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which I might be in a certain sense, but all of this was predicted in the early 1950's in issac Asimov's brilliant metaphorical trilogy 'The Foundation Series' (which was followed by I think, two more writtne at a much later time). It was written during the McCarthy era as a publishable response to the nightmare of the day, which has persisted.
It concerns the fall of the Galactic Empire (read: USA) which is inexorable and inevitable. A man develops a science, psychohistory, which can predict the future of civilizations, and creates two places, called Foundations, at 'opposite ends of the Galaxy', the actions of which will shorten the interregnum of the Dark Ages from 30000 years to 1000 years.
We are seeing a rapid decline in the structure of the country, tilting away from Democracy and towards the type of totalitarianism which we excoriated in previous gnereations, including those managed by conservatives. This is the natural tendency of the powerful. I don't know that we can stop the slide, but we may be able to minimize the damage that it does to us and ours, and to shorten its reign of terror over us. It is imperative that we keep moving, keep learning, keep posting, and hold the society's feet to the fire of higher-order truth in order to begin to slow the rate of decline.
As I look back over my lifetime of 50+ years, I see the decline of the society, not in the sense that this is anything new, but that the technology, the increase in the rate of change as they say in calculus, is so great that we have been swamped and overwhelmed by the wave. We cannot breathe, or rather, stop to take a deep breath.
What I find most interesting is that modern popular fiction is most appealing to the masses when it involves either apocalypse (The Terminator Series, for example) or tinfoil-hat conspiracy theories (Ludlum, Clancy) and yet when faced with the prospect of admitting the existence of same, the average American responds dismissively, insisting that these things are merely figments of the imagination of those who perceive them - that no conspiracy could be planned so successfully "There is no credible evidence" is the stock phrase which is often used - credible to whom and under what circumstnces?
We had the chairman of the company which manufactured voting machines state his intent to 'deliver' Ohio to Mr. Bush. We had a run-through of this four years ago, right down to the family meeting on Election Night, where the was an assurance of victory. We had a supreme confidence in attainging victory, such that the prospect of losing was never ever acknowledged. If you have ever played poker against a cheat, you know that knowledge of even one card in the deck gives him an insurmountable advantage, and you may as well just give him your money, leave, and save yourself from the ignominy of slow defeat.
I believe that that is what happened to Mr. Kerry. It wasn't only the vote count which was stacked - there were probably layers of insulation which might have sealed his defeat at every turn. Do we know what retribution awaited him if he chose to stay and fight? do we know what might have been implied as far as his children's welfare, both business and professional? Do we understand that when the fix is in, the fix is in, and those who chose to substantially take on the system found themselves and their families, their reputations and businesses, and tax returns, attacked and decimated? I believe that there is much we don't know and will never know - possibly there will be some things alluded to years from now - it might not even be a direct reference, but an inference or an aside. In is a common literary device to use this as a coda in a narrative.
This story is finished, it is, however, far from complete.
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