{"id":35160,"date":"2013-10-21T12:00:23","date_gmt":"2013-10-21T11:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=35160"},"modified":"2015-05-05T22:21:21","modified_gmt":"2015-05-05T21:21:21","slug":"american-apocalypse-the-case-for-divine-retribution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2013\/10\/american-apocalypse-the-case-for-divine-retribution\/","title":{"rendered":"American Apocalypse: The Case for Divine Retribution"},"content":{"rendered":"

I don\u2019t believe in God. However, I do believe in divine retribution. Without going into the specifics of this somewhat counterintuitive theology, suffice to say here that its central axiom is the idea that actions have consequences. One cannot go on committing evil without reaping a whirlwind or two. Eventually Nemesis overtakes Hubris<\/a>, and the results aren\u2019t pretty.<\/p>\n

This is our future. Or, at least, one hopes<\/i> it is \u2013 otherwise, there is no justice in this world, or perhaps even in the next.<\/p>\n

This struck me as I was reading a column<\/a> by Steve Chapman, a mildly conservative journalist with vaguely libertarian leanings: according to him, people on the right (of which I count myself one) are “addicted to apocalypse.” He takes us through decades of conservative apocalyptic rhetoric, from Ronald Reagan predicting<\/a> the end of freedom in America due to the depredations of Medicare to Ted Cruz \u2013 the liberal media\u2019s villain<\/a> of the moment \u2013 who recently said:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe challenges facing this country are unlike any we have ever seen. \u2026 (T)his is an administration that seems bound and determined to violate every single one of our Bill of Rights. We\u2019re nearing the edge of a cliff. \u2026 We have a couple of years to turn this country around, or we go off the cliff to oblivion.\u201d Citing Reagan, Cruz declared: \u201cOne day we will find ourselves answering questions from our children and our children\u2019s children, \u2018What was it like when America was free?\u2019\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

According to Chapman, whose likeness accompanying his column shows him smiling the smile of the self-satisfied bourgeois, this is all so much balderdash, because, you see, Reagan was wrong: Medicare wasn\u2019t that bad<\/a> (it\u2019s cheaper than Obamacare!), the counterculture receded (not where I live<\/a>, but whatever), and the Soviet Union faded away (well, yes, just as the apocalyptic Ludwig von Mises predicted<\/a>). See? Nothing to fear! Good times are ahead! The world is our oyster!<\/p>\n

The problem with those grumpy old conservatives, says Chapman, is that “when their dire predictions fail to come true, they keep forecasting the worst possible outcome if they don\u2019t get their way. They seem to need the perpetual excitement of impending doom.”<\/p>\n

The smugness of our political class is impenetrable: they believe the system that sustains and rewards them is invulnerable, or nearly so. The society in which they live is, seemingly, a well-ordered one, where \u2013 in spite of a few glitches, like government shutdowns<\/a> caused by evil nihilists and other subversive elements \u2013 the machinery of society runs smoothly, interrupted only by occasional burps and hiccups<\/p>\n

Yet just beneath the surface, there is a roiling, like some giant serpent crawling mere inches below the cool green grass, making odd curlicues in an otherwise perfect lawn: a message written in an alien cursive, signifying \u2013 what?<\/p>\n

As the workers go off every morning, lining up at Starbucks and preparing to earn their daily bread, American drones<\/a> take off from secret silos somewhere in the desert, seeking out their intended victims \u2013 and some not intended<\/a>. As the sounds of normalcy stream in through an open window \u2013 leafblowers in the distance, chirping birds crowding around the feeder, children brawling in the schoolyard \u2013 the news that the NSA is collecting our emails<\/a> seems irrelevant. We go about our business, and the political class goes about theirs \u2013 the former quite ordinary, the latter quite another story altogether.<\/p>\n

A new study<\/a> shows our noble crusade<\/a> to “liberate” Iraq killed half a million people. It is impossible to even imagine such a crime: the mind shuts down in the face of those numbers. I can\u2019t even visualize half a million dead bodies<\/a> \u2013 can you? And that doesn\u2019t take into account the sanctions<\/a>, which killed hundreds of thousands more, mostly old people and children. Nor does it include the number we killed in the first <\/i>Gulf war<\/a> \u2013 we\u2019re surely up to a solid million dead by now.<\/p>\n

Getting away with this is what we call “American exceptionalism.” God (or Nature) punishes evil, eventually \u2013 but not us. We\u2019re the exception.<\/p>\n

But are we?<\/p>\n

Since the end of World War II, the United States has murdered<\/a> so many innocent people<\/a> that the numbers<\/a> approach Hitlerian dimensions<\/a>. Yes, I know I\u2019m teetering on the edge of breaking Godwin\u2019s Law here, but numbers don\u2019t lie \u2013 and it\u2019s getting worse. Since September 11, 2001, the death toll has increased exponentially, and there\u2019s no end in sight.<\/p>\n

One could make the case that a self-conscious evil, the sort that revels in its moral inversion and loudly proclaims its transgressive nature at least has the virtue of honesty about it. But that\u2019s not our style: we kill because we\u2019re fighting for Democracy<\/a> and Freedom and against Intolerance and Sheer Badness. And we believe our own lies, if only because of that warm toasty feeling we get when we repeat them, like hot chocolate quaffed in front of a fireplace on Christmas Eve.<\/p>\n

The lies we tell ourselves insulate us from the cold realities<\/a> the rest of the world must live with, and we convince ourselves we\u2019re safe. Outside the Western metropolis, those Other People suffer coups and depressions, tyranny and terror \u2013 but we are immune. Because, after all, we\u2019re Americans<\/i> \u2013 and nothing like that has ever happened here.<\/p>\n

Oh, there was the Civil War<\/a>, but that was a long time ago, before the invention of Twitter. On that occasion the god-hero<\/a> Lincoln arose to save the nation by jailing his opponents<\/a>, banning newspapers<\/a>, and burning down<\/a> half the cities<\/a> of the South \u2013 but, as I said, all that was Long Ago and Far Away, and now we have inspiring statues and yearly reenactments of the Battle of Gettysburg<\/a>. And, yes, there was that nasty Great Depression<\/a>, but the god-hero Roosevelt arose to save us, and now no bank can ever fail because the US government says so, and we have our Safety Net, which may have a few holes<\/a> in it but whatever.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t worry: be happy \u2013 because this is America, and we\u2019re exceptional.<\/p>\n

Yet economics doesn\u2019t make exceptions: all are subject<\/a> to its immutable laws. We used to know this, but sometime around the 1930s we lost this knowledge because remembering it was inconvenient. The banks were failing: the bubble of the 1920s had popped<\/a> and reality \u2013 economic reality \u2013 had set in. How to insulate ourselves against the pain of deflation? The anesthetic of governmental action was applied in huge doses and the patient seemed to recover: but the underlying illness lingered.<\/p>\n

“We owe it to ourselves<\/a>,” they told us, and they are still singing the same song<\/a> after all these years. Those antediluvians who insist otherwise are simply doomsayers, grumpy old reactionaries who want to spoil our fun: when we need more money we just print it<\/a>. So what\u2019s the problem with raising the debt limit? After all, our moral debt dwarfs our monetary one, and yet here we are, safe and sound \u2013 no lightning bolts have issued forth from Heaven, no plagues of boils or infestations of frogs have blighted the country.<\/p>\n

I won\u2019t deliver a long lecture here on basic economics: there\u2019s no room \u2013 and, really, no need. Because any ordinary person can see what is wrong with this picture: one cannot consume more than one produces. The average American used to understand this: the American political class, on the other hand, has always had its own arithmetic, one founded on the very same “exceptionalist” doctrine that has steered our foreign policy on its present mad course. Bound by no law but that which they legislate, Washington\u2019s reckless hubris defies the laws of nature and the gods themselves. In short: they\u2019re begging for that lightning bolt, as did Icarus \u2013 and look where he landed<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Oh, but in Chapman\u2019s World, all is calm, all is right, and if it\u2019s not \u2013 well, take that pill the doctor prescribed for the nameless all-pervasive anxiety that hangs over this paradisiacal scene. You\u2019ll feel better in a minute\u2026.<\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 antiwar.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bound by no law but that which they legislate, Washington’s reckless hubris defies the laws of nature and the gods themselves. One cannot go on committing evil without reaping a whirlwind or two. Eventually Nemesis overtakes Hubris, and the results aren\u2019t pretty. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anglo-america"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35160\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}