The Sadness Of American Collapse

The people an empire falls down on

“Destitute pea pickers in California. Mother of seven children. Age thirty-two. Nipomo, California.” 1936

As a foreign correspondent, I am detached from American collapse. Sometimes I even sound gleeful. Am I happy that the rotten empire is falling over? Yes. Am I sad for the people it’s falling on? Absolutely.

I don’t want to forget that. I try not to. Thank you for your mails.

I recently spoke to a reader on Twitter. She’s broke, functionally homeless, and far away from her children. It’s heartbreaking. Other people email me and say their mental health is bad. Of course it is. Do these people in any way deserve what’s falling down upon them? Absolutely not.

While the fall of America is well-deserved, the fall of Americans is not. Especially while the rich are still looting the poor, even amidst the rubble.

I think, strangely of the last days of the war.

A traditional guerrilla army melts into the population. It disappears. The final LTTE* innovation was to invert this. Instead of moving amongst the population, they moved the entire population with them. A mobile population, surrounding a core guerrilla core. A human shield.

At the last stages of war, the LTTE retreated in a giant formation, surrounded by civilians. Some willingly, some at gunpoint, some with nowhere else to go…