Comparison: USA v. USSR: Is the federal government poised for a “Soviet-style” collapse? (Part 2 of 2) The federal government - Not in control Recent events indicate that the federal government is losing control over parts of the United States and its economy. The governors of New Mexico and Arizona have declared a state of emergency because the federal government has allowed an invasion of illegal immigrants. In the aftermath of a predicted hurricane, the National Guard was unable to protect our Gulf Coast citizens from violence, looting and a complete breakdown of public order. The price of oil and gasoline is increasingly unaffordable, threatening the existence of our economy’s transportation and distribution network. Despite these national emergencies, eighty thousand members of the National Guard are in Iraq and Afghanistan, including more than a third of the Louisiana and Mississippi Guard. The National Guard’s deployment to the Middle East has rendered it less capable of protecting our country’s borders or responding promptly to a natural disaster. The National Guard is part of the organized Militia of the Several States, but the federal government has usurped its Constitutional mission, which is “to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions.” U.S. Constitution Article 1, Section 8 In the face of these domestic calamities, Bush II and the Republicrats remain fixated on foreign countries. They are telling U.S. citizens to “stay the course” on federal government’s military occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. The Bush II administration continues to provoke oil-rich Iran and Syria, looking for an excuse to spread war throughout the entire Middle East. One of his so-called Christian supporters, Pat Robertson, has called for the assassination of the Hugo Chavez, the democratically elected President of another oil-rich country, Venezuela. The federal government seems incapable of dealing with our country’s problems except by attacking other countries. This militaristic and expansionist approach characterized the penultimate phase of another welfare/warfare empire - the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, as explained by Seweryn Bialer in his book, The Soviet Paradox: External Expansion, Internal Decline. Mirabile dictu, the USSR’s final phase was the breakup of its federal government on Christmas Day, 1991. Is the collapse of the federal government impossible, or just, for some, inconceivable? Some commentators have remarked that not a single media or academic expert predicted the collapse of the USSR. One reason might be that American establishment had become too emotionally invested in the USSR to be able to conceive of its destruction. Well into the 80s, the political left continued to sympathize with communism in general and the USSR in particular, opposing President Reagan’s hard line and supporting a nuclear freeze. For decades, the Cold War against the Soviets united and galvanized the political right. To varying extents, the full continuum of America’s political establishment defined itself in relation to the USSR. To contemplate its fall was to stare uncomfortably into a void. So no one looked. But to say that the USSR’s collapse was unpredicted is not to say that it was unpredictable. Looking back, cracks in the Soviet edifice were visibly widening. The collapse of the USSR could have been predicted, even though it was not. But this only confirms Mark Twain’s observation: “The art of prophecy is very difficult, especially in respect to the future.” For elites and their minions in media and academia, the notion that the United States federal government could collapse is similarly inconceivable. But their inability or unwillingness to imagine such an event does not mean that it is unpredictable. Like their predecessors who missed the harbingers of the Soviet collapse during the 1980s, they are so invested in the status quo that they are blind to the forces that imperil it. If anything, their collective myopia is yet another sign of the federal government’s vulnerability. As outlined in the first part of this essay, the federal government’s gradual slide into totalitarianism yields numerous points of comparison between the USA and the USSR. These similarities and others suggest that the the federal government may soon imitate the USSR in one conclusive aspect - by unraveling. Examples of these other similarities are: Demographics: Falling birthrate A nation that does not invest in its birthrate has no future. At the time of its dissolution in 1991, the USSR’s birthrate was 17 per thousand. The USSR’s ethnic Europeans, the Russians, were on the verge of becoming a minority. The Russians had dwindled to just 50.2 % of the population of the USSR as a whole. The remainder of the USSR epitomized the false ideal of diversity, and was an agglomeration of various ethnicities, nationalities and religions - Asian, Islamic and Pagan. Wikipedia fulsomely praised this ethnic hodgepodge as making the USSR “one of the world’s most ethnically diverse countries.” (But not for long.) For 2005, the birthrate in the United States is projected to be 14 per thousand, low enough for America to be ranked 164th out of 220 nations. To deal with this birth dearth, the federal government has not created incentives for childbearing, like Australia did with its “baby bonus” tax credit. Neither has the federal government re-criminalized the twin evils of abortion and homosexuality. The federal government’s answer to the falling birth rate is to encourage mass immigration. The combination of a falling birth rate and mass immigration from Third World countries means that our country’s European-American population is on the verge of becoming a minority. The Census recently announced that Texas has joined California as “minority-majority State.” European-Americans are projected to become an ethnic minority nationwide by the year 2050. In the meantime, mass immigration is transforming America into a facsimile of the USSR: a powder keg of various national, ethnic and religious groups that sooner or later will detonate. Decline in Economic Production The economy of the USSR was notorious for its inefficient and ultimately inadequate economic production. But the undeniable decline of the Soviet economy was not necessarily reflected in all of its official statistics. Many economists questioned the accuracy of communist countries’ economic data, a product of governments controlled by one political party. Their suspicions were later proven to be well-founded. For example, in 1989, the communist government of the former East Germany announced that its budget deficits, trade deficits and currency inflation rate were much higher than had been previously disclosed. According to the New York Times, this revelation caused “gasps of amazement” from those who attended one its Parliament’s final sessions. Like the USSR, the federal government’s rosy press releases about the growth in America’s Gross Domestic Product doesn’t necessarily tell the whole story. As was the case with the USSR and East Germany, one-party governments tend to provide inaccurate economic data. Lacking a true opposition party, the Republicrats are free to “cook the books.” No one is watching. Yet certain undeniable facts indicate a decline in economic production. Congress recently raised the federal government’s debt ceiling to accommodate a debt of more than $8 trillion. Trade deficits set a record every year, indicating we are consistently producing less and less of what we consume. Twenty-three percent of working age males are totally and completely unemployed. Record government debt, record trade deficits and widespread unemployment are inconsistent with a growing, productive economy. So we should be more than skeptical as the federal government rhapsodizes about impressive magnitude of our GDP. We should remember that Orwell’s Ministry of Plenty announced every year that the standard of living rose 20%. All the while, life in Oceania grew more miserable, as its citizens toiled to support their totalitarian government and its endless wars. Currency decline; rising commodity prices A decline in a nation’s economic production is normally accompanied by a decline in the value of its currency. Why hold a currency unless you are assured you can buy things with it? In 1988, after decades of economic decline and three years before its dissolution, the USSR had grossly overvalued the ruble relative to the United States Dollar. As of 1988, the ruble’s official exchange rate was .6 ruble to 1$. The unofficial black market exchange rate was 4 to 6 rubles per $1. The market decided that dollars were much better than rubles for buying things. Like the USSR, the United States faces an internal decline in economic production. But until recently, the United States Dollar has been shored up by its continuing status as the world’s “reserve currency” - a status conferred by foreign investment in the federal government’s dollar-denominated debt securities. The dollar’s “reserve currency” status has enabled federal government to accumulate its $8 trillion debt. But lately the Dollar has come into unyielding downward pressure relative to the price of an indispensable commodity - oil. Demand for oil tends to be inelastic. Constant US demand for oil coupled with a steep spike in oil prices means a weakening US Dollar. If unchecked, this decline in the dollar will lead foreign investors away from the dollar and towards other currencies or commodities such as gold or oil itself. Should the federal government’s military misadventures continue, yet another reason to short the dollar will present itself. To hold its value against more expensive commodities, a fiat currency needs plenty of fiat behind it. Like the ruble, the dollar fate’s is tied to the fortunes, or misfortunes, of its government’s Armed Forces. Military Failures in Afghanistan and the Middle East After a decade of economic stagnation and decline during the 1970s, the USSR invaded Afghanistan in 1979. The resulting Soviet occupation lasted eight years and cost 13,000 Soviet soldiers lives. Dubbed “Brezhnev’s biggest blunder”, the unpopular war set the stage for the rise of Mikhail Gorbachev, who allowed the the USSR to be dissolved. The federal government’s current attempt to occupy Afghanistan and Iraq is going badly. The present casualty count for American soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq is 13,000 dead or wounded. Public opinion has turned against the Middle Eastern War; it is increasingly unpopular. Yet not one prominent federal Republicrat has called for an end to the war. According to one Congressional Republicrat, the subject is “taboo.” How long until some start asking the question the Russians did: “Is putting an end to the federal government the only way to end this stupid war?” The Soviet’s display of military weakness in Afghanistan stirred rebellion from other quarters. The USSR appeared reluctant, perhaps unable, to deal forcefully with other insurgencies and secessionists. After admitting defeat and withdrawing from Afghanistan in February, 1989, the Soviet government had to pivot and confront opposition along its Eastern European border. In January of 1990, various ethnic groups demanded sovereignty for their respective national republics and threatened secession. Chief among them were the Baltic republics, led by Lithuania. In April of 1990, Gorbachev admitted that secession was legally possible. In May, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia all declared their independence, and pronounced that Baltic conscripts were no longer required to serve in the Red Army. The USSR collapsed the following year. The federal government is now questioning whether its own military strategies and capabilities are sufficient for it to carry out its purposes. Its politicians openly question where the federal government is going to get the troops necessary to carry out its missions. The Pentagon has admitted that its “two major regional conflict” strategy is inadequate and outmoded. Will not this show of weakness embolden those who would oppose the federal government by insurgency or secession? Like the Soviet government of yesteryear, has not the federal government breached Machiavelli’s advice in two important respects, becoming neither loved nor feared? Conclusion: Totalitarian governments rule their citizens with power, not principle. Because they deny the existence of a higher authority or higher law, they wage atheistic campaigns against the Christian religion. They deal with falling birth rates by promoting multiculturalism and immigration. When they face a decline in economic production, they resort to currency manipulations and finally, military interventionism, e.g., the “Brezhnev doctrine” or the “Bush doctrine.” The internal decline that is inevitably the fate of totalitarian states cannot be remedied by their external expansion. The necrosis of a State, or of its people, cannot be cured by allowing it to spread to other States and other peoples. In a futile attempt to outstrip the effects of internal decline, the totaltitarian government’s expansionist ambitions will overtake the its military capabilities. The shortfall will result in its failing occupation of foreign States, and its inability to provide for the welfare of its domestic State and its own citizens. The domestic failures of totalitarian States eventually cause widespread dissatisfaction in their citizens. Then, the political upheaval involved in dissolving their federal governments will appear to them no more threatening than what they already face - the collapse of public order or the disappearance of their nations’ borders. What happened to the USSR can happen here, and for the sake of America’s citizens, and their forefathers, and their children, will happen here. Original Link Home