A Tale Of Two Cities: London and Rome

The Anatomy of Collapse

This is how civilization crumbles, my friends: slowly at first then all at once.  It begins with AUSTERITY: first the tax increases and then with cuts to national budgets and the various services provided to the people. This leads to disillusionment and eventual rioting by the populace at the middle and lower economic levels. Street revolts proliferate. Where such rioting leads is the next step in the great unraveling.  Next is a reduction in the rate of sovereign economic growth, also a prime indicator that collapse is on course.  After all, industrial civilization is predicated upon economic growth and expansion.  Contraction is anathema to civilization’s health.  All of this is accompanied by increased measures of security (police and military) along with the restriction of individual rights, ostensibly to maintain the appearance of a civil environment.  But it is all premeditated by those in control to better isolate the haves from the have-nots.  Students, the poor, the elderly, the unions, all likely players in potential revolution or insurrection are isolated and/or jailed.

Well, our civilization is unwinding, and the people are getting mad.  We saw it in spades when it reared its ugly head in Athens, Greece and elsewhere throughout that country, which, with the Greek’s notoriously high level of emotion, is still fuming with signs of revolt.  And nobody really batted an eyelash here in the homeland when Sarkozy deployed his own stormtroopers, the elite National Police Intervention Group, to deal with the youth and trade union protests over the raising of the the retirement age in France’s own foray into national debt reduction.

But, when London announced sweeping austerity measures in late` 2010, unveiling the largest cuts to public spending since World War II in a bid to bring its huge debt burden under control, no one expected the kinds of reactions their country has been witnessing.

The five-year austerity program will cost the nation the loss of half a million public-sector jobs, and will slash social benefits for many millions of Britons.  We saw its beginnings in a student revolt lasting from early November into December over education cuts and adjustments to student costs.  And now, there is rioting in the streets of London and else throughout the country, media-hyped as a racial response to the shooting of a boy in a poor area of town. But, everyone knows it is further evidence of the impact of the austerity plan.

So now, from Rome, we have announcements of major austerity measures for Italy, including tax hikes and reduction in government jobs and services to the public.  It will not be long before we see fighting in the streets of Rome and shortly elsewhere across the boot of Italy as the youthful Italian hotties realize they have to work until their beauty has long since faded. So, while Italy is just beginning to choke down its pasta, and Berlusconi is acting like a wanted criminal, Britain has moved on to incarcerating the young and the restless.

Now we come to the good old USA. What we witnessed this last few months of summer in the nation’s capitol was pure kabuki theatre, a highly stylized dramatic performance intended to soften the blow and potential public reaction to drastic austerity measures planned for the homeland.  The entire fight over increasing the federal debt ceiling and its attachment to deficit reduction is grounded precisely in this, the coming of the American AUSTERITY.  Didn’t you know, the communist Chinese – the very same ones who own our ass – have been demanding American austerity since early this summer. And so Washington will be added to our other two cities, London and Rome, to make it a triumvirate: three of the four horsemen of the apocalypse. The fourth, of course, being Athens.

Our new Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, commissioned in concert with the debt ceiling deal, is the nation’s institutionalization of austerity measures from sea to shining sea.  First will come tax increases on the middle class, and then the cutting of government spending on jobs, services and, no doubt Social Security, Medicare, and more.  The vets, the elderly, the poor, the pensioners, students, and the infirm will be hit the hardest.  It is more kabuki theatre my dear readers, intended to provide the illusion of government working for you as usual.  But don’t be fooled.  They are working to save the asses of their patrons.  The only question is: will the populace rise up as they did in France, Greece, England, and perhaps soon in Italy?  Or will they just roll over and play dead, so that their lords and masters can choke the last breath of life from them without so much as a whimper?

Oh, and just to clarify the final scenes… Bachmann’s in overdrive now that she won the Iowa straw vote for Republicans.  And that sure is a nice makeover they gave the gal since her first interviews with Chris Matthews on Hardball several years ago.  I guess then, Chris did not realize he was interviewing the future of America, the crown of thorns on its imminent demise.  Good morning America, where are you?