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I'm going to make a move from depressing myself to trying to depress other people here by predicting the nd of democracy and the resumption of serious imperialism in the world.
I identify the U.S. because I think it is currently the most likely candidate to provide the nucleus of the universal empire. OTOH, I don't pretend that we have a divine rescript stating that it must be so. If you seriously disagree, feel free to say so.
And for liberal commentators: that I have people cynically exploiting an idea doesn't mean that I reject its merits. I just believe that any idea, regardless of its merits, can be cynically exploited (of course some ideas, like chiliastic Marxism, have no merits to begin with.
I'll make some predictions here, secure in the realization that the state of my health means that I won't live to see any of them come true or be falsified. All dates should be understood to be approximations, +/- 25 years.
2002-2020: Politics in the U.S. continue to be increasingly partisan, with an increasing number of citizens dropping out the electoral and political process on the theory that they can have no effect on an increasingly centralized and bureaucratic government. U.S. foreign policy becomes more frankly imperialistic; various nations may be taken on as "junior partners". The E.U. tries and fails to provide a competing nucleus to the U.S.
2020-2050: Populist politicians openly manipulate electoral politics in the U.S. to destroy private concentrations of wealth and influence seen as competitive with the state.
2050-2080: Backlash against postmodernism; return of Enlightment forms. Imperial institutions in the U.S. and the world develop and grow. Final formation and consolidation wars (fought with tactical WMD).
2080-2100: Consolidation of imperial forms. Final repudiation of late modernist standars and ways of thought. Conservative cultural (not economic) reaction.
2100-2600: Universal empire of the West (not necessarily CALLED an "Empire").
2250: The Empire ceases to be even nominally American, and becomes truly universal.
2250-2325: Golden Age (to later commentators).
2325-2425: Gradual deterioration and breakup of Empire under incompetent administrators; repair under competent ones. Ratio of incompetents to competents grows.
2425-2525: Empire becomes highly formalistic; population at large completely alienated from it, whilst valuing Golden Age services (peace, security) that it in fact no longer provides. People turn to mystical/apocalyptic ideas to compensate.
2525-2600: Final de facto breakdown of Empire; de jure acknowledgement may actually be delayed for centuries or even millennia.
John "Akatsukami" Braue
Thursday, June 20, 2002
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