A very important book appeared in 2005 by journalist Paul Sperry, titled Infiltration: How Muslim Spies and Subversives Have Penetrated Washington. This book contains all the elements necessary for an accurate analysis of America's position in the War on Terror and for America's long-term strategic survivability. Sperry gives us the story of a permissive culture, informed by "political correctness," incapable of recognizing enemies as enemies, and therefore unable to safeguard its own institutions from penetration by hostile foreigners. Sperry gives cold, hard facts. He has many sources within the U.S. government - in the FBI, in Congress, in the White House. What he describes is a security establishment incapable of establishing security because the terms of security have been politicized. It is a system that disallows all prejudice toward enemies. To prove its lack of bias, the system opens itself to infiltration, giving terrorist sympathizers jobs in the security system. That is to say, jobs to Islamist sympathizers. And this goes to prove the main point of this column for the last five years.
We ought to accept a few basic facts. The United States has become less and less a country, and more and more of a picnic. To borrow a phrase from Neil Postman, we have been "amusing ourselves to death" for over two decades. In the 1980s the spiritual and intellectual deficits of the United States went largely unnoticed, except by a few thinking people. A great change had already overtaken the Republic and the American people were no longer what they once were. Being an American is now confused with being a consumer. A series of sociological shifts occurred following the Second World War, and new attitudes have taken hold. These might be described as "permissive" or hedonistic. The old order of society, which existed in the first half of the 20th century, has disintegrated. That is to say, chaos began to spread through every vital organ of American society: first, at the level of the soul, of ideas and social organization, then at the level of personal behavior. Far too many Americans are no longer solid, with solid loyalty to their country, family and community.
Wealth gave Americans too many choices, and American's weren't wise enough to manage them. Technology also gave us choices. The pill and penicillin gave us sexual choices. Television gave us entertainment choices. The Internet gave us information choices. So many choices, so many wrong turns taken. The atomization of society, the breakdown of the family, the annihilation of the most basic pattern of human life has already impacted an entire generation of Americans. Consider the data presented by Jean M. Twenge in Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled -- and More Miserable Than Ever Before.
All those worried about the creation of a surveillance state in America have misunderstood the real problems we face, which have nothing to do with the formation of an indigenous tyranny. Indeed, if we endure long enough to develop our own totalitarianism it will only be by evading the firestorm of a more immediate destruction. The dangers we face are many, indeed. The capitalist shopping mall regime will not develop into a police state because it cannot tolerate an effective counterintelligence regime. The Constitution may be clipped, and violations will occur, but these cannot be effectively used to build a totalitarian edifice as some fear. What is demanded on all sides nowadays hardly resembles loyalty to a nation state as such. Instead we have multiculturalism and political correctness. The instinct for community takes a strange path, in order to maintain the shopping mall (to keep the goods and services flowing). It is all about the market, the individual, and economic efficiency. This is not a bad thing, of course, but there are security-related repercussions. The forces propelling what has happened are capitalist, market forces. Totalitarian ideas were born from these forces, and not from the feudalism that preceded them. Freedom and the market have broken the back of authority, nationalism, and a military spirit that fuels effective defense and attack. It may even be argued that America is no longer one country, but many countries. And that situation brings with it an inherent instability that will eventually give us a new civil war. The country that we see today is literally coming apart, only this process is inward. The outward manifestation comes later.
It is very easy to let things slide, and this is what we've done in order to keep the economic wheels turning at a faster and faster pace. As a country, we see no danger in adopting the most suicidal policies imaginable (with regard to national security, education, immigration and trade). The isolated individual, considering his own position, sees no reason to become alarmed because outwardly the economic system continues to function. But the overall tendency to chaos and corruption necessarily affects the economic system at the level of currency and credit. The process is far advanced, and there is no way to avoid a painful series of setbacks.
In real politics, as distinguished from ideological philosophizing that confuses the actual with the imaginary, it is not a question of pursuing a utopian agenda of political perfection (which many want to see implemented). It is a question of talking realistically about the given situation. We are left with choices: like Republican versus Democrat; America vs. its enemies abroad; an Islamist stranglehold on our oil supplies or American troops in the Middle East. In real politics we are not given the choice of our favorite political forms, perfectly managed with honesty in the public interest. We are left with choosing the lesser of two evils. It is not my place to tell people what side to take, though my nationality puts me on one side as opposed to another. (It would be stupid not to recognize this.) In a war between social systems or worldviews, you are often forced to choose sides.
In the conflict that is developing, America may suffer a series of unprecedented blows with untold losses. These blows may lead to a global economic catastrophe. I suspect that weapons of mass destruction will be used on a massive scale, that starvation will coincide with a course of outright death and mayhem. I say this because the sociological tendencies of our time point in this direction, not because of personal religious or political beliefs. When civilization destabilizes at the level of the soul, at the level of ideas, at the level of personal cosmology, a path is opened for the barbarian and the looter, the terrorist and the foreign enemy. Of these the most efficient and ruthless stand the best chance of killing large numbers of people and leveling entire countries. And they will not be worried about rebuilding what they've destroyed. Revolutionary socialism, radical Islam, especially when financed and shepherded by sophisticated intelligence and paramilitary organizations that exist in states like Russia, Iran, China, etc., are the leading contenders. A country like America, with its belief in another round of peace and plenty, corrupted by its own wealth and ease, cannot keep its place of privilege for long.
Therefore, let us make no mistake in calculating America's actual position in all this. Those who speak of American imperialism or empire have misunderstood the actual state of affairs. Here in the United States there is no organization capable of creating a police state. Out of what material could such a state be formed? The human beings of Generation X are thoroughly interpenetrated by the logic of freedom - personal and political. Yes, there are crazy activists working in government to pass insane laws. Yes, we see the rise of leftist politicians, environmentalists, etc. And property rights have been compromised as anyone can see. But the environmentalists and bureaucrats and ideological crazies here are not like Stalin or Hitler. They act from stupid utopian motives, hardly suspecting that their actions will eventually crash the economy and ruin their own lives. Such people are too misinformed to understand the consequences of their actions. Theirs is the exaggerated lexicon of ideological hobbyists whose totalitarianism ends at wrecking capitalism in favor of more ruthless, clear-sighted and better-organized enemies from abroad.
The United States is not a great power in the ordinary historical sense. It is psychologically limited, internally hindered, encumbered and infiltrated. This is not to deny the excellence of the U.S. armed forces, but to recognize the small numbers that actually serve in the United States Army versus the massive horde pressing in on all sides (and also, infiltrating through the back door). The forces of the major combatants in World War II dwarf the present U.S. military, which has been sent into the Middle East on a mission requiring larger forces. The American political system simply cannot field more soldiers without a significant change, and that change cannot occur as long as prosperity continues. Of course, prosperity will not continue -- but then, the money available to support a large army would also disappear. So the idea of America taking an imperialist path is not likely. This is not the danger.
In matters of national security, the hedonistic mentality and extreme individualism of the American system has led us to a dysfunctional national security state that cannot effectively prevent a major terrorist assault or the exploitation of such an assault by rival powers. (I write this to clarify my analytical perspective.)
