MyrnaM said:"No, but at the end of this century America will be destroyed economically by a series of natural disasters."
I don't necessarily disagree -- the point is, it gets destroyed. I've never said that I know how it will happen. Judging from Apocalypse 18 ( which you, ironically, have in your quote, do you realize Mystery Babylon is probably your beloved country? ) which concentrates on a total economic standstill, and looking around me today and the financial situation with so many incomes built on thin air, on money generated out of nothing, on a computer, I think we can safely say that the end will mostly have to do with finance rather than war.
What the economic pundits don't tell you, though, is that there is a spiritual side to America's fall. It is about an illusion failing, an overwrought optimism that can no longer preserve us. Nothing is real in the nєω ωσrℓ∂ σr∂єr, the age of the Universal Republics.
I had a semi-serious thought on the way home from Mass today. The thought was that Tom Cruise is a metaphor for America. Like America, Tom Cruise hides his essential emptiness and ungodliness behind a blazing smile ( see also: Barry Sotero ). Like America, Tom Cruise has had astonishing success and dominance. Like America, Tom Cruise cannot admit the deadly faults that he has in order to correct them but simply plows forward trying to bluff everyone. Like America, he is sort of the ultimate confidence man, pulling people into his orbit through sheer conviction that he can never fail.
But as time goes by, the cracks are beginning to show. The craziness and desperation behind the glittering, invincible facade is harder to ignore.
Confidence!So if I were a stockbroker, I'd watch Tom Cruise's career in order to play the market.
When his career fails for good, that is the time to be afraid. It's like Disney or McDonald's failing, all these seemingly impregnable bastions of American might.
I'm joking about being able to time America's fall based on Cruise, but I really do see him as sort of an exaggerated mirror of the general attitude of Americans -- out for themselves, delusional, convinced the gravy train will go on forever.