don't believe them; don't fear them; don't ask anything of them

The post title is a quote from the late Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and pertains to politicians. Solzhenitsyn, who spent many years imprisoned at numerous locations in Stalin's far-flung gulag, was speaking of Soviet-era politicians who operated in a closed political system, totally divorced from reality and becoming increasingly demented as it approached collapse.

Exactly like our US political system today.

I found that quote in the archive at Dimitry Orlov's site, in a long 2006 article, "Closing the 'Collapse Gap': the USSR was better prepared for collapse than the US." Orlov writes from the perspective of an eyewitness to the Soviet collapse, and will certainly experience first-hand the imminent American meltdown, coming soon to a planet we all happen to be living on.

Orlov makes no effort in this detailed and comprehensive analysis to convince anyone that the US is on the verge, and neither do I. My feeling is that anyone who can't see the collapse coming at this point probably shouldn't mess with it -- better to leave the TV on and keep watching "Here Comes Honey Boo-Boo" until the screen goes dark and you notice there aren't any cars going by outside.

The immediate post-collapse environment in the US will be similar to that which Russia experienced when the USSR went down: accelerated levels of joblessness, deep poverty, homelessness, and despair; epidemic-level criminality as law enforcement vanishes; severe shortages of essentials: food, medicine, fuel. Orlov argues that the US collapse will be even more severe, and that Russian society was "better prepared" for collapse than we are. I agree with his analysis, but think "better configured" would be a preferable descriptive term, since clueless politicians like the ones they had and the ones we've got don't prepare us for anything.

In fact, the Republicrat-Demolican political circus, which has proved itself incapable of basic competence in matters as simple as preventing regularly-scheduled massacres of citizens by schizophrenics who have access to automatic weapons, or avoiding bankruptcy and default, is incapable of helping us get ready for what's coming, since they themselves deny the reality of it.

The only political possibility that might help us avoid collapse would be an internal governmental revolution followed by military dictatorship, by a general wise enough to tell us the truth, whether we like or not, and not having to labor under the necessity of dealing with the grunting of primitive humanoids like Kansas Tim Huelskamp.

Dmitry Orlov also points out that the timing of an empire's collapse is impossible to predict. It's been over 20 years since the USSR went down, and we're still waiting for the other shoe (that would be us) to drop. However, I'm confident that one more big burp, similar in scope to the financial meltdown of 2007-08, will finish the US for good. Our paralyzed political system is incapable of preventing such an event, and in fact will bring it on more quickly.

That's why I'm swearing off politics and politicians. It'll be hard just like quitting smoking, but it's doable.