Haven't we suffered enough?

In other words, let's stop the insanity. PLEASE!

In Susan Powter’s early ‘90s late night infomercials on fat loss, she would exclaim a signature phrase at the top of her voice: STOP THE INSANITY!

It’s a useful exclamation to invoke now, and when delivered at volume it’s certainly worthy of attention. But Powter’s fat-loss system obviously didn’t work. We’re a country of extreme excess, including our girth. So the time has come to co-opt the catch phrase and extend it to what’s been laid bare for some time, but which effectively crescendoed this past week — with one policy disaster after another.

In a previous post, we here at Collapse Life lamented that: “…our Bastille moment has come and gone without us even knowing it.” But, on second glance, it’s much worse than that.

You see, it’s one thing if the ‘emperor has no clothes’ and the public discourse has come to recognize that the seat of power is in fact powerless. We know, for example, that the Washington cesspool conveys an image of self-reflexive regality and faux-functionality. But only a fool actually believes that. Why we haven’t done anything to end this embarrassment is certainly anyone’s best guess.

When we broadcast our incompetence to the world, when we showcase our dysfunction for all to see and mock, when our politics and policies serve to strengthen — not weaken — our supposed ‘enemies,’ one has to believe we are on the cusp of hegemonic collapse.

To wit:

We cannot secure our own borders and now the whole world knows it, if there was ever any doubt, thanks to posts like that. This is the same country, let’s not forget, that fought to defeat Nazism in the 20th century; the country that promoted international prosperity through globalized commerce in the post-war era; the country that put men on the moon; the country that tore down the Berlin Wall and forced the denouement of communism. And now this is what we have become — surely this must be our barbarians at the gate moment.

Sadly, the barbarians already live among us and they want to eat our flesh. (WARNING: Those whose stomachs or sensibilities are not up-to-snuff should skip reading this next tweet.) Aside from being truly disturbing, what happened in California last week is a tragic reminder of our nation’s fall from grace.

Whether you believe a book called The Bible is a collection of stories and tales from the wild imagination of our ancestors, or whether you believe it is the word of God, do not skip reading Deuteronomy 28 (a small taste below) and particularly verse 15 onward. And then ask yourself: Is this what we’re starting to see?

The Lord will send on you curses, confusion and rebuke in everything you put your hand to, until you are destroyed and come to sudden ruin because of the evil you have done in forsaking him. The Lord will plague you with diseases until he has destroyed you from the land you are entering to possess. The Lord will strike you with wasting disease, with fever and inflammation, with scorching heat and drought, with blight and mildew, which will plague you until you perish.

Of course, the disturbing story of a train accident victim’s stolen and masticated leg can be set aside as a solitary example of the actions of a deranged man with mental health issues. We certainly do not lack compassion for those struggling with addiction and mental illness and hope this man gets the help he so badly needs.

But it’s not a solitary example. It’s part of a relentless daily pattern of antisocial behavior happening in all of America’s big cities, a pattern we cannot continue to write off as isolated or contained. Let’s do the math: a mental health crisis, plus a substance abuse crisis, plus an open border crisis, divided by a government that wants to actively ignore the root causes… the result is what we’re now seeing — the washing away of the thin veneer of civility that once was the envy of the world.

Forgive us for being cynical, but we don’t see a way that November’s general elections will fix the problem (in fact, we’re leaning towards Mr. Literally Anybody Else). There may be tiny glimmers of hope at the state level, where assemblies are passing amendments like this recent one in Tennessee, which prohibits geo-engineering. But this is slow and wearisome work and we would need millions of bills in all 50 states to stop the bleeding.

So, Collapseniks, we ask you — can we stop the insanity? Can we regain our civility, our humaneness? Or are we beyond redemption?

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