Reply #26: Your analysis of Rome is quite apt, IMHO... [View All]

Rome was a giant black hole in the Mediterranean that sucked wealth from its surrounding provinces. It needed that wealth to maintain the bread and circuses for its increasingly unproductive citizens. Problem was, they needed to keep expanding in order to feed the center, which in turn exacerbated the problems of Roman expansion. Romans succeeded for centuries by doing the things that had always been done in Rome. When they needed to adapt in order to survive, they were completely unable -- frozen by inertia.

The sacking of Rome by Alaric in 410 was more of an anticlimax than anything else. The seeds of its downfall had been sown much, much earlier.

What's amazing to me is that I discussed this with my 9th graders, and they came back to it weeks later asking, "Is that like us?" Of course, I don't give them my take -- but I encourage their questioning and ask, "What do you think?" The sad thing is that so many of them are so ill-equipped to deal with what is flying toward them....

Modern America was an entity built upon the notion of cheap, plentiful petroleum. Of course our institutions are not able to deal with its decline as such because our society is conditioned to expect that bottomless pool of oil as a natural phenomenon, central to the "American way of life." Personally, I think the death knell for that way of life was sounded back in the 1970s -- we were just given a brief reprieve because the North Sea and Alaskan slope oil fields finally came on line in the 1980s.

Expecting any kind of positive impulse from our federal government is a waste of time, IMHO. Politicians will stand much better chances of re-election looking for scapegoats rather than pushing more realistic (and belt-tightening) measures. I think that any meaningful political work toward the end of cushioning the blows will come at a much more local level where concerned citizens can actually be involved in the process.