Is America Turning on the Car and Closing the Garage Door?

No Willy Lomans were harmed in the production of this essay

All my lame (is it alright to say ‘lame’?) theatre references aside, I’m noticing a slow (but exponential) crumbling of the brand of the American Empire while we are all smiling and pretending that everything is A-ok. For nihilistic take sake, I won’t offer any sugar coatings, but I’ll try to sneak in something that makes you laugh at the absurdity of it all, like a man who notices mid-fall from the 86th floor that his shoe laces are tied.

Hopefully you aren’t looking for advice.

Now surely, I can fake-it-‘til-you-make-it while swimming in academic and cultural waters, but I’m not a proper intellectual. So don’t be fooled by the occasional literary alliteration or the superfluous usage of Scrabble-y words — there will be random naughty expressions (none intended in ill faith) and a few made up terms decided upon after a failed hasty thesaurical search. If we can verbelize any noun, we can surely adjectivize them as well.

I realized I was getting a bit ahead of myself when I was trying to convince people to try a tinfoil hat on for size. And why would they? If nothing in their reality is being challenged, why would anyone actively choose to shift their perspective? Until the relentless real comes a-tapping at your door, you are not going out on a limb. And that is perfectly understandable. I would have and have done the same. Maybe consider the following knock knocks not so much as rap-tap-tapping, but as little chips in the armor of your beliefs. Or as conspiracy jokes. Really, you are the master of your sail.

I’ll start with a brief story, or a rumor, more accurately. I’m not implying the accuracy of the rumor, it could all be bad gossip, but it was one of those Chicago theatre gossips that I was exposed to and now I’ll pass the myth along. When Brian Dennehy’s tour de force performance as the titular Death of a Salesman at The Goodman Theatre ran, often rowdy high schoolers (I was one of them) would pack those Wednesday matinees. Those shows would always be a little extra. I know because later when I directed and produced theatre and performed for those little shits, it was usually an unpredictable affair. Anyway, Brian Dennehy (or so the story goes) while taking his curtain call along his fellow performers, would quietly whisper “Fuck you” to the boisterous disrespectful teenagers. After giving the most brilliant gut wrenching performance, this giant in the industry was (or so the story goes) a petty little bitch.

I’ll come back to that. Let’s move on with the bird’s eye view of the obvious: The United States is the last standing Empire. All others before it have crumbled. You could talk about the mighty Russian bear all you want, but that part of the world had to take a huge L when the Soviet Union fell apart, not only bruising its ego, but also enduring a diminished standard of living from which it is still recovering. You could make the argument that Russia is trying to return to those glory days (what glory days?) and I won’t argue back. That doesn’t matter. They aren’t there yet. And it’s inconsequential to the suicidal mission that American Empire seems to be on. What sets us apart here in The States, is that since we haven’t been through it before, we don’t know what it feels like.

I say we because I live here and I really genuinely love this youthful, care-free oaf of a country, or more accurately, I love its kind, generous, and curious people, but I feel that I have a knowing of what a deterioration of a nation feels like, be it not an empire. If you’re under an impression that the collapse of something as great as America can’t happen over night, you would be correct. It happens like the stock market — gradually at first, and then suddenly.

It might begin with control of information. If you are wondering where America is in this process, after all the shadow-banning, censoring, and de-platforming by Silicon Valley on behest of our government’s preferred mis-, dis-, and malinformation crusade, a day post Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, the administration created a Disinformation Governance Board. No matter which variation of the moniker ‘Ministry of Truth’ takes, Joseph Goebbels, Joseph Stalin and Joseph Biden now each having one makes me thing the p-value of ‘Joseph’ is starting to haunt us. Although it really warms my heart that a pleasing on the eyes and ears theatre nerd got the Minister of Truth gig. Glad to see actors working.

Kevork Almassian🇸🇾🇦🇲 @KevorkAlmassian

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Nina Jankowicz, the head of Joe Biden's "Disinformation Governance Board".

Then, you’re told that you have to tighten your belts. I was pretty young when Todor Zhivkov, the then president of Bulgaria, made this announcement on TV. But I remember it not feeling quite real.

Déjà-vu.

Now, you would think that in preparation of this incoming hunger, there would be pro-active measures to assure all food sources are protected and maximized, but between killing off 5.3 million chicken (there are actually quite more than that, that’s just Iowa) to stave off the spread of a new Avian Flu and the destruction of more than twenty food processing plants since the new year started (the average anticipated accidental fire in such facilities is eight per year), one starts to wonder when are the ration coupons coming.

I’m not implying that these are anything but accidents, just saying that we might want to put in extra sprinklers in those hangars. It’ll only be a matter of time before the Ministry of Plenty rolls up their sleeves and certain items disappear from the shelves, others are limited, and all that remains costs double.

And before you know it, you’re standing in a twisted line for four hours waiting for the store to open not knowing what kind of shipment they got so you can score a package of butter, limit 2. If it doesn’t run out by the time it’s your turn.

Sooner or later, Psaki is going to cock her brick blush bob to the side and her matching colored lips will have to tell us we are heading into famine, fam. Maybe it still won’t feel real then.

If you’re thinking that this only happens in underdeveloped countries, please make note that those other citizens also know how to plant their own gardens and pickle their own veggies and behead their own chickens and thus are more prepared to handle a food shortage. Are you? How would a mega city like say, Chicago, handle empty store shelves? Or the rationing of energy? At one point in Bulgaria you had electricity for two hours a day and water for two hours a day, but never at the same time. Whether that was a manufactured crisis to control the population or not was irrelevant to the fact that either way, you were taking cold showers. It won’t get that far, right?

And what about China’s Shanghai zero covid policies that have stranded an unprecedented amount of ships at its ports, resulting in, you guessed it, more shortages!? The cumulative effect sounds like hunger’s bony finger drumming on your window.

Knock Knock

Who’s there?

Hunger

Hunger who?

Hunger isn’t so unreal now, is it?

Whilst the American government attempts to explain away the inflation with Putin it still refuses to acknowledge that it printed more money than it should have and redistributed large swaths of wealth in the wrong direction. However, the added bonus are the real life consequences from sanctions on Russian gas and fertilizer exports. And because we’re looking for foreign actors to blame for the newly perforated notch on our belts, why don’t we also send Ukraine a little bit of money to fight a proxy war that America for some reason is really interested in prolonging. Ok, I was kidding, it’s not just a little bit of money. It’s quite a bit of money. In three months, in fact, the US has sent more money to Ukraine than it spent on its 20 year failed war in Afghanistan. It’s about to send another $40 billion which would be more than the entire Russian military’s annual budget. And if it isn’t Ukraine, surely there will be other countries we can defend for poking the bear for us. I hear Sweden and Finland are fixing up to join NATO this summer which once again infringes on the expansion treaty the West promised Russia. Maybe the Finns could use a few billions. But that’s not all, let’s see what’s behind door #3: Is that China waiting to see how the Russian thing pans out while licking its chops and eyeing Taiwan? The Sino-Russ alliance, whether public or secret, imaginary or real, is the perfect excuse for The Ministry of Peace to have you convinced that we’ve always been at war with Eurasia and therefor continue to wield about absolute emergency powers over its citizenry and provide great excuses for its national decline. Runaway inflation is bad but war sure doesn’t make it better. I guess we’ll find out soon enough unless we kamikaze the game of nuclear chicken. Although, due to pandemics, the war might have to be held over on Zoom.

Yes, ‘pandemics’ - pluralized because modern day Nostradamus Bill Gates has begun prophesying about the next one and his top fundee The Ministry of Health, pardon, the WHO, is signing a treaty that will override any nation’s sovereignty in any upcoming pandemic. Because the WHO knows best. Because their covid response was so stellar and so unapologetically flawless. Because all their measures, all their lockdowns, all their masking and their jabbing was so unbelievably effective.

Knock Knock

Who’s there?

The WHO.

The WHO, who?

I know you are, but what am I?

So, I’ve started prepping. And I’m telling everyone lending me half an ear to do the same. The dollar might not tank this year (although I’m still betting it’ll happen by the holidays) because all the small countries’ shit currencies that are using it as their reserve will crash first giving the dollar a little temporary buoyancy. But I anticipate the spring and summer will bring more loss of purchasing power as food and gas prices soar leading up to a very scarce autumn and winter. Although, if you live in a mega city like I do, the unpredictable behavior of millions of people with empty food shelves and no fuel to leave or an isolated place to go to might become a more urgent concern. Let’s hope it doesn’t go that far. We can ride out a tough year, but planning ahead will most certainly help. I’ve done my fair share of walking in various shoes, from the steel-toed boots of a blue collar worker, to the poor artist’s rehearsal mary janes, to the loafers of the managerial class. Recessions echo differently depending on your economical status. This year, no matter what shoes you wear, your patience, your grace, and your humanity will be tested.

Knock Knock

Who’s there?

Humanity.

Humanity, who?

Exactly.

America peddles its dreams and its democracy. It sells its fantasy to the less fortunate. It bullies others to worship it. It puts on a great show all the while whispering ‘fuck you’ under its breath. The Brand has worn off and all that’s left is the fear of its own end. With all due respect to Arthur Miller, in stealing inspiration from his play, what good is this salesman if he can’t even sell himself on his own death?