Do you think the Romans knew that Rome was falling?
When it comes to history, I wouldn't consider myself a scholar, but I have done more reading on the subject than most people. I do know that the decline and fall of Rome lasted for hundreds of years, far longer than it will take for our country to lose almost everything that made it great.
We had a pretty good thing going for quite some time, but we slipped off the tracks when we forgot what it was that made our country great.
We forgot the meaning of the American Dream.
We forgot that the American Dream had nothing to do with getting rich, that comparing our rich people to the wealthy in other countries said nothing good about America being a land of opportunity.
The Dream, such as it was, said that people could come to this country and be free, and that if they were willing to believe in the system and work hard, they could have the kind of lifestyle that was possible even for blue-collar workers in the 1950s and '60s. They could own a home, raise a family and live the good life. They didn't have to be worried that medical bills would wipe them out, or that they would never have enough money to retire.
In fact, if you want to know the year the American Dream peaked, it was 1965. That's the year we had the greatest income compression in our country, the year the gap between the wealthy and the working class was at its smallest.
We have been in decline ever since.
Even in 1965, there were people on the far right who hated the idea of Social Security. There were people who fought as hard as they could to stop the implementation of Medicare. And why? Because providing these services for average people meant that the extremely wealthy had to pay more taxes.
And just as rust never sleeps, the extremely wealthy never stop lobbying to have their taxes lowered and spending on the middle and working classes cut. When we call them on it, they call it class warfare, but they are the ones who never stop fighting for their class.
Ever since 1981, when Ronald Reagan took office, the rich's share of our national wealth has been increasing. In 1965, the top 1 percent controlled 7 percent of our wealth. Now they have more than twice that, and the middle class is dying.
Now we have reached a point where a small minority of Americans who hate the idea of any government have been able through misdirection and obfuscation to elect a vocal minority in Congress. Because the rules of Congress are highly protective of the rights of the minority -- usually not a bad thing -- these people have been able to hamstring Congress from acting at all.
In the late 1980s, conservatives bragged that there would never be another Democrat elected president. They qualified that by saying that if one were elected, they would be able to prevent him from governing as a Democrat, and they have been very successful in that respect with two Democrats in the White House.
They are killing our country.
Or maybe we all are. I can't think of a time in this country -- or in many others for that matter -- where the country has been so divided between two opposing points of view that could not be reconciled.
At least since 1860, and we fought a war over that.
Would we fight another Civil War to keep 21st century America together?
I doubt it. As Paul Simon said in the wonderful song quoted at the beginning of this piece, "... you can't be forever blessed."
I think it's going to get really ugly.
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