Possible phoenix.

Some of the smartest people I know are saying we are looking at the death of America, and I have every reason to believe them.  We are sending our jobs and wealth overseas.  The government has increasingly been turned over to a revolving door with industrial lobbyists.   Our elections are bought and paid for by what more and more looks like an oligarchy.  We are being hollowed out, like a skull meant for a trophy on a rich man's desk.

I have looked at the situation up and down, and I believe them.  America, as it is, is a lost cause.  However, I know too much history to despair just yet.  Many societies have gone down in flames, only to rise from the ashes.  But note that the society that results is never quite the same.

As I see it, it is the white American culture that has run its course.  There is much evil that our white patriarchal culture has caused, but at one time it was vigorous and confident.  We were the nation of Paul Bunyan, Jim Bowie and Mike Fink.  We built railroads (yes, I know how much of that was chinese labor). We conquered a continent.  We went to space.  We built an empire that is still the mightiest in the world.  But now, we huddle in our gated neighborhoods.  We are terrified of terrorists.  We cannot create, or even dream.  The zombie apocalypse has become our nightmare.

But this is not true of the "minorities" within our walls and therein lies our possible salvation.  I walk around my formerly all-white neighborhood, and I see the vital culture I remember from my childhood, but they mostly speak spanish.  I look at the music, the ideas, the enthusiasm in our culture, and it is mostly borrowed from those we despise.  Cultures mix and blend, and if there is any hope here, it is that this blending can bring us back out of our decay.