{"id":373269,"date":"2018-08-14T02:44:09","date_gmt":"2018-08-14T01:44:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/dark-foreboding-is-the-american-democratic-experiment-over\/"},"modified":"2018-08-14T02:44:09","modified_gmt":"2018-08-14T01:44:09","slug":"dark-foreboding-is-the-american-democratic-experiment-over","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/dark-foreboding-is-the-american-democratic-experiment-over\/","title":{"rendered":"Dark Foreboding: Is the American Democratic Experiment Over"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;<\/p>\n<p>Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world<br \/>The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere<br \/>The ceremony of innocence is drowned;<br \/>The best lack all conviction, while the worst<br \/>Are full of passionate intensity.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 William Butler Yeats,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.poetryfoundation.org\/poems\/43290\/the-second-coming\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?hl=en&amp;q=https:\/\/www.poetryfoundation.org\/poems\/43290\/the-second-coming&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1534128483703000&amp;usg=AFQjCNG6xX6XfEnKGdYqX-GQOdbfw1OYEg\"><em>The Second Coming<\/em><\/a>, 1919<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Apocalyptic thinking has been with us for a long time, and it sometimes ushers in actual apocalypses, albeit at human scale, without biblical finality. For a century now, the Yeats poem above has served as an increasingly common reference point for those who fear apocalyptic events approaching. Today such fears are varied, the threats are real, and reactions range from crisis-mongering to self-serving denial, making any rational, coherent societal response almost impossible.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019ve been heading this way for decades. We finally got here in 2016. It\u2019s taken awhile, but the forces of chaos and greed seem to be cohering, tightening their grip on power, on government and culture, facing little or no effective opposition. An election is coming. It will matter. But how?<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;<br \/>Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Worse, things are under attack, the center is the enemy. The US president veers toward dictatorial powers and seeks out new targets to disrupt or destroy. The US wages war around the world in at least 7 countries (with combat forces in 146 according to Seymour Hersh). The US Environmental Protection Agency wages war on the environment&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/dissidentvoice.org\/2018\/08\/dark-foreboding-is-the-american-democratic-experiment-over\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the worldThe blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhereThe ceremony of innocence is drowned;The best lack all conviction, while the worstAre full of passionate intensity. \u2014 William Butler Yeats,\u00a0The Second Coming, 1919 Apocalyptic thinking has been with us for a long time, and it [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2525,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-373269","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2525"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=373269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373269\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=373269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=373269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=373269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}