Quote from: tvbcof on May 21, 2015, 11:20:38 PM

I think you have that almost exactly backward. There is a strong push toward indoctrinating U.S. public school kids from an early age to being conducive to 'global citizenship' as one example of the necessary requirements. Efforts in this direction have been going on since I was a kid in the 1970's but in fits and starts, and things like genuine individuality, healthy skepticism, and some degree of self sufficiency were still at least tolerated. When the generation who are now in grade school matures, look out.

The tell is not the behaviour of schoolchildren that matters - it's the behaviour of the apparatchik.

When they start to believe the remaining lifetime of the regime is less than the expected duration of their employment + pension, some of them start patiently waiting for their expected windfall to arrive over the course of decades of career and retirement and start taking what they can get while they can.

These acts of internal looting have an effect of shortening the remaining lifetime of the regime which means it's a positive feedback loop. As the expected lifetime (as perceived by the apparatchik) shortens, the amount of internal looting increases.

That positive feedback cycle is why the end of a regime can arrive faster than anyone thinks possible with little outside warning.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/gsa-officials-wife-accompanied-him-on-trips-at-taxpayer-expense/2012/04/17/gIQAHdrEPT_story.html

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He invited his staff to the gathering. According to the transcript reviewed by The Post, Neely said in an e-mail to a colleague: I know Im bad, but as Deb and I often say, why not enjoy it while we have it and while we can. Aint going to last forever.

We now know in retrospect that internal looting was extremely rampant in the months and years prior to the dissolution of the USSR.

Another interesting observation we can make in retrospect is a connection with German reunification. I was fairly young when the Berlin wall came down, but I do remember being shocked that Moscow would allow it to happen. According to everything I'd ever been taught, the Communist Party had absolute control over everything that happened in the Soviet empire. Looking back on the event, that was an obvious sign they had lost control.

In my estimation, recent state-level marijuana legalization events are of equivalent magnitude to the fall of the Berlin wall in terms of what it means about Washington DC's internal control over the US, and probably means the US empire is approximately at the same point it its life cycle as the Soviet empire was in 1989.