Over the last few months, I have kept up with my reading “lists” of news and breaking events. Although this blog has not had any updated posts from me during this time, there really wasn’t anything newsworthy to report. In essence, the news remains the same as it was since the inception of this blog - all of it bad, all of it pointing to world of collapsing resources, widespread delusion and despair and rampant corruption and evil in high places.

The last several years have amply demonstrated that this nation has become an exporter of violence, depravity and insidious evil that now encompasses the entire earth and threatens the very future of humanity. There is no spot untouched on the entire planet that has not felt the effects of Empire.

Empires come and go and this one will be no different. However, no Empire such as ours has ever existed before, or done so much damage as this one has. Entire nations have been dismantled and ‘rebuilt’ into Empire’s image. The ongoing death and destruction that seems to feed the bloodlust of Empire continues to this day.

It is extremely evident that the main stream media remains nothing more then a propaganda mouthpiece for the Empire. The only real newsworthy sources are now found offshore, and these too are fast disappearing or being silenced. The demonization of authors, investigators and news journalists that have risked life and limb to expose the evils of Empire continues unabated.

The real news we need to hear, and what needs to be done, is still being silenced. The carefully crafted checks and balances that once governed this country have been utterly demolished in a single Presidential term. The people themselves are now left with no voice, no support and no representation, while great evils are practiced in our name and even greater evils to come are future “promises” being shoved down our throats.

All that remains is a sham government and a facade of pretentious “lawfulness”. These despicable practices are not limited to the Bush Administration. Even the Democratic Congress is in league with evil.

Yet it is not only politics that have become a betraying force to humanity. The global environment itself is collapsing around us. The evidence of this fact is being widely reported around the world by tens of thousands of scientist and researchers. Finally, with a much belated but shameful “agreement”, the Bush Administration admits that climate change is very real, yet continues to deny it’s true significance and the terrible threat it means to mankind.

I’ve long believed that human “civilization” has “become a cesspool of violence, depravity, abuse, restriction, control, destruction and death. Our present civilization is a gross mistake. There are certainly some good things to report - but at what cost have they been provided? A careful analysis of this “cost” will amptly demonstrate that we’ve taken the wrong path as a species. I think there is a better way to live, a more sensible way.” (taken from the board introduction on the Sustainable Living and Common Sense Forums).

A new human culture is needed that increases the life on the earth, living from the increase rather then the decrease. Yet this flies in the face of every capitalistic enterprise known to man. However, we can’t have it both ways. Either we will have a habitable planet where we have learned to live with each other and within our environment, or we won’t.

It remains as doubtful as ever that we will succeed. The world cannot tolerate another Empire, irregardless of which country or countries are behind it, although many will certainly continue to try. Empire means death, destruction and widespread waste and mass corruption. Empire is contrary to common sense, stewardship and sustainability.

I no longer believe that anything of significance can be done to prevent the coming collapse of Empire. In fact, nothing should be done, except hasten it, because Empire’s collapse is the answer that is needed. Anything that can hasten the Empire’s collapse should be embraced. As long as the Empire exists, human freedom, human dignity and human happiness will remain a fleeting and precarious dream.

Voices from around the world are screaming to be heard on these issues. Not only in prisons being run by the CIA and US military, but it homes, offices and on the streets and slums worldwide. People everywhere realize that the Empire is out of control and is wreaking havoc, leaving a wake of destruction, suffering and death. But of course, the Empire has no ears with which to hear. Or even a heart with which to feel. Or even a brain with which to think. Empire has become insensitive, unresponsive and unmerciful. Empire has all the characterstics of a machine designed to inflict death, pain and suffering while extracting every possible means of profit and potential from everything it touches.

Every thinking human being on the planet is wondering what the hell is wrong with Empire? The simple answer is it has gone stark raving mad with power, greed and corruption. The complex answer on how Empire became this way is much more complex. But to be certain, it is a very predictable and ancient pattern followed by all former Empires.

Civilizations have been collapsing for as long as mankind has been “civilized”, which is obviously a contradiction. At the very core, a loss of faith in the system, incompetence, gross corruption and overreach can bring down even the largest Empire. These are all human relationships, which when severely weakened as they are today, will cause the inevitable collapse of even the “greatest” civilization.

No Empire is immune from this cyclic event. Fortunately. Otherwise we’d be stuck with thousands of years of decadance, decay and destruction. Collapse will happen quickly and eventually bring a period of rebirth, growth and development, and then the process will start all over again.

We are both witnesses and actors in the great convergence of events that are overtaking the entire planet. This is both exhilarating and frightening because we now live on the downward cycle portraying the collapse. The old is going to give way to the new, and the security of the present will disintegrate into the insecurity and suffering of the future.

Recently, I had read where the world has not had any great inventions in a long time. World changing inventions like the airplane, the steam engine or the printing press truly changed the face of the world. But it’s been a long time since anything like that has come along. Every invention since is just a remake or superficial improvement upon the old.

The Internet itself hasn’t changed much of anything. We still have the same failing world and human systems we’ve always had, we’re just better informed about them now. But despite it’s perceived advantages, the Internet hasn’t fixed anything.

This is because nothing can be fixed. We’re past that point. The quest for a techno “fix” or political “fix” or any kind of “fix” at all is a fools game. All we’re experiencing now is the diminishing returns on everything we try to do.

The obvious question is “Why is this happening”? Why are we experiencing diminishing returns on everything? Because we humans have far exceeded every natural and social contractual limit. All of society is based upon human agreements (contracts) among it’s members. These same contracts exist in an unwritten way with nature. Exceed or abuse these limits and these agreements (and what they represent) inevitably break down.

Our society reached the apogee of it’s growth and development, probably about 30 years ago and we are now on the downward cycle that portends a total collapse. All human civilizations are cyclic and generally follow the same patterns.

This has been one of the great questions and greater problems to solve. What can be done about it? Nothing. Nothing at all. The cyclic nature of civilizations will run it’s course. The dynamic at work is like air, it’s everywhere and flows and blows between the cracks of human relationships all over the planet. Stopping it would be like trying to create a vaccum on the surface of the earth. It can’t be done.

The only that can be done is to prepare yourself to endure what is coming. I didn’t say “survive”, because this implies a temporary condition. What is coming won’t be temporary and will exceed your lifetime, if history is an accurate teacher (and it is). The best you can do is to prepare yourself to endure the collapse as best you can.

The Empire is already lost and voices from around the world are making that very claim, and I’m one of them. Nothing should be done to try and save it. The only that should be done now is to try and get out of the way when it falls.