I tend to read a lot of foreign news sources on the internet. The best is when I can find a site in a foreign language, then use google to translate it. This helps me get a better perspective on what the rest of the world is thinking about the issues of our day, in particular the role of the United States in the world.
But while doing this today I came across an article written in Pravda, a Russian news site. Pravda was formerly the official state newspaper of the Communist Party, but since the fall of the Soviet Union it has taken a decidedly far-right turn.
The article, an opinion column by Stanislav Mishin, is part of the normal tradition of trying to predict the unpredictable for the coming year. It goes through several countries including US, Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, China, and Japan, but I found the article's analysis of the coming American year as laughable, like Glenn Beck on steroids.
America:
In a word, slow strangulation. First will come the socialized medicine, followed by the cap and trade and finally the forced increase in interest rates, as no one will want to buy the debt of the world's biggest beggar who is busy murdering its own economy.
Many companies will flee the US, shifting their registrations and headquarters from America to other nations with lower levels of insane regulation and taxation. Further, the crunch will force one state after another to bankrupt. The American federal government will find itself in a situation of either letting the suffering spread, before their parliamentary elections or printing money and spending with abandon to avoid the pain around election time and off set it a bit further. Thus will start the final phase of run away inflation.
The American Marxists will face a third "radical" party of conservatives, who will threaten their One Party Two Branch monopoly and will in the end require strong security and military reactions.
Disaster in Afghanistan and renewed major unrest in Iraq will only spur the feeling of instability as additionally, Mexico's civil war will continue to spill over into America.
Strong independence movements will become mainstream in Texas, southern California, Alaska and much of the old Confederacy. Pro independence terrorism will start to appear, along side a vast upsurge of SJS (Sudden Jihad Syndrome) amongst the Islamic members of America.
So the basics of what he is saying is we are in for more depression-like economics, the far-right teabaggers will successfully create a third party and be repressed by the military and the federal government since for some reason he believes the Dem and Rep parties will be so scared of losing power to a third party that they will use tactics that we haven't seen in this country for at least 40 years if not more.
My favorite part is when he calls the Left in the US "American Marxists." Most people who vote for the Democratic party have little to no understanding of Marx, would rather be shot than be called a Communist or Socialist, and probably don't even know who Marx is. From my experience, anybody in this country that self-identifies as a Marxist most likely has given up on the Democratic Party and is working in grassroots activism. Having one self identified Socialist, good old Bernie, in the entire Congress hardly shows a strong shift that could be called "American Marxism."
But his analysis, while flamboyant and seemingly crazy, does have some basis in truth.
Independence movements in the South, while nowhere near being mainstream, can find a foothold. I live in Texas, and if things got bad enough in this country with the economy, a large part of this state wouldn't be against independence, but almost all would not take an active part in achieving it. Like most movements, there is an activist base that takes action, and there are people who agree with them or disagree but will not take action either way. For those of you that think this sounds crazy and way too "out-there," come to Texas for a visit wearing an Obama shirt or having a bumper sticker on your car. There are plenty of places here outside the cities where you will not be treated nicely, to put it mildly. The BB-Gun created dents in my car can attest to that.
While I can't imagine this nightmare scenario actually unfolding, it shows what other countries, like Russia, think is going on in the US. To them, we are the Soviet Union right before the fall of the Berlin Wall. Just like the Soviet Union breaking up, they believe that the United States will have the same fate. Civil unrest, independence for states in the Union, that sort of stuff. They are obviously projecting what happened there to the US's situation which is very flawed. But coming from their experience, it makes perfect sense.