Younger folks might not remember him but Chuck Norris was a prominent figure in my younger days, starting with the Bruce Lee films of the 1970's. Back in the mid-70's, Bruce Lee was all the rage as Kung Foo movies were taking the world by storm. Especially in Asia, where I was running around a lot back then. Chuck Norris got his start after winning all of those world karate championships back then and he went on to do more in Hollywood for many years to come. I only talk about him as he passed away yesterday, March 20th at age 86. I don't know whether he was in ill health or not as the news just mentioned that he passed away quietly.

Then, last night, as I was watching one of my most favourite TV shows of all time, I caught the ending where one of the main characters tells another, that the agency is being shut down. The long running show is called NCIS, which first aired on September 23rd, 2003. I've watched it every season since. When the characters talk about the agency being shut down, that usually means that the show itself is likely in its last season after nearly 23 years.

Which brings me to why I want to talk about the end of an era. Not only just with movie stars passing of old age, and TV shows leaving due to old age and a lack of interest anymore, but an era of Americanism.

For decades, maybe since the 1950's, the United States has led the world in world class movies, the stars in them, and the themes. From westerns and epic war movies and TV shows in the 1960's and '70's, to other blockbusters through the years that the whole world watched, to world changing technologies and so much more, the United States stood out as the leader of the pack and maintained that until Donald Trump came along in 2016 and started the steep decline, and now, ten years later, it's in utter ruin.

The United States is a hollow shell of what it once was and it's not coming back to put that mantle of greatness back on, ever. The rest of the world won't let it now. We, as the collective humanity on this planet, are moving rapidly into a multi-polar world and there's no turning back anymore.

The United States is fighting this change with everything is has at its disposal, which is quite a bit, but that's not going to change the inevitable. Donald trump is only enhancing the demise of the once great United States into a second tier nation on the world's stage. By the time the dust finally clears from all of the bombings and wars, the U.S. will be bankrupt and looking for handouts with hat in hand, wearing shabby clothes. Whatever government is left, will be severely humbled, or lashing out with fury at the circumstances they now find themselves in once the economy crashes beyond the point of no return.

Living here in the U.S., I'm already seeing the signs of this collapse. Large pockets of impoverished peoples everywhere, small rural towns becoming ghost towns, large groups of homeless peoples migrating across different sections of the country looking for food and shelter and so on. There's a lot of unrest taking shape against the current government and a lot of authoritarianism creeping in from the executive branch of a once democratic republic.

I've been to lot's of other countries around the world where the governments were authoritarian, and impoverished and it wasn't pretty. A lot of countries were living under martial law, and the high ranking officials and military were living the high life, while everyone else is barely surviving.

I'm old enough to remember the Philippines under Fernando Marcos and his wife Imelda with her massive shoe fetish. Up until 1977, the country had been under martial law, and there were armed guerrilla militia factions running around everywhere. I know because I was in and out of that country from 1974 to 1978 and saw some of these militias running around. As American military, we weren't supposed to see any of that but if you're someone like me, I didn't shy away from watching that and paying attention to what my eyes were telling me.

There were other countries like that, that I had occasion to visit during my deployment travels during those years and they all had one thing in common. The vast majority of the common people were dirt poor with little to hope for.

The United States is close to that now. There is a pervasive sense of hopelessness across a wide swath of the country. Even more so with the news media blaring about voter suppression and election stealing. There is also a large swath of people who are standing up to all of the obvious authoritarian takeover, making their views known with large protests and voices in the independent news.

In those other countries that already had authoritarian governments, the opposition had devolved into armed militias fighting against the governments and the losers were all of the common poor who were caught in between the warring factions. All they wanted was a normal life, instead, they got militia wars and a lot of them dead. This happened in the Philippines, then south America in the 1980's, Africa (still going on), and the middle east (still going on).

The United States hasn't devolved into having armed militias carrying out a guerrilla war in the back country of the U.S., yet. But if things keep going the way they are, it's a likely scenario, given how ordinary Americans feel about their so called freedoms and the fact that Americans have the largest number of personally owned firearms of any country in the world.

This current war against Iran will end up breaking the United States economically. There's no longer any doubt in my mind. Donald Trump has no idea how to run a country, just like he had no idea how to run his many corporations during his younger years. The opposition party has no idea how to address the basic cost of living concerns for the vast majority of the citizens, so this is a lose, lose situation for the country as a whole.

I don't think the MAGA party will completely take over the government as there is too much opposition to it now. Trump is impatient and let the cat out of the bag too soon. If he had been a lot more circumspect about what he, and his coterie of authoritarian wannabe's intended to do, they probably could have gotten away with it. But not any more.

Even the stupidest MAGA politicians are starting to wake up and see what's happening. They're starting to say no and push back a little bit now, which will lead to more push back soon, which will lead to chaos, which will lead to eventual bankruptcy, while they're all fighting over who is in charge of the government.

This is how governments topple, and the people fall even further into poverty. I've seen this too many times in my lifetime in other countries to not know how this ends up.

I'm done preaching about it in my weekly podcasts. I'm all done talking to deaf ears. It all sounds the same day after day. Not just me, but all of the news media around the world are all talking about the same things over and over, day after day. How the wars are doing, and the words they use, depending on which side their supporting, to try and convince the masses that their viewpoint is the right one and the only one we should be listening to. I'm so tired.

I've taken to talking about climate change lately because that is more of an existential threat to humanity as a whole, than how one stupid national leader is doing their best to take over their part of the planet for themselves.

I've largely given up on the United States now. I will do my best to make sure that I and my lovely wife survive what's coming as best as I can, and prepare for the worst. I already know what the worst will look like because I've seen this before. The bad part is when I think about my kids.

They, like most middle class Americans, have no idea what's coming and don't want to know, for the most part. All they care about is keeping their jobs in the private sectors and maintaining their middle class lifestyles. They want what all people want, a stable economy to support that lifestyle in perpetuity. Which means passing on that lifestyle to their children and so on.

I'm not trying to be cynical and I already know that if I try to talk to them about what's coming, they'll dismiss me as maybe getting a little senile in my old age and forget anything I told them five minutes after I finish. Nearly every household in the United States has this same problem. The middle class just want to be left alone to live their comfortable lives with nothing disturbing that. The poor just want the opportunity to move up into the middle class  comfort level. There was a time when that was possible but that era has passed.

Now, the middle economic class strata is shrinking dramatically in this century and there is no turning back the clock anymore. Trump is seeing to that. People are getting mad. When enough people get mad, they gather up in large numbers and revolt against the king. It's happened many times before in world history and it's looking like the world is going to see another large country fall like the others have in past history.

Like the ageing movie stars passing and long running TV shows, all things come to their end eventually. The United States is coming up on it's 250th anniversary this year but I think it maybe the last great celebration this country will have. The empire is failing rapidly under Trump's stewardship and there's no going back. It's too late. There's only one direction in front of us now,and that's down the mountain. The only question left to ask, is how fast and how hard will be the landing when the government lands at the bottom of that mountain.

If I had to answer that question based on what I've seen in my worldly travels, I would say the landing will be very hard. Most Americans won't accept their new status as a people of a lessor country. They will get angry and lash out at everyone around them, rather than accept their new status as an impoverished country. The only ones who will understand and try to pick up the pieces of their lives, are the immigrants who came to America to escape from all of that in the first place, and those of us, although born here, have seen what I've seen around the world.

I'm already preparing for the end. I'm stocking up on non-perishable foods, growing a few vegetables in our backyard gardens to put in a freezer, and hardening my computer systems to protect them from more power outages and brownouts. I'm also maintaining and prepping my RV in case we need to bug out in a hurry.

We are at the end of the era of American exceptionalism. When being an American meant something to the rest of the world. Now, we're being shunned in other countries, looked on with disdain, and treated as pariahs in a lot of European countries that used to welcome us with open arms. Americans are no longer the brothers and cousins of the Europeans and other peoples around the world. Asia is also shying away from us now. We're no longer welcome outside of our borders.

That's only going to hasten the demise of the United States. Once countries drastically slow down trading with the U.S.,and further isolate themselves politically, the U.S. economy will come to a crashing halt. Americans will no longer be welcome in global politics and economic discourse. Americans are already looked on with distrust and the Trump government is only making this worse as the days go on. It's only a matter of time now. As I said, there's no going back anymore.

I have it on my to do list to have a talk with my children sometime this year. I want to prepare them for my eventual death within the next twenty years or so and to also talk to them about what's coming for them and their children in the years ahead. I don't think they'll listen but I have to try. Maybe in the end, that's all we can hope for, that at least one of them will actually listen and make an attempt to protect their families when it all collapses.

I will post a note on my social media accounts to let folks know where they can read these thoughts. Maybe, just maybe, someone will read this someday and make the attempt to take care of their families ahead of the chaos that's coming. Sláinte