The United States of Ozymandias

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In Russia, normalcy broke down in a series of steps. First, people stopped being afraid to speak their mind. Then, they stopped taking the authorities seriously. Lastly, the authorities stopped taking each other seriously. In the final act, Yeltsin got up on a tank and spoke the words "Former Soviet Union."
---- Dmitry Orlov

In regard to the USA, the first step seems well on its way to completion.

I am a harbinger of the second.

I await with interest the unfolding of the end of the present constitutional system of the United States.

In the meantime, a preview of this exciting spectator event may be found in the writings of Dmitry Orlov, an intelligent Russian observer of both the Soviet collapse and the contemporary American scene.

Thriving in an Age of Collapse

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I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert ....Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
---- Percy Bysshe Shelley
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