OK so here is one of the most ridiculous things I have seen in a long time. Ridiculous in content and ridiculous in that the wall street journal actually published it. The basic idea is that some Russian guy predicts that due to a number of various factors the US will fall apart amidst civil war and economic turmoil in the fall of 2010 and various portions of the USA as we know it will become ‘colonies’ or whatever of various other nations.
First of all this is obviously a pipe dream of an angry ex-Soviet who lives each day in hope to see the United States fall apart and struggle to find a place on the world scene – similar to what happened to the USSR. To put it in terms that might be more relevant to Joplinites – I would equate this to a teacher from Carthage predicting that next year Webb City’s football team will self destruct and go 0-10. I have a hard time seeing how this (the USA/Russia thing) would ever happen, let alone in just 18 months.
Second – IF this were to happen – he has the post-disaster map completely wrong. California and it’s surrounding states would likely just become their own show. They have more than enough people and means to do this. The northeast will not join the european union – if for no other reason than they are 4,000 miles from europe. Canada…maybe. But not the EU. Now perhaps the most laughable part is that Texas (and a host of other southern states) will become part of Mexico. I don’t think there is any state that would be better of as part of Mexico no matter how bad things get in the US. Texas already thinks it’s a separate country so there would be no change there, especially not in the direction of becoming part of mexico. Oh yea – and Alaska going back to Russia ???. The only part that halfway makes sense is Hawaii going under Japanese rule.
Yeah, as if the theory alone wasn’t enough, this map proves that this dufus doesn’t know anything about the United States and is just day-dreaming. Am I missing something….Wall Street Journal?
I like his “55%-45%” that disintegration will occur. In other words, there’s a 50-50 chance that the US will revolt against itself in the next 18 months. Interesting. He’s a former KGB guy, and accepted as an expert in US-Russian relations. So, he’s a brainwashed crony and people take his word as law? That’s like listening to a Clinton pick apart the Bush administration and believing everything they say, or thinking Michael Moore told both sides of the story. It’s like actually believing that Bill O’Reilly is open to the other side’s position on a legitimate level.
The funny thing is, this just shows how Russia will stay down. 2 Reasons- 1) Their anger at us has not died, and would die in just one generation, except that the old people teach the young people to hate us as they did. It won’t be as extreme, so it will dilute over time and go away, but it won’t be as quick as one generation because the old guys want to ruin foreign relations with their younger generation. 2) They’re just too stupid. With a communist government, they control the media to say what only sounds good for the country. So, they get dumb people to teach “law and rule” to young people, depriving them of any chance of being culturally relevant in the next generation. The communist country’s well-being in the media kills the truth, which kills the country.
The only correlation I see to the US is that our news does not report fact, but sensationalism. If they reported news, it would be boring. So, they make news, which often requires picking a side to create a protagonist and an antagonist so that people get all “emotional” about issues they are calling news.