My beloved America is transitioning from de-facto superpower to vital member of a world community, presumably making a stop at "first among equals" along the way.
This transitions being fought by Americans of resources through their government. Loathsome of falling out of a place of primacy, the fight is on. The recent Presidential election gave us a birds-eye view of the fight, with both major candidates waxing rhetorically about the necessity of America to "be out front", "lead the world", "support democracy" and generally to be the alpha-dog on the block.
The incumbent was often criticized for having on occasion "lead from behind" which was a strongly understood euphemism for "weakness".
The American Empire is here and we are beginning to recognize it. Our financial interests run very, very deep and very, very wide, and the cost to insure these interests will only grow more expensive if we continue to play the role of enforcer.
This new years's day, I pray that as this transition comes into clearer view, it is not met combatively, but rather welcomed and managed. Without proper recognition and management, this transition will become violent. We know this for watching any such struggle and we already have a view of this with the September 11, 2011 attacks which we clearly interpreted as a challenge to our primacy. Had we rather chosen to interpret these attacks and all the attacks since as a tap on the shoulder to let us know that our primacy may not be working for everyone, we may have learned more about ourselves and our role in this world. Instead, we quite possibly began our trip down the bumpy road to membership in a world community by denying the trip and the bumps.
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