The bloom is coming off the rose.

Recently the History Channel carried a program about the fall of Rome.

It posed the following questions: Who at the time clearly saw the "bloom" was coming off the "rose?" When did they notice it? How did they announce it?

Fast forward. Apply the above questions to the U.S.A. today as the "bloom" is coming off its "rose." When did it start? Who started it? How did it start? Here are some plausible answers.

The Vietnam War laid the foundation for the coming institutional failure of the U.S.A. It began the destruction of the confidence of the American people in their government, which continues.

LBJ campaigned for election on a peace platform and promptly took the country to war - without a congressional declaration of war required by the Constitution of the U.S.A. He inflated the currency (printed fake money) to pay for it, rather than tax the country, to avoid "blow-back." However, the "blow-back" came in the form of soaring oil prices and economic dislocation .

The current wars in Afghanistan and Iraq continue the erosion. It is now the "same tune, second verse" in Iraq, Afghanistan, and beyond. Undeclared overseas wars are no longer the exception to the rule. They are the rule. The American people are powerless to challenge, stop this slow bleeding to death.

Ronald Reagan, a recycled second-rate movie actor, preyed on the human desire to "want something for nothing." The American upper classes would get tax cuts without having to pare back government services. The result was a huge "budget hole," which subsequent regimes have continued to expand. To plug this "hole," the gangsters print more and more "fake money." The result is rising oil prices, loss of jobs, and the collapse of the American middle class.

The vampire banksters on Wall Street, and their gangster allies in Washington, also steal resources from what is left of the middle class through their looting of financial institutions. Their systematic theft of capital is a form of economic terrorism. The result is a growing loss of jobs, productive capacity and infrastructure, health care, and competitive edge.

Meanwhile, the ruling regime provides its version of "bread and circuses," again at the expense of what is left of the middle class. A growing under-class siphons resources from what is left of the middle class in the form of welfare payments and provides a rising crime rate in return.

Yet, ironically, the dying American middle class believes it is free because it now has unfettered access to pornography and gambling. It is, as Aldous Huxley predicted, a "false freedom."

It is interesting to note that exactly when the middle class began to die the ruling class relaxed access to pornography and gambling. They are "opiates of the people." They create a false sense of freedom. They distract people from the ongoing destruction of their standard of living - and basic freedoms.

Yet, Americans somehow are free because they can look at dirty pictures and pull levers on slot machines.

The next step, of course, will be the relaxation of drug laws. Oh boy, we Americans are really free because we can get "stoned out of our minds" whenever we want! If people cannot "think straight" now, imagine how little objective thinking will occur when opium dens flourish.

It is interesting to note that when the Communists took power in China in 1948 one of their first actions was to destroy the drug trade in China.

If you are doped out of your mind you cannot work and you cannot shoot straight. A society needs to feed and defend itself. These are the first orders of business. You cannot do this with "stoned" people.

The USA is too far gone now to "reverse engines." People who are not in touch with objective reality are no threat to the vampire ruling class. Look for more drug use and abuse. It serves the vampire ruling class.

Meanwhile, our manufacturing base is disappearing, crime rates are soaring, health care costs are skyrocketing, more and more people are lucky if they can find minimum -wage jobs.

The "bloom is coming off the rose" again. The sad part is nobody seems to care any longer.

History repeats. The second time, of course, it repeats as farce, because if we studied history we ought to know better than to repeat it.

If anything survives, perhaps some History Channel in the distant future will do a program on the U.S.A. similar to the one on Rome.