So, whats the solution?

Maybe I should start off by bringing up Glubb’s “fall of empires” again. We’re at that stage, and current events keep pointing right back at us. It’s getting harder each year—honestly, lately it feels like each week—to ignore the simple truth:

We aren’t what we were.

Lay it out—–
An economy built around the petro-dollar—propped up by Saudi Arabia agreeing to transact in our currency—now showing real cracks as tensions escalate in the ME

A federal government that seems incapable of restraint or correction. You look around and see fraud, corruption, and abuse out in the open… and yet where are the arrests? The indictments? The prosecutions?

And the Fourth Estate, supposedly a check on power, has become openly one-sided. Narrative-driven. Divisive. Everywhere you turn, it’s “us vs. them,” as if the country itself is fundamentally fractured. I don’t think we are—but we’re being pushed to see each other that way.

I could go on, but most of you already see the same pattern.

So how do we fix it?

First, we admit something no one in power wants to say out loud: we are not going to be the global superpower forever. That’s reality. Fighting it only makes the landing harder.

So bring it home.

Pull back from the idea that we have to be everywhere, involved in everything. Reevaluate the alliances, the bases, the constant outward projection of force. Not from weakness—but from necessity. If the focus shifts inward, the structure of everything else has to follow.

That doesn’t mean dismantling strength. It means redirecting it. If we’re serious about securing the country itself, then resources and people should reflect that priority.

The economy… that’s a harder knot to untangle. It would mean rethinking the foundations entirely—how the currency works, what actually backs it, and how dependent we’ve allowed ourselves to become on external arrangements. That’s not a small fix, and pretending it is won’t help.

And then there’s accountability.
Not selective. Not performative. Real.
If there are things being hidden—scandals, corruption, abuses of power—then they need to come into the open, regardless of who it implicates. Leadership means owning your actions, not burying them and hoping time or distraction erases them.

Because right now, what’s missing more than anything is trust.

I keep coming back to this image: we’re like a long-time drunk at the end of the night. The party’s over. The damage is done. And now comes the hard part—sobering up.

That’s not pleasant. It’s humbling. It forces you to see things clearly, maybe for the first time in a long time.

But it’s necessary.

We don’t need to abandon pride—but it has to be grounded in reality, not inflated by old myths or inherited victories. A little humility would go a long way toward rebuilding something real again.

and to roll this missive out, a word to the PTwB: Guys, the COLDWAR is OVER, stop resurrecting it!

LLLLL!

(, ‘)