Signs of Disintegration:

If someone poses a question that which country in the world gets the highest number of citizenship requests and which country attracts the maximum number of immigrants? The answer is obvious.  The United States of America as of 2020 according to a report has more than 50 million foreign-born residents. The United States has long been seen as a land of promise, the land of opportunity.  Now what if the latest reports told you that Americans themselves may be losing faith in that promise what could be your reaction? 

A new report has come out with some very interesting data from a group of citizenship brokers.  It  says rich Americans are working on a plan B, that is  they are trying to acquire a second passport to hunt for safer country and the number of such people has gone up by more than 300 percent in the last three years.  Why do Americans want to go to safer countries? They say that American political climate has seen a lot of uncertainty in the last few years from Obama to Trump to Biden and hence the society is polarized, the rules change drastically and these political swings are driving people out.  Americans have developed a deep-rooted fear about the future of their society that they would rather live abroad than deal with the state of affairs taking place from so many years.  Some want to avoid changing tax rules, others are worried about growing hate crimes, and yet others fear an all-out civil war.  Another reason they give is the pandemic which showed Americans how vulnerable they can be.  During the global lockdown in 2020 many of them could not enter Europe no matter how much money they offered. They could not bend the rules so now they want a second passport, a plan B for their families in case of another global health crisis.

The rich and mighty don't want to put all their eggs in the American basket anymore.  They want other options, safer options.  How do they get these second Passports?  Through, citizenship by investment programs.  You can invest in a country and in return that country will give you citizenship. Investment in real estate, an enterprise project, donations to the country's national fund are the ways among others to get such citizenship.  Which countries offer such programs and how much they charge is interesting to note as the figure varies with the countries.  Dominica charges 100,000 dollars in exchange for citizenship, Antigua and Barbuda, 130,000 dollars, Granada 150,000 dollars, same for St. Kitts and Navies whereas Montenegro takes 290,000 dollars.  Portugal and Bulgaria takes a colossal 588,000 dollars and these are just the starting prices. The richer you are the more you'll have to lose in your purse strings.  Next question how many Americans are opting for such programs?  A lot of them the report says that in the last three years more than 300 percent spike have been seen in such applications. Most   applications are for Portugal, the land of oranges this report says.  Portugal’s five-year residence permit is the most in-demand program among Americans.  it requires an investment of 2,94,000 dollars and  in return it offers an average stay of seven days a year in Portugal along with visa-free travel to 26 countries in the EU.  Once the permit expires you're eligible for a permanent citizenship process. In fact citizenship brokers say that in the coming years Portugal could be the next California.  Lot of American wealth and talent is going to this country is an interesting paradox as the USA, a country which takes pride in its quality of life, the land of opportunity, the melting pot of cultures with a large number of people from across the globe still trying to go to the USA, the Americans themselves are looking to leave and that says something about where the country is heading. Why?

Recently protesters against abortion rights tied bandanas to the fence in front of the White House. One of the protesters shouted: "We like killing babies!" That is scary indeed. Protesters can become ugly and unruly as was evident when as recently as last month they seized the residence of Sri Lankan President and vandalized it to their will. They jumped in the swimming pool and swam like sharks and drenched and then ran hither thither on the lawn damaging the whole property.    The moment President Gotabaya Rajapaksa smelt about the anger of the crowd, he ran away to Maldives and then to Singapore and sent his resignation from there on email. He is frightened to come back.  The angry crowd inside President's palace found millions of rupees in President’s closet, local media reported. Eyewitnesses published a video online, in which they allegedly counted 17.8 million rupees stashed away. As a result of the protests, both the president and the prime minister decided to step down.

Can this happen with the US President? Unruly and violent crowd entering into the White House and pull out the President and create a bedlam? Not only pull him out but, given a background of a gun culture of US, anything can happen.  This does not seem farfetched if the ABC News is to be believed.  Marc Short, a former chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence, claimed in an interview that he thought the rioters who broke into the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, would have committed a "massacre" if they had approached the then vice president. Of course, the trial went on and the verdict was received. The following chart shows the details.

Recent results of a poll released by The University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics (IOP) poll – entitled “Our Precarious Democracy – Extreme Polarization and Alienation in Our Politics” – shows that a growing segment of American society is disillusioned and divided over the country’s increasingly partisan political landscape. The poll also indicate that a quarter of U.S. residents surveyed harbor such a degree of alienation from their federal government that they feel it may soon be necessary to take up an armed resistance against it, and that the government is “corrupt and rigged” against them. This is as per The Guardian.

How the respondents to the poll answered varied greatly depending on their political affiliations; overall, 56 percent of those queried felt that American elections are generally “conducted fairly and counted accurately,” but when broken down separately into Republican, Democrat, and Independent groupings, the results took a different trajectory.

80 percent of Democrats indicated that they trusted election results, whereas that number dropped to 51 percent amongst Independents and utterly cratered with Republicans at a mere 33 percent. When broken down by individual parties, 45 percent of Republicans agreed with the eventual need to arm themselves against the government, along with 35 percent of Independents and 20 percent of Democrats.

The poll also further cemented the degree of the political divide in the country at the moment, with approximately 50 percent of those polled saying that they avoid discussing politics with others due to not knowing their allegiances, and 25 percent saying they have lost or ended relationships with relatives and friends over political differences.

Joe Biden’s poll numbers continue to crater, with the latest polls showing a mere 30% approval, and a rather striking 57% disapproval. The US president performed equally badly with all age groups and both sexes, not even cracking 40% with any of those demographics. 18- to 34-year-old voters, normally a Democrat’s bread and butter, have just a 21% approval rating.

Take a note of following tidbits of news recently came across:

According to Harvard CAPS-Harris poll, More than 70 percent of Americans do not want Biden to run for president again in 2024. Among those opposed to Biden's re-nomination, about half believe he is a "bad president," a third said he is "too old," and a quarter said "change" is needed in American leadership.

So far America has given highest military aid to Ukraine amounting to 4.77 billion US Dollars. Biden announced   Ukraine a new $820 million military aid package.  Former congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard said that Biden has betrayed the US for the interest of Ukraine.  The White House does not say why the U.S. supports Ukraine, but blames everything on Zelensky's decisions. Gabbard considered that this is a transfer of sovereignty to another country, and therefore treason.

Chinese people make the scene look sinister said the protesters who stormed children’s Covid jab centre in New York.

The following banner was noticed In Germany:

Dear Russians!

You are NOT our enemies. Our enemies are in Washington, Geneva, Brussels, Berlin, Magdeburg and Jessen. They call themselves "friends", "WHO", "EU", "federal government", "state government" and "mayor". We apologize for the behavior of our "government"!  The war-mongering media (ARD, ZDF, MDR, Mitteldeutsche Zeitung...) want to drag us into World War III!  We can't let that happen!

Bloomberg claims that the US economy is being impacted by increased oil prices. Alcoa Corp., a significant aluminums smelter, is reducing Indiana production by one-third. Century Aluminum, a significant supplier of aluminums to the US Army, is closing its facility. Other significant businesses have informed Washington that they will shut down if postponed energy payments are not made. The businesses are either terminating employees or going out of business entirely, posing serious issues for the American economy.

Bill of Rights for Transgender People. With its dumb policies in the White House, the Biden administration is continually undermining the United States. These idiots have once again chosen to aid their main demographic, Trans people, at a time when the typical American is struggling to make it to their next paycheck due to inflation, high gas prices, and food price increases. Gay marriages into law to be statutorily codified and the House of Representatives votes were 267 Yes, 157 No.

Kamala Harris says she is working on “bringing down basically the cost of what life requires for people”. Long lines have resumed at food banks around the nation as working Americans are overwhelmed by inflation and turn to handouts to help feed their families. Due to increased grocery and gas prices, many people are seeking free meals for the first time, and more are doing it on foot. Since April 2020, gas prices have been climbing, with the national average briefly topping $5 per gallon in June. US inflation has reached a 40-year high. The abrupt increase in rent and the termination of federal COVID-19 funding have both had an effect on peoples' financial situation.

The Food Banks are failing to meet the latest need even as federal programmes offer less food to distribute, grocery store donations diminish, and financial gifts don't go nearly as far. They had begun to see some relief when employees returned to work after epidemic shutdowns. According to St. Mary's spokesman Jerry Brown, the primary distribution site of the Phoenix food bank sent food packages to 4,271 families during the third week of June, a 78 percent increase over the 2,396 households served during the same week previous year. Every workday, more than 900 people wait in line at the distribution facility to receive an emergency government food box filled with items like canned beans, rice, and peanut butter, according to Brown. In addition to food donated in cash, St. Mary's also includes items like bread, carrots, and pork chops from nearby stores for a total of around $75. (https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/long-lines-return-at-u-s-food-banks-as-inflation-hits-high/)

U.S. financiers expect a recession in the U.S. in the near future. Talks about it across the country, from Wall Street to Washington, are increasing, writes Politico. The publication notes that a sharp rise in prices, an increase in the benchmark interest rate, as well as unsuccessful attempts by U.S. authorities to fight inflation have led to this situation.

The need for the vaccination is increasing along with the number of cases of monkey pox in New York. Over 28,000 doses have already been administered to New York. Over 9,000 appointments in New York City were scheduled within minutes just this past weekend. In Queens, the Bronx, and Brooklyn, three pop-up locations had lines circling the building. These locations joined Health Department locations in Corona in Queens, Harlem, and Chelsea in Manhattan. With little over 600 cases, New York City is thought to be where the virus is most prevalent.

The American president received criticism for pretty much everything. He didn't shake hands with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud, choosing instead to greet him with a "fist." The second incident involves the crown prince being accused of killing writer Jamal Khashoggi.

The visit, according to the Wall Street Journal, hurt American interests in the Middle East and demonstrated that Saudi Arabia and other Gulf nations do not trust America and are not prepared to make concessions to mend a "badly frayed relationship."

Democrat Eric Adams, the mayor of New York, declared his desire to invest 4.8 million dollars in the cannabis industry's promotion in April of last year. The legalization of marijuana for recreational use in New York is anticipated to generate 1.3 billion dollars in income in its first year, betwee 19,000 and 24,000 employments in the following three, as well as a sizable increase in tax revenue by 2025.

The presidency, newspapers, the criminal justice system, large business, television news, and Congress are the institutions in which Americans currently have the least faith. Only 7% of Americans say they have some confidence in Capitol Hill.

The most trusted institutions are small businesses, the military, the police, the healthcare system, and religious organizations, yet even here, confidence levels are on the decline because Biden criticized greed of gas station owners.  From a political standpoint, this was not a great comment.

The American people have the most faith in the traditionally conservative institutions of small business, the military, and law enforcement.  Liberal institutions like Newspapers and TV news enjoy the least faith and lack of trust. The question is why they have a low opinion of their nation and the person is guiding them.

For the eleventh consecutive spring, fewer students were enrolled in college. According to figures released by the NSC Research Center, there were 685,000 fewer students enrolled in post-secondary education in America this spring, a decrease of 4.1 percent from 2021 and a decrease of 3.5 percent from the numbers from 2020. Undergraduate enrollment fell by the most, by 662,000 students, or 4.7 percent, from the previous year. The number of community colleges decreased by about 8%. The pandemic, where distant learning clearly impacted the college experience, could be blamed for some of that reduction, but the magnitude and regularity of the declines show something more fundamental is going on: college is losing its attractiveness. In the last 50 years, the cost of college has increased far more than the cost of living, which suggests that for some prospective students, the math of choosing a college no longer makes sense. College was once the key to a middle-class lifestyle.

To begin with the pandemic, which has claimed a million lives in 30 months and infected others almost ten times of it, is not yet under control seems to be the root cause. Another is undoubtedly the situation at the Mexican border, where a quarter of a million illegal immigrants enter USA  every month without permission and drug cartel mules transport fentanyl and other deadly drugs, killing tens of thousands of American teenagers every year.  Next is the worst inflation in 40 years as well as the record increase in the cost of fuel and food.

Then there is the politics in America, which are corrosive. Hillary Clinton famously called half of Donald Trump's supporters a "basket of deplorable" during the 2016 campaign.  All of them are irredeemable bigots who are "racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, and Islamophobic," according to Hillary.

The term "fascist" has been used by the left to describe opponents of right-to-life after the Supreme Court decision reversing Roe v. Wade and returning the choice on abortion to the states.

Many have opined that there is no government in US. It is a competitive, selfish self-preservation system that was doomed to failure in every way. Although they made an earnest effort, the framers of the US Constitution made serious mistakes. Americans believe that they are trapped in well-established systems of government that never serve the interests of anyone other than thieves who desperately want them  to believe that their corruption is the result of a hoax. Anyone who believes their government is there to protect them is completely deluded.

Finding suggests rising gun violence will spill into the political sphere, driven by conspiracy theories. Now, a large study confirms one in five Americans believe violence motivated by political reasons is—at least sometimes—justified. Nearly half expect a civil war, and many say they would trade democracy for a strong leader, a preprint posted last week on medRxiv found Garen Wintemute, an emergency medicine physician and longtime gun violence researcher at the University of California, and his colleagues found that conspiracy theories, some rooted in racism, are helping shape views about political violence. They found roughly two in five adults agreed with the white nationalist “great replacement theory,” or the idea that native-born white voters are being replaced by immigrants for electoral gains. (https://medrxiv.org/cgi/content/short/2022.07.15.22277693v1).

Signs of Insanity:

Insanity is writ large on the face of USA. There is a film noir, a cult classic titled Gun Crazy, in which Bart, the main character of the film is seen in one scene as a little boy gazing longingly into a store window. He has his heart set on a six-shooter. He breaks the glass in an attempt to grab the weapon since he is powerless to resist its appeal, but he is caught in the act. Bart is in front of a judge in the court, attempting to justify his fascination with firearms says to the jury: "I feel good when I'm shooting them. I feel awful good inside, like I'm somebody."

The murders in Texas of 19 children and two instructors in the month of May were just horrendous. The realization that the country was reliving its worst nightmare caused shock, terror, and even sickness.

The number of guns the US citizens own is more than 400,000,000. The stark reality is that Americans have more guns than any other developed nation on Earth, and they also commit more murders and have more mass casualty incidents each year.  Gun violence in this nation is a social disease.  Mass killings of citizens by other citizens happen more frequently in US than in any other country in the world.

Firearm deaths in the United States grew by nearly 43% (https://nihcm.org/publications/gun-violence-the-impact-on-public-health).  Between 2010 and 2020, and gun sales surged during the corona virus pandemic.

Americans are aware that nothing will be done no matter how often they are told this and how many atrocities they witness. Their fate is to live in fear, knowing that the nightmare will reoccur.

Reports of 5 dead with 16 injured after a mass shooting at a 4th of July day celebration parade in Highland Park, Illinois.

About 200 people died in U.S. holiday weekend shootings. From Saturday, July 2 to Tuesday, July 5, there were 414 shooting episodes. A total of about 542 people were hurt and 198 were killed, as reported by CBS news.

Four people were killed and two others wounded in a shooting at an Indiana mall in the U.S. city of Indiana just a couple of weeks back.   According to the local police, an unidentified man went up to the food court and began shooting people indiscriminately with a rifle. The gunman was killed by a civilian who was nearby. A suspicious backpack was also found in the restroom of the mall - the bomb squad was called to the scene.

In Manhattan just a week back, someone opened fire at 96 Suffolk St. and one of the bullets hit a woman. The police and doctors administered first aid to the victim outside the Holliday Inn.

In the midst of continuous discussions over gun control after a number of tragic mass shootings, a long awaited Gun Control law was signed by President Joe Biden. In the midst of this a report claims that a gun firm is pushing a potent new rifle to civilians. According to The Daily Beast, SIG Sauer's MCX-Spear is the civilian equivalent of the US Army's NGSW-R (Next Generation Squad Weapon-Rifle). According to one analyst, the weapon might enable mass shooters to "evolve into long-range snipers using an AR-15-style gun." The weapon's commercial release coincides with an upsurge in calls for gun control following a string of mass murders.

Another factor which ails America is the homeless people which are growing day by day. They include junkies, infected with diseases, and violent people.  One of the public stops where the bus stops was filmed in San Francisco. Children get off the bus, literally, into the arms of homeless people and drug addicts. They can stick a syringe of AIDS or something else in a child at any moment.

Little, prepubescent kids are being herded and brainwashed into accepting gender fluidity and sexual identity in the name of sexual freedom. Teachers have begun to lecture students on how being a patriot is wicked and unfashionable. In place of the national anthem, and the Star-Spangled Banner, an English instructor named Kristin Pitzen encouraged students to pledge loyalty to the LGBTQ Pride flag.  “I pledge allegiance to the queers.” She said. Later, she was removed from the school pending investigation.

A group of ghetto friends decided to dance in an American soldier cemetery, and then posted a video of it on TikTok. Videos of young people obsessively displaying bizarre sexual identities are all over American TikTok, Most of these attention seekers are unfriendly to their own family or country and intolerant of the majority. Family values, which have served as one of the strongest unifying forces in human society for ages, are under fierce attack in the most powerful country on earth.  Just take a look at women in US prisons.

The national flag was burned by Black Lives Matter demonstrators in Portland, and rioters toppled a statue of Abraham Lincoln because some of his remarks from two centuries ago didn't meet the standards of political correctness of the crowds of today. Some BLM girls threw tantrum at a restaurant, entering into its kitchen and vandalizing it. They made protests on an airport literally making the lives of passengers go haywire.

Crowds robbed stores and supermarkets willfully in the name of demonstrations. In several Democrat-run states in the US, pandering to the radical Left has gone so far that California has essentially legalized theft and robbery. It reduced theft of anything valued at less than $950 to a minor offence, unless the perpetrator has a history of violent offences. This resulted in planned "smash-and-grab" heists throughout the week of Thanksgiving, sometimes involving as many as 80 persons.

In the Bronx, on 7th July 2022 a 39-year-old man was hit by a car at an intersection and then robbed by the driver of the same car. One would wonder where the police were till the victim was being robbed. Well, some police are interested in barking on the wrong tree.

Some white Americans, who have a very mistaken, paranoid feeling of victimization, have formed a profusion of hate groups as a result of the nation's history of abhorrent, pervasive racism. Massive inequality and poverty, which have long existed in communities of cooler, have begun to spread within the previously relatively affluent Euro-American population.

One in four adults in America, or roughly 26% of those 18 and older, are thought to experience a diagnosable mental disease each year. Many American individuals experienced their worst mental health in years at the end of 2021. 47 percent of adults reported having anxiety symptoms, 39 percent had depression symptoms, and 1 in 5 adults admitted to having a mental disorder, according to the US Census Bureau's Household Pulse Survey. Despite this, fewer than half of Americans with mental disorders are thought to receive competent care. The number of mental health centers has drastically decreased. President Reagan: as California governor systematically closed mental hospitals, and later as president he cut aid for federally funded community mental health programs.

Brooklyn-based creative group MSCHF has launched ice cream vans in the shape of billionaires on the streets of New York and Los Angeles. The artists were offering to eat the rich, and the campaign ran from 11 to 13 July 2022. There were five flavors to choose from: Bite Bezos, Munch Musk, Goble Gates, Snack on Jack and Suck Zuckerberg. The cost of the ice cream was $10. "When people have nothing to eat, they will eat rich people!” People are wishing to turn into zombies! Isn’t that insane?

Abraham Lincoln said it best..."We don't have to worry about our country collapsing due to outside powers or forces...it will collapse from within" and he seems to be correct! Studying the history of Rome, Greece, etc. provides a framework for the current situation.  This is exactly what the Americans are seeing. Some would love Lincoln to be proven incorrect, but the truth is that the situation is so delicate that the nation is on the verge of collapse, like a house of cards, due to people’s moral failings and actions.

References:

Various news websites.

Images Courtesy: Statista, Bloomberg, Chartr.