Must See: Russian Professor Explains the Future Demise of the United States

| Mon Dec. 29, 2008 2:08 PM PST

igor_panarin.jpg Over at the Washington Monthly, Steve Benen takes note of an increasingly popular scholar in Russia named Igor Panarin who has been predicting the demise of the United States for years. Apparently the Kremlin is a huge fan and is putting him on state television as regularly as possible. Here are some of this thoughts on the old U.S. of A.:

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When asked when the U.S. economy would collapse, Panarin said: "It is already collapsing. Due to the financial crisis, three of the largest and oldest five banks on Wall Street have already ceased to exist, and two are barely surviving. Their losses are the biggest in history. Now what we will see is a change in the regulatory system on a global financial scale: America will no longer be the world's financial regulator."

...Asked why he expected the U.S. to break up into separate parts, he said: "A whole range of reasons. Firstly, the financial problems in the U.S. will get worse. Millions of citizens there have lost their savings. Prices and unemployment are on the rise. General Motors and Ford are on the verge of collapse, and this means that whole cities will be left without work. Governors are already insistently demanding money from the federal center. Dissatisfaction is growing, and at the moment it is only being held back by the elections and the hope that Obama can work miracles. But by spring, it will be clear that there are no miracles."

None of that puts this Panarin character too far outside the current American mainstream. But his description of America's denouement definitely does. It's straight loony tunes:

"He predicted that the U.S. will break up into six parts -- the Pacific coast, with its growing Chinese population; the South, with its Hispanics; Texas, where independence movements are on the rise; the Atlantic coast, with its distinct and separate mentality; five of the poorer central states with their large Native American populations; and the northern states, where the influence from Canada is strong."

I don't think the South ("with its Hispanics") is going to rise again, to say nothing of the Native Americans in the "poorer central states" and the Canadian-sympathizers in the north. (That said, I always thought that "Minnesota Nice" business was awfully suspicious.) We Americans simply don't consider secession and violence, both of which the Kremlin must deal with regularly in Georgia and Chechnya, as solutions to political problems. This country let the idiot son of a political dynasty steal the White House without rising up. Roughly 150 years before that, it fought an unbelievably bloody war to keep two parts of the country that didn't particularly like one another under the same flag. We don't do break ups.

But just in case Igor is right, I went ahead and chartered our borders. I look forward to someday living in Berkeley, capital of Liberalstan.

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Comments

Don't forget that states can also fragment with part going to one new country while some other part claims allegiance elsewhere.

As a Missourian, I was disappointed to learn I would not be in "New Canada." I mean, who doesn't love Canadians?
Then I saw how close I had come to being included in "Bushville" and counted my lucky stars.

Luckily, the fact that Washington DC lands on the border of two nations won't matter. It will be an inconsequential swamp in the post independence era. The new capitals will be Berkeley, Dallas, Atlanta, Denver, Chicago, and New York. Maybe New Canada pulls something funny and goes with a tiny town like Billings or something.

Ain't no way WV is part of Hispanic Nation. Hardly a brown skin in sight (well, maybe in Charleston, but certainly not mid-state Appalachia). I think WV and Kentucky will form their own country - Deliverencetown.

You got to wonder if this guy has ever been to the States?

America, like all of the great empires of the past, is rotten from the top down. Those such as Bush, Cheney, Madoff and the large majority in Congress, who have been presented by the mass media as pillars of American society, have proven themselves to be nothing more than criminals. When it comes to evil, Rome had nothing on Washington or the other members of the G8 who guzzled $500 a bottle wine as the world economy spiraled out of control. America is nothing more than a house of cards waiting for the right wind to knock it over. Indeed, our so-called leaders have proven that their Amerika, not ours, is the most evil empire ever to exist on Earth. The fact that impeachment hearings are not being held this very day for Bush and Cheney who have admitted authorizing torture, is proof enough of that.

As the song from the 80s said: "The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire...We don't need no water, let the motherf***er burn."

Sorry, Stein, but if the South turns into the Hispanic Nation then the capital is clearly Miami. We already have massive trading routes open with South and Central America. Atlanta might be the bigger, better city, but Miami is #1 for the Hispanic Nation.

Come visit anytime. We're the clear winners of the food division.

I wouldn't brush him off so easily. If you pay attention to the poor and some fringe groups, you may be surprised out how many people do consider "secession and violence". I wouldn't bet on it happening, but I disagree with your blanket statement that Americans don't even think of such things.

In retrospect, maybe I should have named Texas/Oklahoma "Cheneyville."

We in Minnesota should secede. Canada has nationalized medicine and nationalized car insurance, less militarism and religion, and they like to smoke weed! What more could you want? Losing this imperialist superpower would be a big plus. And it might not be an imperialist power when we're goine.

America doesn't fragment politically; it fragments socially instead. Just think of the terms "Black America" and 'White America," and the separatist philosophies they were birthed from.

The nation-state continues, but the culture it encompasses fragments and falls into dissolution a little more each day.

Has any professional

Has any professional considered that this guy Panarin is a classically trained agitator?

What's so hard to believe?

The United States is following almost exactly the same course as the Soviet Union did, right down to the insane plunge into in the Afghanistan quagmire. On the economic and financial front, the US has been shutting down production for decades, while debt has skyrocketed. I don't know about his predictions with regard to the post-collapse scenario, but it is very foolish not to heed the warnings of former Soviet experts when we're doing the same things that brought the USSR down.

Of course it could happen

Of course it could happen the world has changed many times, but it will not happen in a couple of years. It's just a political strategy to say something like this, I don't think that he believes it himself.

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