Shine, perishing republic.For three summers in the 1950s, Edward Abbey (1927-89) was a seasonal ranger at Arches National Monument, in southeastern Utah. It was all foreseen nearly half a century ago by the most cold-eyed and clear-eyed of our national poets, on California’s shore, at the end of the open road.
Idle speculations, feeble and hopeless protest. Dam the rivers, flood the canyons, drain the swamps, log the forests, strip-mine the hills, bulldoze the mountains, irrigate the deserts and improve the national parks into national parking lots.
Overlay the nation with a finely reticulated network of communications, airlines and interstate autobahns. Divert attention from deep conflicts within the society by engaging in foreign wars make support of these wars a test of loyalty, thereby exposing and isolating potential opposition to the new order. Nothing excels military training for creating in young men an attitude of prompt, cheerful obedience to officially constituted authority. Large masses of people are more easily manipulated and dominated than scattered individuals. Encourage or at least fail to discourage population growth. Restrict the possession of firearms to the police and the regular military organizations. Such a policy is desirable because farmers, woodsmen, cowboys, Indians, fishermen and other relatively self-sufficient types are difficult to manage unless displaced from their natural environment.
Mechanize agriculture to the highest degree of refinement, thus forcing most of the scattered farm and ranching population into the cities. Concentrate the populace in megalopolitan masses so that they can be kept under close surveillance and where, in case of trouble, they can be bombed, burned, gassed or machine-gunned with a minimum of expense and waste. “Suppose we were planning to impose a dictatorial regime upon the American people-the following preparations would be essential: 1.
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