Dec. 4, 2012

Back in 1998 a top professor, Igor Panarin the “dean of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s academy for future diplomats” predicted the breakup of the United States. Later, The Wall Street Journal reported, “he was joined by enthusiastic support from the Russian media.” Now the Moscow Times is reporting the U.S. is about to collapse, just as predicted, and the fault is massive mismanagement of the economy by some states and the Obama administration.

Reaction to re-election of Obama

The Moscow Times notes that petitions for secession erupted after the November 6th elections. More than 500,000 people from all 50 states signed petitions seeking peaceful secession from the United States.

Although they note no one in the U.S. takes the petitions seriously (except perhaps a minority), they argue Russia should not take it seriously either.

Michael Bohm, the opinion page editor of The Moscow Times, also rejects the prediction of Professor Igor Panarin.

And although the petitions to the White House caused a flurry of reaction from some of the mainstream press, many bloggers mocked the petitions or attacked them with venemous editorials.

Yet the press, the Russian editor, and the bloggers have all missed one crucial thing: the groundwork for real secession has already been laid—or is in the process of being laid—by as many as 14 states. Some have already implemented the process.

First step already taken by several states

The very first step toward a future state secession is not a petition signed by a small percentage of the citizens from that state.

The first step is to authorize, recognize, and issue currency apart from the U.S. dollar and for the state legislature to declare it legal currency in that state. At least two states have done so, issuing legal currency backed by gold and silver, as of this writing.

No state can secede without first issuing its own currency.

Dollar will not necessarily collapse if some states secede

Bohm raises the possibility that if the U.S. breaks up, the dollar will likely collapse and that will pull Russia down as it holds almost half of its foreign currency reserves in U.S. Treasury Bonds. In fact, he argues, the entire global economy would melt down.

Would it? Probably not. Bohm sets up a straw man and then attacks it. In reality only a handful of states would likely secede and America would not “split into six parts.”

Extrapolating on a secession, only eight to 10 states seceding is enough to cause the federal governmental structure to splinter and fall into near collapse. Those states would be going on “strike” against a rogue government that has seized the reins of power and steered the Republic into political and economic disaster, and a Constitutional crises arising from the Second and Tenth Amendments.

Despite the fact that perhaps only 20 percent of the states secede while the majority stays in the Union, the tail can wag the dog in this case and those 10 states will have significant leverage and can exert a great deal of pressure on the centralized government.

The Balkanization of America? Not likely

What states are likely to secede?

If secession ever becomes a reality, the states likely to secede are those that will be hurt the most by the coming restrictions on the energy sector: coal, natural gas and petroleum production. Under this secenario the state most likely to vote for secession first would be North Dakota—it’s almost a given if the Obama administration’s EPA moves to outlaw fracking. The EPA has been making noises about doing that and garnering studies slanted to “prove” oil fracking is polluting groundwater, harming the environment overall, and may even be triggering earthquakes.

North Dakota is in a prime spot for secession geographically. It’s a border state neighboring Canada and it can fly its aircraft in and out and make trade agreements with the government of Canada.

Being able to outmaneuver the federal government is critical if a state secession is to succeed. The only states that can easily secede would be the ones that border the continental U.S., and Alaska and Hawaii.

States that support Obama are not likely to secede, and neither are landlocked states unless one of the border states lies next to them and has already seceded.

That scenario allows for as many as 10 or more states to secede.

Secession mechanism

Bohm erroneously believes (as do many Americans) that the U.S. Constitution does not provide for secession. He, along with others believe the federal government is like the old-time Mafia: you can join, but the only way you can leave is in a casket.

He writes: “In reality, there is no mechanism in the U.S. Constitution for a state to secede from the Union. When South Carolina and 10 other states tried to secede in 1860 and 1861, President Abraham Lincoln sent federal troops into the Confederacy. After four years of civil war and the deaths of more than 600,000 Americans, the U.S. restored its territorial integrity in 1865.”

Because Abraham Lincoln violated States’ Rights does not mean that states have lost the power to exercise their rights. In fact almost up to the Civil War (or War Between the States), it was assumed by most in Washington, D.C. (including elected officials) that states had a right to secede if they found it necessary. It was one of the safety valves of the Republic and a protection against a tyrannical central government.

The right to secede was recognized up through the 1850s as being in the Second and Tenth Amendments to the Constitution.

Bohm, an editor for The Moscow Times can be forgiven, as he is a Russian, afterall. But there is not an excuse for any American to be so ignorant.

Professor Igor Panarin sticks by his prediction

Other opinions

“Meanwhile, Alexander Oskin, chairman of the Press Distributors’ Association, a Moscow-based trade group for publishers and the mass media, told Vzglyad.ru that the online petition movement is the first massive separatist movement in the U.S. since the Civil War. Oskin also believes that the U.S. will collapse in the same way that the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia did,” Bohm writes.

Igor Panarin remains steadfast in his prediction, even though 2010 has come and gone. Many in the Russian media are leaning toward the same viewpoint.

They may be right. If Washington continues to ratchet up regulations, taxes and redistribution of wealth schemes; if Congress and the Executive Branch attack wealth, production, business and producers, secession may come.

It only depends on how much pain certain states are willing to bear and for how long.

http://beforeitsnews.com/obama/2012/12/moscow-times-predicts-u-s-collapse-2446102.html