Due to the strangulation of the U.S. Economy by the military, we now face total economic collapse. As happened in Germany in the wake of World War II, we are in a hole so deep that a generation may pass before we regain our footing. Unlike Germany, no one is going to provide us with a Marshal Plan. So here we stand, holding the bag for our self-interested, murderous, and thieving military-industrial complex, contemplating food shortages, unaffordable fuel costs, almost no manufacturing capability, and rising unemployment.

The situation sounds insurmountable, when you think inside the box. There is another solution. A solution no one seems to be thinking about. There is the USSR option.

"What is the USSR option?" you ask. It's rather simple. Let's dissolve the United States of America. Let's face it, New England has little in common with Texas or California. Cascadia has nothing in common with Florida. Miami has more in common with Cuba and Puerto Rico than it does with the rest of the United States. Let's just have one big nationwide divorce. We'll reduce the United States of America to the City of Washington D.C. The President, The Congress, and The Supreme Court can stay there and rule their much diminished territory consisting of Washington D.C. itself (and only Washington D.C.). Indeed, let's require that Washington D.C., from side to shining side, remain the United States of America. It can hold the debt of the fallen empire and if any foreign nation, bent on punishing the military-industrial complex for not repaying the debt, decides to invade the United States, we'll direct them on their merry way to Washington D.C. where we will have corralled the executives and stock holders of Raytheon, Halliburton, and the rest of the defense contractors. We won't shed a tear. After all, we'll no longer be part of that failed greed-fest. We'll just declare ourselves independent nations and disown the United States. Heck, we can put bleachers around the edge of the Washington D.C. and watch, passing around the popcorn, as the greedy get their due (I call dibs on the view of the FBI building).

I can see it now, a free Commonwealth of New England. Perhaps that beautiful nation will hold a summit with the European Union and join. Cascadia could create its Ecotopia. California could rename itself Disneylandia, but I would prefer to see it become the state of Aztlan, along with Arizona, New Mexico, and Nevada. Texas could return to being an independent republic. We could cede Southern Florida to Cuba. Coastal North Florida, Georgia and South Carolina could become the Gullah Republic. Louisiana, North East Texas, and Mississippi could join and form New Arcadia. The possibilities are endless. I'm all for it.

Personally, I'd head back to New England and agitate for a Commonwealth without a military, open borders with our neighbors in all directions, and, let us not forget, the hosting of an international tribunal to try war criminals of the former United States. After things settled down, I'd extend an invitation of union to the Maritimes and Newfoundland for the formation of the Commonwealth of the North Atlantic, or something to that effect.

We'd be rid of the United States, but most importantly, we would be able to get on with what we were put on Earth to do: to live our lives, not as instruments of the greedy pigs that have put us in this situation, but for ourselves and for one another in peace and love. Let us resolve to think outside the box and choose a future that does not include a military.