Note: I have been working on this, on and off, for some time. This is the headline and the speech, or variation thereof, that I have been imagining. The names of the people and the dates of the events are obviously not to be taken seriously, I am not a seer. But I don't know how we can step back from the brink, and I don't see how any of this is going to be settled without bloodshed, perhaps even on a massive scale. If you click on the image you can see a larger image of the newspaper front page, or you can download a PDF here. Again, I hasten to point out that these are not things that I want to see happen, but simply don't know how they can be avoided.

Text of the President's speech before a joint session of Congress

Tuesday,
August 3, 2032
Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, members of Congress, honored guests, my fellow Americans. Thirty-one years ago, this nation stood alone among its neighbors. With unmatched military might, a flourishing economy, and moral authority respected around the world, we stood at the precipice of great times, our futures limited only by our imaginations. Now, we emerge from the ruin of a great war, the gravest military defeat we have ever suffered. How has this come to pass? How could we, in such a short time, have fallen so low?

The fault is our own. In our pride and arrogance, we failed to learn the lessons of history. We believed we were unique, that what happened to other nations would not happen to us, because we believed that God smiled upon us. We were wrong.

We destroyed our military might in a futile attempt to conquer a region of land we had no right to: squandering the lives of our soldiers by exploiting their sense of patriotism and their devotion and loyalty to their country, and destroying the future for millions of people whose only crime was having been born on land we wanted for our own purposes.

We destroyed our financial security by stealing from the poor and giving to the rich: squandering money that could have benefitted all Americans, rich and poor, in the name of a false ideology and the idolization of wealth and power above all else.

We destroyed the notion that we lived by the rule of law by showing how easily a powerful few could circumvent it, falsely promising security in exchange for their unearned trust and false assurances that they were acting in evryone's best interests.

We destroyed our national security and squandered the goodwill we had taken decades to build up among our neighbors by arrogantly proclaiming that we had the right to do whatever we wished because we had the might to back it up.

We destroyed our claim of moral authority as, in the name of democracy and freedom, we took away the freedom and democracy of others. We showed the world that we were capable of atrocities as great as the ones that were perpetrated by other on us, proving that in the end we were no different from the tyrants we were trying to liberate them from.

We have destroyed ourselves and squandered our future, and we are chastened. We have failed to live up to the ideals our nation was founded on, we have failed to keep the Republic we were given. We have failed those who came before us, we have failed ourselves, we have failed our children, and jeopardized the very survival of the world, all in the name of greed and hubris. We stand now humbled before the people of the world.

But in the midst of our failure lies great hope, for only in failure can we learn, and become greater than what we were.

We have failed to learn the lessons of history, but we now can plainly see that no single nation, no matter how great its military might, or how noble its purpose, is worthy of empire. No nation has the right to rule over its neighbors, or to war on them because they covet their land or their resources, or to force its culture upon them, or to take away their inalienable right of self-determination.

We have failed to learn the lessons of history, but we now know without a shadow of a doubt that love of money and love of power is the root of all evil, for in the name of money and power we have committed great evil.

We should never forget these lessons. For even as I speak, and as we wait to learn what we will be expected to do to heal the wounds caused by our actions, there are those among us who have failed to understand what has occurred here, and will wish for us to one day return to the ruinous path we have followed. Shun them, for they have no vision. Shun them, for they are morally bankrupt. The evidence of their wrongdoing, and the evil of their vision and the wasteland that that vision has created is clearly before us. We must reject once and for all those who seek power for power's sake.

Even as I speak, there are those of us who would prefer to forget what we have done, to pretend that this had never happened and that we can turn back the clock to a simpler time. But we should never let them forget it. We cannot turn back the clock, we cannot go back to where we were before. A new day is dawning and if we are to break the cycle of history we must not deny history: we must admit to ourselves the sins and crimes of the past so as to learn and grow.

So let us remember this day so that we will no longer listen to the voices of hate. Let us remember this day so that we will no longer heed those who tell us that one race of people, or one culture, or one method of belief, is inferior and should be destroyed. Let us remember this day as the day we finally recognize that all are created equal, that we are all brothers and sisters sharing the wondrous gift of Earth. And let us remember how fragile this vessel is and care for it as we care for one another.

Let us now ensure that those who have suffered and died did not do so in vain. And as we were magnanimous to the Axis powers in the aftermath of the Second World War, we now ask the nations of the world to be magnanimous to us. For they too have bourne the burden of empire and failed as we have. Let us now work to renew our faith in ourselves and in our institutions, and to work together as neighbors to build a better America and a better world in a spirit of peace and goodwill. And if we commit ourselves to rebuilding our nation, I believe that we will find that the task before us is not so hard as it appears.

Let us not be afraid. Let us face the future with great hope, a hope born of folly but grown into wisdom.