In "Harrison Bergeron," Kurt Vonnegut imagines a world in the not-too-distant future in which all Americans are finally equal: the intelligent are fitted with distracting radio transmitters so they cannot think deeply; athletes and dancers are required to wear weights to handicap any performance; everyone who is beautiful is masked.

Who would have guessed that something like the nightmarish egalitarianism Vonnegut describes would be implemented in the United States Army?  

Stars and Stripes:

CAMP ZAMA, Japan – The Army is ordering its hardened combat veterans to wear fake breasts and empathy bellies so they can better understand how pregnant soldiers feel during physical training.

This week, 14 noncommissioned officers at Camp Zama took turns wearing the “pregnancy simulators” as they stretched, twisted and exercised during a three-day class that teaches them to serve as fitness instructors for pregnant soldiers and new mothers.

Army enlisted leaders all over the world are being ordered to take the Pregnancy Postpartum Physical Training Exercise Leaders Course, or PPPT, according to U.S. Army Medical Activity Japan health promotion educator Jana York.

Developed by the Army in 2008, the course includes aerobics classes, pool sessions and classroom studies on the physiology of pregnant women. The NCOs learn special exercises for pregnant women, who shouldn’t push themselves too hard or participate in high-impact activities such as snowboarding, bungee jumping or horse riding, York said.

Long before the American Empire is ended by a patriotic Old Believers like Ron Paul, it will collapse under the weight of equality.  

Imagine the time, patience, and planning it would take to create a larger-than-life mural using Rubik's Cubes. Now imagine all of this energy used to create art that memorializes a race-hustling fraud who has become a symbol of Western Dispossession.   

Who else but SWiPLs would undertake such a project? Who else but SWiPLs would create gargantuanist public art by using an ironic reference to their '80s childhoods?

After the Revolution, we must create a Theme Park of Liberalism, in which onlookers can stand agape before monstrous curiosities such as the Rubik's Cube MLK.  

The following is an installment in AltRight's ongoing series “So This Is How It Ends” (STIHIE), which chronicles instances of decadence and degeneration so advanced that one can only conclude and hope that we are living in a terminal stage of Western civilization.

"Booty Wave," sung by the fictional artist "K'ronica," is a satirical take on contemporary pop music, a genre which, The Onion reports--channelling STIHIE, no doubt!--likely signals the downfall of civilization.  

The following is an actual, non-parodic product of America's popular music industry--"Stupid Hoe," sung by Trinidadian immigrant Nicki Minaj.  

We seem to have passed some kind of Rubicon, when "Booty Wave" has more redeemable qualities--and is far closer to something one might call "music"--than the creations it is meant to lampoon.       

The following is an installment in AltRight's ongoing series “So This Is How It Ends” (STIHIE), which chronicles instances of decadence and degeneration so advanced that one can only conclude and hope that we are living in a terminal stage of Western civilization.

We shouldn't pretend that the greatest danger of Third World immigration is that the newcomers "won't assimilate to our American culture." The greatest danger is that they will!    

Religions and holidays can be quite flexible, and there are many historical examples of the shells of old beliefs and folkways being filled with entirely new contents. Christmas might actually survive the state-sponsored deconstrcution of the American nation--and become something symbolized by movies like this.   

The following is an installment in AltRight's ongoing series “So This Is How It Ends” (STIHIE), which chronicles instances of decadence so advanced that one can only conclude and hope that we are living in a terminal stage of Western civilization.

Herewith, I introduce AltRight readers to the Juggalo phenomenon.  

You're welcome. 

[ht: Kevin Slaughter]

The following is an installment in AltRight's ongoing series “So This Is How It Ends” (STIHIE), which chronicles instances of decadence so advanced that one can only conclude and hope that we are living in a terminal stage of Western civilization.

The destruction of books—whether as acts of political censorship, rage, or symbolism—has been a recurring component of social movements in the West for centuries, from the early Christians to the Catholic Counter-Reformers to the Nazis. One could say that book burning has been the Western equivalent of the voodoo doll, a way to annihilating one's enemy—or rather his ideas—if only vicariously.

Interestingly, during this summer's rioting, looting, and burning across London and its outskirts—an episode that bore all the hallmarks of a mass uprising against “The Man”—the “urban youths” involved avoided bookstores as if they were infested with plague.

Let's allow a little sunshine to enter into the STIHIE world in which we live—Our cities may burn, but Western high culture shall not be harmed!

The following is an installment in AltRight's ongoing series “So This Is How It Ends” (STIHIE), which chronicles instances of decadence so advanced that one can only conclude and hope that we are living in a terminal stage of Western civilization.

So that's where my taxes went.   

The following is an installment in AltRight's ongoing series “So This Is How It Ends” (STIHIE), which chronicles instances of decadence so advanced that one can only conclude and hope that we are living in a terminal stage of Western civilization.

The Walmart Wedding.  

This particular controversy, which is ironically transpiring in the former capital of the Confederacy, may well symbolize the present state of Western Civilization as much as anything fostered by the forces of PC to date. A writer of absurdist fiction who wished to illustrate the madhouse that modern society has become would have a hard time thinking up something this good. The piously politically correct folks at the Federal Reserve may have destroyed the economy, but at least they are inclusive. Un-effing-believable.

The Richmond Federal Reserve Bank's attempt to show inclusiveness in the workplace by flying the rainbow flag outside its building has reignited a divisive gay-rights debate.

Del. Robert G. Marshall, R-Prince William, is calling on the bank to remove the flag, terming its presence "a serious deficiency of judgment by your organization, one not limited to social issues."

In a letter to Richmond Fed President Jeffrey M. Lacker, Marshall says the homosexual behavior "celebrated" by the bank "undermines the American economy."

"What does flying the homosexual flag, or any other similar display, have to do with your central banking mission under the Federal Reserve Act passed by Congress?" writes Marshall, one of the General Assembly's most conservative members.

The Fed, which deems itself an independent entity within the federal government, placed the flag at the request of PRISM, a group of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender bank employees, to coincide with Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Pride Month.

Jim Strader, a bank spokesman, said the flag was raised to fly for the month of June, and that there are no plans to change the timetable. It hangs under the American flag on a pole in front of the building.

"We are flying the pride flag as an example of our commitment to the values of acceptance and inclusion," Sally Green, the bank's first vice president and chief operating officer, said earlier this week.

Opponents in the battle over gay-rights expansion in the state staked out familiar positions, with the conservative Family Foundation saying it's "disappointing" to see the bank participate in the "celebration."

"At The Family Foundation, we will simply choose to use this flag, like the view of Mr. Jefferson's Capitol, as motivation for the work that lies ahead," said Victoria Cobb, president of organization.

Equality Virginia, a Richmond-based gay-rights group, threw its support behind the Fed's decision on Friday, criticizing Marshall and the Family Foundation as "Virginia's self-styled morality police."

"The Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond should receive accolades for its decision to recognize and celebrate its GLBT employees, customers and vendors during Pride month," said EV's Executive Director James Parrish.

Parrish took issue with the Family Foundation's claim that state residents spoke on gay rights when they voted 57 to 43 percent in 2006 in favor of the state's marriage amendment. He argues that people's attitudes on gay-rights issues have evolved and pointed to more recent polling.

The Fed is "a private business and should be able to make its own personnel and corporate policy decisions without Bob Marshall's guidance or the Family Foundation's approval," he said.

Marshall wrote in the letter to Lacker that homosexual behavior is a Class 6 felony in Virginia, referring to the state's sodomy law. That statute remains on the books despite a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that declared unconstitutional a Texas law that prohibited private, sexual acts between consenting same-sex adults.

Brian Gottstein, spokesman for the Virginia Attorney General's Office, said its attorneys "have not heard of a scenario in recent decades, even before the decision in Lawrence v. Texas, where a consenting couple acting in private was prosecuted."

That's consistent with the experience of Richmond Commonwealth's Attorney Michael N. Herring, who said "To my knowledge no one enforces consensual sodomy as a result of [Lawrence v. Texas]."

The following is an installment in AltRight's ongoing series “So This Is How It Ends” (STIHIE), which chronicles instances of decadence so advanced that one can only conclude and hope that we are living in a terminal stage of Western civilization.

Satire is often prophecy. Take, for instance, this ridiculous 2010 video from The Onion: "US Treasury Sells Fort Knox Gold to Cash4Gold.com."

Sell all the gold in Fort Knox--that'd be absurd!  Well, here's this week's Washington Post: