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    woo len clothing, in Anarchism, Socialism, women's dress, madness, suicide,

    nervous diseases, drug addiction, dancing, sexual license, all of which were

    combining to produce a society without self-control, discipline or shame

    which was 'marching to its certain ruin because it is too worn out and flaccid

    to perform great tasks.'33

    In the days before television and the CD, poetry, plays and novels were

    the equivalent of today's electronic mass consumer fare.  Nordau was

    indicting all of pop culture.

    One of the most visible popular artists of the day was Oscar Wilde.  In

    1895, his play The Importance of Being Earnest was a huge success.  His books

    were widely read.  His humor was quoted everywhere.  But Wilde's sexual

    habits were exactly the kind that all good citizens knew were destroying

    England.  Oscar was a homosexual.

    When the flamboyant author filed a libel case against the Marquess of

    Queensberry, Wilde, rather than the Marquess, suddenly became the subject

    of scrutiny.   A series of trials luridly pictured affairs with male prostitutes,  a

    valet, a groom and even a boat attendant.  The newspapers flew into a fit of

    moral outrage.  Cabbies and newsboys derided Oscar's sins.  His books were

    removed from the stores.  Two young noblemen implicated in similar

    activities were quietly let off the hook.  But Wilde was sent to prison for two

    years.  The incarceration drained the life from him.  A mere 36 months after

    his release from Reading Gaol, Oscar Wilde died.  He was 46 years old.

    Oscar Wilde's imprisonment did not save England.  Nor did the

    publication of Nordau's irascible book.  But both gave the English the

    comfortable illusion that they had some sort of control over their unpleasant

    fate.  And both distracted Britain from that fate's actual causes.

    Since the early 1970s, America has experienced a decline similar to that

    which afflicted Victorian England.  For decades, our exports exceeded our

    imports.  That began to change in 1971.  In 1973, we were victimized by an oil

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