The world's lone superpower is on the wane-Independent UK

[go west young man]

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/rupert-cornwell-the-worlds-lone-superpower-is-on-the-wane-797757.html

In a sense, Bush's misbegotten war in Iraq and today's financial earthquake complement each other. Both are evidence of how the world's lone superpower is losing its dominance. Iraq has shown the limits of American military power. The limits of US economic power are visible in the tumbling dollar (now looked on askance even in countries where it recently served as a second currency) and in the inflation to which the dollar's decline contributes.

Ultimately, great powers are brought down not by military defeat, but by economic weakness. Take, for example, Tibet. Once Washington might have kicked up a serious economic fuss – but not when China is the biggest US creditor, and when a major bond market sell order by Beijing could send US monetary policy reeling.

[go west young man]

1. Anniversary kick for those that have died.

[Muttocracy]

2. wow, hard to see progress on anything in the last year. sigh. nt

[raccoon]

3. Thomas Cole portrayed this situation:

Google "The Course of Empire."

[depakid]

4. "great powers are brought down not by military defeat, but by economic weakness."

Relative economic weakness is Paul Kennedy's central thesis in "The Rise & Fall of Great Powers."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_and_Fall_of_the_Great_Powers

Kevin Phillips also touched on this- with a prescient air toward financial sectors in "American Theocracy."

Ultimately though, it'll be America's exorbitant energy use- and its wasteful, unsustainable and "non-negotiable" lifestyles that will send the nation reeling toward third world status.

[Baby Snooks]

5. The Oligarchists

The agenda was to control the world economy and instead the reality is we are now controlled by the world economy.

The maniacal vision of oligarchy of the Bushes seems to have lost something in the translation into the reality, or the nightmare, of oligarchy.

We may have weapons of mass destruction by which to shock and awe the world but the world now has the most destructive of the weapons. To call in loans and topple our economy although the problem is the world's economy will topple along with it.

But there was complicity in this on the part of Congress and just as many Democrats supported the oligarchy as Republicans.

"By the corporation, for the corporation" is not the same as "By the people, for the people."

Something some Democrats need desperately to be reminded of. It's a waste of time to even attempt to remind the Republicans. They are the ones who sold our democracy. Not sure if the Democrats can buy it back. But the Democrats can prevent any more of the democracy from being sold.

The choice of the Democratic Party at this point is the choice between oligarchy and Hillary Clinton and democracy and Barack Obama.

[Emillereid]

6. This was predicted so well by Emmanuel Todd in his book:

After the Empire: The Breakdown of the American Order