30-50 years from now, will the U.S. have learned ANY lessons from Iraq II?

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

When the country has been seized by some toy action figure of a leader and his gang of thieves once again, and there is the fake drumbeat to some trumped up war, will a good portion of the country stand up and say, "Hey! I learned my lessons from Yellowcake, from the Gulf of Tonkin, from the USS Maine! No effing way!"

Or does it always have to be this way, until the country crumbles into dust? :shrug:

[wtmusic]

1. Good question

In an age of mass media, when everyone should know better, must history repeat itself? :shrug:

[Initech]

2. I would say no.

Especially if we keep electing religious warmongering Republicans.

[jedr]

3. 50 yrs from now we will be the neo-roman empire in the dark ages

[kohodog]

7. Unless we unite and act, the US will not be the US in 5 years.

We're on the brink or past it already imho. This is no longer the country I have grown up in. My 85 year old mother came to dinner Saturday night and said, "This is a dictatorship." She was absloutely horrified reading the NYT article (Sunday) on the heat wave in AZ which mentioned the 10,000-20,000 homeless in Phoenix and said "This cannot be America, this cannot happen here."

[Jacobin]

4. Nope. We just finished with Viet Nam hardly 30 years ago

and we are right back in the soup, with the same dunder heads, the same idiotic talk, the same rationalizations, the same clap trap all fucking over again.

And it will take YEARS before Americans rise up like they did in Viet Nam and put a stop to it.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

5. That's why I put the 30-50 year time line on it. Because I can hardly

believe that there seems to be NO historical memory, within the lifetime of middle aged Americans.

[Massacure]

6. The U.S. won't be a super power 50 years from now.

The EU will become further independent of the U.S., China will control a sphere of influence in Asia, and South America will undergo a leftist revolution.

[wli]

8. I expect we'll be quite preoccupied by then

If climatological issues are getting as severe as they appear to be, and Peak Oil is now as it appears to be, the remaining people of the US will be very busy with things other than remembering history.

[indepat]

14. Add extraordinarily burdensome debt service and multi-trillion dollar raid

on the lock box likely precipitating a precipitous decline in the value of the dollar: America will have waked up to the voodoo economics fostered by the Gipper and Bush I and II and the era of perpetual pre-emptive wars to implement the RW neocon PNAC agenda.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

9. No. But, the citizens will have become adept at building war memorials.

"Honoring" the poor mangled corpses that the politicians sent to kill and die for slogans and nationalism.

Then the next generation of politicians will stand in front of the monuments and refer to them as "heroes" rather than the cannon fodder they are and send more poor sods off for the next round.

That is, if there is a USA left in 50 years. A dubious proposition, considering the current state of the crumbling empire.

[NorCalDem]

10. I love the optimism in the room

we're all pretty much in agreement that in 50 years it won't matter what we think, as the US won't be a superpower anyway. Most would say we're over-reacting, but in 50 years I promise we'll be able to say "I told you so."

:D

[Eric J in MN]

11. A leader can always say, "We've got to get them before

they get us first."

Willie Nelson song, "Peace on Earth"

We believe everything that they tell us
They're gonna' kill us
So we gotta' kill them first
But I remember a commandment
Thou shall not kill
How much is that soldier's life worth
And whatever happened to peace on earth


http://www.moveleft.com/moveleft_essay_2004_12_25_willie_nelson_song_what_ever_happened_to_peace_on_earth.asp

[Cocoa]

12. hopefully the Iraq Syndrome lasts longer than that

the Iraq Syndrome meaning the discrediting of military adventurism.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

13. Yeah.... next time, bring bigger bombs..... less to deal with

after the dust newcluelear dust settles.

[Inland]

15. Yes! That if you damn liberals hadn't tied Bush's hands, it would

be over by now!