Sec. Clinton was asked on 60 Minutes, "Is America in decline?" What says DU? n/t

[elocs]

[Hubert Flottz]

1. I say we're UP...

Shit Creek!

[Pholus]

2. Ohhhhh, this is an easy one.

We seem to be, but I claim it is generational. Once conservative boomers are safely collecting their retirements (if they don't ruin the system first) I think the people following them will turn it around.

[Webster Green]

10. Sorry, but here's a whole new crop of assholes to replace them.

That's just the way it works.

[Pholus]

11. But usually with different shortcomings

Every generation's replacement knows EXACTLY what the previous generation did wrong. Then they make a whole new set of mistakes.

[Webster Green]

20. Nothing changes.

There will always be greedy assholes who want to control everything.

Waiting for them to die off will be very disappointing. There are plenty of young rethuglicans and religiously insane (or both) waiting in line to fuck everything up.

[ipaint]

28. That has to be the stupidest thing I have read.

The vast majority of the back half of the baby boomers have no retirement. Wake up.

[pecwae]

34. Oh, I don't know.

It's a contender, but far from actually taking the Stupid Post of the Day award.

[Golden Raisin]

41. Nah, You're obviously not aware

that boomers (conservative or otherwise) are the source of all evil in the universe. Everything is our fault. :sarcasm:

[Speck Tater]

3. Not just America; all of industrial civilization is in decline.

Resources are getting harder to find and harder to extract; oil, rare earth metals, phosphates, fresh water for drinking and agriculture. Our population is in overshoot and the energy-hungry civilization we have built to maintain overshoot is not sustainable. Whether by collapse (fast scenario) or grinding decline and decay (slow scenario), industrial civilization cannot last another 25 to 50 years.

[Pholus]

6. Industrial civilization *as we know it*

We've been too busy living beyond our means. I think when the chips are down we'll do the right thing.

We have to....

[Speck Tater]

13. Yes, we WILL do the right thing.

Trouble is, the right thing is for about fifty percent of us to die of starvation.

[Pholus]

18. Let's work to avoid that...

:)

[Speck Tater]

25. Can't be avoided.

Modern agriculture is a system for turning oil into food. The less oil we have the less food we can grow. The more expensive oil becomes, the more expensive food becomes.

"Unsustainable" does NOT mean "difficult, but we are so clever we can out fox the laws of thermodynamics." Instead, "unsustainable" means "cannot be sustained. No way. No how."

Since population is growing and oil production is declining, it will simply not be possible to feed tomorrow's growing population with tomorrow's diminishing oil supply.

And don't look to technology. In it's long and illustrious history technology has only ever found new ways to capture and USE pre-existing energy, but not ways to PRODUCE energy. That's not what technology is about.

[elocs]

31. If it happens I hope it is longer than 25 years because I may live that long.

Sooner or later nature has a way of taking care of unchecked overpopulation and raping the planet of its natural resources.

The Matrix was right, we are like a virus: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Na9-jV_OJI

[tomg]

4. No more so than any other Republic that

becomes an empire, attempts to establish global hegemony, and infuriates much of the rest of the world by its overreach.

[Warpy]

12. Meanwhile beggaring and oppressing its own population

I'd say that's just about where we are.

The only question is whether we'll have the collective wisdom to let go of Empire gracefully and against the will of the plutocracy or if it will be wrested from us by force.

[tomg]

30. I think it is going to be choice

number 2.

[JanusAscending]

5. I missed it!!

What was Hillary's answer?? That's what I would be more interested in!

[elocs]

8. Do you believe that Sec. Clinton could or would give her true opinion?

To even remotely indicate a "yes" to that question would be politically stupid for a Secretary of State.

[doc03]

7. GWB put us into one hell of a hole

and it looks like America is once again going to put the Republicans in charge come November. With our debt and with use boomers hitting retirement age I don't know how we will sustain the system.

[Pholus]

9. Gallows humor and sarcasm to follow...

Conservative health care reform would probably solve the problem of a large number of boomers stressing the system.

That cannot be allowed to happen however.

[doc03]

14. Conservative health care reform, that would be called an

oxymoron wouldn't it?

[Pholus]

17. Absolutely!

It would, however, end the strain on the retirement system... ;)

[doc03]

19. Like die quickly n/t

[SocialistLez]

15. Yes. We aren't strong at home and we're trying to be the world police. NT

[polichick]

16. We've been in decline for quite a while. nt

[paparush]

21. Thanks to Reagan, Bush I, Bush II, and NAFTA..yeah, I'd say so.

Deregulation is killing us.. literally.

The rich stay healthy, while the sick stay poor. - U2

[Enthusiast]

29. And these guys* voted

to keep the banks too big to fail.

The 27 Democrats who voted against the amendment:

* Akaka (D-HI)
* Baucus (D-MT)
* Bayh (D-IN)
* Bennet (D-CO)
* Carper (D-DE)
* Conrad (D-ND)
* Dodd (D-CT)
* Feinstein (D-CA)
* Gillibrand (D-NY)
* Hagan (D-NC)
* Inouye (D-HI)
* Johnson (D-SD)
* Kerry (D-MA)
* Klobuchar (D-MN)
* Kohl (D-WI)
* Landrieu (D-LA)
* Lautenberg (D-NJ)
* McCaskill (D-MO)
* Menendez (D-NJ)
* Nelson (D-FL)
* Nelson (D-NE)

[Rage for Order]

22. Of course we are

The question is, is it too late to reverse the decline?

[elocs]

23. I wonder if the Romans realized when Rome was in decline? I think we are.

We are like the frog in the pot of water that is heating up in what for a long time felt like a nice hot tub, but now it's starting to get uncomfortably warm.

The polarization in this country is huge. No matter what the disaster may be, financial or climate related or otherwise, I do not believe we are able to come together as a nation to combat it. Ideas which come from Democrats are rejected out of hand by Republicans, those from Republicans are resisted by Democrats (we are simply not as good at rejecting out of hand ideas which differ from our own).

I think of climate change. Not only are the deniers seeming to gain ground, when the negative consequences are really felt (I don't think that climate change can realistically be reversed) nothing will have been done to deal with them. The frog will be in the near boiling water and crying out for somebody to turn down the heat, but it enjoyed the hot tub for too long.

I think the rest of the world will tire of the U.S. being a leech and sucking more of its fair share of the world's resources. It will not be pleasant when many more millions of the world's population begins to starve or suffer from a lack of water to drink.

There are hugely large nations of the world like India and China who are coming into their own and their populations want what we have had for decades, but unfortunately for them the pie is not large enough for them to have their even remotely fair share. So the battle for the worlds' resources will be on and the gloves will come off. Historically that means war, but this country does seem to love war, legitimate or not as long as it can be painted as patriotic.

I am pessimistic about the future of this country, but I would love to be pleasantly surprised. At 58 I may live to savor the demise of the Republican Party as it seems intent on committing political suicide due to demographics, but for too many more years I will likely witness the rape of this nation's resources and its treasury. The good thing for me personally is that this country will not likely go down the tubes before I do. I feel very sorry for those much younger than I am though.

[Art_from_Ark]

35. I think average Romans realized they were in deep doodoo

when they started having a new emperor every few months, and realized that a lot of those were plain batshit crazy.

[FrenchieCat]

24. Only an America in Decline could

elect its first African American leader,
then while he's trying against all odds to save
our lazy-do-little-but-lecture asses,
folks keep their foot straight up his ass from all directions,
while complaining non stop that he hasn't fixed the whole world in the last 15 months,
and because he's not going fast enough or doing enough, how America is in decline.

we're too much.
We really are.

[Motown_Johnny]

it was for 8 years... ask me again after the next election

[ChairmanAgnostic]

26. Heh. We've been here before

During the 1920s, the flappers scandalized he conservatives and religious of this nation. In fact tent revivals were the big thing, unless you were par trying your ass off. Some ultra conservatives also thought that trading on margins would make the brokers very very rich. rhey were right. They also thout that free trade and no regulations would be best for . . . . . . . Some of them.

Once the crash came, the religious claimed this was god's message to the sinners of America.

You hear the same shit now, for the same reasons.

What happened in that last decline? We beat the Nazis, we landed on the moon, we split the atom, we created antibiotics, and the computer came to life

[elocs]

32. Have we been exactly here before? I highly doubt it.

Ahh yes, the American conviction that something will always save us.

Well, will the last one out please turn off the lights. That is if there are any lights left lit.

[rucky]

27. I like to consider it a correction.

[Mudoria]

33. Not at all

I imagine people back in the depression and other traumatic periods thought the same thing. We're a resilient country and we'll be fine down the road.

[marions ghost]

36. My whole lifetime in America has been traumatic

...it's not just a "traumatic period." The last several decades lived against the backdrop of unnecessary wars and killing fields. Watching the dismantling of everything I care about--eg. humane health care, alternative energy and transportation solutions, enlightened regulation etc etc.

You can't even imagine what I would call "fine" for this country.

We are reaping what we have sowed and the future will be ugly--you'll see.

[elocs]

38. We "were" a resilient country, now we're just a polarized country with each side protecting its turf

I don't believe we are any longer capable of working together for a common good. The conditions in this country and the relationships between people are nothing like they were in the Depression. We have an entire major political party who philosophy is based upon "You're On Your Own" and if you need help, "Too Bad, So Sad".

If Obama and the Democrats came up with a clear way to deal with global warming the Republicans would reject it out of hand and all of the obedient freeper dittoheads would follow along.

I just cannot subscribe to the pollyanna attitude that everything will be fine down the road.

[Echo In Light]

37. Most major disciplines of the (so called) civilization are in sharp decline

The want of power to implement such a vast, police state infrastructure is also a strong indicator of how close to the edge things have gotten just in america alone...indicating how the preferred, usual methods for social control are dissipating

[old mark]

39. NO - Great change, certainly - entering an era of new technology in our

infrastructure, and new employment and business opportunities. I think we are starting to get out of the hole noticeably now, will be much better by fall and next year.

mark

[Hippo_Tron]

40. We're not the only industrialized nation in the west anymore

People are nostalgic for the economic prosperity of the 1950's and 1960's which was only possible because the rest of the world had been completely destroyed by World War II. So yes, we've declined compared to that and we're never going back to that.