The American Empire Is Collapsing, And Americans Will Be The Last to Know

[ProudDad]

"Thanks to WikiLeaks and the courage of his founder Julian Assange and the one of Pentagon’s whistleblower Bradley Manning, it has become rather obvious that while President Obama has changed the official tone of Washington from the Bush administration, the overall goals of US foreign policies have remained the same: Ensure and expend US power and authority on vassal states. This push to establish a new world order under exclusive US authority has been prevalent in all of the US administrations since Ronald Reagan and the end of the cold war.

"President Obama, despite what could be his personal convictions is a prisoner of this imperial system. Obama is trapped by a complex nexus of inter-locking institutions such as the Pentagon, the CIA, the State Department etc, and by powerful interest groups profiting from endless wars. The very same institutions and interest groups have been at the core of every post-1945 imperial presidency. As early as 1946, president Harry Truman said: “From Darius’ Persia, Alexander’s Greece, Hadrian’s Rome, Victoria’s Britain; no nation or group of nations has had our responsibilities.”

"However, most analysts and foreign policy experts currently assume that the present century will not be American. In this tectonic power shift, under the push of China and India, the emerging new world order will be plural and decentralized. But the main question is: How Americans will adapt to this new paradigm where the United States loses its status of uncontested leadership?"

http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/149173

[WinkyDink]

1. Most of us shall go hungry, jobless, homeless, and hopeless. But the wealthy will prevail.

And the more of us who die---as in Prince Phillip's wish to come back as a deadly virus---the more the rich will like it. For if we produce nothing, why should we live and take money from the wealthy for our health, our children's education, our shelter? There are enough workers for the financial institutions, and they are the only ones the U.S. needs.

Plus the military---the knights---to protect the Feudal lords as they dance the masque of the Red Death.

NOW do people believe it isn't tin-foil-hat territory to point put that Poppy called for a New World Order?

[Supersedeas]

6. either here or in a tax shelter in some other country, but yes...they will

[Autumn Colors]

7. Yup - culling the herd

With technological advances, fewer human beings are needed to keep the world running for those who "have", so if a whole bunch of us die off ... from hunger, from violence encountered while being homeless, from lack of healthcare .... oh well, they won't shed a tear.

And hey, if the total # of people goes down, then so does the unemployment rate! Win, win (for the "have mores").

[valerief]

8. And young people will still sign up for the military to protect that 1% from us to the death. nt

[liberal N proud]

2. Moving America to the 3rd World

There will be two classes, those who have and the rest who have nothing and depend on those who have to throw out a crumb here and there to survive.

[thereismore]

4. Reminds me of a feudal society. nt

[txlibdem]

18. Moving? Heck, that's where we are now.

It's when the rich become too greedy to allow even those few crumbs to fall that the middle class and the poor will have to make a choice.

[Joe Fields]

22. We haven't even begun to see or feel the amount of pain coming our way.

[wiggs]

3. Hartmann this morning talked at length about how we're headed for a big fall. nt

[Taverner]

5. The Romans didn't know well into Tiberious that they weren't a republic

Although Caligula's putting his horse in the Senate was kind of the epistemologic moment

[ProudDad]

16. Kinda' like Clinton signing NAFTA, eh? (n/t)

[Warren DeMontague]

9. Actually, worldwide, millions of people are moving out of poverty.

We're losing our 'uncontested leadership' because these people are catching up. This is a good thing, and it means that there will be large new markets for Americans to sell high-value products, with intellectual and technological innovation to. The sort of thing which we have traditionally excelled, which we can excel again if we get our heads out of our asses.

That means not letting flat-Earthers and Neo-luddites dictate public and educational policy, for one.

And we don't run the world, so we should stop spending military $$$ like we think we do. Cut the military budget in half, end the drug war, legalize and tax marijuana, invest in infrastructure, science research and education.

[OneGrassRoot]

11. There's a whole lot of good stuff in this post. Thanks. :) n/t

[Democracyinkind]

13. I appreciate your approach but then again you might want to note that

many intelligent people who are not "neo-luddites" maintain that there's not enough resources for all nations to constantly keep expanding their economic activity and thereby their ecological impact.

While I agree that doom is not imminent necessarily and that other regions "catching up" and closing the gap (although that is a contested issue, at least as far as sustainability is concerned) is a good thing I don't believe that simply turning the Luddite position up side down is the answer either. Chances are that not the whole world will be able to fulfill its aspirations of prolonged economic expansion and to simply deny that would be dangerous IMHO.

I felt like replying to you because what you wrote is true but maybe just a bit optimistic. Not all warnings come from crazies, after all, an important fact to remember. Just as important as a healthy skepticism toward doom-saying and extreme Luddsim.

[Warren DeMontague]

14. Certainly, there are environmental problems the world will need to solve.

Personally, I think we will solve them by going forward, and in some cases, outward. I remain an optimist, even though I am realistic about the challenges we face as a species.

[sendero]

15. People who think..

... China and India are going to allow us to sell substantial amounts of product to their consumers are delusional.

It's not going to happen, Chinese leaders are smarter than Americans.

[Warren DeMontague]

17. Don't underestimate the desire for stuff when it comes to effecting political change.

I think you're wrong. That's not to say that China's artificially depressed currency and use of slave labor aren't problems- they are, and need to be addressed.

But the emerging global middle class is gonna buy what they want, and there is going to be a real market for uniquely American know-how.

[sendero]

24. It hasn't happened yet...

... and it's not going to. The Chinese people do not have a say in the matter. And "uniquely American know how" has been stolen and copied by the Chinese and they aren't going to stop doing that either. Look into the "success" of companies that helped them build high speed rail. They were ripped off and discarded.

It amazes me when someone thinks a leopard is going to suddenly change it's spots. Its not going to happen.

[Warren DeMontague]

27. Then be amazed.

I refuse to believe that we, as a nation or a planet, are half as DOOOOOMED as much of this place seems convinced we are.

[sendero]

32. You'll

... have to do better than "the Chinese will save us" because they are ACTIVELY seeking the opposite.

[Warren DeMontague]

35. I'm not expecting the Chinese to "save" us.

I'm expecting good old human ingenuity to save us. 20,000 years ago our life expectancy was 30 years, tops. As bad as things may be, at least we don't need to worry about being eaten by Sabre-Toothed Tigers.

[Selatius]

21. That's a big IF, though. Our government is pretty clogged with flat-earthers as it is.

Witness, for example, the decline of the American public education system.

[Pavulon]

29. Agree.

the more people able to be educated and participate the better..

And the drug war is horrible policy.

[Bonhomme Richard]

10. Whart happens when everyone stops paying attention to the kid with the gun?

I see bad things happening especially when the kid begins to starve.

[rhett o rick]

12. Ayn Rand is somewhere smiling. nm

[Joe Bacon]

19. Everything Joseph Schumpeter predicted is coming to pass

I remember encountering Schumpeter's works in college. Amazing how everything he predicted about capitalism's "creative destruction" process is coming to pass. Schumpeter said that America would eventually wind up as a social democracy after capitalism collapsed. It's coming true...

[AsahinaKimi]

20. I never thought I would see a day ...

where cruel and heartless politicians put their own rich interests over the general population of the people they are supposed to serve. Corporations sending jobs overseas to get cheaper labor, meanwhile, our country has massive unemployment, and when it comes time to extend the benefits, they GIVE US THE FINGER, during winter, and allow people to lose their homes, go hungry, and even cut back on food stamps. People are hurting in this country, and the Republicans don't give a damn.

This country is not the country I grew up in. Things have changed. They are killing the middle class. We are becoming a third world nation, and there will only be the Super rich and the super poor. The party of "No" should not only be shamed, they should be forced out into the daylight and exposed for the greedy jerkwads they really are.


Not only am I afraid Republicans will destroy Medicare, Social Security, but who will be there to prevent them from throwing Veterans out of Hospitals and stealing their entitlements?

[Horse with no Name]

31. In all fairness it has been happening for a while

and I point this out to Bobbolink.
These policies have been used on the poor and the sick for quite some time.
As a class, they have been effectively neutered.
MANY of US that are in the Middle Class noticed but didn't stand up to it because we were too 1)tired 2)distracted 3)content 4)other
Now they are coming for us. The poor are not in the position to help us and many former Middle classers have dropped to the poor.
The Feudal overlords did a very good job.
The middle class should be gone in less than a year.

[trackfan]

23. I think there needs to be an Auspicious Event vis-a-vis the CIA

qv

[kgnu_fan]

25. We need to build our own community into a true democracy

I recommend starting your own community radio station....It will be important to have our own media outlets...and get connected to our own community.

[Delphinus]

26. Interesting reading.

Thanks for sharing.

[Mudoria]

28. We'll be fine..

for my part China and India are welcome to fuck up the world to their heart's content.

[Poboy]

30. The curtain has fallen, the cannibalism has commensed.

[FormerDittoHead]

33. Didn't need Wikileaks to know this - just look at what they're DOING.

If anything, Wikileaks has confirmed just about everything we already knew, or greatly suspected already.

In fact, Wikileaks has shown that there IS NO HIDDEN AGENDA of the State Dept. If the leaks had taken place in 2005, for example, we could have been treated to such memos as the ones which instructed the CIA to manufacture evidence to lie us into a war, or the memo which ordered the outting of a CIA agent, etc.

Instead, we find out that we don't trust the leader of Afghanistan. Surprise, surprise.

There are supposed to be much more damning leaks - I would like to see them finally, because it won't be until then that I see what all the fuss is about.

[Poboy]

34. .

[nadinbrzezinski]

36. Trends are accelerating and at this point I am almost willing to say

that next year will be "interesting" from multiple POVs,

Shall we say this one started with an article on Foreign Affairs on the Fall of the American Empire

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/65987/niall-ferguson/complexity-and-collapse

Let's just say FA is not precisely a paragon of LEFT WING politics... it is as far right as you can be in polite company.

Now we have these voices in popular media. I am sure Professor Fergurson is shocked at how much this process has accelerated.

Oh and imperial Citizens are the last to know EVERY TIME.