@irontek January 17th, 2008 6:57 pm

USA has 2 options: Socialism or Barbarism

Heh. Amusing. But I disagree. They already chose, and it was the wrong choice. Oh, wait a minute...they didn't choose, it was chosen for them and as they didn't care enough to rectify this matter they didn't just get 'B' they got 'BS' which was separated by the most eloquent "uh."

The Fall of the Roman Empire is the Apt Analogy

Only this time Circus Maximus is right on TV in the form of all those dubious "reality" shows. No need to even get off the couch. How convenient for the elite who dumb the populace down via the wholly controlled media. How accommodating of the dumbed-down populace to lap it up so eagerly.

He's right, stock up on food water and weapons, just as the Uber wealthy have.

This will all be disguised as "the End Times" to the dumbed down sheeple before they are "dispatched" to...heaven.

mirf59,

The crocodile brain exists only because it controls the guns. i.e. it has force behind it. Without that, it would be finishing its GED or mopping floors.

yup, just about done -for, Reb.

mirf59: Socialism was a step forward, but it ends up humanity is too selfish to run it.

Oh but socialism is alive and well. Capitalism is but a squealing little piggie riding on the back of socialism. Capitalism NEEDS socialism. Socialism is the energy that holds families together, communities together, societies together. Those that lose the socialist energy disintegrate. There is another element of socialism in societies - government-administered socialism. Whether the government is re-distributing the wealth to the people or re-distributing the wealth to the capitalists, you see the squealing little capitalist piggie is still riding on the back of socialism, and shitting all over it.

I will fault Bloom for his weaknesses but I will also recognize his great gift of teaching literacy. When Bloom speaks I listen and I'm thankful for his voice.

He speaks the truth. Especially about our schools. PC will end America if nothing else does.

How does a noble effort end as a regimen for small minded bigots?

We are in bad shape, but we aren't to far gone that we can't return.

Do you think 50 million actually do watch the mainstream news? I wonder?

You Me WE Us, good comparrison.

KEM PATRICK, thanks for the response. I was just wondering if, all things being equal, most "ordinary" Americans (as opposed to millionaires) feel that they are financially or economically better off in some regard due to Iraq or the "neocon" agenda.

pistonbroke January 18th, 2008 11:34 am:

"Children need to be taught facts because facts give them confidence in lifes journey."

I would add that children need to be taught how to think.

mirf59: You could suggest that 50 million americans household stop watching mainstream news, and you won't go to jail for it. That alone will end US Imperialism ;-)

All countries suffer when the education of its children is based on flag waving and religious nonsense. Children need to be taught facts because facts give them confidence in lifes journey. If the powers that be simply want to have complete control then the present education system is the way to go.

If I was to suggest that socialism is by far a better system for the majority then most Americans would disagree, yet Sweden is there for all to see as a country where financial stress is almost completely absent.

Swedish people have more holidays than any other country, they have the best working conditions and their is no health insurance scams either. One big problem for me is it is very cold and that in itself is a no no.

One State could try and become socialist but it would be almost impossible given the pressure from Washington and the corporations, particularly the insurance industry.

If the USA carries on with this system of Theocracy/Autocracy then it is doomed. The people will have to take to the streets and fight or die in the gutter.

This thread reminds me of the dance band on the titanic.

Time to break up the empire, come on California, you can do it, Secede.

Peace coup,

You seem to have forgotten that empires always die -- and those were the successful ones! They are vastly outnumbered in history by those who tried but failed to seize dominions of notable size or duration, and were destroyed in the attempt. We remember the successful conquerors precisely because they are so rare.

History teaches a grim lesson: if we continue on the path to empire, the probability is very high that we'll be one of the failures, and the U.S. will die. Even if we "succeed", even if we fulfill every last dream of imperial conquest, history guarantees that our empire will crumble eventually. That our country will also die at that time is less than totally certain, but the probability is very high: empires by their nature create deadly enemies. The hope that the American Empire will be the only exception to history's grim rule is a fool's hope.

The people who created the United Nations were not stupid. Having survived a global conflagration, they knew that the next World War would have only losers; there would be no winners, perhaps not even any survivors. A world government strong enough to stop a global suicide is the only hope for mankind in the long run. In a world of nuclear weapons (and worse), such a universal government can only arise peacefully, by consent, not by the force of megadeaths. It is still not too late to follow the path of peace and growth.

It's time to go Thoreau.

by the way, if we meet in jail (although I doubt I'll be taken alive if they try), then it would be an honor to have you as a cell mate.

Peace,
Ken

Per the definition in the incredibly ludricous bill passed in the hopeless non-house of representatives who represent nothing but corporations, I've already declared myself a homegrown terrorist. But who cares. I choose to ignore DC and plan on watching it implode upon itself in disgrace to the human race.

Good riddance and I plan on cheering with the rest of the People in the world when it is gone.

If 50 million American households removed the 40% or so of our federal income tax that will go to defense spending from our tax payments this year, that would end it immediately.

However, I'm guessing I could be thrown in jail for suggesting it, under the new homeland anti-terrorism rules -- supported almost unanimously by Democrats in case that would be a surprise to anyone. Any attempt to organize the public against the status quo can be called domestic terrorism right now thanks to that new legislation.

besides, what makes you think it is all in the DNA. That is a fallacy based on 19th century thinking for rationalizing social darwinism. Puh.

mirf59 - that is dangerous thinking. They will not be beat with their own percieved weapons of domination. Much more likely is that if they refuse to learn their own weapons will be thier unmaking.

Paul B,

The crocodile brain is doing suprisingly well these days. It certainly rules the roost here in America, if you can pardon the mixed metaphor.

The most spectacular evidence is our President. A real A1 meathead. Could such an idiot be President of any other powerful nation?

Can you imagine how painful the conversations are when he meets with Tony Blair, Vladimir Putin?

I would like to think we are seeing the last convulsions of a dying beast and not a further entrenchment of an already well-established primitive leadership dynamic. But, I'm afraid I'm not convinced.

The key enabling element seems to be the passivity of the public. Just like the submissive battered spouse, we sit idly by -- further enflaming our tormentors.

Let's face it -- we've had the more advanced political system available for 3,000 years dating to Athens. Can we really say we're doing a better job of running it today than those in togas back when?

Socialism was a step forward, but it ends up humanity is too selfish to run it.

I have often bashed conservatives for supporting eugenics. But, maybe they are onto something. Maybe the way out of this thing is to run DNA tests on babies. Those with strong anti-social tendencies can be barred from public service. This would no doubt have eliminated most of the chickenhawks that are running the show right now -- draft dodgers pushing plastic tanks around the War Room table.

The problem with running Empire or any other inherrently immoral business (based on forced subjugation, the reverse of the Golden Rule, however you want to phrase it), is that it's innately hard to find good people willing to work an immoral job.

"Evil genius" is what they need, but it's generally been a fictional archetype, perhaps an outright oxymoron.

The Bilderbergers/CFR/Trilaterals, or whoever they are, should realize that while they may attract reptilian intelligence, human-hunting carnivores, power cannibals, power-worshiping sycophants and the like -- they will NOT attract the genuinely best and brightest this country has to offer. They may be at an advantage for force & money, but they have a severe shortage of brain cells to run their Empire.

It really doesn't take a brilliant historian to see how anachronistic Empire is in the modern era. A similar revolution, imbalance of power, occured in computers. We've somewhat left the days of the mainframe/dumb-terminal era. It turns out that local workstations, distributed and node computing (this runs Google) by peers is perhaps best of all.

The Bilderbergers are clinging to a version of control, tyranny and history that ended with Charlemagne. If we could just return to the gold old days, they think. Hard luck for them.

"His only comment that might spark "controversy" is his damning of Harry Potter & Steven King — who I don't think are bad at all. They should only be our worst problems! Far stronger cultural evidence of the "Fall of America" is the existence of filth like FOX News; the "Glenn Beck" show on CNN; or the fact that a neo-liberal warmonger like Thomas Friedman has such undeserved prominence."

RichM, I believe the author calls this stuff symptomatic of the dying of our culture. That his article restates what many of us speak to every day is affirmation in my opinion and , as he has a national, if not international forum, and we simply do not, makes his words important in my opinion.

Regardless of this authors political history every note he plays rings true. Perhaps the imminent mortality he faces now causes this paeon to the obvious, but what does it matter as long as it is being said, and with such eloquence too?

I wouldn't care if Harold Bloom was a high school dropout and never wrote a book in his life. What he is saying about the fall of America is common sense, combined with the fact that history tends to repeat. There is no sesnible argument that we are near bankruptcy and have no frieds in the world. We still have a strong military, but what good does that do to prevent an economic collapse which will bring any nation down?

Discussants seems to be continuing to confuse Harold Bloom with Allan Bloom.

Harold Bloom and Allan Bloom are not the same.

jmacneil January 17th, 2008 10:57 pm - great post.

I think its been "war and fear" for so long amongst "the evil ilk" that large parts of their minds have suffered from atrophy and the associated loss of mental faculty and capability. Now they are hunkering down in trenches of impotency.

Learn or die. Seems like an easy choice to me. Oh but I suppose it does require a bit of humility as well as letting go of ego. Hard to do for some who thought they were on the pinnacle.

Bloom, a thoughtful 'outsider', an honest thinker, nevertheless wrote several (bestseller) books in the 1980's-90's that gave powerful legitimation to the growing disease of neocon, anti-Enlightenment maddness.

Now, Bloom, arguably in his sentimental, semi-dotage, sees America failing; self-destructing; becoming its existential Opposite.

He now bewails an outcome that his earlier, roasting critiques of Liberalism helped empower.

No matter his current handwringing about America's implosion, he still fails to understand or acknowledge his own intellectual role in legitimating the political worldviews of neoconservativism (read: plutocracy; fascism; normative absolutism.)

Withal, I still sense a noble soul in the man -- but corrupted by an unquitting ego that can't admit any big error in personal thinking.

So far, anyway.

Hey Cladius, what kind of surgery do they do to turn these guys into eunichs? Since Kem seems to know what to do with balls, maybe he has the answer.

Bobbity: Are we done yet? I thought it was getting a little warm in here.......

See? What did I tell you? Those morons have no sense of scale, or comportment. It's not as if that Alien spacecraft subject wasn't referenced to one of their own propaganda stations, but perhaps it was one of those confusions that result from the machine being too large and one set of idiots not knowing what is permitted. Or, it might just have been the result of a brain-cramp, like when the parent company of CNN called themselves A-hole Time-Warner. Now there was an entertaining lapse from a company that spends tens of millions of dollars on image every year.

What destroys empires is the loss of belief among the citizenry that they are the darlings of the divine. The christofascists are the last guardians of the American belief that the US was given a sacred destiny, and while the material components & motives of the war have to be continually analyzed & exposed for view, the ideology that makes them possible is the one that guaranteed the inviolability of the sacred soil -- the creation of a Security agency to guard the chastity of the "Homeland" is the sign of the now-inescapable awareness that there is no divine protection for the nation which all of us were taught to regard as untouchably sacrosanct. When you've been the favorite of the divine, things like equality and rights are mere formalities, and people are only fodder for the national divinity to devour.

How long it will take us to get out of the depression and the coming civil wars will depend on how readily people surrender the national divinities & the superstitions surrounding them.

Perhaps its time to acknowledge that what's coming is not Revolution but Evolution.

Leaving the teeming mass of idiots behind sounds just fine to me.

Now If we can just keep them from killing us all 'cause the TV told them to.

Gonna be fun.

-matti.

Next thing you know the NSA will have their diversionists clogging up the thread.

I know why most americans are ignoring a lot of things about the war, are not well informed about world politics and international affairs, geography etc. Because life in the USA is so exhausting, the capitalist system of USA requires people to work like 10 hours a day just to sustain their basic needs, this leads to tiredness and fatigue and blocks people away from acquiring knowledge and information. So the only thing that american people can do after work is TV, movies and resting.

We need revolutionary leaders to wake up the masses. Or a military coup or something, there must be a solution, i would hate 4 more years of the democrats or republicans.

We need something new !!

Nietzsche said it:

"Mankind can attain an unlimited knowledge, but what stops men from acquiring knowledge is fatigue and lazyness." -The Will to Power

http://www.marxist.com/election-2008-us-working-class.htm

Election 2008 & the U.S. Working Class
By the Editorial Board US Socialist Appeal
Monday, 14 January 2008

The campaign to elect the next President of the United States is in full swing. The Democratic and Republican primaries and caucuses have begun, accompanied by a media frenzy intended to make it seem as though there truly are significant differences between the candidates, and to distract working people from the pressing problems we face. As we go to press, the race to nominate the next presidential candidates of big business is still wide open. But the real question is, who will represent the working class majority of American society?

With most Americans fed up with Bush's overtly anti-worker policies, the endless wars, and an economy teetering on the brink of recession, it would seem that whoever gets the Democratic nomination has the best chance of winning the presidency in November. But for millions of people, this is not so much because they really see the Democrats as offering something fundamentally different, but simply because they have no alternative. In a political system dominated by two corporate parties, the beneficiary of discontent with the ruling party is often "the other party."

Barack Obama won a surprise upset in the Iowa caucuses, defeating long-time front runner Hillary Clinton. Exit polls showed that the state's voters saw him as a relative outsider to Washington and a "candidate of change," while Clinton was perceived as being part of the status quo. In New Hampshire, on the other hand, Clinton was the winner, with Obama close behind in second place. John Edwards came in third in both states, but as the primaries move South he may be able to make some gains with his populist and "worker friendly" rhetoric.

For those who had sincere illusions that someone proposing even mild reforms like Dennis Kucinich could make a dent in the Democratic Party apparatus, his zero percent result in Iowa should provide food for thought. And in a symptom of growing polarization in society and discontent among the middle class, Republican Ron Paul, whose libertarian brand of populism, protectionism and anti-war rhetoric have won him a certain base of support, received 10 percent of the Republican vote in Iowa.

Whether voters look to either the Republicans or the Democrats in hopes finding a solution to their problems, many of the fundamental concerns are the same. Exit polls taken during the New Hampshire primaries show that 79 percent of Republican and 98 percent of Democratic voters rated the economy as the most important issue. The war in Iraq came in second for voters of both parties, and for Democrats, health care was close behind.

But what do any of these candidates actually represent? Other than a few sound bites carefully calculated to win over voters on polling day, can they meaningfully address the issues that really concern us? If the Democrat's record since winning the 2006 mid-term elections on a wave of anti-war sentiment is any indication, it sure doesn't look that way.

Among Republicans in New Hampshire, immigration was voters' third most important concern. The Republicans have again raised the specter of "illegal immigration" this election cycle in order to divert attention from the real problems of rising unemployment and declining quality of life by scapegoating immigrant workers and their families. This is a classic "divide and conquer" strategy that needs to be energetically combated by the labor movement. But where are the Democrats on this? Do they uncategorically reject these attacks on our fellow workers and call for equal rights for equal work, for immediate and unconditional legalization for all? Not by a long shot.

And on the question of the war, do the Democrats take up the demand of the majority of Americans for an immediate withdrawal of all troops, advisors, and government contractors in Iraq? To stop giving Bush billions of dollars that could instead go toward creating jobs, and providing quality health care, education, housing, and rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure? And given the health care crisis facing millions of uninsured and even insured Americans, do the Democrats propose anything that breaks the HMO and pharmaceutical industries' death grip on our health?

The bottom line is, well before the caucuses and primaries allow the public to "choose" the candidates, they have already sold themselves to the highest bidders by proving that they will defend the interests of corporate America. Hillary Clinton, once portrayed as a champion of health care for all (though the reality was far different) is now the largest recipient of campaign donations from the medical industry. And as Obama's star rises in Washington, the lobbyists' money is following fast.

Despite their dismal record, the Democrats, for lack of an alternative, will likely be swept into the presidency next Fall, although based on their role in 2000 and 2004 nothing is certain. But they will inherit an economic nightmare of debt, a falling dollar, rising unemployment, a gaping trade deficit, and possibly even an outright recession.

The Institute for Supply Management's manufacturing index plunged to 47.7 in December, its weakest since April 2003 (a reading below 50 indicates contraction). Oil recently reached a record $100 per barrel, which will eventually lead to even further rises at the pump, squeezing millions of workers' already tight budgets.

The stock markets are increasingly nervous as the NASDAQ index recently fell by the largest amount since October, 2001. And the Labor Department reported that just 18,000 new jobs were added in December, the lowest number since August 2003. At the same time, the unemployment rate rose to 5 percent from 4.7 percent in November – the largest monthly rise since just after September 11, 2001.

Corporate earnings are also set to decline dramatically as the crisis in the housing and mortgage industries continues to spread and affect everyone from small construction contractors to the largest banks in the country. Many economists are warning of the danger of stagflation: inflation combined with stagnant or shrinking growth and rising unemployment. Some even say we have already entered a recession, with a jump in the jobless rate and slow economic expansion predicted for the final quarter of 2007.

This is the picture facing the next President of the United States. In these conditions, we can be sure that he or she will be looking out first and foremost for the corporate interests that got them there in the first place. So no matter which major party candidate "wins" next Fall, we can predict one thing with absolute certainty: working people will lose out. U.S. workers will need to go through the "school" of the Democrats, and learn through painful experience that this corporate outfit in no way represents our interests. But sooner rather than later, we are confident that the majority will agree that we need to break with the parties of big business and build our own – a mass party of labor!

It sure is funny how quickly the CIA and their ilk will (pretend to) embrace even socialism when the topic that is most prevalent among the hierarchies is mentioned. It wouldn't do to let the masses in on the real conversation topics among governments and militaries the world over. I guess that must be because then the general populations would find out just how much fear permeates all of the evil governments. It must be terrible for them who have been evil for so long to finally be up against a foe who considers them to be absolutely impotent and who will not desist until those evil scum are defunct and remain as nothing more than a postscript, and bitter example, for history.

"What would we do with Glenn Beck, Lou Dobbs, Larry King...?"

Send them to the hospital for hemherroid surgery.

JMACNEIL I saw a UFO once. Hundreds of us did at an isolated SAC B-52 base. It too was huge, about a half mile in length and it hovered over the area of the flight line at a very low altitude for about five to seven minutes. It happened durng the Cuban Missile Crisis. It was broad daylight, no clouds in the air and over 500 men, commmanders, high ranking officers, pilots and flight crews, mechanics and air policemen. About 200 air police arrived in trucks and crew cab pickups. It never made any news and was never officially reported to my knowledge. It was there, a dull metallic gray, no visible openings, no lights and no noise. It was a huge cigar shaped UFO, and when it departed, it zipped off towards th east at an incredible speed and blinked out of sight in about three or four seconds.

Hardly anyone ever talked about it either to my knowledge. We just didn't, and that's weird. It was as if it never happened, __ but it did. Uhhhh Paul, we weren't drinkng any beer or eating hot chili peppers either. If you haven't seen one yourself, skeptism is perfectly understandable and justified. I'd have to see one to believe they come here too. __ I did see one, they're real.

Hey you all i have a question: If a new revolutionary social government takes over in USA like the Bolivarian Revolution, like a new JFK, or even a moderate, centrist such as Kucinich. What would we do with Glenn Beck, Lou Dobbs, Larry King, Bill O' Rilley and others? Would we forgive them? or would we lock them up in a prison?

Yes, you can smell the frogs cooking.

Joseph Paquete: FDR was a capitalist, even though a "welfare capitalist", he was a capitalist. Remember that both Neoliberal (neocon) capitalism and welfare capitalism benefit exclusively and specifically the upper classes, not everybody, we must move on into Socialism of the XXI Century

Here is why the USA went to war: It is a video speech by Dr. Michael Parenti, in which he explains that US Imperialism didn't fail in Irak and in the middle east. The whole juggernaut war machine of plunder and exploitation against the people of this world by US Imperialism is not failing, indeed, it is a success for the upper right wing class of USA, it is a false notion that Bush and the upper class of USA are failing, are collapsing and were a mess in Irak. They did pretty good, neocons know how to do their job:

Here are the videos by Dr. Michael Parenti:

Lies, War and empire- Part 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZTrY3TQpzw

Lies, War and Empire - Part 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaTPDFsDdIk

After we fall, perhaps we can finally become a decent nation, one that first and foremost minds its own business and attends to its own problems (of which, as we know, it has plenty to keep it busy 24/7), instead of telling everyone else how to behave, and, if they don't, bullying them into submitting to its will.

Rebel Farmer,

We would have to convince local politicians that it is worth doing. I doubt state and federal politicians would do it. I am all for impeachment, but given the fact that our two-party system has enabled corporations to help themselves to our treasury and fleece the public, while using Shrub and Dick as front men, I have my doubts that it will happen. Believe me, I would love to see those two morons behind bars, but since our politicians are engaged in this fiscal orgy with corporations and really do not give a fig about any of us, perhaps we ought to have discussions and develop a plan for secession.

That first idiot Bush didn't invent the "new world order", he merely informed the world that the corporate governments believed it was then a fait accompli. It was Ronnie Raygun who first spoke publicly of it when he addressed the UN general assembly about the "star wars" program and dreamed allowed of wishing Aliens would confront the Earth so that everyone would start working together as a global society. That speaks volumes of the kind of worthless trash that is running the corporate governments, when they acknowledge that the only way that they will consider working together is so that they can make war.

I only juggle two balls Rebel, and only play with them a few times a week.

Hey, Claudius, how would secession work? One state at a time? I think maybe we should stay focused on impeachment. Dickhead first.

I agree with lawlessone. This shit has been coming so fast and furious from so many directions I'm getting whiplash just trying to keep my gaze on all the bouncing balls. I decided last August that I had to focus on just one to three balls or I would lose my mind. For me, impeachment hearings are first and foremost. And the whole FISA fix thing is the next one in line. The third ball is the one I play with that makes the most sense today. And of course, while juggling those three balls, I have to keep up on the news and what's happening. My days are pretty full right now.

JLOCKE123, you asked me what profit motive, however small, did our government hope to gain by invading Iraq?

I believe the head hogs thought that if they controlled the oil in Iraq, they would prevent Saddam from selling his oil to China, Russia and whomever paid for the oil in euros. They also falsely believed, it would be cake-walk, that the Iraqis would love us for killing off Saddam and would embrace Democracy.

Colin Powell advised Bush that he was full of shit and if he invaded Iraq he would own it and have more trouble than a pregnant pig in a slaughter house. Powell was correct. Any gains Bush or any other idiots in Wahington or CEOs of big business thought we would gain, certainly faied to emerge. There was no monetary gain, or any other type gains.

Shit, we ruined a country, poisoned it forever with depleted uranim dust, killed over a million people so far and ran another four million plus out of their homes and country. We destroyed their infastructures and insured they and every other nations citizens both hate and fear us. In the process of managing to accomplish those swell things, we broke our bank and ruined our army. The entire Iraq issue was a full blown disaster from day one.

Now if we'd done it like the Roman Empire operated, go in there with a million man army and murder every single person, man, woman and child who couldn't do slave labor in the oil fields, declare Iraq was a territory of the United States and then steal their oil, gold and any other booty and ship it here, we would have made a nice profit.

Personally I don't approve of that type of behavior, or of the type we presently operate under with the Republicans and Bush. I don't know if that is the answer you were looking for from me, but that's my answer. Bush and his gang are murdering criminals and so far they're getting away with it, primarily because of two people, Pelosi and Conyers. Secondly, because of "We The People'" not seeing this coming years ago, being informed and taking the time to vote. Pogo was absolutely correct, and he said his famous piece in 1949. "We have met the emeny__ and it is us".

Yale and Harvard have not produced any capable
leaders. The Clintons and Bushees are a by-product of the produce. For some reason, loyalty to the country has dissapeared of the map. FDR was a president for the common good of the country, whey can't we find men like that anymore? Has dedication and loyalty been thrown out with the conservative agenda for money and greed? Of course it has. When Daddy Bush invented "The New World Order" and Nafta,
Bill Clinton jumped for it, and he went from being a tennant in subsidized housing to becoming a multi-millionaire. Bring back the Guillotine..

I am not entirely sure how we would get enough people to do this, but it seems to me that if we really wanted to make the Bush Admin. sweat, we ought to start considering secession from the country.

Skeptimist...

Just noticed my faux pas... 'scuse me! Kudos, anyhow.

The problem with the Bush Administration is that it has been so bad, so often, in so many ways, for so long, it has destroyed our ability to be appalled. What would have once utterly horrified us, now seems commonplace, even expected. What would have once had us out in the streets mad enough to do something about it, now seems impossible to confront because so few seem up to the battle, not to mention the fact there are simply too many evils and insanities to fight at every level. It feels almost like trying to keep the tide from rolling in. Worse, too many people are embarrassed about their early complicity out of fear in the aftermath of 9/11. It is all so depressing it paralyzes our ability to respond to this hideous disease infecting the capitol and the halls of power.

Damn, Al Qaida is getting tricky -- and Kucinich was right after all. Well, if we can't subjugate it, it must be an enemy. Shoot it down! Or so they say.

A UFO supposedly crashed in Aurora Texas (refer to the "Aurora Encounter") in 1897. This one was evidently sent out about a century later to locate its lost sistership.

Unless I see some aliens, I'll have to attribute it to bad beer and eating too many hot chilli peppers or something.

This was reported on several of the MSM's broadcast stations, so it can be assumed there must be undeniable credibility of the witnesses or else the story would have been discredited. The witnesses that they interviewed on CNN stated that the craft was approximately one mile long and half a mile wide, but, as all things in the sky appear smaller than they actually are due to the distance/perception ratio against an open background, it must be assumed that the craft was actually much larger. That perception phenomenon is seen everyday by us when we look at the appearence of our own aircraft in the sky.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/01/14/ufo.sightings.ap/index.html?iref=newssearch

jmacneil: What flyover? More info please.

Mordechai Shiblikov: I love it! I can see it now. Well written. Thanks for the laugh.

MeYouWeUs: Better our military soldiers than Blackwater. At least our military has to follow a few simple rules. And I don't think they are going to be too keen on blowing up their neighbors and friends. Blackwater is a whole different problem.

If you are going to discuss why the U.S. started their "war on terror" and then invaded Iraq, then you should at least discern the real "why" behind those actions or you'll never be in the real conversation such as it is engendered in the current geopolitical sphere. The control of oil regions was the primary concern and goal, but it had nothing to do with profit. The money and the extra control over the lives of populations was but a subsidiary to the primary goal, that primary goal being that a supply of fuel was to be available in the future for the corporate governments' war machines. And the reason which spurred such war actions now, in the twenty-first century, was eloquently thrust into the forefront of discourse by those who the corporate governments really fear; i.e. the recent flyover of Stephenville, Texas, within the past week.

Bring the troops home, why so they can shoot at us?
That's what I am afraid will happen.

When we are forced to bring troops back to the U.S. because once we are spread so thin that it really weakens us, we'll be bringing'em home alright. To squelch and growing resistance driven to desperation by poverty.

And what will the rest of the world do while we are oppressing ourselves.
Who will help us? That's why we need to think about where we are going to get our food from. Especially if you cant afford things from the store. And many of us wont. I almost cant now.

So, umm, Screwing the country over is bad, but screwing your students is ok.

I think that if you are to raise your moral compass, it'd better be clean.

There is no longer any viable or remotely powerful political alternative to the radical reactionaries of the Republican party. The Democrats gave that up a long time ago. H. Clinton - Obama - a couple of thoroughgoing phonies and political dog trainers who will maintain the Empire at any cost. The United States is now a $200 used car driven by George D.U.I. Bush, careening wildly down a dead end highway at 110 miles per hour, with no brakes and a bunch of stoned and drunken yahoos crammed into the back seat, boasting about all the bitches they've fucked and the booze they've chugged. Is . . . is that a cliff ahead of us? Oh, shit! HIT THE BRAKES!

Know this: even though the world is absurd and (due to the way human beings treat each other) apparently devoid of any meaning, there is such a thing as a reckoning. And we're about to have ours.

Gail January 17th, 2008 2:35 pm
Some would argue that the "fall of America(ns)" is deliberate and was planned a long time ago:

http://www.financialsense.com/editorials/engdahl/2008/0116.html

I am reposting Gail's comment. I read this article and it gave me a whole new way to look at our current situation. It's a little like looking at the whole forest instead of just one tree at a time.

Please read this article and come back here to discuss it.

Thanks

Bloom nails it! We now have the power to choose among idiots and crooks! I simply cannot contain my excitement. Isn't the good old machinery of "dumbed down" medocrity simply grand?

Read "War is a Racket" by General Butler.

The US will drop in prominence, not off of the face of the earth.

Germany and Japan did pretty well after disaster fell on them in 1945.

England (British) and Italy (Rome)are comfy many years after their empires fell too.

So what if the US economy takes a hit. We had an intellectual and technological monopoly on the world (US superiority) for a while and boo hoo, it is gone.

I'm not losing any sleep over it.

Laugh 'em to death. They have no defense against pure scorn, but even the critics stop short of it. (Maureen Dowd is an exception.)
We need a bunch of H.L. Menckens. (The late Molly Ivins: another exception.) Can only women do it? Even on the Diane Rehm Show
the most critical commentators rigorously pull their punches, day after day.

USA has 2 options: Socialism or Barbarism

"I teach you the overman. Man is something that shall be overcome. What have you done to overcome him?

"All beings so far have created something beyond themselves; and do you want to be the ebb of this great flood and even go back to the beasts rather than overcome man? What is the ape to man? A laughingstock or a painful embarrassment. And man shall be just that for the overman: a laughingstock or a painful embarrassment. You have made your way from worm to man, and much in you is still worm. Once you were apes, and even now, too, man is more ape than any ape.

"Whoever is the wisest among you is also a mere conflict and cross between plant and ghost. But do I bid you become ghosts or plants?

"Behold, I teach you the overman! The overman is the meaning of the earth. Let your will say: the overman shall be the meaning of the earth! I beseech you, my brothers, remain faithful to the earth, and do not believe those who speak to you of otherworldly hopes! Poison-mixers are they, whether they know it or not. Despisers of life are they, decaying and poisoned themselves, of whom the earth is weary: so let them go!"

– Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Prologue, §3, trans. Walter Kaufmann

Hey my friends: I know this is not very important, and even irrelevant, but i have noticed that the roads, and sidewalks in the good old USA are begining to look like a third world country. Most sidewalks have cracks, the local governments don't fix them anymore like before. Why? because they steal the money? When empires are falling, corruption is rampamt

Mordechai Shiblikov January 17th, 2008 7:07 pm

"Know this: even though the world is absurd and (due to the way human beings treat each other) apparently devoid of any meaning, there is such a thing as a reckoning. And we're about to have ours."

Yes, Mordechai, our "day of reckoning" is getting closer every "banking" day.

Lord Fly:

Thou hast a manner of cutting to the chase...

"Flies are not the problem.
They are a consequence.
Your real problem is manure.
It's where the flies breed.
Your barns are full of it.
Put down your hammers.
Find a shovel.
Clean your barns."

Kudos!

Alas... for this overdue stable cleansing, there is not yet a Hercules in evidence.

However...

When the rotting corpse of Boobus Amerikanus swarms with voracious maggots,
it's putrescenct stench a loathesome ubiquity...
odious even to the jaded nostrils of Joe Six-pack...
And survivors, denizens now in a once-complacent land, grow tired of eating roots...
their self-indulgence and willful ignorance conquered by gnawing hunger and harsh reality.
When the zoo (which saw them artfully transformed from men to docile, dependent beasts)
becomes mockingly and confiningly apparent...

Then shall their witless obeisance to Hammer-in-Chief and his pig-minions be transformed
into righteous indignation, loathing anger and o'erweening self-recrimination...

Then shall Hammer-in-Chief, along with Hammer-Maker and his statist lackeys
experience the wrath of the awakened Saxon...

The manure shall then be composted for the croplands...

The deeds of the flies exposed to the light...

And the parasites, finding no hosts for their sustenance,

...will be no more.

But not yet, Lord Fly... not yet.

Amen, Harold ......... God it feels awful to know that whomever gets the Democratic nomination now, and Republicans let an honest election take place, America is toast.

Perhaps the question best considered now is whether it's best for us to go quickly, or drag it out?

This is a question for KEM PATRICK, peace coup or whoever has an answer.

We (collectively) seem to be saying that it is immoral to kill to keep oil prices low. We seem to agree that the profits from said oil are unevenly distributed. We may be witnessing some ultimate decline in the US economy.

What evidence is there that there is (however small) some economic benefit for the majority of Americans (even in the short term) derived from the Iraq conflict and oil takeover by US companies. Is there one? Is it from lower oil prices? Is it from battle tank production jobs?

I would have thought that the massive borrowing required to finance the war coupled with the diversion of domestic government spending would have more than cancelled out whatever positive standard of living bump could have come from Iraq.

We know the country is tanking. So what are we going to do about it?

"but suspect the real reason for the war, which one would suspect of a country which is a third oligarchy, a third plutocracy and a third theocracy, is that it simply is a profitable machine."

The real reason for the war was OIL. Iraq has the world's second largest reserves of light sweet crude oil, after Saudi Arabia, and Saddam was excluding the US and British oil companies from the oil leases while instead cutting lease agreements with the French, Russians and Chinese, and was also threatening to demand payment in Euros. So the Bush Administration went to war to secure control over Iraqi oil to benefit of US and British oil interests and ensure the dollar's role as the world's international exchange currency. Since the Administration knew that the US public would not buy a war for oil or dollary primacy, the war was instead packaged and sold as part of the "War on Terror".

Okay ~Peace Corps~, we just disagree that we will fall. It is not just the iraq issue that is going to do us in, that is just the final straw. There several major reasons, the money we now owe China, our loss of manufacturing jobs, down from 34% of the work force to 12%. Every manufacturing job creates five additional jobs. Another is the housing crisis, another is the sudden high cost of everything and no fair increase in wages, outsourcing of million of jobs and the lack of money in the lower 95% of the population. The coming depression will destroy us. It isn't 1929, it won't be the same as the last one. Far from it.

mirf59,

Good observation about politicians doing whatever they need to do to keep oil prices low (and them in office) instead of doing what is in the best interest of our selves, nation, species, environment, etc...

I saw a report a couple of years ago showing the President's approval rating being on the same trend line as the price of oil.

This is why we need to continue having discussions like this one so people are more informed as we all make our democratic decisions.

Okay

This article got me thinking about Empires.

Empires have risen and fallen throughout history.

The main question is "are we seeing the fall of America?"

I'm not so sure.

If Hitler's army had not been defeated by the Allies in World War Two, then his state would have solidified its control over most of Europe. Catherine the Great used her charm to gain access to trade routes and resources when most people thought she was a weak and scandal ridden leader. What if King Phillip or some of the French Kings had not wasted so much money on fighting foreign wars?

The point is that Empires use all sorts of tactics to expand their power. Sometimes they are successful and sometimes they are not.

Just because we have not had complete success in Iraq does not mean we are seeing the fall of the American Empire. Bush and his supporters are willing to sacrifice people and treasure in order to control the oil. Since he controls the United States military, he has the ability to continue a long-term illegal occupation of Iraq and their resources.

We need to oppose all leaders who use illegal and immoral means to achieve their goals.

Peace coup,

Yeah. I agree. We have to be ready to renounce this business of killing foreigners for the stability of our financial markets. That's what it boils down to.

But, there are some indications that this could lead to a collapse of the dollar. Maybe it means $5 or even $7 per gallon at the pump. Maybe it means another depression.

One theory I've heard is that petrodollars offer artificial stability for the US dollar, and that the military-industrial complex is a band-aid substitute for the vanished manufacturing base of the economy. Viewed through that lens, Bush et al are doing the hard tough job no one wants to talk about, and delaying the time we all have to pay the piper.

But, we're not having an honest conversation. The honest conversation would be citizens among themselves, asking each other -- are we willing to risk some of our short term financial stability to keep these innocent foreigners from being slaughtered?

I fear the answer is "no." Many Americans don't give a lick about brown people. Many do, but are not willing to look at this situation honestly. Certainly, the guys that own the oil companies and the TV stations want to make sure they have a chance to cash in on reserves that are worth trillions, and the value of poor Americans is zero -- foreign people don't even enter into the calculus at all.

Ultimately, we have to stop punishing politicians and political parties if the price of gas is too high. This plays right into the thinking that leads to these wars. Those with political aspirations can always tell themselves, rightly, "If I allow the price to go up, or the economy to become too volatile, my career is over and my Party will go down the drain." It's the economy stupid. Like a mantra during every election.

That's where each citizen needs to take a long look in the mirror.

mirf59

I agree with your points about the oil.

We seek control more than just access.

To the Bush Administration, that control is worth millions of lives if necessary. That is why they try to mislead the country or hope we remain distracted from what is really going on.

My point earlier is that the US military has the ability to illegally sieze the prize. Controlling that prize will alter the course of history (in America's favor) for the next century. That is what the Bush Administration is doing.

They should be impeached and tried as war criminals for their violent strategies in direct opposition to international law.

It is not just a "Fall", it's nose dive.

Well PEACE COUP, from the several posters who diagreed with you here, if that's all you meant, your comments sure didn't come across that way. You sounded like Cheney talking to Rush Limb-bow. Maybe you could re-write it?

New hot industry------laser guillotines.

Just pointing out why the Bush crowd seems so ruthless in achieiving their goal. They think the death and destruction is worth it. I don't.

This guy saw it coming a long time ago:

While this America settles in the mould of its vulgarity, heavily thickening to empire,

And protest, only a bubble in the molten mass, pops and sighs out,and the mass hardens,

I sadly smiling remember that the flower fades to make fruit, the fruit rots to make earth.

Out of the mother; and through the spring exultances, ripeness and decadence; and home to the mother.

You making haste on decay: not blameworthy; life is good, be it stubbornly long or suddenly

A mortal splendor: meteors are not needed less than mountains: shine, perishing republic.

But for my children, I would have them keep their distance from the thickening center; corruption

Never has been compulsory, when the cities lie at the monster's feet there are left the mountains.

And boys, be in nothing so moderate as in love of man, a clever servant, insufferable master.

There is the trap that catches noblest spirits, that caught—they say—God, when he walked on earth.

--Robinson Jeffers
"Shine, Perishing Republic"

EMPIRE PIE. What is going to bring us down to a third world, or even worse world status, from our once status as a powerful and leading nation, is the coming depression.

The depression will arrive in the near future, because we have wasted our resources and money on the unjust and disasterous war and occupation in Iraq. We're friggin broke, that's a fact. Certainly our government will still have our military, only we won't be able to pay the troops. We won't be able to maintain the fleets of bombers, or our naval fleets. Here's a screamer, about half of our military equipment spare parts, are now manufactured in China.

We'll still have atomic weapons, we will still be a threat to the rest of the world in that regard for awhile, but we won't be able to stop 12 million armed Mexicans and South Americans from pouring across our southern border. That threat was posted by a Mexican on the thread yesterday, the one about cluster bombs. He was very serious, callng us 'Gringo sheepees', and stating when the signal comes, they will begin their revolution here in America with the a;ssistance of black Muslems. The signal will be the depression. I believe it is a very likely scenerio, we'd be practically helpless to stop it once our own rioting begins in ernest.

We won't be able to stop the looting and burning of our cities when the depression begins, and armed gangs of people are roaming the country and fighting for food, medicines and fuel. It will be Katrina magnified thousands of times. A Katrina in every large city and metro area of America. Just imagine the anarchy and total loss of law and order and here comes Santa Anna's revenge to re-claim the Alamo. ___ Don't beleive it? We better face reality and believe if we don't impeach Bush and Cheney right away quick, it can happen.

In spite of the Orwellian legislation like HR1955 Chomsky recently said that America has become more free and informed than in the 50's. The comments and the article don't really specify what will bring on the fall of America. Will the fall be precipitated by lack of demand for consumer products made elsewhere yet profiting some Americans in other ways or by a willingness of countries to cooperate thus reducing demand for US weapons?

Does wealth just disappear? Perhaps the problem is too much wealth or money that does not know what to do with itself.... at the top of the monied hierarchy a truly tangled corporate, interstate web of bets to improve their various bottom lines many of which may be self-defeating in the long run. For instance what if instead of dumping subsidized big agriculture grain on poor countries we helped them achieve small scale self sufficiency, could they not become a healthy market for fairly traded products?

Or perhaps doom predictions are just a lapse in our stone age brains!

Stone Age Brains of Empire

From the stone age to the broken empire
From the cave to the gated nest
From the fertile valley to the Bagdad bust
The still stone age brains have reinvented hell
and called it their moral right
the everlasting fire of might

The media shills pumping bellows of fear
with infectious slogans of patriot pride
for state sponsored cruelty has nothing to hide
as their stone age brains were firing neurons inside

We may have had a dream but it died
We have become what we tried to hide
We have become the empire kingdom
The one we rebelled against..the same old might
with a strange new strangle hold on right

Potter was an endless chain of brutality against a hapless protagonist. I don't need that crap in fiction -- there's plenty of it in the real world.

Harold Bloom's premise is correct. But ivy league intellectuals are losing relevance today, along with higher education in general. There's more free flow of knowledge, more dedicated and bright activists, sharp minds, etc. outside of academia these days than inside.

King George I's S&L fleecing was apparently just a test case for the fleecing of the banking industry as a whole. Great job!

jlocke123 January 17th, 2008 2:35 pm

Check that moderate.

Americans certainly have the highest hopes for the Iraqi people, but certainly dont' give a shit about the deplorable disasterous conditions there, nor the 150,000 - 1 million Iraqi's slaughtered, nor the 4 million or so refugees etc.

That's the thing with moderate and conservative Americans... THey don't really care about the War, carnage, or death unless they see it affecting them. The illusion they've built up is that they're not affected by it, even though they actually are. Their failure to see how the war affects them is why we're still in Iraq, and why we will be there for decades to come.

I haven't read past PJD's comment confusing Harold Bloom with Allan Bloom. Big gaffe. Harold isn't a "paleo-conservative" and most critics of academics like Bloom don't know anything about their years of writing and teaching. Bloom doesn't have a political axe to grind. Calling Bush "Benito" only places the bastard in his proper historical context.

We need more voices like Bloom's, and less half-literate condescension from the many PJD's everywhere. Also, he's right about Harry Potter and Stephen King, but those are just offhand comments. His writing has been a commitment to real literature, not the blockbuster fluff that most Americans settle for.