Couldn't have said it better myself "Democracy... depends on the voters capacity to think". And for those who can think, as Ritter said, they have chosen to become consenters instead of citizens.

We are doomed. Was it the Fluoride, Vaccines, Prozac in the water, etc? I mean, 3-5% of the people see it, but unless you have 70% on board, nothing can change. Nothing. And the minds are closed, they just do not want to hear it, because they have been brainwashed by the Orwellian babbling of the cult-phrase "I don't believe in conspiracy theories", by those behind the conspiracy. I mean, 70% of people are agitated, they know something is wrong, but they still think it is just an individual thing or party thing that can be changed with their vote.

The slide started in 1913 with the Fed & Income Tax, but the fall started when JFK was killed, and picked up steam when the TLC was empowered, and on 9/11/01 they stepped on the gas. My guess is we hit the ground in 2008 - 2009 as critters are expecting great change from their new leader. Could be earlier if the powers have decided that Bush/Cheney need to stay on for a litle longer.

dustinchicago said:

"I like the idea of incorporating 'we the people', I've often thought of incorporating my family through a family trust and collective ownership of our homes. But is that really incorporation? Any lawyers in the room?"

It seems you and I are the only ones that like this idea here, but I'm not a lawyer so I can't give a legal opinion. I can only hope someone like Ralph Nader will take up the cause. Although incorporating We the People may be an idea whose time has come, it seems our well founded suspicions and hatred of anything corporate is the greatest obstacle to this novel solution that would turn corporations into friends and public and environmental benefactors.

Imagine corporations working for peace instead of war, for clean alternative energy instead of nukes, oil and coal, paying We the People fair dividends for the use of our airwaves, public lands, ocean resources, minerals, public buildings, roads, etc., preventing pollution, species extinctions, resource depletion and overpopulation, competing to give us the best free education and universal healthcare, investing our dividends in green corporations and on and on. They would have to do these things in order to do business with We the People Inc.

Banks and corporations have the power. The quick and easy way to take the power back to We the People is to incorporate into the largest, richest and most powerful corporation for whose (public) resources all others would have to compete. But this can only work if We the People obtain equal shares of non-transferable stock in order to achieve a one person, one vote corporation where each of us receives dividends equally.

The results would be a lasting permanent direct democracy that unlike our present representative system of legal bribery, is practically immune to oligarchy bribes and coercion. That like the Swiss direct democratic system, would give us the highest per capita income, no wars, no drug war and no drug problem, no immigration problem, no pollution, the best education and healthcare, a healthy environment and no boom and bust economy.

Incorporating We the People would give us a direct democracy with all the advantages of competition and cooperation that until now have been mutually exclusive.

- I don't understand the motivation for the war, 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. -

"Profitable" is a bit generous. War allows a massive dose of cash to be directed to well-connected interests - but the cash isn't earned cash. More like credit card cash advances.

If it were actually profitable, empires wouldn't keep collapsing.

But I guess, if someone gets the cash, but doesn't have to pay off the card, it would feel every bit as good as profit to them - a strong motivator, indeed.

Nice article!

Such a hagiographical account of Yale should be balanced by the following:

http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/features/n_9932/

What We Are Seeing Is…the Fall of America

True, It's a done deal. I'm just trying to figure the fall out. I say the elite will scapegoat minorities and imigrants.
Let's never forget who got us into this mess. At the end we should strip them of all their wealth, take their citizenship away and put them in a rusty old boats with instructions to never darken our doorways again.
That is very compassionate compared to what they have been doing to other people.

His framing and perception of our current "state of affairs" is on the mark and carries such tremendous weight in terms of his perceptive understanding and insight into the human story and the current chapter of folly which is consuming us as a nation -- a people -- a planet.

He's right about the dumbing down of America and the decline in literature standards. It is pretty shocking that Shakespeare and 19th century writers are being replaced by modern ones in universities.

When I took an english lit course a few years ago we read Mary Wolstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Women and she says something like: "some people say women shouldnt engage in male activities like hunting--on this I totally agree."

In my class some students were offended by this without realizing that she was speaking as someone who was against hunting, not someone who said only men should do it. Many of the 19th century writers advocated vegetarianism(including her own daughter, in Frankenstein).

Oh poor Harold, it's so much worse than even you think. College students are in a self-induced coma. Professors live in terror of each other and their fat-assed administrators with tenure (the mechanism for guaranteeing intellectual freedom)in the balance. More than half of all colleges use temporary guest workers like me to maximize profits and, with their record millions, tell students to pay more in these "hard times." Critical journals lick the behinds of a few well-established tyrants. And few can believe this, but do you know why you haven't seen a single college/university go on strike as they did in the 1960s against our last international crime called Vietnam? Because these bookwormy hackademic fools cannot conceive of themselves as "workers." Only "workers" go on strike. They aim to be "professionals" living somehow beyond or without politics---EVEN WHEN IT MEANS that their students will be cheated of real faculty and their peers will be used and exploited beyond bankruptcy. And what do the media say? We have a "teacher shortage"!

Please remember that Harold Bloom is an old-school, reactionary, paleo-conservative - in the manner of Paul Craig Roberts, William F. Buckley, or Pat Buchanan. He is not against the US imperialist endeavor, just some of the excesses in how it is prosecuted - recall his book "the Closing of the American Mind".

These old-scool conservatives, with their hatred of anything that smacked of "socialism", seem to be blind that they set the very trends in moton that have led to the capitalism-caused "decline" that they lament, so I have little sympathy for them.

And, that these paleos, and what passes for the US "left", are finding so much common ground, is a pretty scary situation.

People bring up Nazi Germany, Mussilini etc... Wrong comparisons.

The US is running much down the same path as the Roman Empire, and our culture/society is much more in line with Rome.

from 395AD-476AD (476 being the official dissolution of Rome), the emperors were nothing more than figureheads - the actual rulers were the behind the scenes folks who also controlled the military, controlled the currency, and manipulated the government. The Emperors rather simply functioned as the propoganda, rhetorical and distraction wing of the Oligarchy - keeping their populations in line, and constantly insecure.

By this period, the Roman Military was at it's smallest, and weakest strength and simply could not militarily control it's vast territory. The American military now is at it's smallest troop levels ever in the past 70 years or so, plus they're having such a difficult time recruiting, and war weariness within it's own ranks to boot. Look at American troop deployments in over 36 foreign countries, not to mention the vast Naval Fleet in the Persian Gulf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:US_military_bases_in_the_world_2007.PNG
and now we're going to have 100,000+ in Iraq (regardless of who you vote for - even Obama said 50,000 will remain by 2017, wishful thinking). Plus Africom starts up this September 2008.

The attitude of the period was also the same. The arrogant belief that the empire could never fall, or was too strong to fall. Kind of an illusion of invulnerability, so the necessary steps to prevent the fall were never taken. And most of the empire didn't want to admit it was irrelevant anymore, but when the invaders came, they couldn't deny it any longer. That's what will happen here as well - despite an economic collapse, complete loss of influence and respect worldwide and a scuttled foreign military, Americans are too dense and arrogant to admit the loss of America's standing as preacher to the world. We live on an Island, a regimented bubble of our own "reality" completely oblivious to the rest of the world.

Much like then, the fall will heavily impact only the lower and middle classes. The Villa's and wealthy, elites etc of Rome didn't take a hit at all. It kind of reminds me of Joe Kennedy saying "If it weren't for the papers, I never would have known about the depression." That's the way it works, you and I suffer, not the folds actually responsible for causing the fall. And that's what caused it. The fact that Rome simply could not expand, it could not plunder, invade, and occupy, could not enslave other countries (by debt)... and it's economy eventually collapsed on itself. America's economy is now dependent and based on constant excessive expansion, plunder without limits - which is to say, it's a war based economy (if black ops, and coups don't work). "The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." -- Al Bartlett. But if there is an actual limit, IE, you're military can no longer expand your economy by invading and plundering more Countries, it falls back on to itself. It's not like there's a lack of profitable and equitable nations out there, there are tons (hence Africom) - at this point in time we simply lack the operationable ability to invade and occupy any of them for plunder and exploitment.

Anyhow, Take a look at Iran, they lack the capability of invading and occupying Iran. We're spread to thin - which is why they have to damn well make sure the fleecing and plundering of Iraq works out because they know full well they can't plunder anywhere else for quite some time.

So get used to being in Iraq.

johnston296,

Thanks for the link. What a horrific story. It is sad how Yale compromises student safety for protecting its "country club" tenured professors. Sadly, that not only happens at Yale, but at many other colleges and universities.

There has been talk that the US is in a decline phase for quite a while now. It always seems to pick up when there is a right wing Administration in the White House.

I think the truth is we are at a crossroads. It could go either way at this point. We have to prevent the ownership class from pushing a short term, wealth maximizing agenda.

At some point, someone has to stand up and say, "Look, those of you that were planning to monetize your massive fossil fuel reserves as a basis for your fortune are S.O.L."

At some point, the party is going to be over. At that point, we will have the opportunity to forge a much more positive relationship with the civilized world and with the Earth itself.

I would like to see that gutless chimp spend 1 hour of his miserable life
in the presence of Mr. Bloom. I will bring the cheese.

HANG JANE!

Don't be fooled with our current downturn. I don't agree with changing the Middle East by use of force, but it is changing. For all the doom and gloom we now have, Bush continues to be confident in his long-term legacy building because he knows that Iraq has trillions of dollars in oil that can be used to build a modern state. The main question now is did Bush over extend the military and ruin our good image around the world in a lost cause or will this misadventure work (as long as you don't care about the death and destruction caused by the war) by creating an Iraqi state that is moderate and gives us access to oil so we can stop being so dependent on the Saudi regime?

Empires fall because of over extension of their resources and military. However, some empires are strengthened when their over extension is not fatal and new lands, resources, and power are achieved.

I strongly disagree with the use of military force to change the world according to our values, but I realize that our military force is strong enough to change the world. Iraq still has a chance to develop into a wealthy state connected to America and that is why Bush continues to pursue policies that harm lots of people in the short term in order to achieve his long term goal.

Mastershake: Thanks for your post. Very relavant.

IMHO we are all screwed. The inertia of America's downfall is too strong to stop at this point. Though I like Ezeflyer's idea of incorporating "we the people", nothing we do within the existing system will succeed. The system itself is rotten to the core and will crash under its own weight.

We cannot rebuild the "Peoples' House" until the existing house is destroyed down to its foundation. And maybe even the foundation needs to be replaced. In light of peak oil and climate change, maybe the foundation of 200 years ago is not adequate. Maybe we need a Global Peoples' House. No more nation building. No more profit at the expense of the planet or the real people anywhere on Earth.

A new day will dawn when all the people of the world will build that new house. And I know that it will not be completed in my lifetime. The best I can hope for is that we can pass on the right knowledge and lessons learned to make the next foundation stronger and better than the one we are standing on now. And to fight for the tools the next generations will need to build it.

Peace Coup: Your optimism is stunning. And totally out of sync with reality......

Peace coup,
So you are saying that the death of thousands has been worth it? Abu Grahib and Guantanamo too? I guess you feel that way when it is not your family the ones dying for Bush's good intentions for the future.

mirf59 and alexnosal, you are dead on. The price of oil has tripled since the invasion of Iraq - mission accomplished.

Bloom's quote:

"Imagine the complete madness in trying to occupy a large Arab country in the middle of the Arab world, a culture we know precious little about, and who speaks a language only a handful of our specialists can speak, with armed forces which we have limited control of and with a large army of private soldiers… The whole thing is a scandal…a series of lies. I don't understand the motivation for the war, 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."

"It is simply a profitable machine"... what an understatement. Not a word about the control of oil, the speculation and threats to oil security -- pushing up the costs to $100 a barrel. Whether or not the U.S. wins this war, Bush and his oil cronies make the big bucks, just look at the billion dollar record profits for Mobil/Exxon last year. How can Bloom simply call it a "profitable machine? If we go into Iran, it's likely the price of oil will go up to $200 a barrel. All the speculation over the availability of supply can certainly manipulate the oil prices. It's not just "profitable" it's a "CRIMINAL UNDERTAKING." That's more "appropriate," Mr. Bloom.

peace coup is not saying Bushism was either good or right. Our Iraq war is already in progress and our past deeds are done. Whether anything "works" or turns out even half well (for anybody) from here depends on who we now elect to lead. You will soon only have opportunity to criticize Bush in retrospect, and ought to be spending your efforts now to get someone better on 1/20/09.

RichM January 17th, 2008 1:44 pm

I agree with what Peace Coup said. I think his/her point was that, despite all the death, destruction, havoc, and disease etc. Iraq has been tremendously successful for the Oligarchy, Defense Contractors, Oil Companies etc... Basically, they don't give a shit about American security, well being, and certainly don't care about the Iraqi people. It's been a phenominal success for Bush and the elites.

I agree with RICH M's comments. I also agree with the statement 'we own it' in reference to Iraq.

That is exactly the words used by Colin Powell, when he told George W. Bush, numerous times, "If you attack Iraq, you will OWN it", when Powell was attempting to stop Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld, from invading Iraq. Powell didn't go far enough with his protests however. Colin Powell should have held press conferences and spoken out loudly to us and to our Congress, before he finally read that false NIE report to congress. Was he threatened? Hmmmmmm.

Another man who could have__ and SHOULD have __ put the brakes on Bush's Iraq disaster, is George Tennant, the former director of the CIA. Bush FORCED him to alter that NIE report and insure that his lies were not revealed to us and to the public. Was Tennant threatened also? Tennant should have held press conferences and told EVERYONE in the world, what Bush and Cheny ordered him to do, a treasonous and incredible crime if there ever was one.

Had Tennant done that, it would have not only stopped Congress from authorizing military use against Iraq, it would have insured Bush and Cheney would have been impeached and there would never have been the invasion of Iraq.

Then we have "Bob Woodward", who interviewed Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Colin Powell and general Tommy Franks, BEFORE the invasion and the presidential election. All of Woodward's conversations with those men were taped, and Woodward had a book published using those taped interviews, PRIOR to the last presidential election. If a majority of Americans had read that book, read those taped conversations, "IF" our press and media had been honest, and made that book a top issue, Bush would never, not EVER, have been re-elected. It is unlikely he would have taken three states.

None of those most appropriate and vital things happened. The if word truly is the biggest word we use, "IF". Nope, it didn't happen, Powell and Tennant chickened out and the press made a joke of Woodwards book. The media's political pundants and White House press, stated Woodwards book was just political spin, written by a "liberal" to help the Democrats in the coming election.

'We the people' for the most part, didn't listen to Woodward, he being 'liberal' inclined or not. Bush had his way, and had his "God" backed and dammed, illegal and unjust war. And 'we the people' are screwed, __ the sad truth is, ___ we screwed ourselves and we do own Iraq whether we want it or not.

Iraq is a gift from President Bush and his administration, an albatross that is not tied around our necks, it's hanging from our asses and dragging us under. We ARE going to fall and do so much more quickly than Rome did. After all,__ this is the jet age.

PEACE COUP, you're either a nut case or one of the White House speech writers.

I would not click onto Nut Case's blue code name there. Any that do are giving him/her your E-mail address.

Peace Coup,

I think you do not understand the dynamics of our fossil fuel economy.

The goal in Iraq is to control the oil, not to have access to it. If memory serves, not a drop of Iraq's oil goes to meet our ongoing needs.

The key is control. Those who have control over fossil fuels have their hands on the levers of the global economy because the economy is so intimately linked with the value of fossil fuels.

This is not my thinking, but comes straight from Noam Chomsky, who has argued it quite decisively in my opinion.

Now, let's turn back to Iraq. Why did we invade Iraq in 1991 and again in 2003? The answer, related to the concept above, is that Saddam Hussein became unpredictable. He stopped following the rules of oil supply set forth by OPEC. Those rules specify that, in spite of the fact that Iraq has 4x the reserves of Iran, that Iraq is pegged a production quota exactly equal to Iraq.

This OPEC policy maybe was enacted to keep a balance of power in the region, maybe to keep Iraqis from growing too powerful and starting some nasty business with Iran. i don't know.

At any rate, Saddam had decided to ramp up production, and the fear was that OPEC would lose control and the markets would become too volatile. Obviously, if Iraq dumped oil on the market for its own benefit, a lot of people would be upset if the price tanked. Not the public in America, of course, who are irrelevant to any of this except as obedient consumers of oil and of stickers that read "Support the Troops."

This is all explained in the work of Greg Palast.

Now, following this path, what was the initial reason for attacking Iraq? The neo-cons were upset at OPEC's stranglehold on market dynamics. The idea of the neo-cons was for the US and its allies to replace OPEC by gaining control over Iraqi oil. Bust OPEC. Maybe this is a sensible reaction to 9/11 given it was almost completely a Saudi operation.

Now, enter Big Oil from Houston. Big oil, the old guard who actually know a bit how the world works and aren't a bunch of rubes with Phd's and draft-dodgers moved in. These guys blew up the Coalition Provisional Authority, fired Paul Bremer, and took the reins.

The goal of big oil was to restore the old balance where Iraq obeyed its OPEC quota. This EXACTLY means KEEPING THE OIL IN THE GROUND.

So, in fact, it is the exact opposite of what you think in your comments above.

Check out Noam Chomsky and Greg Palast. I have yet to read anything that disproves the theories or undermines the arguments and evidence they present. Try for yourself, and run a bullcrap sniffer on it.

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

peace coup January 17th, 2008 1:18 pm:

"The main question now is did Bush over extend the military and ruin our good image around the world in a lost cause or will this misadventure work (as long as you don't care about the death and destruction caused by the war) by creating an Iraqi state that is moderate and gives us access to oil so we can stop being so dependent on the Saudi regime?"

Reputedly Chinese proverb: "May you live in interesting times"

Peace coup, you ask an interesting question. Given that US foreign policy is that of empire (irrespective of empire's incompatibility with democracy), given that death and destruction are irrelevant (despite our first hand experience to the contrary), given that a "moderate" (whatever that is) Iraqi state can be created, the US can transfer its energy dependence from Saudi Arabia to a new Iraq.

Firstly I would say that empire is incompatible with democracy. Empire requires an enduring state of war. War without end strangles civil discourse. In so far as Americans wish their land to be democratic, empire is a non-starter.

Death and destruction are negative human experiences, experiences that most sane people seek to avoid where possible. To bring death and destruction about for material gain is the act of someone who has appreciation for neither life nor creation.

I hear the term "moderate" used in American discourse. As far as I can determine, it is a codeword for someone or something that does what the US government wants. Iraq was apparently "moderate" when Hussein was gassing Iranian soldiers defending their country from invasion. Iraq is thus "immoderate" once it began resistance to empire (see above) and will therefore be "moderate" again when American oil companies are well established to shift the profit centre away from the embarrassingly undemocratic Saudis of 9/11 fame.

So, to sum up, yes the US army could change the world. The US military can kill (have killed) millions of people. A small group of Americans, former generals among them, profit. Nobody I know has. Then the survivors regroup and counterattack anyway they can against any American they can find. You are seeing this cycle of force/counterforce in action now in many places in the world. How this could be considered change for the better, I don't know.

Peace Coup and RichM, yes I think it is true that Bush has paid no heed to any criticism but has kept his eye on the mechanical rabbit (oil and a politically moderate Iraq)but it seems to me it was doomed to fail from the get-go. Here you have a man and his advisers plus 130,000 kids trained to kill enter a Country and dealing with a culture which they have no understanding-they hate us. The conservatives in Iraq have played Bush like a fiddle, taking our tax dollars and giving us a smile and nebulous promises. In the end the Iraqis will cut the U.S. lose when we quit plugging more money into the cause. What our leaders will be dealing with is the question "do we keep trying to change things in Iraq with our blood and money or do we leave and lose the whole investment?" Iraq will eventually be aligned with Iran no matter what the U.S. decides, faster if we pull out now, slower if we keep pumping money into their pockets but eventually we will lose them politically as well as the oil.
Thats the way it looks from the cheap seats

Mirf59 is absolutely right. Controlling the market price of oil means eliminating any mavericks out there. Oil companies want oil to stay in the ground just enough so as to raise the price to an acceptable level in their eyes. In fact a war with Iran would be VERY PROFITABLE for American oil companies simply because the cost of oil would skyrocket despite no increase in the cost of production. Iran and Venezuela (also in Bush's 'bad books') are the two leading oil maverick nations today and therefore the main target of corporate sycophant neo-cons.

Lord Fly

In a place beneath light, just out of sight,
a man lies in wait.

The man craves authority.
He believes it will make him real.
The HammerMakers find him useful.
They believe he will make them rich.

In time, the man rises to power.
He is head of the HammerMaker party.
He styles himself "Hammer-in-Chief".
He is very proud.

Flexing his power, he announces a great threat:
There are flies in the barns!
He tells the people that flies are evil-doers.
Hammer-in-Chief declares War on Flies.
He vows to wipe them out and make the people safe.

He sends thousands of people into the barns to kill the flies.
He arms the people with hammers.
Proudly, they march to war.
The HammerMakers sell many hammers.
Hammer-in-Chief is very proud.

The people swing hammers at the flies.
Mostly, they miss.
Mostly, they hit the barn.
Sometimes they hit each other.

Years pass.
Many people are dead or wounded.
The barns are a shambles.
And full of flies.

The flies are happy.
The HammerMakers are happy.
Hammer-in-Chief is very proud.
The people are bewildered.

Hammer-in-Chief announces a new plan.
Send in more and bigger hammers.
The HammerMakers become richer.
Hammer-in-Chief is very proud.

More years go by.
More barns are wrecked.
More people die.

The people suffer.
They are covered with flies.

A stranger appears.
The people turn sad eyes to her.
She explains:

"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."

The people try this.
It works.

* * * * *

The people go to see the Hammer-in-Chief.
They take a shovel with them.

* * * * *

In a place beneath light, just out of sight,
the flies lie in wait.

Fondly, they remember the Hammer-in-Chief.
They name him lord.
He is very proud.

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.

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.

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!

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

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.

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"

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.

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

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?

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

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.

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.

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.

Okay

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 ~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.

"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".

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

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.

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?

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.