US has lost "super power" status under Bush....

Oh yeah, they still talk about the "only superpower in the world" but if that status wasn't lost in the attack upon the WTC and the Pentagon, it was lost somewhere in Baghdad. We have surrendered our status as the only superpower. We lost it because we had no moral auhority to go into Baghdad, as we had no authority to invade the country of Iraq.

Yes, we still have a mighty military but even that military has lost its invincibility since the guerilla war started in earnest in Iraq. There are no superpowers at present. Perhaps we will regain this status after the next election..??

we are a superpower of fanatical immature bloodthirsty undereducated zenophobic zelots. yes lets force democracy(capitalism) everywhere. why wouldn't other nations want to resemble us?

superpowers again.

Different era, different world.

NT!

What we lost is not "super power" but "soft power." We still have the strongest military, economy, technological edge, etc.

What we lost is "soft power" -- the ability to persuade others to do what we want without the use of force. Soft power is leveraged through alliances, international institutions, economic incentives, and the threat of military force (threat, not use, which would be hard power).

Salvaging our alliances and strenghtening them through institutions like the UN and NATO is key to reestablishing our soft power. We need a president with strong foreign policy and diplomacy credentials.

I like your posts generally, but this is a great observation.

We are not even superior to a ragtag bunch of refugees from a third-rate military and their disaffected civilian supporters anymore.

could this be leverage with the wacky psuedo super-patriot wing of the current GOP base?

Like the old USSR, or arguably China. We're no longer socially responsible (at all, nevermind on a global scale). Our so-called idealistic actions ("freeing" Afghanistan and Iraq, shutting out Cuba) are wholly political and inconsistent with anything but the pursuit of power. We're not the heros of the world, we're the arrogant conquerors of it.

Bush has blown our superpower status.


I agree that we've lost the moral high ground and that the invasion was immoral and all that, but the key is the loss of status and power.

Only a radical turnaround of the order of Kucinich AND a democratic supermajority in congress can stem the flow of lifeblood from the republic. The arteries cut are military power, soft power and economic power.

Military power first and foremost aligns all the world's interests behind it, that its moral authority is sooooo strong, that when victory is won, no insurgency remains. Also, military power is best kept in potential, and not used... as the whole world is getting a case study on how to beat the american military... let USA win, and then shoot the soldiers one by one in guerilla war... just another lesson from Uncle Ho that the bushaviks never done learned.

Soft power is cooperative. Even my local cinema in scotland is screening fewer and fewer films from the US. Being american has become "uncool" and that is the bane of soft power. The political manipulation of all american interests towards GOP militarism has sewed long terms seeds of distrust, that many people and nations are looking to long term disengagement with america... a total loss of soft power... and the real end of superpower status.

The artery of economic power has also been lost, as if we remove the top 1% from the GDP distribution, america is not the most wealthy per capita. If 1 person earns 10 billion and 999 people earn 1000, the average income is 10 million each... Its an abuse of statistics that economists are prone to do under the presumption that the wealth of a few does indeed redistribute and thus affect the national wealth, but that presumption is bunk. The REAL american is a poor person without medical treatment or any but the most basic economic human rights.... its a sad state of affairs. The good news is that the rest of the world has assimilated all that is worth having from the US, so if indeed the economy tanks badly, the merits of private capitalism will survive the demise of the nation that made it a global phenomena... but with good news like that, who needs bad.

Superpower is a state of mind. Every individual here is a superpower.

can the next president repair the damage done to our country?

God i loathe bush and his insanely evil cronies

And the Vandals are at the gates.

:scared:
dbt