The high-water mark of the American Empire,

when do you think it was?

You're talking about Imperial influence, right?

I think things went downhill from there.

The fall of Baghdad - April 12, 2003.

n/t

After that, we had Watergate, the Oil Embargo, the changing of our Agricultural system and, finally, the Reagan sellout.....

so I guess we're looking at it...

Julius Caesar's nephew Augustus was a far greater leader than Caesar and accomplished more than Caesar did when you look beyond initial conquests.

Rp

they start a long slow decline...

I think they do it because the benefits of empire come to fewer and fewer people and the costs (both financial and in terms of military service) fall to the masses.

And the Roman Empire's high-water mark was during Antonin's reing, when the Empire was propoperous and peaceful, before the wars with the "barbarians" started.

My bad.

There were only a few of those dictators, and they weren't called Emperors mainly because the power structure was still technically that of the Republic. While Caesar kept the appearance of those structures, he effectively gather all power into his own hands. Sound familiar?

while placing increasing burdens (both financial and in terms of military service) on everyone else.

Dictators, corruption and collapse seem inevitable to me once you allow your economy to become dependent on empire.

I just could not help myself but to correct some minor historical points. ;)

In the U.S. today, millions are toiling at crap jobs at places like McDonalds and 7-11 for minimum wage and millions of people subject to total economic devastation due to a lack of health insurance, etc. They are not technically slaves, but "corporate servants" is not far off.

All you geezers want to think it begins and ends with your lifetime, don't you?

:evilgrin:

From Wikipedia ---

It is the famous verse, which begins as "Kalo Asmi" and was quoted by Oppenheimer after the successful detonation of the first nuclear weapon. He unfortunately mistranslated it as "Now I have become Death, the destroyer of all". The correct meaning of the Sanskrit words is "Now I am Time (not death), the destroyer of all."

“ We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says, 'Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.' I suppose we all thought that one way or another.'”

When a question of the sort as asked by the original poster is asked, I'm always reminded of the album called "Crown of Creation" by Jefferson Airplane. That which is created can certainly be destroyed. Entropy, things do have a tendancy to fall apart. At the time of our greatest triumph, things began to fall apart.

I'm deeply concerned that soon we'll attain the stability
we've strived for...

...in the only way that it's granted: In a place among
the fossils of our time.

Tesha

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Plan

(and whatever the after-the-war recovery plan for Japan
was called.)

Tesha

The successful conclusion of the war against Serbia/Yugoslavia.

I'd say the Marshall Plan.

that the apex of the American Empire was was when the Japanese surrendered
on the Battleship Missouri September 2, 1943. All the other powers of the world
were devastated by the war even our allies. We were the only country to have "the bomb."
Even in the fifties, he thought it would be downhill from there. When he died in 1983,
he still thought so. If only he could see us now!

"Even in the fifties, he thought it would be downhill from there."

For sure, it was before the oil embargo in the 1970's.

Vietnam dragged the US down for awhile, then we regained status during the 1990's. That small resurgence lasted until 2000. It's all downhill from now on...

That was it, it was over in the blink of an eye, and it's been downhill ever since.