Having a global view...

As many of you know my mom lives in Mexico.

Well it happens to be that all the riots, revolutions and rumors of such have been in the news down there for some odd reason. I mean between the local news talking of the war on drugs, which is a real war... and the BBC... Deuche Welle, even CNN-I, she has been able to see how our lovely world is going down hill.

So tonight I was talking to her... and she knows I happen to march at PEACEFUL pro union marches. Heck, the recent ones in San Diego the only reason the cops don't join in... I mean the cop, or two... is that they are in uniform and rules prevent that. But that is how peaceful they are. So tonight she begged me, since peaceful ones have gone violent... in places like yes Greece, Portugal, and now the riots in England, to stay away from them.

But that is the global view.

Two points that matter here.

1.-No the US is no longer seen as STABLE outside our lovely borders, and we should not either. They are outside the box so it is easier to see. It makes want to go to the web and find out what Deuthe Welle, for example, has been saying of the debt ceiling debacle... that was the wake up point.

2.- When those outside your borders start to see that... it is time to pay attention...

Oh and finally... outside of our borders... the US is now seen as truly an empire in decline, just a matter of time before we finally admit it.

But like you mentioned before, the wildcard is the American exceptionalism, the idea that America handles things differently. My prediction is that we are going to see some "controlled burns" pretty soon, which is to say situations created where people can blow off steam riotously without doing too much damage. That would be very America.

The real drivers of change though are the real long term economic picture. Its a picture based on resources, which goes beyond anything that can be managed with perception control. Real leaders to me at this point speak to the fundamentals: energy, food, water, jobs. That's why I was glad to see Obama talking batteries today. Its time the fundamentals take front seat.

so as we fade, it will fade. As to batteries, my only concern is... this man speaks a mean game... I wish (and will gladly eat crow) that talk converts to actual action.

And yes, it is energy... and other resources. We are now in a place that is very difficult, because we may face a population collapse if we do not do this right. (And I mean we as a species)

:hi:

But her fear was real... she is afraid I am going to get into a bad situation and get myself killed. And if we have a rioty kind of a situation, I am hunkering down. I don't want to be in the same city, let alone the same state... to be honest.

http://endoftheamericancentury.blogspot.com/2011/04/cluster-bombs-used-by-libya-and-by-us.html

A book, The End of the American Century, documents the interrelated dimensions of American social, economic, political and international decline, marking the end of a period of economic affluence and world dominance that began with World War II. The war on terror and the Iraq War exacerbated American domestic weakness and malaise, and its image and stature in the world community. Dynamic economic and political powers like China and the European Union are steadily challenging and eroding US global influence. This global shift will require substantial adjustments for U.S. citizens and leaders alike. Chapter 6 provides a bloody example of American exceptionalism in action.

Saturday, April 16, 2011
Cluster Bombs Used by Libya--and by the U.S.

The New York Times has a front-page story today on how "Qaddafi is using cluster bombs in civilian areas." This is an atrocity and a tragedy, of course, but it is difficult for the U.S. to raise much of a fuss about it, because U.S. armed forces have also used cluster bombs in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Yemen. There is an international treaty--the Convention on Cluster Munitions--that bans the stockpiling and use of such weapons, but the U.S. is one of the few countries that has not signed the treaty. Fifty-six countries have ratified the Convention, and another 52 have signed but not yet ratified it. Among those that have not signed it are Israel, Pakistan, Libya....and the United States.

Chapter 6 of The End of the American Century, on "Abandoning International Order," documents the refusal of the U.S. government to sign dozens of international treaties and conventions that almost every other country in the world has adopted. It is this unilateralism and exceptionalism that has withered America's stature and moral authority in the world, and is one of the factors that makes it difficult for the U.S. to resume the leadership it held for so long in the postwar period.

At this point, I am glad for anything or anybody who raises these fundamental questions up in our minds. Nobody has any kind of magic wand, what happens with the country is the sum of individual actions.

My fear is real too. Its coming and I'm not sure how to prepare.

I won't say it's irrelevant to me, but I don't care much what outsiders think.

In just the same way, we don't know what Londoners know about their riots. That's why I don't have an opinion, but listen to what they have to say on that.

There are lots of adjectives I could use about the US right now, but unstable is not one of them. Empre in decline? The idea of an empire is nonsense to begin with.

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sometimes outsiders can see the dysfunction before we can. And the US is a RELUCTANT Empirie but an empire nonetheless. Alas the provincialism does not shock me or surprise me. It is also very American.

This article really lays it out: it's not a question of whether the US will lose its previously unchallenged glbal power, but just how precipitous and wrenching the decline will be. In addition to the snippets quoted below, the article uses the National Intelligence Council's own futuristic methodology to suggest four realistic scenarios for how, whether with a bang or a whimper, US global power could reach its end in the 2020s (along with four accompanying assessments of just where we are today). The future scenarios include: economic decline, oil shock, military misadventure, and World War III. While these are hardly the only possibilities when it comes to American decline or even collapse, they offer a window into an onrushing future."

http://www.thenation.com/article/156851/decline-and-fall-american-empire

Available economic, educational, and military data indicate that, when it comes to US global power, negative trends will aggregate rapidly by 2020 and are likely to reach a critical mass no later than 2030. The American Century, proclaimed so triumphantly at the start of World War II, will be tattered and fading by 2025, its eighth decade, and could be history by 2030.

Snippets:

Significantly, in 2008, the US National Intelligence Council admitted for the first time that America's global power was indeed on a declining trajectory. In one of its periodic futuristic reports, Global Trends 2025, the Council cited “the transfer of global wealth and economic power now under way, roughly from West to East" and "without precedent in modern history,” as the primary factor in the decline of the “United States' relative strength—even in the military realm.” Like many in Washington, however, the Council’s analysts anticipated a very long, very soft landing for American global preeminence, and harbored the hope that somehow the US would long “retain unique military capabilities… to project military power globally” for decades to come.

Wrapped in imperial hubris, like Whitehall or Quai d'Orsay before it, the White House still seems to imagine that American decline will be gradual, gentle, and partial. In his State of the Union address last January, President Obama offered the reassurance that “I do not accept second place for the United States of America.” A few days later, Vice President Biden ridiculed the very idea that “we are destined to fulfill Kennedy's prophecy that we are going to be a great nation that has failed because we lost control of our economy and overextended.” Similarly, writing in the November issue of the establishment journal Foreign Affairs, neo-liberal foreign policy guru Joseph Nye waved away talk of China's economic and military rise, dismissing “misleading metaphors of organic decline” and denying that any deterioration in US global power was underway.

Ordinary Americans, watching their jobs head overseas, have a more realistic view than their cosseted leaders. An opinion poll in August 2010 found that 65% of Americans believed the country was now “in a state of decline.” Already, Australia and Turkey, traditional US military allies, are using their American-manufactured weapons for joint air and naval maneuvers with China. Already, America's closest economic partners are backing away from Washington's opposition to China's rigged currency rates. As the president flew back from his Asian tour last month, a gloomy New York Times headline summed the moment up this way: “Obama's Economic View Is Rejected on World Stage, China, Britain and Germany Challenge US, Trade Talks With Seoul Fail, Too.”

knew now it is becoming common currency.

I really do not remember her name, but a historian at MSNBC, of US History called this the most dysfunctional congress since the cviil war. The host had no idea what to do with that comment.

no, it's not. And stable? What Nation is? It's all relative.

thing was just shock doctrine and not based on instability.

yes there is shock doctrine but nothing in these matters has only one explanation,

And yet so many people still want to come here.

:shrug:

The doom-and-gloom meme is pointless. We've definitely got problems and a hard row up ahead, so we can act like an empire in decline and sit around moaning and being afraid, or we can get smart and try to figure out how to survive as a non-super-power.

In the meantime, yep, it's still a lot easier to get by here than it is in most parts of the world.

we can retrench and have a descent standard of living... see England... or we can try to hold to it by hook or crook, and not have a good standard and it will still go down... lemme see, Spain and yes the USSR come to mind.

After the last couple of days?

Not that I think things are so bad there, but I seem to recall you posting about how you understood the need for the riots. Whatever.

I just happen to get it WHY THEY HAPPEN. Can you understand the difference?

And yes ENGLAND... when the Empire went down. Been a few decades.'

If you want to understand just how much that SOCIAL CONTRACT started to be violated there under Thatcher and her under Reagan... here is a book... perhaps some reading would be good

Ill fares the land

http://www.amazon.com/Ill-Fares-Land-Tony-Judt/dp/1594202761

Now it is really a cheap shot to keep saying that a person is in favor of a riot because they understand WHY they happen.

It is a logic Fallacy called poisoning the well.

Now have a good day, life what have you.

Jaysus, this place is incredible at times. I guess I have added fans now.

many of the kids who come here for university are going home now, instead of staying. The reason those kids are going back is that no future is seen here anymore.

And believe it or not, people crossing the borders illegally from places like Mexico is actually down.

despite Ireland's severe economic crunch.

You and I know that though.

:hi:

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Have a good life... do whatever you want... fuck it.

Fuck it.

we've had more than 50 years of it out in the open --

I wish we could find a way to simply use our intelligence to destroy corporations --

acting together -- I will keep hoping!

HOWEVER, certainly since the time of Pat Buchahan/GE and the permission he was given

to be aggressive -- sexist, racist and homophobic out in the open -- the rise of rw

radio and its insanities --

and now the RW Koch Bros. funded T-baggers, I can only see it as a further push by the

right to create a more aggressive and violent political arena.


Patriarchy and violence are mirror images of one another --