How Is America Going To End?

[elganned]

Yes, survived by correcting the errors with the likes of Reagan.

...whose economic policies, expanded under Kings George I and II, laid the solid foundation for our current economic catastrophe.

God save us from any more such "corrections".

[elganned]

elganned, You are totally correct. I meant the Ottoman Empire which shrunk to modern day Turkey. Come to think of it, Sweden also had a small empire it lost without being invaded and conquered. [[more hope) When our dollar collapses, our economic empire will collapse with it. This will mean our military will take a funding hit but maybe not as much as our social programs. Our geography will protect us from invasion and we will still be an important regional player. We will, like Turkey, survive.

Great Britain also had an empire which is now gone, but that may not be a bad thing--for Great Britain or the world.

Also you fail to mention that the Ottoman Empire was on the losing side in WWI, which precipitated its dismemberment. Not exactly "over run and conquered", but not a minor factor.

It didn't just collapse through mismanagement as you imply.

[gazhekwe]

TS Eliot said it best in the Hollow Men [[1925):

This is the way the world ends: This is the way the world ends: Not with a bang but a whimper

[elganned]

"We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown,
Till human voices wake us, and we drown."

[oladub]

Great Britain also had an empire which is now gone, but that may not be a bad thing--for Great Britain or the world.

Also you fail to mention that the Ottoman Empire was on the losing side in WWI, which precipitated its dismemberment. Not exactly "over run and conquered", but not a minor factor.

It didn't just collapse through mismanagement as you imply.

Britain is an excellent example of a collapsing empire. As with the Ottoman's Empire's unravelling, there were other factors contributing to Britain's relative demise including debt and internal politics. In either case, the cost of trying to maintain a military sufficient to control an empire became cost prohibitive as is our effort at attempting to be the policeman of the world. Deciding to be on the wrong side in WWI, or even participate in WWI, was itself a management error for the Ottomans just as Iraq was a Bush error, and the Afghanistan/bombing Pakistan expansion will probably prove to be an Obama error. The Ottoman Empire had been literally loosing ground for a long time prior to WWI anyway. Britain was similarly stuck with a lot of debt after two major wars.

Our country has similarly saddled itself with a mountain of debt; elective wars being only one contributing factor. China, by comparison, is buying up natural resources all over the world to get rid of its surplus dollars before they become worth less. China consequently is ascendent as the US declines.

[elganned]

By and large, a cogent and thoughtful analysis which I agree with in large part.

China's current ascendency in many ways parallels the US path to domination in the 19th and early 20th Century: a huge pool of cheap labor [[China's is native, while ours comprised enormous waves of immigrants) and abundant untapped natural resources. I don't know that I would ascribe it totally to monetary policy, but it is food for thought.

In any case, I don't believe that these factors will result in the "end" of America in the sense that the nation-state will disappear. It will spell the end of the American "empire" in the sense that we will no longer stand astride the world like a colossus, but that in itself may not be a bad thing.

[Lorax]

Yes, survived by correcting the errors with the likes of Reagan.

LOL!!!

Comedy knows no bounds!


Reagan was the error. What followed was a systematic demolition of our constitution, deregulating of our corporations, and the sad decline of any hope of extricating ourselves from the entrenched fascism of the Rethuglican Reich.

[Lorax]

This has already come to pass. Our government is no longer what we had at one time.
This country is slowly being torn from inside out.
The liberals /socialists/communists have infiltrated our educational sytem and brainwashed generations of people to hate this nation.
They side with enemies against our state and fight to keep them free all the while using our own Constitution and laws against us all in order to allow them to continue destroying America.
Welcome to 21st century slavery kids.
This time its not about skin color. This time its about classism and party lines.
All hail King Obama.

LOL!!

What a load of fascist tripe- you need to adjust your tin foil hat, you're picking up the wrong frequency.

It's always been about class warfare, with few exceptions, such as the period of FDR and Truman, both Democrats, when we had progressive leaders who took to heart the best interests of the nation as a whole.

We wouldn't have had a middle class without them or their policies. Rethuglicans have consistently undermined the will of the people with their corporatist bullcrap.

The assault on that middle class has been job 1 for the Rethuglican Reich eversince.

These Bozos writing books on how we need to take degregulation further in order to remove ourselves from the economic situation we find ourselves in are beyond social retardism.

"Morning Blow" with Joe Scarborough today had some dude on who predicted the economic collapse, flogging his new book on the subject. Only about 100 million thinking people predicted the same, and he's telling us we need to start manufacturing things again in order to get people back to work.

Really? Geez, I never though of that. No shyt. But he also felt the need to give corporate America a blank check to run roughshod over those seeking jobs by busting unions, driving down wages to third world levels, and giving all health care over to private enterprise. This is precisely the same fascism being hammered by the Reich for decades now.

I have to assume anyone supporting the Rethuglican stance on health care must be independently wealthy and absolutely pleased with the premiums they pay, and the care they receive. There can be no other answer. All Rethuglicans are rich and privileged, and feel entitled, and therein lies the class warfare.

Not all people are rich, and not all choose to worship CEO's and the obscene money they make, while drinking from the public well. We live in a socialized society, whether the Reich likes it or not. We have socialized government- your police protection, fire protection, schools, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security. We are all taxed for them, and we all benefit from them. A public option in any health care reform is the LEAST we can expect, and really need a single payer system if we are to compete globally in the Reich's much loved private sector.

I've really had it with the constant carping by these enormously wealthy blowhards on the right who really need to live on an island somewhere where they can't have any influence on the bulk of civilized society.

[sturge]

I think it'll either end with mass succession or foreign markets will have bought up the majority of land.

[ccbatson]

Shoot..if foreign ownership spelled the end for the country we would already be done for. Fortunately it has more to do with our constitution/freedom and liberty for individual citizens. This is what Obama and the libs are attacking....if they succeed, that is the end of America.

[elganned]

Well, it didn't succeed when GWB tried it, so I doubt if it will succeed under Obama.

[DetroitDad]

I like Obama, but it would definitely not be good if he failed. Obama has a lot riding on his shoulders, and I'm really not sure it is even possible to fix some of the problems we just hope he will fix. If Obama fails, that would definitely change our outlook on our country. That could easily be compounded with mass hysteria and anger when suburbanites finally realize that the car and industrial model may not be replaced by some super undiscovered fuel, heck, many of them still seem to think we can run everything on "alternative energies" [[solar, wind, hydrogen, and others that aren't happening at the scale needed). This all could get even worse when honest, hard working and God fearing Americans are put out on the streets while they watch the fat cats on Wall Street continue to live relatively comfortably without consequences.

I don't know, but whatever happens, we will surely pull through here in Detroit. We're built Ford tough, heh.

[ccbatson]

I think...and hope, our constitution, democracy and individual spirit will save us at the next 2 elections.

[ejames01]

What country is Obama going to invade first?

How Is America Going To End?


Like Nazi Germany.
We will be saved by the rest of th world from our tyrannical fascist national socialist regime of clowns and czars in charge that are brain washing our young into thinking they are doing they right thing.

[ccbatson]

It is underway...right here, the US...wake up and smell the coffee.