The Moral and Economic Decay of America: Imperial Entropy

[The2ndWheel]

http://www.counterpunch.org/chuckman09162006.html

The rise now of China, Japan, Europe, and others--India, Korea, and to some extent Russia and Brazil--means the United States must be relatively diminished on the world stage, much as an only child whose mother just gave birth to quintuplets.

The United States is loosing its capacity as supplier of many useful things to the world. This role is being seized by China and others. The American working class, which briefly achieved the status of world's working-class aristocracy after World War II - industrial workers who enjoyed homes, cars, long vacations, and even boats - has seen real wages declining for many years. It works against rising competitors who can now deliver the benefits of their much lower costs to the world owing to the phenomenon of globalization. American manufacturing jobs are moving to the lower-cost places, replaced at home if at all by relatively low-wage service jobs.

The American establishment's vision of the future, implicit in its behavior and policies, has been that traditional manufacturing jobs will pass to developing countries while greater value-added high-tech jobs and intellectual property rights will provide America's economic strength.

[Deja Q]

1. Decades, technically.

The drop has been said to have started around 1973.

The sad part is the 'solution' to making America competitive: Importing people, training them, then shipping them back. This doesn't help America; it's a big ass rind of pork from the bottom of tbe barrel, festering in mold and slime.

[whistle]

2. Jesus Camp can save us!

:sarcasm:

[Joanne98]

3. 1973 the year of the great fuck America conspiracy.

Also the year of the rise of the Religious Right. Just a coinky-dink I'M SURE!

[HysteryDiagnosis]

4. There doesn't seem to be a "U.S." any longer. There only

seems to be a sprig of land upon which the economy dries up when there is no killing going on overseas, 2 million are imprisoned rightly or wrongly, healthcare is sparse, employment is scarce, and fear, booga booga and jingoistic mantras are the phrases that are rewarded, respected and adhered to.

[orpupilofnature57]

5. CEO's making 300x the salary of an average worker ,Investors

that want to live and spend in America, while investing in the rest of the world yielding a 13% rise, compounded in every way. Does that have anything to do with our diminished outlook ?

[tocqueville]

6. one of the most interesting parts of the article :

Going back to the beginning, it can be argued that many parts of the American Constitution - regarded by Americans with a reverence usually reserved for scripture and a document that is close to impossible to change in any meaningful way - are seriously flawed and promote neither responsible government nor democratic principles. The right-wing commentator and think-tank crowd always play up to the quasi-religious notion that the Constitution is the most perfect political document ever conceived. A disgraced, crooked, nasty right-wing politician, Tom DeLay of Texas, always bragged of having a copy folded in his pocket, almost like a priest carrying a bottle of holy water.

The Constitution's flaws leave little optimism for substantial political and policy change in the United States. It's as though all important political institutions were trapped in amber. Without changing the Constitution's flaws, it is hard to see how America's destructive policies at home and abroad can be altered. There are many such flaws, but I'll mention just a few.

One is the Electoral College. Many Americans do not understand that their vote for president technically does not count. The Electoral College, besides being remarkably anti-democratic, promotes corruption in elections with its winner-take-all provision in states. It is amazing that a country more than two centuries old and making great claims for democracy still can't hold honest national elections, both of George Bush's victories, but especially the first, being as dubious as something in an emerging nation.

Another ugly flaw in the Constitution is the power of the Senate. It can veto the more democratic House's legislation. It must approve all major Presidential appointments and treaties. It is a fundamentally anti-democratic institution, for much of American history not being elected at all, but even now being elected in a staggered fashion that insulates its membership from issues of the day. Its internal sixty-percent rule for debate is plainly undemocratic. You only have to look at photos of American Senators to see the swollen, crinkled faces of arrogant (mostly) men, faces of bloated entitlement, grasping power into their seventies and eighties. They resemble the faces of heads of powerful families in the 16th century or, what is almost the same thing, Mafia godfathers. Surprisingly often sons, or other relatives, follow fathers as though they had inherited fiefdoms or money-minting American evangelism ministries.

............................................................

I could add the role of the Supreme Court.