"We are up against an empire which will not go quietly. They never do, but they can be beaten."

[Better Believe It]

Weekend Edition
August 13 - 15, 2010

Public Theft and the Decline of Empire
America on the Precipice
By MARGARET KIMBERLEY

Americans are a people living on the precipice of economic disaster, both as individuals and as a group. The continued precariousness of their situation is a direct result of government connivance in stripping them of public assets and the distribution of those assets to the corporate sector. Retired public employees are literally having money they earned stolen from them. Children are losing days in public schools and counties are eliminating public transportation because political leaders are firmly committed to expanding empire abroad, assisting rapacious individuals and corporations at home and keeping workers and people of color in their place.

All of these examples of public theft mean that America’s demise is real and becoming more and more obvious by the day. It is no longer a subject of conjecture among a small group of well informed people. When the state of Hawaii reduces the number of days students will attend public school and Utah proposes eliminating the 12th grade altogether, the destruction of our society is plain for all to see.

The American empire has reached its military apex, with troops stationed in more than 100 countries, and two wars of occupation which have lasted for more than eight years. The height of brute force brings with it the nadir of support for human needs. The two conditions go hand in hand. It is impossible to sustain military spending which exceeds that of every other country on earth combined, without also stealing from the public.

It is truly chilling to contemplate the various ways in which our lives can worsen. Debtors prisons have returned, in the form of greedy lenders taking debtors to court and jailing those who don’t realize the importance of showing up. Questionable loans are bought and sold to squeeze the last dime out of working people unaware that there are statutes of limitation on debt collection.

The first step in fighting back against this onslaught is the realization that America is A, an empire, and B, on the downward slope of something bigger than a U or V shaped recession. We aren’t fighting just against Republicans and Democrats won’t save us unless forced to do so. The contradictions inherent in our system have finally finished it off and we are all caught in its death throes. When we organize it must be because we realize the enormity of our situation. Yes, we must fight against gentrification and war and we must fight for environmental sustainability. Yet none of those desired outcomes will ever come to pass unless we know precisely what we are up against.

We are up against an empire which like its predecessors will not go quietly. They never do, but they can be beaten and real civilization can be saved if we acknowledge who and what we are fighting.

Please read the full article at:

http://www.counterpunch.org/kimberley08132010.html

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. That IS saying it like it is.

Recommended, highly...

[Zorra]

2. K&R

[zeemike]

3. I think it is the fall of empire.

And for the same reason that all empires fail, greed, corruption and violence....and they develop in that same order.

[AikidoSoul]

77. Organized greed always defeats disorganized democracy.

Which is a quote from a recent Rolling Stone article on Goldman Sachs. I do believe it's true and have become cynical.

[me b zola]

4. Not that long of an article, but it is very good

As long as we put band-aids on the cancer afflicting US, we are aiding allowing our own demise to come upon US.

Recommended. :thumbsup:

[VioletLake]

5. The truth doesn't take up a lot of space. n/t

[Donnachaidh]

6. kick and Rec! n/t

[Odin2005]

7. K&R

[RKP5637]

8. Great Article! One small error, I believe Colorado Springs is turning off its street lights not

Boulder, Colorado.

Not many empires go on forever. IMO America has been working on Empire building since WWII. It takes a lot of cash to prop this MIC nonsense up across the world, and the profiteers make out quite well, not the majority of the citizens. Ike had it absolutely correct many decades ago.

You also can't run a country of prosperity for all with a concentration of most of the wealth of the country in about 2% of the population. We are out of control and in free fall IMO.

[Better Believe It]

9. Eisenhower's warning.

Military-Industrial Complex Speech, Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1961
Excerpt

My fellow Americans:

Three days from now, after half a century in the service of our country, I shall lay down the responsibilities of office as, in traditional and solemn ceremony, the authority of the Presidency is vested in my successor.

This evening I come to you with a message of leave-taking and farewell, and to share a few final thoughts with you, my countrymen.

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

[RKP5637]

11. Yep, and that was from, of course, a five star general. He was so correct then and

certainly is today too, now more than ever.

[defendandprotect]

45. WWII never really ended ... fascism was simply taken underground while above ground...i.e.,

"Operation Paperclip" by Allen Dulles --

Dulles used Nazis to found CIA and funneled them into FBI and other government

agencies - including NASA, of course --

We should also understand, that the GOP-Watergate thinking and practices haven't ended,

either!

We also have to understand the role of the Clinton's and Gore in all of this --

and the DLC a cancer eating away at the Democratic Party!

[RKP5637]

50. There is so much going on that most Americas don't seem to get IMO. n/t

[defendandprotect]

54. After FDR and WWII, Americans had immense trust in their government .... it's dying slowly!!

[begin_within]

10. And it's all by design, over a period of the last 30 years

America was once a respectable nation with a strong and thriving middle class. Starting with Reagan and his stupid tax cuts, America has been systematically turned into a third-world country ruled by a tiny class of plutocrats. The public trust has been siphoned off, sold to the highest bidder, or otherwise trashed. It is piracy, though in a legalized form.

[defendandprotect]

44. JFK assassination was a coup on people's government .... and "prologue" ....

[mmonk]

12. Excellent.

I have a piece in its final stages on how close we are to collapse for posting tomorrow.

[sam kane]

13. Well put. nt.

[phasma ex machina]

14. Re: "Republicans and Democrats won’t save us unless forced to do so."

Politicians will nothing to prevent an impending crisis. Afterwards they will form a committee to pick a mutually acceptable scapegoat. It's been that way since Leviticus.

[dgibby]

17. I think that's already happening.

Repubs have the poor, minorities, undocumented immigrants,and the Left. The Dems have the "Professional Left". Looks to me like they've got it pretty much covered.

[earth mom]

15. The past 10 years have been hell. Hope & Change are a total joke.

The joke is on us ya'll because not only have we been lied to and cheated out of our tax dollars, but those BP bastards have killed a giant body of water, untold amounts of wildlife and have shortened the lives of millions of people who live in the gulf, while the government stands quietly by. Oh and don't forget they are also coming to take our Social Security away too-got to make sure that we're eating cat food in our old age!

But the real kicker is that they have THE UNMITIGATED GALL to tell us that it's all good, go ahead and swim in the poisoned water and eat the poisoned fish! WTF!

They must think we are as dumb as a box of rocks! Everyone knows that CRUDE OIL IS POISONOUS!!!


Wake up America before it's too late!

[TBF]

16. Highly recommended.

"When we organize it must be because we realize the enormity of our situation"

Capitalism failed. Now we plan what to do next.

[socialist_n_TN]

53. I was going to say America is only the spear head............

International capitalism is the spear. That's why it needs to be a worldwide movement like the socialists in the 19th and 20th centuries envisioned.

[TBF]

66. Bingo -

and we only need to look as far as Greece to get started.

Here's an interesting link -- http://cedarlounge.wordpress.com/2010/05/14/kke-statement-ahead-of-national-rally-may-15th/

[defendandprotect]

55. Well ....

saying that capitalism "failed" isn't exactly clear --

Capialism is a sytem intended to move the wealth and natural resources of a nation

from the many to the few.

Unregulated capitalism is merely organized crime --

This is criminal corruption -- not failure.

[TBF]

65. It's very successful for the top 1% -

that's for sure. The rest of us not so much.

[dgibby]

18. I couldn't agree more.

The only thing she didn't cover is climate change, the rise of the radical religious right, and Citizen's United, which has effectively disenfranchised every voter in the country.

The oncoming economic collapse/fall of the Empire is going to make what's happening today look like a Sunday School Picnic by comparison, and there's not a damn thing we can do about it,imo.

[mikehiggins]

26. Climate change is the killer of course

Here is something that is, by this point, totally beyond any possibility of recovery. The only real issue remaining is who will survive (i.e. the rich and their flunkies) and those who are much more at question (i.e. the rest of us).

Sounds like a scenario out of a bad sci-fi flick. The world as we know it is shifting into a new form and nobody knows what the final result will look like (though SOYLENT GREEN seems suited to a GOPuke view). Ironically, we will be the nation which suffers the most, since we are nominally the most advanced. Disastrous weather changes are nothing new to the denizens of BanglaDesh, etc. They really aren't likely to bemoan the loss of their ability to play HALO on line.

[RKP5637]

56. I think it's just around the corner. Often I feel like we're riding along in a

slow motion train wreck. Everything's being propped up for an encore. Here's an interesting article if you've not seen it... "The Buyout of America" http://dollarsandsense.org/blog/2010/08/the-buyout-of-america-how-private-equity-will-cause-the-next-great-credit-crisis-by-josh-kosman.html

[blindpig]

19. Just call it Capitalism

I like brevity.

[Usrename]

21. Call it whatever you like.

As long as you are clear that communism offers no guarantee against this kind of societal self destruction.

[blindpig]

22. Nothing is guaranteed..

however, Capitalism is clearly detrimental to the lives of the majority and to the biosphere. Communism has yet to have been achieved anywhere, stillborn in the Soviet Union, a work in progress in Cuba.

Capitalism is a clear loser, I'll take my chances elsewhere, survival demands it.

[Usrename]

23. Cuba is clearly on a more sustainable path than we are on.

But benevolent dictators are the exception to the rule. We need something a little more foolproof since it seems we are as likely to have an idiot in charge as we are a scholar.

[blindpig]

28. Who said anything about a dictator?

Who said Cuba was a dictatorship?

[Usrename]

42. Sorry dude, I meant president for life.

:eyes:

[tomp]

27. wow, communism is no guarantee!

interesting that you jump straight there.

as if anti-empire and communism were synonymous.

there are very few guarantees in life, but here's one: imperialism leads to disaster.

at this moment no one is certain of the exact answer to the problem of imperialism,
but it certainly lies in a socialistic direction, i.e., in the elimination of the vast disparities
of wealth distribution inherent in capitalism and imperialism.

[Usrename]

41. Sure, we do need to solve the wealth disparity.

The question then becomes how can that be accomplished? If I were going to try and crack that nut my first step would be to figure out how much wealth people have. I really wouldn't be all that surprised if I found out that some socialist and communist countries have people in them that are every bit as wealthy as the wealthiest Americans. But I don't think anyone really knows the answer to that question and most of the anti-Capitalists that I talk to don't really seem to care.

I believe that if we move to a system where wealth is taxed instead of labor, then this one change could do more than anything else to narrow the gap between rich and poor. And I don't really give a hoot if it's done under capitalism or socialism or communism. The whole anti-Capitalism argument just misses the target completely.

[defendandprotect]

47. Uninvent the dollar . . . run that thru your mind . . . Native Americans had socially responsible

government --

It was neither communism nor capitalism --

which actually have little to do with socially responsibile government!

First way to begin is to return to all rules and regulation of NEW DEAL on capitalism --

Restore all of the NEW DEAL programs in their original form --

End the trade agreements --

Overturn both Reagan and Bush tax cuts for the wealthy --

Restore Fairness in Broadcasting Act -- which Nixon began working on understanding how

important it was to halting fascism -- and the rw is still working on destroying any hint

of a free press.


THEN ... you have a beginning --

[socialist_n_TN]

58. Anti capitalists don't care because it doesn't

matter. It's getting to the point that SOMETHING (almost anything) else needs to be tried.

BTW, it would be interesting to see how successful communism/socialism is when it's not IMMEDIATELY put on a war footing by the capitalists. It's never had a chance to actually DEVELOPE without having to immediately go to war just to survive.

[tomp]

75. agreed ++++. nt

[tomp]

63. misses the target completely?

by my lights you still haven't explained how.

there may be other things to be anti-, but capitalism is surely one of them.

[Usrename]

69. If by capitalism you mean corrupt business and government,

then sure, let's be anti-capitalist. But if you mean that capitalism is private ownership as opposed to government ownership and that government ownership is inherently superior, then make your case. Corruption can (and alway does) exist in either system.

My preference is for a mixed economy with some sectors being privately owned and others being publicly owned, so I wouldn't consider myself to be anti-capitalist except under a very narrow definition (which is now accepted as the norm in most dictionaries) where capitalism is dependent on free markets. I am, always have been, and always will be, stridently against free markets.

Free market theory (Friedmanism) ranks up there with intellegent design in the stupidest theory contest.

[socialist_n_TN]

70. Yeah, but as I've said ad nauseaum on here...........

You can claim what we have is NOT capitalism all you want. You can call it corporatism, free market facsism, etc. and IT DOES NOT MATTER. It's called "capitalism" by it's present day adherents, ergo what we have today is what capitalim IS.

From a leftist perspective, you can argue that what we have is what capitalism ALWAYS winds up being (my personal view), but NEITHER argument means anything other than as an academic exercise. In practical, de facto terms free market capitalism is what capitalism IS because free market capitalism is what will be put into place as POLICY if today's capitalist supporters get into power. Or maybe I should say, stay in power.

If you're against free market capitalism, you ARE an anticapitalist according to the current versions of the capitalists.

[Usrename]

72. To be fair, let's look at what you are asserting.

Using YOUR construction of soci-economic systems, I could claim that Pol Pot,s regime is the ultimate expression of socialism.

Correct?

Neither of these views is correct. But I agree that our language is corrupted.

The prophet Orwell saw this coming and wrote and lectured about it.

[tomp]

71. so what we're seeing is just a corruption of capitalism?

pure capitalism is where it's at.

do you disagree with marx on the inherent theft of value from the worker by the capitalist?

[Usrename]

73. I disagree with some of the language.

First of all, I believe a person's labor belongs to them and they have the right to dispose of it any way they see fit, including selling it on the open market. I don't believe a person's labor belongs to the public or to the state.

Forced labor is a criminal corruption of any of the various systems of government or economics that are being discussed here in this specific conversation, although I do recognize that some countries have been founded in slavery, but that isn't what this specific conversation is about.

The way I look at it, asking whether or not Marx was right is sort of like asking whether or not Newton was right. Of course they were both right, but Newton doesn't really speak to the subject of relativity and Marx doesn't really speak to the subject of globalization.

[tomp]

74. "....and Marx doesn't really speak to the subject of globalization."

perhaps not, but lenin does.

the soviet union was likely only the first round in attempts to control capitalism and its inevitable growth into imperialism. i for one would be happy to learn from the mistakes of those initial attempts. but the merciless suppression of the old guard was not one of those mistakes. this can be seen everyday for the last century in how industrial and finance capitalists operate. these people will not stop until they control every bit of value in the world, until there is no world left. they have and will mercilessly roll over anyone and anything in search of profit.

if you can't see globalization as part and parcel of imperialism, we should just stop now.

i agree that people should be able to use their labor in their own self-determined best interests EXECPT if it is detrimental to society as a whole. therein lies another debate.

[Usrename]

79. I think globalization is more technology driven.

I think it is the natural outcome of satelite communication and computerized currency.

Or, I guess capitalism could be cause behind it all, but you'd have explain to me how you think that could be.

We do have a lot of problems, and it would great to find a single cause for all our woes, but I don't agree that capitalism is the real culprit here. It was great when we could just blame everything on the BFEE, but since Obama is in there now it seems people are going out of their way to find some other culprit. I think the same people are still running things. The shadow government or whatever you want to call it. And this isn't just wild, unsubstantiated speculation. Otto Reich's fingerprint are all over Honduras, for example.

[defendandprotect]

46. As George Orwell said... "communism or capitalism -- a pox on both their houses" --- !!!

However, we do all understand the need for a socially responsible government --

economic democracy -- and we don't need a "label" of any kind to proceed.

Use trading, use seashells -- whatever --

Capitalism has only been in play in our economies a few hundreds of years!

[Usrename]

60. Exactly. I think the prophet Orwell got this right too.

Good governance is not dependent on an idea as shallow as eliminating capitalism. Whether the means of production is in government hands or in private hands we still need to find a way for the voice of the people to prevail. Failing this, nothing else matters, does it?

[defendandprotect]

64. ... the voice of the people must prevail . . . AGREE ...!!

[tomp]

76. the problem is how.

the voice of the people has been quashed by capital.

do you have a way to undo that suppressive mechanism?

[L0oniX]

30. It's CRAPITALISM!

[L0oniX]

31. .

[blindpig]

34. That's fine....

as long as yer not qualifying it, as per 'corporate capitalism' or 'disaster capitalism', the implication being that there is some sort of capitalism which is not odious. It's all Capitalism.

[Usrename]

20. The ones we are fighting will not stop.

And they will not police themselves.

They don't even know why they should.

I harbor no doubt at all that once the cost/benefit analysis reveals that profits can be extracted from all-out nuclear confrontation that this will become our reality. They will kill us all if they are not stopped, that should be clear to everyone by now.

[txlibdem]

25. +1

Right on all counts.

[defendandprotect]

48. Agree with your diagnosis . . . elites are in the main suicidal . . .

and so is their economic system -- capitalism.

[RKP5637]

59. That's what I think too. It's all about profit and the hell with the citizens. That certainly

makes for a wonderful country. I would hope by now most citizens have come to realize the majority of the citizens have been pushed to the lowest rungs of the ladder.

[maryf]

24. better believe it posts truth

K&R

[Greyhound]

29. "...if we acknowledge who and what we are fighting."

I'm not seeing this happening. The mechanisms of misdirection and distraction are in place and working beautifully.

We've got millions of people blaming everyone from the Communists, to the militias, and always "the government", but hardly any (outside this and other BBS) talking about the real parasites that have sucked this nation dry.
:kick: & R

[LWolf]

32. They will go, quietly or not.

The only real question is what they will leave behind them.

[L0oniX]

33. The way over board military spending is our enemy.

Russia spent 50 billion this year. WTF are we spending over a trillion this year?

[defendandprotect]

49. Military Industrial Intelligence Complex self-recreating . . . just like our prisons ....

and corrupt judges who feed Americans into it --

Corporatism is fascism --

[FlyByNight]

35. Current military posture is unsustainable

The sooner the US drastically slashes the Pentagon budget the better off we'll be. (And commits fully to green-tech, strips corporations of personhood, restores habeas corpus, repeals the goddamn Patriot Act, legalizes pot, implements single payer, etc., etc., etc.)

Then again, the Pentagon simply doesn't care about "sustainability". They just want to dominate the world in the name of US-based corporations and remain employed.

I fear the current DLC-friendly administration feels the current military posture is just fine. This White House does not like seriously rocking the boat. I'm afraid we're just going to go the way of Rome.

:scared:

[upi402]

36. It's corporatism, no longer capitalism

We are a government captured by money elites - an oligarchy. Different than the Medici family of Italy. The un-investigated criminal acts of our modern oligarchs make it a crime family. But with the rule of law suspended, they are not criminals, but free to run our 'facade democracy'.

[Better Believe It]

38. The capitalists secured control of the government after the civil war. What's changed?

That's what the civil war was about. The triumph of private capital base opon wage labor over an economic system based upon human slavery.

[defendandprotect]

51. Sad but unarguable truth --

not that I know as much about that period and what actually went down --

but rather than ending slavery we had another 100 years of semi-slavery under

Segregation, Inc.

We've also never dealt with the violence of a few among us, either --

It's the only way the right wing can rise -- political violence, stolen elections,

lies, deceptive propaganda --

[Odin2005]

61. Corporatism is Capitalism as it really exists.

To make a distinction between the two is to fall for the same false belief held by Right-Libertarians, that the ideal "Capitalism" in their heads can exist in the real world.

[femrap]

37. k and r

That's some Truth for you.

[JohnyCanuck]

39. Things do fall apart. Empires end, countries collapse, expectations decline.

Things fall apart - slowly
by Sharon Astyk

snip

I realize that probably a majority of readers (maybe not of my readership, though) will be skeptical of the idea of decline and fall happening in their world, of America and other Global North countries having to give up on basic assumptions. It will get better - we are told - in 2013 or 2014 or eventually, because it has to - we aren't remotely prepared for the alternative. And yet things do fall apart. Empires end, countries collapse, expectations decline.

As I wrote in an essay about what collapse actually is some months ago, collapse happens quite a lot actually, and what kind of collapse you have matters a lot:

When societies have collapsed, what actually happened? How bad is it? Are there ways of reducing the badness? While historic events can't give a totally accurate picture of the future, they can at least give us some ground to stand on.

When looked at this way, "collapse" is actually an extremely common phenomenon in nations and societies - societies rise to a particular level of function, they run into hard limits, often ecological limits, as documented by, among others, Jared Diamond in -Collapse: How Societies Choose to Succeed or Fail_, and Joseph Tainter in _The Collapse of Complex Systems_, and they fall to a much lower level of functioning. How low is up for grabs, and depends on the kind of response the society makes. At times this level can be extremely low - there's Easter Island for example. More recently several Rwanda and Burundi have several times in my lifetime collapsed into untenable violence and endless civil war, with horrifyingly bloody consequences for the people, ones that don't look that far off of Mad Max.

On the other hand, we could look at the most recent society that has collapsed - Iceland. In 2008 and into 2009, Iceland which had become enormously wealth and prosperous underwent an economic collapse, the effects of which are still playing out. The banking collapse in Iceland was the largest ever suffered, relative to the nation's size, in economic history.

snip

The central project, in a collapsing society is to make sure your collapse is as good and mild a collapse as possible. But this is only possible when you have to come to the point of admitting that you are falling apart, and that the project is no longer to keep it together, but to mitigate the experience of collapse. Until we can stop pretending we are not falling slowly towards disaster, we cannot begin to do what is most needed - have an honest conversation about what resources we have and what we can and can't actually achieve.

http://www.energybulletin.net/node/53784

[Odin2005]

62. Hypercoherence.

Hypercoherence is a state in which a system is so highly integrated that any jolt to it causes it to come crashing down, there is no compartmentalization to stop the initial problem from overwhelming the system. This is the problem we face with Climate Change and Peak Oil. The most stable systems are those that are composed of several semi-autonomous, partially self-sufficient subunits and there is a great degree of redundancy; this is the way organisms, ecosystems, and Gaia as a whole works. Our society has broken down the walls of the subunits and removed the redundancy, both in the name of "efficiency", this is extremely dangerous.

[purgetheGOPforever]

40. Ominous thoughts about a right wing return to power

We know that the ultra right republicans will not fix this economy. In fact it is exactly their policies that have created the disaster we find ourselves in. So if they do manage to garner enough votes to return to a majority, and they fail at reviving the economy, as they certainly will do. What will their options be then? Most certainly, the apparatus of a police state would be quite useful to them. Blackwater private police patrolling areas of unrest could be pictured. Perhaps they will start disappearing people. This is what most right wing governments do when faced with rising unrest. And lo and behold, this is EXACTLY the time that right wingers are pushing for more police powers to profile "illegal aliens". They are pushing it in Arizona and they want to push it in all 50 states. I have always thought this could be a trojan horse of installing a gestapo like wing of the future ultra right wing government, one that can be used against ANYONE who opposes them. This is a dangerous time we are living in. Most fascist regimes have come into power during times of extreme economic crises. The same thing could be happening right in front of us.

[Quantess]

68. Welcome to DU!

[defendandprotect]

43. Great post ... and exactly true, with one exception ... Global Warming

and pollution of the planet ---

Which on their own should have created an immense urgency and push by the public

for a turn around from capitalism and its exploitations of nature, animal-life and

human beings.

[WillyT]

52. Too Late To Recommend, But NOT Too Late To Kick !!!

:kick:

:kick:

:kick:

[defendandprotect]

57. Late K&R --

[Better Believe It]

67. For Sunday DU'ers

[JNelson6563]

78. Yeah but here's the snag

It takes a long time and a lot of misery to put an end to an empire. Like longer than 10 minutes or a campaign season.

It will happen, this is certain. When? How? How bad will it be? I don't know the answers but my guess is that no one will like the answers.

Julie

[Laughing Mirror]

80. The marvelous Margaret Kimberley always cuts straight to the quick

A writer after my own heart.

Haven't seen her around in awhile. Glad to see so many positive responses and recommendations.

[JoseGaspar]

81. The greatest contribution of this article is in referring to...

..."the Empire" in the third person. Step one is to lose this "we did this" and "we voted for that" delusion. Gotta stop blaming the victims and recognize reality for what it is.


When the barbarians finally took Rome, the majority of the city poured out to greet them as liberators.