The Crumbling of the American Empire? - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

Baraka_Guru · 06-10-2010, 11:45 AM

It's been talked/joked about for years, but in thinking of empire recently, and if you add up recent events/evidence, it would appear to me that the idea of America as the undisputed #1 superpower is under threat. There have been a few occurrences that have undermined America's ability to demonstrate its power. These have revealed that the American Empire is fallible.

What I refer to are, namely:

The difficulties with the aftermath of the Second Gulf War (the Occupation of Iraq);
The Sub-prime Mortgage Crisis, and the Great Recession (and the ensuing banking failures);
The obesity epidemic and the perceived helplessness to stop it;
The trending suggesting that China will become the biggest economy in the near future;
The looming energy crisis (and America's dependency on Middle Eastern Oil);
Being at the mercy of the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill;
A growing disparity between the classes;
The upheaval of the political environment (Tea Party Movement, a fracturing Republican party, a listless Democratic party);
The possibility of another social upheaval (the same-sex marriage debate, the abortion debate, the immigration debate; the decriminalization/legalization of marijuana, the future of social programs, etc.); and
The runaway deficit and gargantuan debt load.

These are the recent challenges facing America, and you know what? It looks bleak. I mean, really fucking bleak. Out of everything on this list, it looks like there will be a) failure, b) long-term detrimental effects, c) short-term crises, and d) a nation forever changed, and not necessarily for the better.

I think the American Empire is coming to a point of rapid change, and the nation's ability to weather it will depend on a willingness to accept that things cannot remain the same forever, and that sometimes you have to compromise and sometimes you have to lose. For example, I think the cost of living in America will continue to rise at a pace that will put pressure on what's expected for living "The American Way." This isn't merely because of America itself; it's also because of outside factors.

I think this is a difficult thing for many Americans to accept, and this will only add to the turmoil.

What do you think?

Am I being delusional?
Does this thread belong in Tilted Paranoia?

What are your impressions on this list of items? Can you add more to it? Are they not as serious as I would suggest?

What future do you see for America when you look at the big picture?

Seaver · 06-10-2010, 01:29 PM

I think before anyone says any crap about the American system collapsing they should read Fareed Zakaria "The Post American World".

AUTHOR: Fareed Zakaria

He outlines (VERY VERY well) the problems facing our country, and the international "rise of the rest" which he calls.

I'm not going to do any more... but rent/buy this book and then come back.

Baraka_Guru · 06-10-2010, 01:56 PM

I should clarify, perhaps, in case there is any confusion. I'm not suggesting myself that there will be collapse. That's why I used the word crumbling. I'm suggesting that America cannot maintain its current status (by this I mean internally and compared to the rest of the world) and that major changes are coming.

That looks like an interesting book, however. I can see the point about the "rise of the rest," and that these things are working concurrently.

If everyone else is rising, it will become more difficult for America to maintain its status quo. Just one aspect: where will all the cheap labour go to if everyone else is rising?

Plan9 · 06-10-2010, 02:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Baraka_Guru

* A growing disparity between the classes;

I think this is the biggest issue in our future. Where it came from and how to fix it involve a myriad of items. It was brought up in another recent thread.

Pearl Trade · 06-10-2010, 02:48 PM

Do you think the world's declining view of the U.S. could be added to the list? It seems that more and more people around the world are becomign "anti-American". I would assume it's because of wars in foreign countries with no clear outline.

I still think America is and will be the #1 superpower in the future. All nations have problems, it's just that we have a longer list than we usually do.

"There is nothing wrong with America that can't be fixed with what is right in America."

Seaver · 06-10-2010, 03:41 PM

Quote:

If everyone else is rising, it will become more difficult for America to maintain its status quo. Just one aspect: where will all the cheap labour go to if everyone else is rising?

Read more: http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/tilted-...#ixzz0qUqYdHra

Zackaria actually covers that in the book as well. In (very) short, as the rest rise up, they experience a great deal of social and economic changes. These changes increase the quality of life, and helps balance the trade imbalances naturally... which in turn slows down the rate of increase. This is shown specifically in China today, as it was previously in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea, and Japan. They don't crash to where they once were, but the market forces then turn to investment in new territories but only after the amount of economic growth becomes sustainable on some level on the countries that it was previously at.

Get the book... best non-fiction book I've read in 20 years.

roachboy · 06-11-2010, 06:24 AM

obviously alot depends on your understanding of what the american empire was and what it still in alot of ways is.

we're talking about a gradual process that was put into motion in a significant way via the bretton woods arrangement and which took a more definitive shape as the implications of the end of colonialism and rise of neo-colonialism happened.
it's characteristic form of domination is neo-colonial. control of economies and ideological frames as over against direct occupation.

the ideology of empire was neo-liberalism.
among the effects of neo-liberalism is a pervasive rhetoric of cycles that are modeled on a crude understanding of markets, the kind of nonsense that was already subject to mockery in the middle 19th century but which somehow was repackaged largely by people who were also able to confuse ayn rand with a philosopher (nietzsche for stupid people---i still really like that. anyway) into an internally coherent (if nothing else) ideology which was deployed through the various mechanism of mass opinion co-ordination and became for a while hegemonic.
the language of cycles is the inverse of the language of politics. zackaria from this viewpoint is symptomatic of the crisis of neo-liberalism as an ideology.
which is, i think, one of the main features of the problem of empire.

across all different types of empire (and it seems there are as many types as there are examples, which makes you kinda wonder about the type of name empire is) which collapse or implode a constant feature of the collapse or implosion is a refusal to see collapse or implosion.

there's alot of possibilities here.

powerclown · 06-11-2010, 06:53 AM

Well, if it hasn't already, I await its crumblation with feverish turpitude.

Don't you?

ring · 06-11-2010, 10:30 AM

This bloated arrogant colonialist capitalist pig balloon is ready to pop.

The empire isn't wearing any clothing.

hyperbole this is not.

Wes Mantooth · 06-11-2010, 01:01 PM

We as a nation have to begin understanding that not everything can or needs to stay the same. It seems a large swath of our population not only opposes (most) new ideas/concepts but becomes outright hostile at the very suggestion to a point where nearly everything becomes a massive, drawn out national debate that rages on for decades. Our unwillingness/inability to quickly address and fix issues like those mentioned above is in my opinion what will cause the nation to slowly crumble or lead to outright collapse as a world superpower.

There really is nothing facing us right now that can't be fixed but its going to require us, the population as a whole, to take elections seriously, educate ourselves on the issues we face and be willing to make the sacrifices when needed. What terrifies me is, right now, that seems highly unlikely to happen. I always wonder if our high quality of life has lulled us into a false sense of security.

ring · 06-11-2010, 01:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wes Mantooth

I always wonder if our high quality of life has lulled us into a false sense of security.

Complacency has many faces.

roachboy · 06-13-2010, 06:17 AM

empire was in infrastructure.
empire was in the transparency of infrastructure in the seamlessness of capital and commodity flows. it was amenable to acquiring expression through any number of local modalities, "lifestyles" or class positions or odd combinations of both
all articulated through the continuous waking dream of a mass-mediatic real-time opinion co-ordination and the particular sense of being present or part-of that real-time opinion co-ordination bring along with it.

this co-ordination is the condition of possibility for all forms of modern domination. that the americans fashioned for themselves a neo-colonial form of it is not surprising---why bother with direct physical domination when you get get people to dominate themselves? and if you want people to dominate themselves, what better way than to colonize their dreams? and if you want to colonize people's dreamings what better way than a barrage of images seamlessly presented the work of which is done by consumers through the experiences of repetition?

but its a fun domination. and its hard to point at individual elements and say Clearly This is Bad. there's merely more and less entertaining. that sort of thing. and you feel kinda mean for saying stuff about fun domination.

empire was in the seamless of the flows that underpin the coalescing and coming apart that is everybody's everyday experience. it was in the transparency of flows and infrastructure, in the disappearance of domination. it wasnt replaced by anything. and it certainly wasn't somehow no longer a feature of good ole capitalism. the game simply was refigured acquired a new geography and in the metropole people moved in considerable numbers into flow-servicing as a way of life.

inside the empire which was not an empire there was no hegemony and everyone would tell you that in more or less exactly the same way.
inside the empire there was neither information or a lack of information. there was neither democracy or not-democracy. there was uncertainty and withdrawal into private space. inside empire there was a dissolving of organization and an erasure of the public except as an image of glitterati you could be part of from the television cheap seats in the living room of your place.

inside the empire everyone was quite sure in exactly the same way of how terribly terribly free they were and they could tell you that in exactly the same ways at exactly the same times because sentences that told us how terribly terribly free we are circulate as an interior flow within the other flows of commodities available to dream with.

the curious thing is that neo-colonial empire is about control of consent really. power is of course violence but it doesn't correlate to violence---it's the consent that frames it, that makes it not violence or, better, more often, that makes it invisible.

what the bush people brought the american empire was a problem of consent. this problem ran in all directions, but it seems to have become a kind of soft imperial crisis by the end of his second debacle of a term.

but it's all soft crisis in a context of fun domination. freest people to ever freely be free we of course don't think too hard about such debby downer stuff.
there is no crumbling.
there is no empire.

aceventura3 · 06-15-2010, 08:06 AM

Given the recently announced find of over $1 trillion in mineral deposits Afghanistan, perhaps Obama should be given credit for expanding US war efforts for the resources in that country. I think at the very least US companies should be first in-line to "help" Afghanistan develop those resources, what do you think? Taxing those US companies "helping" Afghanistan is one way to address our national debt. And certainly US companies should get the first opportunity to buy those resources at "fair" prices, right?

Certainly we are going to have to maintain our military presence to make sure those resources don't fall into the "wrong" hands, right? Perhaps, we will be there for the next 100 years or at least until Afghanistan needs "help" with those resources. Was this some kinda hidden Obama's global domination plan? Or, was it Bush's? Is Obama a genius who was able to project to the world weakness, while putting in place to structure to "help" Afghanistan develop its newly found national wealth? Have I been under-estimating Obama? Who would have thought 21st century colonialism would occur on his watch.

roachboy · 06-15-2010, 08:13 AM

empires are expensive. they've tended to bankrupt the imperial power. it's happened again and again.

personally i don't think the collapse of empire is a bad thing. i don't see it as a cataclysm. more a gradual slide away from hegemony, a gradual slide out of the illusion that power is transparent. a gradual becoming-austria. so not like rome---no sacking by the barbarians. more like the hapsburgs.

aceventura3 · 06-15-2010, 08:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

empires are expensive. they've tended to bankrupt the imperial power. it's happened again and again.

personally i don't think the collapse of empire is a bad thing. i don't see it as a cataclysm. more a gradual slide away from hegemony, a gradual slide out of the illusion that power is transparent. a gradual becoming-austria. so not like rome---no sacking by the barbarians. more like the hapsburgs.

Specifically what has proved to be expensive was maintaining the military strength needed to control vast empires and inefficient means of exploiting resources to benefit the treasury.

Both of these problems can be solved with 21st century technology. Going along with this line of thought a 21st century empire can and would look very different from one 100/200/300/etc. years ago.

The first step might be to naturalize military threats, like perhaps those that would come from Iraq/Iran/N. Korea. Another step might be economic control through currency and banking systems. And of course you would want a rubber stamping agency like the UN to misdirect the agenda of the controlling country. Wow, perhaps the American empire is strong and getting stronger. Heck even china is subject ot US whims since they hold so much of US debt and are dependent on US consumption.

wing870 · 06-28-2010, 06:44 AM

Whats the old saying "you dont know what you've got till its gone"

Slysylvester · 06-29-2010, 09:03 PM

The American people are complacent. We still believe that those "waves of amber grain" somehow make us superior to everyone else. The US has been blessed with an abundence of natural resources, but our stewardship of these is poor at best. The Gulf oil spill is only the most recent example of this.

We seem to believe that when we deplete a natural resource here at home, we have the right to extract what we need from any country that is militarily weaker than us. We invaded Iraq for its oil, but at a very high cost both in terms of dollars and world goodwill. We cannot afford the mounting costs of continued military incursions without any end in sight.

Americans take democracy for granted. They stay home from elections in droves. We have evolved an electoral system of plutocracy rather than meritocracy. Big business buys itself presidents and congressmen. A glaring example of this is Dick Cheney, former Halliburten CEO. Halliburten grew even fatter, feasting off the Iraq war gravey train without even participating in the bidding process that other contracters must go through by law. The Supreme Court has endorced the corporate stranglehold on our electoral process by ruling that a corporation should be treated as a single individual when it comes to campaign donations.

The US educational system has become frayed at the seams. Young people who can barely read are being given GEDs and high school diplomas. The disparity in public education between children from upper income gated communities and those from lower income neighborhoods continues to grow. There is increasing tax payer resistance towards funding a good education for all children, regardless of the economic status of their parents. The country western song "Only in America" is a typical instance of how we lie to ourselves and proclaim that every US child has an equal chance to make something of their adults lives.

Since the beginning of time empires have arisen only to fall. The US is no exception to the lessons of history. We will fade, not with a bang, but a whimper.

06-10-2010, 11:45 AM	#1 (permalink)
Baraka_Guru warrior bodhisattva Super Moderator Location: East-central Canada	The Crumbling of the American Empire? It's been talked/joked about for years, but in thinking of empire recently, and if you add up recent events/evidence, it would appear to me that the idea of America as the undisputed #1 superpower is under threat. There have been a few occurrences that have undermined America's ability to demonstrate its power. These have revealed that the American Empire is fallible. What I refer to are, namely: The difficulties with the aftermath of the Second Gulf War (the Occupation of Iraq); The Sub-prime Mortgage Crisis, and the Great Recession (and the ensuing banking failures); The obesity epidemic and the perceived helplessness to stop it; The trending suggesting that China will become the biggest economy in the near future; The looming energy crisis (and America's dependency on Middle Eastern Oil); Being at the mercy of the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill; A growing disparity between the classes; The upheaval of the political environment (Tea Party Movement, a fracturing Republican party, a listless Democratic party); The possibility of another social upheaval (the same-sex marriage debate, the abortion debate, the immigration debate; the decriminalization/legalization of marijuana, the future of social programs, etc.); and The runaway deficit and gargantuan debt load. These are the recent challenges facing America, and you know what? It looks bleak. I mean, really fucking bleak. Out of everything on this list, it looks like there will be a) failure, b) long-term detrimental effects, c) short-term crises, and d) a nation forever changed, and not necessarily for the better. I think the American Empire is coming to a point of rapid change, and the nation's ability to weather it will depend on a willingness to accept that things cannot remain the same forever, and that sometimes you have to compromise and sometimes you have to lose. For example, I think the cost of living in America will continue to rise at a pace that will put pressure on what's expected for living "The American Way." This isn't merely because of America itself; it's also because of outside factors. I think this is a difficult thing for many Americans to accept, and this will only add to the turmoil. What do you think? Am I being delusional? Does this thread belong in Tilted Paranoia? What are your impressions on this list of items? Can you add more to it? Are they not as serious as I would suggest? What future do you see for America when you look at the big picture? __________________ Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing? —Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön Humankind cannot bear very much reality. —From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot Last edited by Baraka_Guru; 06-10-2010 at 11:47 AM..

06-10-2010, 01:29 PM	#2 (permalink)
Seaver Junkie Location: Fort Worth, TX	I think before anyone says any crap about the American system collapsing they should read Fareed Zakaria "The Post American World". AUTHOR: Fareed Zakaria He outlines (VERY VERY well) the problems facing our country, and the international "rise of the rest" which he calls. I'm not going to do any more... but rent/buy this book and then come back. __________________ "Smite the rocks with the rod of knowledge, and fountains of unstinted wealth will gush forth." - Ashbel Smith as he laid the first cornerstone of the University of Texas

06-10-2010, 01:56 PM	#3 (permalink)
Baraka_Guru warrior bodhisattva Super Moderator Location: East-central Canada	I should clarify, perhaps, in case there is any confusion. I'm not suggesting myself that there will be collapse. That's why I used the word crumbling. I'm suggesting that America cannot maintain its current status (by this I mean internally and compared to the rest of the world) and that major changes are coming. That looks like an interesting book, however. I can see the point about the "rise of the rest," and that these things are working concurrently. If everyone else is rising, it will become more difficult for America to maintain its status quo. Just one aspect: where will all the cheap labour go to if everyone else is rising? __________________ Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing? —Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön Humankind cannot bear very much reality. —From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

06-10-2010, 02:48 PM	#5 (permalink)
Pearl Trade Addict Location: Houston, Texas	Do you think the world's declining view of the U.S. could be added to the list? It seems that more and more people around the world are becomign "anti-American". I would assume it's because of wars in foreign countries with no clear outline. I still think America is and will be the #1 superpower in the future. All nations have problems, it's just that we have a longer list than we usually do. "There is nothing wrong with America that can't be fixed with what is right in America." __________________ Our revenge will be the laughter of our children. Give me convenience or give me death!

06-11-2010, 06:24 AM	#7 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	obviously alot depends on your understanding of what the american empire was and what it still in alot of ways is. we're talking about a gradual process that was put into motion in a significant way via the bretton woods arrangement and which took a more definitive shape as the implications of the end of colonialism and rise of neo-colonialism happened. it's characteristic form of domination is neo-colonial. control of economies and ideological frames as over against direct occupation. the ideology of empire was neo-liberalism. among the effects of neo-liberalism is a pervasive rhetoric of cycles that are modeled on a crude understanding of markets, the kind of nonsense that was already subject to mockery in the middle 19th century but which somehow was repackaged largely by people who were also able to confuse ayn rand with a philosopher (nietzsche for stupid people---i still really like that. anyway) into an internally coherent (if nothing else) ideology which was deployed through the various mechanism of mass opinion co-ordination and became for a while hegemonic. the language of cycles is the inverse of the language of politics. zackaria from this viewpoint is symptomatic of the crisis of neo-liberalism as an ideology. which is, i think, one of the main features of the problem of empire. across all different types of empire (and it seems there are as many types as there are examples, which makes you kinda wonder about the type of name empire is) which collapse or implode a constant feature of the collapse or implosion is a refusal to see collapse or implosion. there's alot of possibilities here. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

06-11-2010, 06:53 AM	#8 (permalink)
powerclown Junkie Location: Detroit, MI	Well, if it hasn't already, I await its crumblation with feverish turpitude. Don't you?

06-11-2010, 10:30 AM	#9 (permalink)
ring ░ Location: ❤	This bloated arrogant colonialist capitalist pig balloon is ready to pop. The empire isn't wearing any clothing. hyperbole this is not.

06-11-2010, 01:01 PM	#10 (permalink)
Wes Mantooth Junkie Location: Tennessee	We as a nation have to begin understanding that not everything can or needs to stay the same. It seems a large swath of our population not only opposes (most) new ideas/concepts but becomes outright hostile at the very suggestion to a point where nearly everything becomes a massive, drawn out national debate that rages on for decades. Our unwillingness/inability to quickly address and fix issues like those mentioned above is in my opinion what will cause the nation to slowly crumble or lead to outright collapse as a world superpower. There really is nothing facing us right now that can't be fixed but its going to require us, the population as a whole, to take elections seriously, educate ourselves on the issues we face and be willing to make the sacrifices when needed. What terrifies me is, right now, that seems highly unlikely to happen. I always wonder if our high quality of life has lulled us into a false sense of security. __________________ “My god I must have missed it...its hell down here!”

06-13-2010, 06:17 AM	#12 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	empire was in infrastructure. empire was in the transparency of infrastructure in the seamlessness of capital and commodity flows. it was amenable to acquiring expression through any number of local modalities, "lifestyles" or class positions or odd combinations of both all articulated through the continuous waking dream of a mass-mediatic real-time opinion co-ordination and the particular sense of being present or part-of that real-time opinion co-ordination bring along with it. this co-ordination is the condition of possibility for all forms of modern domination. that the americans fashioned for themselves a neo-colonial form of it is not surprising---why bother with direct physical domination when you get get people to dominate themselves? and if you want people to dominate themselves, what better way than to colonize their dreams? and if you want to colonize people's dreamings what better way than a barrage of images seamlessly presented the work of which is done by consumers through the experiences of repetition? but its a fun domination. and its hard to point at individual elements and say Clearly This is Bad. there's merely more and less entertaining. that sort of thing. and you feel kinda mean for saying stuff about fun domination. empire was in the seamless of the flows that underpin the coalescing and coming apart that is everybody's everyday experience. it was in the transparency of flows and infrastructure, in the disappearance of domination. it wasnt replaced by anything. and it certainly wasn't somehow no longer a feature of good ole capitalism. the game simply was refigured acquired a new geography and in the metropole people moved in considerable numbers into flow-servicing as a way of life. inside the empire which was not an empire there was no hegemony and everyone would tell you that in more or less exactly the same way. inside the empire there was neither information or a lack of information. there was neither democracy or not-democracy. there was uncertainty and withdrawal into private space. inside empire there was a dissolving of organization and an erasure of the public except as an image of glitterati you could be part of from the television cheap seats in the living room of your place. inside the empire everyone was quite sure in exactly the same way of how terribly terribly free they were and they could tell you that in exactly the same ways at exactly the same times because sentences that told us how terribly terribly free we are circulate as an interior flow within the other flows of commodities available to dream with. the curious thing is that neo-colonial empire is about control of consent really. power is of course violence but it doesn't correlate to violence---it's the consent that frames it, that makes it not violence or, better, more often, that makes it invisible. what the bush people brought the american empire was a problem of consent. this problem ran in all directions, but it seems to have become a kind of soft imperial crisis by the end of his second debacle of a term. but it's all soft crisis in a context of fun domination. freest people to ever freely be free we of course don't think too hard about such debby downer stuff. there is no crumbling. there is no empire. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite Last edited by roachboy; 06-13-2010 at 06:23 AM..

06-15-2010, 08:06 AM	#13 (permalink)
aceventura3 Junkie Location: Ventura County	Given the recently announced find of over $1 trillion in mineral deposits Afghanistan, perhaps Obama should be given credit for expanding US war efforts for the resources in that country. I think at the very least US companies should be first in-line to "help" Afghanistan develop those resources, what do you think? Taxing those US companies "helping" Afghanistan is one way to address our national debt. And certainly US companies should get the first opportunity to buy those resources at "fair" prices, right? Certainly we are going to have to maintain our military presence to make sure those resources don't fall into the "wrong" hands, right? Perhaps, we will be there for the next 100 years or at least until Afghanistan needs "help" with those resources. Was this some kinda hidden Obama's global domination plan? Or, was it Bush's? Is Obama a genius who was able to project to the world weakness, while putting in place to structure to "help" Afghanistan develop its newly found national wealth? Have I been under-estimating Obama? Who would have thought 21st century colonialism would occur on his watch. __________________ "Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch." "It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion." "If you live among wolves you have to act like one." "A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers."

06-15-2010, 08:13 AM	#14 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	empires are expensive. they've tended to bankrupt the imperial power. it's happened again and again. personally i don't think the collapse of empire is a bad thing. i don't see it as a cataclysm. more a gradual slide away from hegemony, a gradual slide out of the illusion that power is transparent. a gradual becoming-austria. so not like rome---no sacking by the barbarians. more like the hapsburgs. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

06-28-2010, 06:44 AM	#16 (permalink)
wing870 Upright	Whats the old saying "you dont know what you've got till its gone"

06-29-2010, 09:03 PM	#17 (permalink)
Slysylvester Upright Location: Colorado	The American people are complacent. We still believe that those "waves of amber grain" somehow make us superior to everyone else. The US has been blessed with an abundence of natural resources, but our stewardship of these is poor at best. The Gulf oil spill is only the most recent example of this. We seem to believe that when we deplete a natural resource here at home, we have the right to extract what we need from any country that is militarily weaker than us. We invaded Iraq for its oil, but at a very high cost both in terms of dollars and world goodwill. We cannot afford the mounting costs of continued military incursions without any end in sight. Americans take democracy for granted. They stay home from elections in droves. We have evolved an electoral system of plutocracy rather than meritocracy. Big business buys itself presidents and congressmen. A glaring example of this is Dick Cheney, former Halliburten CEO. Halliburten grew even fatter, feasting off the Iraq war gravey train without even participating in the bidding process that other contracters must go through by law. The Supreme Court has endorced the corporate stranglehold on our electoral process by ruling that a corporation should be treated as a single individual when it comes to campaign donations. The US educational system has become frayed at the seams. Young people who can barely read are being given GEDs and high school diplomas. The disparity in public education between children from upper income gated communities and those from lower income neighborhoods continues to grow. There is increasing tax payer resistance towards funding a good education for all children, regardless of the economic status of their parents. The country western song "Only in America" is a typical instance of how we lie to ourselves and proclaim that every US child has an equal chance to make something of their adults lives. Since the beginning of time empires have arisen only to fall. The US is no exception to the lessons of history. We will fade, not with a bang, but a whimper.