The Cannibalisation of the United States

[EastMed]

Budget Deficit worries?
Meanwhile ... you have a crocked economy with no long-term industrial strategy.
Meanwhile ... you have a dysfuctional financial system that will take you to the cleaners.
Meanwhile ... you have credit rating agencies that threaten to downgrade your debt.
Meanwhile ... your largest corporations do everything in their power to avoid paying their taxes.

In the grip of runaway capitalism? It's worse than that: you appear to have no choice.
So don't worry about the next Presidential election. Your future will not be decided there.
Good luck!

 

[BostonPirate]

My family has been here from the beginning. We were privateers who got letters from the Commonwealth to protect Boston.

We aren't going to be giving up quite as quickly as that.

Thats what you guys do on the other side of the pond isn't it? If we do, who's gonna pull you guys asses out of the sling the next time you fuck shit up and blow each other to bits?

But thanks for the well wishes?

 

[JB3]

My family has been here from the beginning. We were privateers who got letters from the Commonwealth to protect Boston.

We aren't going to be giving up quite as quickly as that.

Thats what you guys do on the other side of the pond isn't it? If we do, who's gonna pull you guys asses out of the sling the next time you fuck shit up and blow each other to bits?

But thanks for the well wishes?

I agree.

It cracks me up that some European is saying this when the EU has been on the verge of collapse for the better part of a year and multiple member nations have pretty much completely given up. We won't give up as quickly or as easily. And we're certainly not going to let ourselves collapse like some European states.

 

[Kulindahr]

Corporations, and the super-wealthy.


Well, Hoover just about set off a revolution. Maybe the Tea Party will pull it off.

 

[BostonPirate]

I feel bad that I came on so strong to medic, because I like his ideas and I respect the things he's shared with us.

Its hard for non americans to understand how entirely sloppy and unruly our politics have always been.

America has been hanging off the precipice in one way or another for over two hundred years, and we always get through the hard times.

I think brits would understand us alot more if they thought of the entire nation as the house of commons.

HA!

 

[MoltenRock III]

America has been hanging off the precipice in one way or another for over two hundred years, and we always get through the hard times.

No, that's false. It only started under Reagan once he took the USA from the biggest creditor nation to the biggest debtor. Ever since then Republicans have damned the torpedos and driven the nation to free fall. The Democratic Presidents have only slowed the rapid descent down a bit.

The USA of the past 30 years if far, far, far, different than the past 225 years.

 

[BostonPirate]

what about the dust bowl? the great depression? The communist threat? the cold war? the civil war? the Spanish American war?

just a few off the top of my head.

This is one of many challenges we have faced and we have always prospered beyond the pitfalls.

 

[MoltenRock III]

what about the dust bowl? the great depression? The communist threat? the cold war? the civil war? the Spanish American war?

just a few off the top of my head.

This is one of many challenges we have faced and we have always prospered beyond the pitfalls.

Every empire has faced threats over their lifespan, and won most of them, that is, until they implode.

America has cheated the guns vs. butter natural law for about 60 years. Those days are rapidly drawing to a close. Much as they did for Britain as their empire collapsed over just a few short years.

Collapse comes much quicker than those on the ground ever predict. After all the downfall of the Soviet Union is another grand example. While they didn't ever cheat the guns vs. butter law, their empire crashed and burned in under what? 3 or 4 years?

 

[BostonPirate]

Every empire has faced threats over their lifespan, and won most of them, that is, until they implode.

America has cheated the guns vs. butter natural law for about 60 years. Those days are rapidly drawing to a close. Much as they did for Britain as their empire collapsed over just a few short years.

Collapse comes much quicker than those on the ground ever predict. After all the downfall of the Soviet Union is another grand example. While they didn't ever cheat the guns vs. butter law, their empire crashed and burned in under what? 3 or 4 years?

don't hold your breath, buddy.

One say we may lose influence, but.... theres still a brittain, theres still an Egypt, theres still a France.

Empires fall but nations continue

 

[MoltenRock III]

don't hold your breath, buddy.

One say we may lose influence, but.... theres still a brittain, theres still an Egypt, theres still a France.

Empires fall but nations continue

Russia still exists. I never said America would cease to be. Simply her empire will. And her importance in the world. *shrug*

All empires end. The Republicans have simply accelerated that outcome by decades.

 

[BostonPirate]

Russia still exists. I never said America would cease to be. Simply her empire will. And her importance in the world. *shrug*

All empires end. The Republicans have simply accelerated that outcome by decades.

thats an opinion you share often that I do not agree with and never will.

While we often agree on the problems before us, I prefer to think that it can be fixed, and you would prefer to believe that america is inherently flawed and damaged,

Its all about what you want the future to look like.

 

[MoltenRock III]

thats an opinion you share often that I do not agree with and never will.

While we often agree on the problems before us, I prefer to think that it can be fixed, and you would prefer to believe that america is inherently flawed and damaged,

Its all about what you want the future to look like.

I never said it's "inherently flawed". But given what I've seen over the past 30 years, her current system is not working.

I see it as you sticking your head in the sand and refusing to acknowledge facts going on right now under your nose. But as you said, we have different opinions. My parents and grandparents who came to this country decades ago are livid by what they see as well.

But hey, someone should stay and fight. It was a difficult decision to look honestly and frankly at my birth country, the USA, and realize it would be better to leave it to stake out a better life somewhere else.

I hope to God I'm wrong and you're right, and the US does a 180 degree turn of what she has been doing over the past 30 years. Time will tell.

 

[JB3]

I never said it's "inherently flawed". But given what I've seen over the past 30 years, her current system is not working.

I see it as you sticking your head in the sand and refusing to acknowledge facts going on right now under your nose. But as you said, we have different opinions. My parents and grandparents who came to this country decades ago are livid by what they see as well.

But hey, someone should stay and fight. It was a difficult decision to look honestly and frankly at my birth country, the USA, and realize it would be better to leave it to stake out a better life somewhere else.

I hope to God I'm wrong and you're right, and the US does a 180 degree turn of what she has been doing over the past 30 years. Time will tell.

If you honestly believe its just the last 30 years then you're not a student of history. Its been building for much, much longer than that, and its a product of both parties.

 

[Kulindahr]

No, that's false. It only started under Reagan once he took the USA from the biggest creditor nation to the biggest debtor. Ever since then Republicans have damned the torpedos and driven the nation to free fall. The Democratic Presidents have only slowed the rapid descent down a bit.

The USA of the past 30 years if far, far, far, different than the past 225 years.

He was talking about more than just finance.

All empires end. The Republicans have simply accelerated that outcome by decades.

Not yet -- but they're working on it.

 

[EastMed]

I should add it gives me no pleasure whatsoever in saying what I posted.

In general, my point is that the nation state has become the play-thing of modern capitalism.
(Though a few countries are managing it better than most).

 

[evanrick]

progressiveness is the only thing that has saved America from its own selfish desires time and time again. once we stop being progressive, we will fall.

the latest example of this is the senate voting to keep billions in tax subsidies intact for big oil.

when americans are paying record high prices for gas, you would think there would be rioting in the streets when big oil gets its way?

Americans are simply too lazy, too apathetic, too misinformed to notice. it doesnt stop with voting for obama.

there are a few liberals fighting to save America, but far too few citizens.

i really believe it will be the younger generation who will eventually bear the burden republicans have wrought. and it will be up to us to take america away from the corporations and give it back to the people.

it will be a thankless job, with those fighting to protect Americas economic and social freedoms alive getting blamed for trying to change things for the better.

we have soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan fighting a faceless nameless opponent in the name of preserving freedom and spreading democracy all the while its being sold to corporate America at home.

 

[palemale]

If you honestly believe its just the last 30 years then you're not a student of history. Its been building for much, much longer than that, and its a product of both parties.

It goes back 35 years. It was under Carter that the country began to unlearn the lessons of history. In the late 19th and 20th Century, beginning with the Progressive Era, Americans began to confront the excesses of capitalsim. Labor unions became powerful forces on behalf of working people and were instrumental in creating a stable, strong middle class. With the New Deal, the government regulated businesses to prevent the boom and bust cycles, and abusive business practices. The civil rights revolution enabled millions of African Americans to begin participating fully in American life, followed by the women's movement. By the sixties and early seventies, the government began to aggressively regulate environmental protections.

Under Carter, the break-up of AT&T, and other moves to deregulate began. It has been all down hill after that.

Incidentally, for those who are triumphalist, the major push to build labor unions came from European immigrants, especially the Irish, followed later by Jews and Italians. Much of the New Deal programs were based on the programs enacted in New York at the behest of the Democratic Party machine in New York City, which was largely an Irish immigrant party, albeit one that incorporated the talent and energy of the newer Jewish and other immigrant groups. It was the communitarian impulses of the Catholic/socialist/Bund, etc, European ideas that fueled the growth of the middle class in this country.

I agree with the EastMed and MRIII that the United States is sliding fast. Our only hope is to aggressively confront the Tea Party/Corporate/Right Wing Republican agenda before they completely destroy the country.

 

[EwanSF]

Thats what you guys do on the other side of the pond isn't it? If we do, who's gonna pull you guys asses out of the sling the next time you fuck shit up and blow each other to bits?

Is that that time we had to fight off the nazi war machine alone for three years while you lazy cunts sat on your arses, scratchin' your balls, wondering whether letting an unambiguously evil force march all over Europe was a good thing? That time? Please man, take off the apple-pie-tinted specs, don't act like you were doing us a favour, you'd have let us fucking rot if the Japanese hadn't attacked.

 

[BostonPirate]

Is that that time we had to fight off the nazi war machine alone for three years while you lazy cunts sat on your arses, scratchin' your balls, wondering whether letting an unambiguously evil force march all over Europe was a good thing? That time? Please man, take off the apple-pie-tinted specs, don't act like you were doing us a favour, you'd have let us fucking rot if the Japanese hadn't attacked.

but we didn't blanche

we didnt let you rot. Capitalism saved your nation from the nazis

live with that.

 

[EwanSF]

No, no, no, no, we're not playing that game sunshine

And anyway, you saved fuck all, you merely accelerated the inevitable. The nazis were overconfidant and over-reaching. The Battle of Britain was where we destroyed any chance of the Germans ever invading Britain. The vast majority of historians agree that operation sealion would have been an unmitigated diaster for the germans without the luftwaffe. Coupled with their failed campaign in the USSR, it would have only been a matter of time before they were defeated.