Well, I'm back

[Eric the Green]

(01-25-2018, 08:00 PM)Ragnarök_62 Wrote: Actually, it looks like the US is following the same path the USSR did to the way to
oblivion.

Falling life expectancy, check.
nomenkatura, check.
imperial overstretch, check.
incompetent bureaucracies, check
failing economy, check. It's there, underneath the gilt.  High real unemployment. The headline is fake news.
https://www.thebalance.com/what-is-the-r...te-3306198
I'll give Americans this. We use a wider array of substances to numb out the pains of dispair. The drug problem is an environmental problem, not a moral problem.

More here.
https://www.salon.com/2010/12/06/america_collapse_2025/

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/201107...eats.shtml
https://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/wor...l-spending

I dunno when it will happen, but all empires end.  Besides we'll be colliding with climate change, resource shortages, etc. etc.  Russia got lucky in that they didn't have to experience collisions with some pretty damn big black swans.

Congratulations to our new moderator. I assume your role will not include awarding those birdie trophies?

The USA is in crisis mode, although, being the 1850s redux, the economic recovery seems to cover it up to some extent as it did then, and the full conflict is not yet blazing. But whether the USA is on the way to oblivion won't be clear during the 4T itself. As I pointed out in the post I quoted, it is irrefutable that 4Ts in our cycle have been victorious for the progressive side, and we have moved on to expansion and progress from each 4T we have endured. We are at an early point in the greater world civilization cycle too. All readers of S&H need to keep this in mind. We are not in a mega-unravelling. As I have pointed out multiple times, there is no empirical basis at all for such a judgement, based on what happened during what would be its previous phases. That cycle is bogus; the civilization cycle is well-demonstrated.
http://philosopherswheel.com/fortunes.htm

All empires rise and fall. If we time America according to its full history as a colony of Britain, as well as its history as a republic, it's clear that we are the offshoot of the Renaissance and the Age of Exploration and Colonization. That age ended in circa 1892. So we are in a cycle that is 126 years old, not 240 years old. Our new civilization is still unfolding. European Imperialism, such as it still exists, is a relic of the old Renaissance cycle which has ended. In the 1890s and 1900s, it reached its concluding phases, which rapidly spelled its doom in the following world wars. America had an "empire," but in any official way it ended soon after it began, as the USA soon divested itself of most of its winnings in the 1898 Spanish-American War.

So what then is the "American empire" that is destined to "end?" I wonder what people here think that it is.

I don't think George Bush I's new world order and George Bush II's Project for a New American Century have any legs as sustainable policy. These are flash in the pans of a dying Military Industrial Complex. I don't see this as lasting much longer, and American hegemony, such as it is, has been weak for many years already. We really have multiple centers of power in the world today, and when the USA has tried to dominate and dictate the world's destiny since it defeated the last ghost of European Imperialism in WWII, it has found itself unable to do so. So, the end of the American Empire has come and gone already, and what is necessary now is only for America to realize this fact. Since 1892 the world civilization has dawned, and THAT "empire" will never fall. That is our future forever; the genie can't be put back. All things conspire in favor of globalization (but see qualification below)*. Nationalism and racism are passe. We await our inclusion in the Galactic Federation when we reach maturity as human beings.

So, what about the failed American economy, bureaucracy, life expectancy, etc.? I see these as temporary conditions. We have yet to throw Reaganomics on the scrap heap of history where it belongs. That's what this 4T is mostly about, along with the larger dangers we face if we don't ditch it (climate change, terrorism, etc). Reaganomics, I assert, is the reason for American incompetence today. This is also called neo-liberalism. Free enterprise ideology. In this 4T, the Democrats need to win, or a new progressive movement and the Party it adopts needs to win. There is every precedent that it will win, and we will return to a politics in which mutual contribution to the whole is valued instead of freedom for personal greed. I think it would only take some tax increases, some higher wage minimums and some genuine social and infrastructure programs to remedy all the failings of our economy and government. Throw out neo-liberalism and return to civic responsibility, and STAY THERE; there's no reason the USA can't do this.

*There's also no reason that this return to civic responsibility can't also be applied to our dawning world order and civilization. It does not have to serve a few economic corporate powers, but can be organized to allow all peoples their free place and their prosperity.

Conservatives point to moral decay, to which there is some basis for pointing, considering that our culture is failing as deeply as our economy and bureaucracy. Perhaps a cultural awakening is due. We had one in the sixties, but as always, in America it was subject to commercialization and trivialization, and conservatives disagree with it and blame it for the decay. But it's there, and can be further revived and put on its higher course. Perhaps also, as brower prefers, our classical heritage can also be rediscovered. A revival of education would seem to be needed. I am not convinced that this is impossible. Ethics is part of that heritage, as are the greater truths and experiences of religion and spirituality. The new age and hippies lead in that direction, if the higher spiritual and cultural path is truly followed. If not, then continued debauchery is possible too, surely.