Dying Empire, Op Ed News, by Jim Miles
Scare the hell out of the American people.
Senator Arthur Vandenburg, 1947.
It is part of the general pattern of misguided policy that our country is now geared to an arms economy which was bred in an artificially induced psychosis of war hysteria and nurtured upon an incessant propaganda of fear. While such an economy may produce a sense of seeming prosperity for the moment, it rests on an illusionary foundation of complete unreliability and renders among our political leaders almost a greater fear of peace than is their fear of war.
General Douglas MacArthur, May 15, 1952.
At one point in my youth it became clear that the U.S. was a violent force in the world, probably as I watched the Vietnam war news on the local TV news. Later, it also became clear that its whole history is one of violence, at home and abroad. More recently I had naively hoped that as the U.S. Empire goes through its death throes, that it would quit the world peacefully. The latter thought was more a suspension of belief of my knowledge that I knew violence was the U.S. way of life, that I feared what the end of empire might bring. My current thinking is that through this course of historical violence to all people who oppose the corporate state - from the labourers and workers at home, to the farmers, workers, and labourers in foreign countries - the ending of the empire is in process and is and will continue to be violent.
But it is ending. After a brief hiatus from computer news reading, I came back on line to two articles that examine the economic problems faced by the world. The first by Paul Craig Roberts, Collapse at Hand, ( Counterpunch, June 05, 2012) discussed the U.S. economy and its relationship with the world, China in particular. The conclusion was that the U.S. economy was destined to fail, with the only indeterminate part being the "sooner or later." The second article was by Mike Whitney, whom I have followed for the past several years and found his examinations and qualified predictions to be very much on the mark. His article, In Negative Territory - A Synchronized Global Slowdown, (Counterpunch, June 04, 2012) took a stronger look at the situation with the European Union and its problems. His general conclusion was the same, "sooner or later" it has to fall apart in some way.
At least the empire is ending. The violence, so much a part of U.S history, will continue and may become worse, more subtle abroad with the use of drones, and more obvious at home with the application of the dictates of the militarized state within the police forces . . . .
Source: http://www.opednews.com/articles/Dying-Empire-by-Jim-Miles-120613-687.html
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Six Flags Park at New Orleans -- This seems the perfect metaphor for our country now:
