That End-Of-Empire Feeling

[katty]

cont'd at:

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20051207/that_endofempire_feeling.php

That End-Of-Empire Feeling
David Corn
December 07, 2005

David Corn writes The Loyal Opposition twice a month for TomPaine.com. Corn is also the Washington editor of The Nation and is the author of The Lies of George W. Bush: Mastering the Politics of Deception (Crown Publishers). Read his blog at http://www.davidcorn.com.

Is the United States in the last throes of empire? That sounds like an ideologically loaded, fatalistic and defeatist question. But it's what I've been wondering about at the start of this holiday season. Might future historians look back at the Bush II days and ask if this was the point when the country started slipping? Might the war in Iraq be regarded as a desperate act of a superpower that had already peaked? Will economists of the latter 21st century examine our economic decisions and say, "What were they thinking?" Or has the Grinch gotten to me?

Treasury Secretary John Snow says 'tis the season to be merry because the malls are crowded and the American economy, under the watchful gaze of George W. Bush, is on the move. But perhaps a touch of foreboding is merited. The White House and its conservative pals, trying to take advantage of the cheery season, have recently started a new campaign that claims Bush has been denied the credit for an economy that is expanding at a decent clip and that produced 215,000 jobs last month. In fact, polls show that most Americans—whether they're happy in the malls or not—have a downbeat view of the economy. And there are solid reasons why Americans should not put aside concerns about the country's long-term economic prospects and why Bush should not be pronounced the savior of the American economy.

[Chicago Democrat]

1. Yup, but are we like Rome's fall (Gradual) or Napoleon's fall (Fast)???

that's the KEY QUESTION...


If we're Rome, who's Bush? JUlius? NO! Julian II? too stupid? NO Bush IS NERO! NO! or COMMODUS! More like it...a brute a thief or a thug convinced he's Hercules and stupid...


THat is SAD FOR US....


Is the REPUBLIC TRULY DEAD? no.. no, its not an APT comparison..



If Kennedy was the end of innocence.. Bush is the embrace of evil..


All in all its Tammany Hall...A passing phase. my hope for the holiday

[DeadManInc]

2. 215,000 Fucking jobs in India

[peacebird]

3. of course jobs were produced in November -

Minimum wage. TEMP JOBS with no benefits to cover the holiday season. They'll disappear like magic come January.

meanwhile Ford and GM are laying off tens of thousands AND it's expected that 800,000 jobs in construction and finance will be lost next year as the housing market cooldown continues.

:eyes:

yep - bush is great for the economy alright....

[feelthebreeze]

4. The continue cherry picking of Info to support their lies is the pits

[cliss]

5. We are definitely starting the "downhill slide".

I can see the signs everywhere I look: a hollowed-out economy, with lots of jobs going to foreign countries.

Our manufacturing base is gone. We don't manufacture anything now. It's mostly gone to other countries like Mexico, China, and many others. This is what made the U.S. strong in the first place.

Instead, what do we have? An economy that's a house of cards. It's built on mostly the real estate market. A market that is so overpriced, that it's unbelievable. It's not a Bubble, it's the Hindenburg. And when that thing blows, it's going to take the Phony Economy down with it.

A researcher found out that fully 36% of the labor force is directly involved with real estate and the housing market.

Now, how can you tell FOR SURE that we're going down? The best way to see it is in our negotiations with other countries. Diplomats are now acting like thugs and lunatics, calling other officials "retards" and "stupid". The U.S. keeps losing in negotiations. Negotiation has now gone out the window. I'm fully expecting US officers to pull out a gun and threaten foreign dignitaries.