U.S. IN THE TIME OF EMPIRE?
Is American in decline?
PE-All great empires and nations decay from within. By the time they hobble off the world stage, overrun by the hordes at the gates or vanishing quietly into the pages of history books, what made them successful and powerful no longer has relevance. This rot takes place over decades, as with the Soviet Union, or, even longer, as with the Roman, Ottoman or Austro-Hungarian empires. It is often imperceptible.
Dying empires cling until the very end to the outward trappings of power. They mask their weakness behind a costly and technologically advanced military. They pursue increasingly unrealistic imperial ambitions. They stifle dissent with efficient and often ruthless mechanisms of control. They lose the capacity for empathy, which allows them to see themselves through the eyes of others, to create a world of accommodation rather than strife. The creeds and noble ideals of the nation become empty cliches, used to justify acts of greater plunder, corruption and violence. By the end, there is only a raw lust for power and few willing to confront it.
UPDATE
Report Americans getting poorer
A good enough article that is a little too heavy on the wonders of liberal intervention, which is a big part of the problem.
Nonetheless, Mr. Hedges is correct in his overall view. It remains that the two parties have built, engineered, rigged, whatever term you like, the entire election process to allow themselves to stay in power.
The battle then becomes which one is on top this election, and leadership melts away and partisanship flourishes.
The way out of the mess is to disrupt the cycle that allows the two majors to renew and increase their hold on power every election. This must be accomplished in light of the fact that neither party can make any effective changes, they are locked into a prison mindset and need help to escape it.
It is our job to provide that help, after all, it is our country, and the future belongs to our children. We must act to correct the direction of this nation or it will see its demise as predicted in the article. How can anything else happen?
We must deny the the elites Presidency in 2008. Only by electing an independent President can we get the attention of these elites and provide a mechanism that will build commom sense solutions to the challenges our country is facing.
An example of the events described in this article can be seen in our health care system. Using some of the author’s words and phrases: our health care system clings to the outward trappings of costly technology, thereby masking its profound weakness. Since it, i.e., the people in it, have lost (or never developed) the capacity for empathy and altruism, the noble ideal of a sound, ongoing doctor—patient relationship, the essence of medicine, has become an empty cliche. We have abandoned it in favor of a Big Dollar Pie for our health care businesses and providers.
The oligarchy of corporate business leaders and health care providers through the politicians has dismantled managed capitalism in favor of outright greed.
For our health care system, I have offered a solution in my book, EQUAL HEALTH CARE FOR ALL. My ideas call for a single payer to return to managed capitalism through a process of negotiation of prices with our health care businesses and providers.
And the tacit complicity of our passive population can be clearly seen in the decline of the doctor—patient relationship. We have created a world where we speak exclusively in the language of health insurance, health coverage, health spending. Until the penetration of sound, ongoing doctor—patient relationships into every community becomes our bottom line for success and the dollar bill falls to a distant second in order of importance, there will be no solution. Until we cease to treat health care as a business enterprise, nothing will change. And this business enterprise will continue unabated until our passive population ceases to be lazy, selfish, unaccepting of personal responsibility, and GIMME, GIMME, GIMME. We must demand change from the politicians, accept the personal responsibilitiy that accompanies that change, and then only vote for the ones who promise to have the courage to force the necessary changes. And then we must hold their feet to the fire. None of the current presidential candidates offers real change. It’s all rhetoric designed to get the votes, while maintaining their position in the oligarchy.
R. Garth Kirkwood M.D.
http://www.equalhealthcareforall.com
doctork@equalhealthcareforall.com
I agree Doc. We as Americans, must be ready to face up to the truth, that our consumer/debt lifestyle and the corporations never ending quest for profit has the entire system out of kilter.
The reality is that both parties have been offering the same old liberal/conservative arguments that ignore reality. The liberals created an entitlement system that has disrupted the normal working of the free market. The conservatives continue to promote big business no matter what the fallout.
Our out of control spending however, is the main destructive force in our country today, at least that is my opinion. I think until we accept the fact that we must have a balanced budget, and that is going to mean some sacrifices by us, we are only pushing the day of reckoning off onto our kids and grandkids.
Hence, in order to change the mindset, we need to get the attention of the elites who now hold the power. The one surefire way to get their attention would be to deny them the Presidency. Do that, and suddenly opportunities will be available that up to now are inhibited from being discussed because the elections are about power for the elites, not solutions for the nation.
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