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Title: Thirty-Six Sure-Fire Signs That Your Empire Is Crumbling
Source:
The Daily Reckoning
URL Source: http://www.dailyreckoning.com/Featured/Green2507.html
Published: Feb 5, 2007
Author: David Michael Green
Post Date: 2007-02-09 18:11:39 by Eoghan
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Keywords: None
Views: 141
Comments: 4
"You know your empire's crumbling when it's considered an achievement to pretend that you've halved the rate at which you're adding to the massive mountain of debt you've already accumulated." So. You've built yourself an empire, eh? Well, bully for you! What's next, you ask? Well, now you've got to do what everybody does when they have an empire, of course. You've got to worry about it falling apart, mate! But how to tell for sure? Let me see if I can be helpful. Here are some rules of thumb to keep in mind, thirty-six sure-fire indicators that your empire is falling apart: You know your empire's crumbling when the folks who are gearing up their empire to replace yours start blowing up satellites in space. And then they don't bother to return your phone calls when you ring up to ask why. You know your empire's crumbling when those same folks are cutting deals left, right and center across Asia, Latin America and Africa, while you, your lousy terms, and your arrogant attitude are no longer welcome. You know your empire's crumbling when you're spending your grandchildren's money like a drunken sailor, and letting your soon-to-be rivals finance your little splurge (i.e., letting them own your country). You know your empire's crumbling when it's considered an achievement to pretend that you've halved the rate at which you're adding to the massive mountain of debt you've already accumulated. You know your empire's crumbling when you weaken your currency until it looks as anemic as a Paris runway model, and you're still setting record trade deficits. (Hint: Because you're not making anything anymore.) You know your empire's crumbling when "the little brown ones" (thank you George H.W. Bush - certainly not me - for that lovely expression) in country after country of "your backyard" blow you off and proudly elect anti-imperialist leftist governments. You know your empire's crumbling when you can't topple those governments and replace them with nice puppet regimes - like in the good old days - even if you wanted to. And you badly want to. You know your empire's crumbling when one of their leaders comes to the United Nations and makes fun of your emperor, calling him the devil, and joking about smelling sulphur where he just stood. And though a few folks cringe, everybody laughs. You know your empire's crumbling when just about your entire military land force is tied up in a worse-than-useless war launched on the basis of complete fabrications, that every day is actually making you less - not more - secure from external threat. You know your empire's crumbling when almost half the soldiers in that war are high-paid mercenaries, and you don't dare institute a draft. You know your empire's crumbling when you send soldiers into war with two weeks training and a lack of armor, and then you keep them there for three, four and five rotations. You know your empire's crumbling when a member of the Axis of Evil can test missiles and explode nuclear warheads, and all you can do about it is mumble some pathetic warnings about how they better not do that again or there will be consequences. You know your empire's crumbling when you even think that there is an Axis of Evil. You know your empire's crumbling when a rag-tag military hodge-podge of irregulars has you pinned down in an endless fight you can't win, but also can't lose. You know your empire's crumbling when you're too dumb to even ban Humvees as a first step toward ending your dependency on a foreign-owned crucial resource. You know your empire's crumbling when you trade your prior moral leadership on human rights issues for global disgust at your torture, 'extraordinary rendition' (a.k.a. kidnaping for torture) and the dismantling of nine centuries worth of civil liberties progress. You know your empire's crumbling when you blow off international law that you once helped create, and undermine the institutions of international governance that you once helped build. You know your empire's crumbling when opinion polls confirm that every month you're more and more despised throughout the world. You know your empire's crumbling when you can't even pull off the hanging of a tin-pot murderous former dictator without turning him into a hero. You know your empire's crumbling when you're the richest country in the world, but nearly 50 million of your people don't have basic health care coverage. You know your empire's crumbling when the World Health Organization ranks your healthcare system 37th 'best' in the world, just above Slovenia, and just below Costa Rica. (And far below Colombia, Cyprus, Saudi Arabia and Morocco.) You know your empire's crumbling when instead of making it easier for citizens to obtain a higher education, you're making it harder and more expensive. You know your empire's crumbling when your government gives tax breaks to industries as a reward for exporting your jobs elsewhere. You know your empire's crumbling when the so-called 'opposition' party can't even turn that obscenity into a viable campaign theme and use it to clobber the worst emperor in your history. You know your empire's crumbling when your middle class has been stagnant for three decades, while the wealth of the hyper-rich continues to climb through the roof. You know your empire's crumbling when your reaction to that is to exacerbate the problem by enacting tax policies that massively increase further still the gap between the rich and the rest. You know your empire's crumbling when the predatory class has taken over your government and is stripping the country of everything not bolted down to the floor. And then it sells the floor itself, as well, to your rivals. You know your empire's crumbling when you're spending tens of billions of dollars you don't own on new nuclear warheads and space weapons that don't work, to be used against an enemy you don't have. You know your empire's crumbling when one of your cities drowns and your government does next to nothing before, during and after. You know your empire's crumbling when a massive environmental nightmare is looming around the corner, and your emperor not only ignores it, but claims it isn't real while taking steps to exacerbate it. You know your empire's crumbling when your emperor is warned by a CIA briefer of an imminent terrorist attack of vast proportions, and responds by remaining on vacation and dismissing the briefer with the words: "All right. You've covered your ass, now." You know your empire's crumbling when the same emperor drops everything to fly across the country from his vacation home in order to sign a bill intervening on the wrong side of a personal medical drama involving a single family. You know your empire's crumbling when gays and immigrants are used as diversionary issues to keep people from thinking about the pillaging of their country and their wallets actually taking place. And it works. You know your empire's crumbling when people are getting more religious and less scientific, not the other way around. You know your empire's crumbling when your political leaders start to be chosen by dynastic rules of succession. And you especially know your empire's crumbling when the most idiotic child of one of the least accomplished leaders in its history is not only crowned as the next emperor, but is even revered for a time by most of the public as a great one. Rome? Britain? Spain? At this rate we'll be lucky to end up like Belgium. Editor's Note: David Michael Green is a professor of political science at Hofstra University in New York. He is delighted to receive readers' reactions to his articles (dmg@regressiveantidote.net), but regrets that time constraints do not always allow him to respond. More of his work can be found at his website, >http://www.regressiveantidote.net.
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#1. To: Eoghan (#0)
No grandchildren, no problem.
I halfway suspect that they smoke. I've gotten dozens of letters from people who smell cigarette smoke when they are around. If they do smoke, it is going to freak a lot of people out totally, including me. Can you imagine finally getting to go to the mothership and discovering that the place is full of cigarette smoke? That they smoke like coneheads and they don't care about cancer?
I'd take Belgium.
And you especially know your empire's crumbling when the most idiotic child of one of the least accomplished leaders in its history is not only crowned as the next emperor, but is even revered for a time by most of the public as a great one. Cheap, affordable higher education would mean a student population that wouldn't be beholden to the quasi government Fannie Mae- deeply in debt from the moment they graduate- concerned with keeping their nose above water and towing the line. It is not by accident that higher ed in this country costs 200 grand now for a diploma that 60 years ago would barely compare with a High School degree. And I was beginning to think he wasn't going to mention the biggest sign of decay- Bush himself. It is truly a sign of how decadent and degenerate even our elite has become that they foisted this collasal moron on the country. Its almost as if they were trying to insult us.
Tx GovernorWhore Rick Perry [aka "goodhair"] supports in-State tuition for illegals, when a US citizen across the Red River in Oklahama can not get this.
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act - - George Orwell You know your empire's crumbling when you're spending your grandchildren's money like a drunken sailor, and letting your soon-to-be rivals finance your little splurge (i.e., letting them own your country).
#2. To: Eoghan (#0)
At this rate we'll be lucky to end up like Belgium.
I've already said too much.
#3. To: Eoghan (#0)
You know your empire's crumbling when instead of making it easier for citizens to obtain a higher education, you're making it harder and more expensive. . . .
#4. To: Burkeman1 (#3)
Law Enforcement Against Prohibition
In a CorporoFascist capitalist society, there is no money in peace, freedom, or a healthy population, and therefore, no incentive to achieve these - - IndieTX
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