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This time, the failing empire is America, the nation with the world reserve currency, with a corrupt and delusional ruling elite, with half its population dependent on printed money, and with nuclear weapons.
This empire won't go down with a whimper.
Then we have China. The nation that might want the world reserve currency, with a corrupt and delusional ruling elite, with its population dependent on printed money, and with nuclear weapons.
IMO way better than Russia. The nation that thinks it wants the world reserve, but hasn't a clue. With a corrupt and delusional ruling elite, with its population dependent on printed money, and with nuclear weapons.
IMO the very top economic analyst on China, its evolution, and how it all relates to the US and the world order.
Just wait till the US breaks apart what those two countries will start doing. Should be very interesting.
IMHO the countries that are in trouble in 2014 are China and Russia since both places have dropping working age populations. The US will be Ok for a few years longer.
IMHO the countries that are in trouble in 2014 are China and Russia since both places have dropping working age populations. The US will be Ok for a few years longer.
The US has more useful immigration policies, including 'looking the other way'.
The US has more useful immigration policies, including 'looking the other way'.
That def needs to be stopped COLD. There are lots of LEGAL aliens would WOULD to come or stay in the US by OUR rules. Def NO need for the illegal kind.
"A "globalized" world supposedly provided the world's people with information and technology from the lucrative investments of imperialism. Most importantly, globalization was going to create conditions where nation-state governments would no longer be necessary to foster political, economic, and cultural relationships between individuals and societies. In the 21st Century, globalization has been dropped from mainstream discourse. Imperialism is in permanent crisis and can only be maintained by the war-making capabilities of nation-state alliances.
With this realization, Wall Street's rag-tag team of intellectuals intentionally branded the expansion of imperialism with a humanitarian face. The theory of globalization was inherently deceptive, but it wasn't completely false. After the demise of the Soviet Union, Western capital opened Eastern Europe and much of the planet up for plunder. Neo-colonial nations accepted the theft of the World Bank, IMF, and World Trade Organization. When the Wall Street crisis became permanent in 2008, many Western nations, including the US, forced both its citizens and exploited neo-colonies to transfer trillions of public wealth straight to the ruling class in an attempt to stabilize the crisis.
The overarching plan of the NATO summit was the destabilization of nation-states that oppose the global dominance of US imperialism. Globalization theorists have consistently fallen silent on the importance of the NATO alliance toward this end. It was NATO that provided the military cover for Libya's decimation in 2011."
"CORNEL WEST: Yeah, I think that he not only falls outside of the black prophetic tradition, but unfortunately he’s oftentimes been identified with it and confused—and it leads toward confusion, because people think that somehow Barack Obama is the culmination of Frederick Douglass and Martin and Malcolm and Ida and Ella and others, and it’s the exact opposite, that he is as establishmentarian, he is as much pro-status quo, as a Bill Clinton or a Hillary Clinton or any other neoliberal opportunist. And that needs to be said over and over again. It leads toward unbelievable confusion, and in the end it leads toward capitulation.
CORNEL WEST: Yeah, I think that, in many ways, Barack Obama was talking about the centrality of political calculation tied to national security interests, usually the interests of big banks, big corporations and the military arms industry, whereas Brother Martin was a grand critic of empire in the name of the precious humanity of poor people and oppressed people. So you get a major clash. And in the end, it’s all about the actions. In the end, Barack Obama commits war crimes in Somalia and Yemen, commits war crimes in Pakistan and Afghanistan. And Martin Luther King Jr. tries to keep the spotlight on the war crimes, to keep track of the innocent children who were being killed, the innocent men and women who were being killed. So you get a major clash. And that’s why I tell my young brothers and sisters, when they walk around with this little sweater of Martin, Malcolm and Barack Obama, I say, "Please. That’s like Coltrane and Sarah Vaughan and Pat Boone." He’s a very different tradition. We love Brother Pat, but he doesn’t belong on that shirt. And Barack Obama does not belong on that shirt. Let’s be clear. Let’s keep track of the prophetic fire of those on that shirt. Unbelievable sacrifice."
"What follows is a transcript of a therapy session between the American Empire and a psychiatrist whose name we at TomDispatch have agreed not to disclose. Normally, even in an age in which privacy means ever less to anyone, we wouldn’t consider publishing such a private encounter, but the probative news value of the exchange is so obvious that we decided to make an exception. The transcript has been edited only for obvious repetitions and the usual set of “ums” and “uhs.” Tom"
Glad I stumbled on this article that mentions in passing Qaddafi’s hero Nasser. Nasser was not only a strong advocate of pan-Arabism and pan-Africanism but also positive neutrality otherwise known as the Non-Aligned Movement. This movement was composed of the newly independent nations who after WWII sought to join together rather than be used as pawns and puppets by the NATO and Soviet blocs.
One of the staunchest allies of Nasser was Tito of what was then Yugoslavia. This article mention a bit about Tito and I think its important for emerging nations and others to know the importance of resisting being pulled into a rigid bipolar view of the world.
Also I think the author of the article downplays the importance and influence of secular movements such as that of the Nasserites and of the cicumstances of why they went into decline.
Quote:
“Remember Marshal Tito? He was a distinguished anti-Nazi German partisan and went on to govern Yugoslavia from 1953 until his death in 1980. He was commonly demonized as another East European despot, but in the upper reaches it was understood to be more complex. Tito stood among those flawed giants of the independence generation: Mossadegh, Sukarno, the four “Ns,” as I call them — Nehru, Nasser, Nyerere, Nkrumah. He stood up to the Soviets as well as the Americans, and his true sin, as with the others, was his insistent non-alignment.
Tito was tough when he had to be, which was often. But he kept Yugoslavia Yugoslavia, primarily by making sure all the bitter communal animosities were balanced in the sharing of power. Anyone who had no taste for Tito might look to what came after him and consider the man again.
The thesis is simply stated, then. Strongmen are sometimes strongmen for a reason, and they are not to be fooled with capriciously, and certainly not without a thorough analysis of what is likely to follow.
Take the Tito Thesis to Iraq and where does it land you? This is bitter indeed, especially at our moment, but it forces reconsideration of Saddam. I know no one inclined to apologize for his numerous cruelties against the Kurds and the Shiite majority, among much else. But he kept Iraq Iraq, under the Ba’athists’ secular ideology (a variant of Nasserite socialism).”
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