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by geezer in Paris Or the Nuclear Overton window Beginning well before WWII the American Empire based it's power on the three traditional pillars of empire: Military might, industrial power, and people control. As time went on, circumstances changed, and the twin events of the relocation offshore of most production and the complete triumph of a consumer culture altered the sources of imperial of power to reduce the industrial component and introduce another element- the ability to consume as a pillar of empire. As the buyer of not only last resort but best resort, the US had found a formula for control that was unique in history in it's scope. No other nation has ever gobbled up so much of the world's resources, or such a high percentage of it's manufactured goods, with so few of it's people. In 1966 the numbers that were commonly used were: 6% of the world's people, 60% of the world's resources. Unsustainable. Rather than wallow in the usual foodfight over the accuracy of these numbers, let's just say the balance is ---well, seemingly badly out of balance. But is it really?
The "stuff culture" was a two edged sword of incalculable power.
It became a carefully nurtured national obsession, a life's direction to die with the most toys- a reality that has not changed.
In the process we ate the world. We pissed in it, we ploughed, poisoned and planted it, we plucked, dried, rolled and smoked it, ---and, now that the ice caps are darker and the future for our children is too, that power is fading.
In 1995 we sat in a small brasserie in Paris, drank cheap beer and debated how long the US could continue to absorb so much of the world's toys. We saw rising credit card debt, stagnant real wages, the growing prevalence of home equity loans, hidden inflation gnawing away in the basement, cooked statistics carefully selected to mislead rather than inform, the giant flow of rumor-driven amateurs entering the equities markets-easy prey for the professionals who had made a career out of duping the rubes- and we decided that the end was near. Oops. Wrong--again. We did not reckon with the amazing creativity of the tame economists or the banking industry's ability to invent ways to tap ever-deeper layers of wealth- junkbuying power- in the American people. Empire today rests on the two remaining pillars, military power and tight, reliable people control.
What the Neocons fear most is not the loss of political power, or the loss of the oil. They have no reason to doubt their people control. The mainstream media is theirs. People control-- and the bomb. Unless the cabal of Imperial Don and Dickheads who rule America want to adopt the human wave strategy, they need to make the nuclear option available, acceptable, --even, perhaps, desirable. A good case can be made that that is a work in process. Consider- --What is worse, for the congress or a presidential candidate: forcing a withdrawal or admission of defeat, thereby perhaps causing the above nightmare to emerge full blown, leaving the Krystals and Cheneys of the Empire with the nuclear option as their only fig leaf, or swallowing it, and awaiting better times to begin to dismantle the potemkin village of the neocons? --What is worse: attempting to impeach or even chastise an irrational executive branch, however deserving, and having them thumb their nose and go to lunch, thereby revealing the bankruptcy of the congress and the constitution, or await a less rabid executive? ---Will there BE a less rabid executive? |
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The Empire's last big stick | 60 comments (60 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)
The Empire's last big stick | 60 comments (60 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)
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