That shining light thing would be somewhere up in the silver screen in the middle of WWII, after we forgot or ignored that we pressured the Japanese into striking for the Indonesian oil fields by embargoing crude oil supplies, and before we dropped the bomb.

But thanks to the power of imagination, all that is required is a willing suspension of disbelief to recapture that golden age.

Other than that pretty much taking a subcontinent by force of arms and accident of disease geography, enslaving people of neighboring continent by trading guns for slaves to protect against slave raids, propping up brutal right wing thugs anywhere in our power to do so and using weapons of mass destruction on innocent civilians to achieve our political objectives.

Pretty much the same as the rest of Eurasian Civilization, with some minor changes in details required.

On the positive side of the ledger, we make movies with lots of loud noises and pretty youngsters.


I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.