War is job security for The Blob. If you want control and power, you need excuses for the inexcusable. War provides this and more. If there were no war at the moment, the US would start one because they need war to justify the obscene spending they are foisting on us taxpayers. The history of the US over the last 50 years has been perpetual war, and in each case the US started it and perpetuated it. Always far from US borders and out of sight and mind for the public. The public has some blame in this as much of it has swallowed "American Exceptionalism" nonsense hook, line and sinker. Until the public gains a modicum of humanity about the rest of the world, The Blob will be free to run havoc and let loose the dogs of war wherever it wants.
the culprit at the very core of the entire malaise is our addiction to capitalism, which demands constant growth, constant input of material resources, and constant exploitation of labor. we cannot go in and correct this problem through piecemeal fixes, as the systemic rot will always compromise whatever good will efforts at repair are made. those who profit off of the continual decline must be removed from power and replaced with others focused on building a new reality which favors cooperation over competition and fair distribution over personal accumulation.
You can see the collapse coming, I just can not see how it will happen, a financial collapse, a wartime loss to China over Taiwan that hopefully does not go nuclear, a overdue rejection by European powers and isolation from the rest of the world, a climate catastrophe. Maybe and hopefully and internal revolution by Generation Z. I guess my next thought is to ask you Bill, any speculation?
Like i said earlier upon reading Your latest at TomDispatch.com earlier today, Bill: Excellent piece. Nailed it again.
i'm beginning to wonder if You are beginning to wonder ~ like me ~ if the United States will survive to celebrate its 250th birthday on July 4, 2026; a mere 1,124 days from today.
Thoughtful piece, as per usual. What does it take? A rejection of the state itself, or at the very least reducing state power to a bare minimum. People of faith have sadly been all too missing in this effort, on both the right and the left. They have in idolatrous fashion lifted the state to the level of a god, and offer worship and obeisance to it. This presents a clear 1st. commandment violation, as well as a 5th, and 7-10th violations. Oh, and being completely at odds with the Gospel, as the post pointed out. If the people of God cannot lead the way, then we are most to be pitied.
WJA, as a historian can you think of any great power that kept itself restrained and was not limited rather by competing power? China withdrew from world exploration at one point and Japan being an island nation kept to itself but broke out eventually. Hubris is natural to our species and grows until it is humbled. Hitler was taken down and took a good part of the world with him in the devastation he eagerly brought with an enthusiastic Germany. Physically isolated, the US was in a position to revive things. There is no such isolated potential savior now.
Here we are today, boldly denouncing Russia, throwing everything we can into Ukraine without hesitation and meanwhile posturing over Taiwan with Biden saying we will defend it militarily. If world war breaks out, which could so easily happen at any time, the devastation due to Hitler will be small by comparison.
I admire and support your continuing effort to call attention to the insanity of great power as modeled by the United States, but I don't think the history of civilization (rising up and being destroyed) offers hope that the US will be one to restrain itself.
PS: Did you see Lindsay Graham calling for more military spending? And there's Tom Cotton in the House. At least Cornel West is giving it a go and I'm behind him all the way, ready for the chorus of "he can't win" to begin. If mine is his only vote, he's got it. I tried the Liberty Party website and wasn't surprised to find it overwhelmed and unusable.
More likely, I think, that we will be done to death by stifling bureaucracies, operating outside of our previous Constitutional norms. The global pandemic was a good example of that, with people (especially children) forced to don masks throughout the day, in spite of the fact that there was no evidence that they did anything effective. Governors in the blue states, especially, joyously enacted rules meant to remove from the public square people who dared to follow the (lack of) data and who chose to breathe freely. Gotta stomp on those free thinkers I guess. Meanwhile our super bureaucracy is ramming electric vehicles down our throats, in spite of data showing that they put as much of a drain on earth's resources as internal combustion engines. Oh well. How to cope. Soviet citizens did so with lots of vodka.
War is job security for The Blob. If you want control and power, you need excuses for the inexcusable. War provides this and more. If there were no war at the moment, the US would start one because they need war to justify the obscene spending they are foisting on us taxpayers. The history of the US over the last 50 years has been perpetual war, and in each case the US started it and perpetuated it. Always far from US borders and out of sight and mind for the public. The public has some blame in this as much of it has swallowed "American Exceptionalism" nonsense hook, line and sinker. Until the public gains a modicum of humanity about the rest of the world, The Blob will be free to run havoc and let loose the dogs of war wherever it wants.
the culprit at the very core of the entire malaise is our addiction to capitalism, which demands constant growth, constant input of material resources, and constant exploitation of labor. we cannot go in and correct this problem through piecemeal fixes, as the systemic rot will always compromise whatever good will efforts at repair are made. those who profit off of the continual decline must be removed from power and replaced with others focused on building a new reality which favors cooperation over competition and fair distribution over personal accumulation.
You can see the collapse coming, I just can not see how it will happen, a financial collapse, a wartime loss to China over Taiwan that hopefully does not go nuclear, a overdue rejection by European powers and isolation from the rest of the world, a climate catastrophe. Maybe and hopefully and internal revolution by Generation Z. I guess my next thought is to ask you Bill, any speculation?
Like i said earlier upon reading Your latest at TomDispatch.com earlier today, Bill: Excellent piece. Nailed it again.
i'm beginning to wonder if You are beginning to wonder ~ like me ~ if the United States will survive to celebrate its 250th birthday on July 4, 2026; a mere 1,124 days from today.
Or if it can survive. Or if it should survive.
Thoughtful piece, as per usual. What does it take? A rejection of the state itself, or at the very least reducing state power to a bare minimum. People of faith have sadly been all too missing in this effort, on both the right and the left. They have in idolatrous fashion lifted the state to the level of a god, and offer worship and obeisance to it. This presents a clear 1st. commandment violation, as well as a 5th, and 7-10th violations. Oh, and being completely at odds with the Gospel, as the post pointed out. If the people of God cannot lead the way, then we are most to be pitied.
WJA, as a historian can you think of any great power that kept itself restrained and was not limited rather by competing power? China withdrew from world exploration at one point and Japan being an island nation kept to itself but broke out eventually. Hubris is natural to our species and grows until it is humbled. Hitler was taken down and took a good part of the world with him in the devastation he eagerly brought with an enthusiastic Germany. Physically isolated, the US was in a position to revive things. There is no such isolated potential savior now.
Here we are today, boldly denouncing Russia, throwing everything we can into Ukraine without hesitation and meanwhile posturing over Taiwan with Biden saying we will defend it militarily. If world war breaks out, which could so easily happen at any time, the devastation due to Hitler will be small by comparison.
I admire and support your continuing effort to call attention to the insanity of great power as modeled by the United States, but I don't think the history of civilization (rising up and being destroyed) offers hope that the US will be one to restrain itself.
PS: Did you see Lindsay Graham calling for more military spending? And there's Tom Cotton in the House. At least Cornel West is giving it a go and I'm behind him all the way, ready for the chorus of "he can't win" to begin. If mine is his only vote, he's got it. I tried the Liberty Party website and wasn't surprised to find it overwhelmed and unusable.
Bill,
One of you best.
Great read.
Thank you
More likely, I think, that we will be done to death by stifling bureaucracies, operating outside of our previous Constitutional norms. The global pandemic was a good example of that, with people (especially children) forced to don masks throughout the day, in spite of the fact that there was no evidence that they did anything effective. Governors in the blue states, especially, joyously enacted rules meant to remove from the public square people who dared to follow the (lack of) data and who chose to breathe freely. Gotta stomp on those free thinkers I guess. Meanwhile our super bureaucracy is ramming electric vehicles down our throats, in spite of data showing that they put as much of a drain on earth's resources as internal combustion engines. Oh well. How to cope. Soviet citizens did so with lots of vodka.