Are We Witnessing the Fall of America?

RolandTD20Kdrummer

Despite the anti America sentiment accusations, what I quoted (below) struck home that this is all one very apparent catastrophe indeed.

Smack dab in the middle of the Arab world floating on a bed of lies... only to further escalate the situation and spawn additional wars.

http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/73720/

reminds me of those people at work that start off like a flash, tick a lot of people off in the process, and get eventually terminated, while those who silently endure it, and calmly keep their heads down wile working away always outlast them.

"I am 77 years old and I have never seen this country in such a bad state. It is madness. What we are seeing is the fall of the Roman Empire, only now it is the fall of America, the glory of our Empire. This war is what Parthia was to Rome.

"The horror of what is taking place in Iraq exceeds my worst fears five or six years ago (after Bush came to power). I am horrified at the disastrous mistake involved. Imagine the complete madness in trying to occupy a large Arab country in the middle of the Arab world, a culture we know precious little about, and who speaks a language only a handful of our specialists can speak, with armed forces which we have limited control of and with a large army of private soldiers .... The whole thing is a scandal ... a series of lies. I don't understand the motivation for the war, but suspect the real reason for the war, which one would suspect of a country which is a third oligarchy, a third plutocracy and a third theocracy, is that it simply is a profitable machine."

MasterFramer

Since when so we need a some old Yale prof. tell us the obvious. Big fucking Duh! Where the fuck was this guy 5 years ago :rolleyes:

RolandTD20Kdrummer

MasterFramer wrote:

Since when so we need a some old Yale prof. tell us the obvious. Big fucking Duh! Where the fuck was this guy 5 years ago :rolleyes:

lol... I think it all just caught up with him.

Anon

MasterFramer wrote:

Big fucking Duh! Where the fuck was this guy 5 years ago :rolleyes:

More concerned that we were stupid because we read Harry Potter Books?

LikeAnOcean

What do you think America will fall into? Will there be a civil war? Will Canada invade???

I'm being serious. There has to be either a civil war from with in or an invasion.. Maybe it will start with a recession, to a great depression, a falling apart of our government, outside influences jump in.. hmm.

DriftingByTheStorm

LikeAnOcean wrote:

Maybe it will start with a recession,

... it already has ...

LikeAnOcean wrote:

to a great depression,

... the concern has been expressed by more than a few notable folks ...

LikeAnOcean wrote:

a falling apart of our government,

well, it will definately be internal.
If you want to talk about civil war, it will probably be "us against them" not north vs. south ... i can see the country falling in to marshall law, followed by anarchy ... think like the palestinians, except there are no jewish "opressors", only the remnants of a government ...

... of course we're starting to sound apocalyptic and fearmongery here ...

... but if you want some real causes,
massive unemployment due to walstreet collapse
(tomorrow is shaping up to be another horribly ugly day on the markets, by the way ... markets down sharply overnight as well) ...

.... massive starvation due to either an oil embargo, or more likely simply that the dollar inflated so rapidly to try and bail out wallstreet that it collapses and can not buy oil at a price that makes sense (think $1000 a barrel oil) ...
and the farms can't operate, the processing plants can't work, and the pesticides and fertilizers can not be processed ... which of course doesn't matter, because the trucks couldn't run ...

... and of course, the government failing miserably to offer any of its services ... not even considering what will happen when they can't deliver on medicaid and social security (old people with guns! yikes!) ...

... yeah ...
i can see that starting some sort of "civil" war.

LikeAnOcean

DriftingByTheStorm wrote:

... it already has ...



... the concern has been expressed by more than a few notable folks ...




well, it will definately be internal.
If you want to talk about civil war, it will probably be "us against them" not north vs. south ... i can see the country falling in to marshall law, followed by anarchy ... think like the palestinians, except there are no jewish "opressors", only the remnants of a government ...

... of course we're starting to sound apocalyptic and fearmongery here ...

... but if you want some real causes,
massive unemployment due to walstreet collapse
(tomorrow is shaping up to be another horribly ugly day on the markets, by the way ... markets down sharply overnight as well) ...

.... massive starvation due to either an oil embargo, or more likely simply that the dollar inflated so rapidly to try and bail out wallstreet that it collapses and can not buy oil at a price that makes sense (think $1000 a barrel oil) ...
and the farms can't operate, the processing plants can't work, and the pesticides and fertilizers can not be processed ... which of course doesn't matter, because the trucks couldn't run ...

... and of course, the government failing miserably to offer any of its services ... not even considering what will happen when they can't deliver on medicaid and social security (old people with guns! yikes!) ...

... yeah ...
i can see that starting some sort of "civil" war.

Dude, I knew I bought season one of Man Vs. Wild for a reason.. I better start brushing up on my survival skills! :eek:

Speaking of the Dow, it was down 277 today, but I haven't read any news stories about that. Thats a pretty significant drop.

Drowned Out

LikeAnOcean wrote:

What do you think America will fall into? Will there be a civil war? Will Canada invade???
I'm being serious. There has to be either a civil war from with in or an invasion.. Maybe it will start with a recession, to a great depression, a falling apart of our government, outside influences jump in.. hmm.
.

...dude, I bet you could pick almost any state, and the citizens of that state would own more guns than our army. I think if you guys fall apart, we're right there for the ride...unless it's the other way around, and you guys come here for our resources as you get desperate.

I think what happens depends on how you think it will end....economics, environmental disaster, act of god, war, etc. One thing I think you can probably be sure of...no one (else) is stupid or ballsy enough to occupy a country on the opposite side of the world...esp one with nukes. I wouldn't worry about anyone invading anytime soon.

DriftingByTheStorm

LikeAnOcean wrote:

Dude, I knew I bought season one of Man Vs. Wild for a reason.. I better start brushing up on my survival skills! :eek:

Speaking of the Dow, it was down 277 today, but I haven't read any news stories about that. Thats a pretty significant drop.

Yah.
I'm trying to make enough, quick enough, to get my own plot out in the heartland. Did i mention i said, QUICK!

Like i said, instead of the once "normal" after market recovery, the markets dropped even further in after hours trading.

Tomorrow is shaping up to be potentialy brutal is well.
We got producer side inflation numbers and retal sales data today. Tomorrow we get consumer side inflation, and manufacturer side sales. JP Morgan and Wells Fargo earnings reports.

Who knows.
But if anything in those inflation or manufactures numbers is a few points below expected, we are in deep shit.

Futures markets go ANY lower, they will be out of there 6 month trend.... and breaking a trend to the downside is not what you want to see happen!

LikeAnOcean

I betting it will have to do with the economy. It's ALWAYS the number one concern on American minds. Even with Iraq, people act like thats number 2, but to be honest, the average American only cares about it because they feel like they should. Most people don't really give a shit about the middle east unless they have a relative over there and even then, all they really care about is their relative. When it comes down to it, its all about the money. The economy well above and beyond anything else. When and if our economy collapses, we collapse. When the rich have to live like the poor, there will be blood in the streets. When we can't afford our iPods, internet, cell phones and so forth, you'll really see America fall apart.

Drowned Out

DriftingByTheStorm wrote:

... it already has ...



... the concern has been expressed by more than a few notable folks ...




well, it will definately be internal.
If you want to talk about civil war, it will probably be "us against them" not north vs. south ... i can see the country falling in to marshall law, followed by anarchy ... think like the palestinians, except there are no jewish "opressors", only the remnants of a government ...

... of course we're starting to sound apocalyptic and fearmongery here ...

... but if you want some real causes,
massive unemployment due to walstreet collapse
(tomorrow is shaping up to be another horribly ugly day on the markets, by the way ... markets down sharply overnight as well) ...

.... massive starvation due to either an oil embargo, or more likely simply that the dollar inflated so rapidly to try and bail out wallstreet that it collapses and can not buy oil at a price that makes sense (think $1000 a barrel oil) ...
and the farms can't operate, the processing plants can't work, and the pesticides and fertilizers can not be processed ... which of course doesn't matter, because the trucks couldn't run ...

... and of course, the government failing miserably to offer any of its services ... not even considering what will happen when they can't deliver on medicaid and social security (old people with guns! yikes!) ...

... yeah ...
i can see that starting some sort of "civil" war.

at which point do we get the amero?

cue Alex Jones....
This is the kind of scenario that makes some of what he preaches seem plausible.

Is it that impossible to imagine that the people in power in this scenario would become oppressors in the name of maintaining a civilized 'society' and for the 'common good'? Is Jones that far off? Police state, gulags, rfid chips, all that fun...

Conspiracy theory.... or contingency planning?


One thing for sure - it would make a helluva movie

sponger

The horror of what is taking place in Iraq exceeds my worst fears five or six years ago (after Bush came to power). I am horrified at the disastrous mistake involved. Imagine the complete madness in trying to occupy a large Arab country in the middle of the Arab world, a culture we know precious little about, and who speaks a language only a handful of our specialists can speak, with armed forces which we have limited control of and with a large army of private soldiers .... The whole thing is a scandal ... a series of lies. I don't understand the motivation for the war, but suspect the real reason for the war, which one would suspect of a country which is a third oligarchy, a third plutocracy and a third theocracy, is that it simply is a profitable machine.

It's hard to believe that even a respected intellectual can completely overlook an obvious reality about the situation in the middle east, which is that the middle east has been getting fucked in both holes for centuries by too many different imperalistic empires to even mention.

What's more is that period of time when the arabs were controlled by the Ottomons is considered to be by many arab historians as a "Golden Age" of arab history.

Arab culture has historically given their allegiance and respect to whoever is the strongest and most ruthless aggressor.

It seems to me that Harold Bloom is merely entertaining some kind of twisted fantasy in which the United States, by way of whimsical karma, pays dearly for its teacherous misdeeds. Clearly his mind is gone and reason has permanently escaped his senses. He'll even stoop as low so as to criticize a children's book series, thus putting him into the same trough as the catholic church. What a lunatic. I guess this is just what happens when people who are used to having an impact on the views of others suddenly run out of useful things to say. They'll resort to anything to be heard.

DriftingByTheStorm

sponger wrote:

It's hard to believe that even a respected intellectual can completely overlook an obvious reality about the situation in the middle east, which is that the middle east has been getting fucked in both holes for centuries by too many different imperalistic empires to even mention.

What's more is that period of time when the arabs were controlled by the Ottomons is considered to be by many arab historians as a "Golden Age" of arab history.

Arab culture has historically given their allegiance and respect to whoever is the strongest and most ruthless aggressor.

It seems to me that Harold Bloom is merely entertaining some kind of twisted fantasy in which the United States, by way of whimsical karma, pays dearly for its teacherous misdeeds. Clearly his mind is gone and reason has permanently escaped his senses. He'll even stoop as low so as to criticize a children's book series, thus putting him into the same trough as the catholic church. What a lunatic. I guess this is just what happens when people who are used to having an impact on the views of others suddenly run out of useful things to say. They'll resort to anything to be heard.

I think what i'm hearing you say it is just and good for the United States to be an empirical warlord over the middle east, because so many nations have done the same to it ...

So we should just do as they do.
Except do it all while speaking about "freedom" and "liberty", right?

Bwahahahahahah.
:rolleyes:

Great argument.


I mean, honestly ... it IS a good argument ... why not ... everyone has been fucking the A'rab since the begining of time ... why shouldn't the US ...

uh ...
well ...
at one time America really did stand for something special ... and we prided our selves on not being the roving cocks of the world.

Oh well.

sponger

DriftingByTheStorm wrote:

I think what i'm hearing you say it is just and good for the United States to be an empirical warlord over the middle east, because so many nations have done the same to it ...

So we should just do as they do.
Except do it all while speaking about "freedom" and "liberty", right?

Bwahahahahahah.
:rolleyes:

Great argument.


I mean, honestly ... it IS a good argument ... why not ... everyone has been fucking the A'rab since the begining of time ... why shouldn't the US ...

Nope. I never said anything about the US being morally justified in its foreign policy as of late. I'm saying that these types of things are nothing new and don't warrant the doomsday predictions that some people are so fond of driveling.

uh ...
well ...
at one time America really did stand for something special ... and we prided our selves on not being the roving cocks of the world.

Oh well.

That is a misconception. Because of the narrow avenues for the dissemination of information prior to the advent of the internet, people "believed" that the US was not a bunch of roving cocks.

The only difference between recent wars and wars past is that the internet has made much more difficult for the government to keep up the charade.

even flow?

I like the people who think the world revolves around the US and that if the US is not a power anymore that the world will stop. Boy do some people have news for you!

There will always be some country who wants top spot and their fall is never pretty if you live in that land. When you live in a country where you step over a poor person to get to the t.v. to see the latest war you are in, something is very, very wrong.

jlew24asu

DriftingByTheStorm wrote:

... it already has ...



... the concern has been expressed by more than a few notable folks ...




well, it will definately be internal.
If you want to talk about civil war, it will probably be "us against them" not north vs. south ... i can see the country falling in to marshall law, followed by anarchy ... think like the palestinians, except there are no jewish "opressors", only the remnants of a government ...

... of course we're starting to sound apocalyptic and fearmongery here ...

... but if you want some real causes,
massive unemployment due to walstreet collapse
(tomorrow is shaping up to be another horribly ugly day on the markets, by the way ... markets down sharply overnight as well) ...

.... massive starvation due to either an oil embargo, or more likely simply that the dollar inflated so rapidly to try and bail out wallstreet that it collapses and can not buy oil at a price that makes sense (think $1000 a barrel oil) ...
and the farms can't operate, the processing plants can't work, and the pesticides and fertilizers can not be processed ... which of course doesn't matter, because the trucks couldn't run ...

... and of course, the government failing miserably to offer any of its services ... not even considering what will happen when they can't deliver on medicaid and social security (old people with guns! yikes!) ...

... yeah ...
i can see that starting some sort of "civil" war.

this could be the most idiotic tinned hat response I have ever read. hav fun on that "plot of land" im speechless.

Dylan Stone

even flow? wrote:

I like the people who think the world revolves around the US and that if the US is not a power anymore that the world will stop. Boy do some people have news for you!

There will always be some country who wants top spot and their fall is never pretty if you live in that land. When you live in a country where you step over a poor person to get to the t.v. to see the latest war you are in, something is very, very wrong.

How about when you step over a person to see what is the latest with Britney Spears...forgetting and not caring that we are even at war?

In general, people in the US are EXTREMELY apathetic. Many buy into the fear machine and allow those in power to do what they have told us is right and needs to be done. All while turning a blind eye to how things are falling apart (i.e corporate take-over of America, the RAPIDLY disintegrating middle class, failing health-care and education systems, loss of basic freedoms etc...etc...)

There could still be a chance for us to hold onto some of what America is supposed to be. But until people start believing we have some control over our own destiny...we will continue in this all-encompassing downslide.

macgyver06

its winter. and you all need to go to school.

macgyver06

jlew24asu wrote:

this could be the most idiotic tinned hat response I have ever read. hav fun on that "plot of land" im speechless.

i agree. its sad.

jlew24asu

macgyver06 wrote:

i agree. its sad.

in other news, hell has frozen over.

macgyver06

jlew24asu wrote:

in other news, hell has frozen over.

lol