Are We Witnessing the Fall of America?

Drowned Out

jlew24asu wrote:

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

Do you think the US will be a world superpower forever? What makes the current empire any different than others throughout history?

jlew24asu

Drowned Out wrote:

Do you think the US will be a world superpower forever? What makes the current empire any different than others throughout history?

yes america will be a super power forever. the only difference is that other countries (or group of countries EU) will catch up, giving you the illusion the america is going down.

Dylan Stone

jlew24asu wrote:

yes america will be a super power forever. the only difference is that other countries (or group of countries EU) will catch up, giving you the illusion the america is going down.

Wow. I find your optimism rather interesting.

We can hope...

boxwine_in_hell

RolandTD20Kdrummer wrote:

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."

Thanks Chicken Little for the fear mongering. Don't worry you'll be a few hundred years into your dirt nap before America's decline. If there is even a habitable world by then that is.

Drowned Out

jlew24asu wrote:

yes america will be a super power forever. the only difference is that other countries (or group of countries EU) will catch up, giving you the illusion the america is going down.

this could be the most idiotic, chest thumping nationalist response I have ever read. hav fun with that "illusion". im speechless.
I don't know why you guys get so fired up over a little fun speculation...

wcsmith

While it's tempting to do "worst-case scenario" type thinking, I doubt that will be the case. I do feel that we are in for some really hard times, in terms of having to make changes in our everyday lives - gas at $15/gallon, no cell phones, collapse of aspects of infrastructure (which is already happening). But to be fair, most Americans have been living a completely unsustainable lifestyle for the last 30 years. Most Middle-Class (M-C) Americans have seemingly forgotten the fact that choices have real-world consequences. M-C Americans around my age (30) want the big house, SUV, vacation home, etc. NOW, without spending the 20-30 years our parents spent working for it. In world history, I'm not sure that there's a parallel for the massive sense of entitlement that so many of us have and the utter lack of community involvement.

If anything sparks violence and unrest during an economic depression, it will be the combination of that sense of entitlement ("I have to have my cell phone/car/internet connect/etc.") and the rampant self-centeredness that seems to have infected many in our culture. If you talk to some of the old-timers who lived through the depression, they'll talk about how most (not all) people pulled together to help one another. I'm not claiming that we are the only self-absorbed culture in history, just the most self-absorbed.

There are of course, deeper issues here than cultural trends like entitlement and self-absorption. What happens when your sick parent/child/spouse can't get their medicine? What happens when the market collapses and the government siezes your property/possessions? What happens when you can't afford bread? What happens when you can't afford gas and you lose your job? These are not conspiracy theories or "tin hat" thinking - this is happening to someone in your town/county/neighborhood right now! And if things get even a little worse economically, it could be any one of us.

Well, life goes on, I guess...one day at a time, or something like that...

jlew24asu

GTFLYGIRL wrote:

Wow. I find your optimism rather interesting.

We can hope...

just look at the numbers. there is no country even close in terms of GDP.

http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/2007/06/10/131-us-states-renamed-for-countries-with-similar-gdps/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)


yes we might fall into recession. (or we might not) just look at what has happened throughout the history of past recessions. it lead to decades of growth. the US economy is very resilient and this country is full of brilliant people.

jlew24asu

Drowned Out wrote:

this could be the most idiotic, chest thumping nationalist response I have ever read. hav fun with that "illusion". im speechless.
I don't know why you guys get so fired up over a little fun speculation...

nice you know im right though.

Uncle Leo

We ARE witnessing the fall of America. Only one thing can save it. I'll give you a clue:

$6 Million in one day!!!!!!!!!!!!!111111111111one1111111!!!!!!!

spiral out

jlew24asu wrote:

yes america will be a super power forever. the only difference is that other countries (or group of countries EU) will catch up, giving you the illusion the america is going down.

All empires fall.

jlew24asu

spiral out wrote:

All empires fall.

the US isnt an empire. empires are ruled by emperors. every 4 (or recently 8) years we elect new leaders, have new polices. the US is a large industrial nation that will continue to prosper. it will also face tough times like it always has and recover from them. like I said, look at the numbers

spiral out

jlew24asu wrote:

the US isnt an empire. empires are ruled by emperors. every 4 (or recently 8) years we elect new leaders, have new polices. the US is a large industrial nation that will continue to prosper. it will also face tough times like it always has and recover from them. like I said, look at the numbers

You know what you take life way to seriously sometimes.

Why does it offend you so much that we talk about america taking a little step back from being the world super power? No matter how much you cry about it, it will happen eventually it's just the way the world works, just like the market changes from bull to bear every few years.

jlew24asu

spiral out wrote:

You know what you take life way to seriously sometimes.

Why does it offend you so much that we talk about america taking a little step back from being the world super power? No matter how much you cry about it, it will happen eventually it's just the way the world works, just like the market changes from bull to bear every few years.

beacause its simply not true. people from around the world will continue to flock to america like that have for hundreds of years to live out their hopes and dreams. our population and productivity growth isnt going anywhere. bush has done alot to hurt our imagine in recent years, but guess what, in less then a year he will be gone.

countries will catch up to us but we will not "fall" from being a super power.

macgyver06

spiral out wrote:

All empires fall.

fall to what...from what..and where is this empire youre talking about?


when you read history books they are that....history...we live on present times...not in a history book... come to the present...what is falling?

spiral out

macgyver06 wrote:

fall to what...from what..and where is this empire youre talking about?


when you read history books they are that....history...we live on present times...not in a history book... come to the present...what is falling?

Ok ok chill i was just using a line i like, as i explained to jlew i meant superpower.

Fall to what i'm to going to predict the out come who knows but every dog has his day, and if we look at history we can clearly see that.

America is not the first and it won't be the last.

Collin

jlew24asu wrote:

countries will catch up to us but we will not "fall" from being a super power.

You do realize that other countries might catch up, and pass the US. That is a very likely scenario. And by definition that means you 'fall'.

yellowsnowbetter

jlew24asu wrote:

yes america will be a super power forever. the only difference is that other countries (or group of countries EU) will catch up, giving you the illusion the america is going down.

this is a reasonable statement....and i am not on a doomsday train. many empires have come to pass, and yet their way of life is still intact.

Abuskedti

jlew24asu wrote:

yes america will be a super power forever. the only difference is that other countries (or group of countries EU) will catch up, giving you the illusion the america is going down.

this could be the most idiotic tinned hat response I have ever read.

and one of the reasons this, as with all the previous, will fall fast and hard

fanch75

Drowned Out wrote:

...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.

If there was suddenly a "revolution," I wonder if you'd suddenly see leftwing folks becoming pro-gun?

Drowned Out

jlew24asu wrote:

nice you know im right though.

hey, I don’t disagree with you. I think the US has the potential to stay involved as a major player on the world stage for as long as there is a stage…however I’m sure there were a lot of Soviets in the 70s/80s that didn’t think their country could go from a long, steady decline to complete collapse overnight.

I guess we’re talking about two different things – the demise of America as a superpower, and the collapse of civilization as we know it. I think it’s inevitable for other countries to catch up to the US, which will significantly reduce it’s role in geopolitics….but unless there is a complete societal collapse, I don’t see the US being relegated to also-ran status.

But I don’t see that societal collapse as all that far fetched either…it’s nature in it’s most basic form for an overpopulated species to experience a ‘thinning of the heard’ – usually by fucking up their own food/water supply, or disease caused by conditions associated with that overpopulation…

So…I don’t really see someone taking over as world superpower while the US is reduced to third world status….I think it’s more likely that we’ll ALL be reduced to third world status at some point….

fanch75 wrote:

If there was suddenly a "revolution," I wonder if you'd suddenly see leftwing folks becoming pro-gun?

I don’t consider myself defined under any ‘wing’, but I do have a lot of leftist beliefs….and thru the combination of the loss of libery, and bureaucratic mess that is Canada’s gun registry, and my realization of the reasons behind the right to bear arms (which ties into this discussion), I decided a while back that I’m anti-gun control…..I will never call myself pro-gun tho