Empire - America and the future

[ccgwebmaster]

I can definietely foresee some nukes flying at some point of big desperation. But equally dangerous are all those nuclear power plants that must have a high level of maintenance to keep on functioning, and the nuclear waste that needs constant management. I can't really see how a collapsing civilization avoids multiple nuclear catastrophies, as I'm quite sure no one will do a managed shutdown of all nuclear plants and dismantling of all nuclear arms before the coming breakdown.

Even a bad nuclear war should settle climatically after a decade or so (and the effects questionably worse than substantial climate change anyway)? Many of the radioactive products have a pretty short half life, and indeed people still live in Hiroshima and Nagasaki...

Many designs of nuclear reactor can achieve "cool shutdown" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shutdown_%28nuclear_reactor%29), which means they'll just sit there for decades or centuries until containment finally fails to materials degradation, and they presumably spill whatever radioactive fuel hasn't consumed itself (even in shutdown the fuel continues to consume itself) into the surrounding environment.

That's not pretty, but it's essentially a local problem (even if local means "the size of a country"), and arguably likely far less serious than we think on a global scale (in the context of everything else that is and will be happening).

I often wonder if people like to retreat into the notion of assured nuclear armageddon for precisely the same reasons they tend to retreat into the notion of survival (and advancement of civilisation from some base level) as being inconceivable - which is to say it's an excuse for inaction.

By convincing ourselves the future is impossible, we defeat ourselves without lifting a finger. Convenient?

I'm open to arguments demonstrating empirically that the whole earth surface will be rendered uninhabitable by nuclear war or reactor failures, provided they're reasonable in nature and have some measure of science behind them. Otherwise, my counsel is simple - we educate ourselves as to the natures of all the threats we can conceive, and determine appropriate responses to the extent feasible.

[JimD]

Terry

A conspiracist would perhaps come to the conclusion that Harper is a Manchurian Prime Minister being managed by the US.  His job is to set Canada up for future statehood perhaps??

(just tweaking you)

...Mr. Harper’s campaign for re-election has so far been utterly consistent with the personality trait that has defined his tenure as prime minister: his peculiar hatred for sharing information.

Americans have traditionally looked to Canada as a liberal haven, with gun control, universal health care and good public education.

But the nine and half years of Mr. Harper’s tenure have seen the slow-motion erosion of that reputation for open, responsible government. His stance has been a know-nothing conservatism, applied broadly and effectively. He has consistently limited the capacity of the public to understand what its government is doing, cloaking himself and his Conservative Party in an entitled secrecy, and the country in ignorance.

His relationship to the press is one of outright hostility. At his notoriously brief news conferences, his handlers vet every journalist, picking and choosing who can ask questions. In the usual give-and-take between press and politicians, the hurly-burly of any healthy democracy, he has simply removed the give.

Mr. Harper’s war against science has been even more damaging to the capacity of Canadians to know what their government is doing. The prime minister’s base of support is Alberta, a western province financially dependent on the oil industry, and he has been dedicated to protecting petrochemical companies from having their feelings hurt by any inconvenient research.

In 2012, he tried to defund government research centers in the High Arctic, and placed Canadian environmental scientists under gag orders. That year, National Research Council members were barred from discussing their work on snowfall with the media. Scientists for the governmental agency Environment Canada, under threat of losing their jobs, have been banned from discussing their research without political approval. Mentions of federal climate change research in the Canadian press have dropped 80 percent. The union that represents federal scientists and other professionals has, for the first time in its history, abandoned neutrality to campaign against Mr. Harper....

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/opinion/sunday/the-closing-of-the-canadian-mind.html?mabReward=A3&_r=0

[wili]

"it's essentially a local problem (even if local means "the size of a country")"

Yeah, 'country's like China, the US, Russia, and the EU, for example??

Japan lucked out (so to speak) because the fuku plume mostly went east over the ocean. If it had been blown in the opposite direction, Tokyo, much of the rest of central Japan, and probably much of Korea and northern China would have had to be evacuated or just live with very high levels of radioactive fallout raining down on them.

And that was just one reactor.

There are (or soon will be) over 500 reactors around the world.

http://www.world-nuclear.org/Nuclear-Basics/Global-number-of-nuclear-reactors/

That looks like a pretty big potential net affected area (though of course some areas are particularly thick with the f'rs while others remain blessedly free of them).

Yeah, nuclear facilities are not the only threats. But they sure have to potential to be big multipliers of the other effects of collapse.

[ccgwebmaster]

There are (or soon will be) over 500 reactors around the world.

But there isn't and won't be 500 tsunamis? That's a pretty abrupt and improbable event. It's not like they're all going to spontaneously go bang one day.

Besides, pretty much however many countries you care to write off, just a reminder - the worse case end projections indicate a planet that is no longer inhabitable for people over 90% of the currently inhabited surface from climate change (heat stress) alone... those reactors mostly fall within the same area, I'd wager. It's already likely dead land as far as our descendents are concerned.

[TerryM]

JimD


At some time Canada & the States will of course merge, We're desperately in need of one more province ;>)


Thanks for the article - who would have expected it from the NY Times.


Terry

[oren]

I can definietely foresee some nukes flying at some point of big desperation. But equally dangerous are all those nuclear power plants that must have a high level of maintenance to keep on functioning, and the nuclear waste that needs constant management. I can't really see how a collapsing civilization avoids multiple nuclear catastrophies, as I'm quite sure no one will do a managed shutdown of all nuclear plants and dismantling of all nuclear arms before the coming breakdown.

Even a bad nuclear war should settle climatically after a decade or so (and the effects questionably worse than substantial climate change anyway)? Many of the radioactive products have a pretty short half life, and indeed people still live in Hiroshima and Nagasaki...

Many designs of nuclear reactor can achieve "cool shutdown" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shutdown_%28nuclear_reactor%29), which means they'll just sit there for decades or centuries until containment finally fails to materials degradation, and they presumably spill whatever radioactive fuel hasn't consumed itself (even in shutdown the fuel continues to consume itself) into the surrounding environment.

That's not pretty, but it's essentially a local problem (even if local means "the size of a country"), and arguably likely far less serious than we think on a global scale (in the context of everything else that is and will be happening).

I often wonder if people like to retreat into the notion of assured nuclear armageddon for precisely the same reasons they tend to retreat into the notion of survival (and advancement of civilisation from some base level) as being inconceivable - which is to say it's an excuse for inaction.

By convincing ourselves the future is impossible, we defeat ourselves without lifting a finger. Convenient?

I'm open to arguments demonstrating empirically that the whole earth surface will be rendered uninhabitable by nuclear war or reactor failures, provided they're reasonable in nature and have some measure of science behind them. Otherwise, my counsel is simple - we educate ourselves as to the natures of all the threats we can conceive, and determine appropriate responses to the extent feasible.

Thanks for the detailed response. I don't know anything quantifiable about nuclear, so can't come up with any counter-arguments.

[JimD]

I don't get surprised very often, but I am by this.

Recently one of the most prominent right wing para-military organizations in the US got a bunch of publicity for showing up in Ferguson to 'protect' some conservative media reporters from the black demonstrators (some had been beaten a few days before).  Naturally they show up fully SWAT/Special Ops outfitted with assault rifles, handguns, body armor, nigh vision equipment, etc. 

Turns out the police are not happy with them and there is a big confrontation between them and the police.  After 2 days 'protecting' the reporters and many conversations with the black demonstrators they decide that the rights of the blacks are being infringed upon by the police.  Who could have known?

So their natural solution is to have a big 'rights' demonstration in Ferguson where they AND the blacks demonstrate together.  But the blacks there don't have the necessary assault rifles (being black and carrying an assault rifle is basically committing suicide in the US) so they are bringing 50 of their spare assault rifles for the black demonstrators to carry.  And they are going to be with the blacks to 'protect' them.

You just cannot make this stuff up.

http://www.reddirtreport.com/red-dirt-news/oath-keepers-plan-unique-demonstration-assault-rifles-ferguson

[OldLeatherneck]

JimD


At some time Canada & the States will of course merge, We're desperately in need of one more province ;>)


Thanks for the article - who would have expected it from the NY Times.


Terry

You can add the province of Texas anytime. Once you've proven you can govern Texas, we'll gladly  give you the choice of getting Oklahoma or Alabama next

[JimD]

JimD


At some time Canada & the States will of course merge, We're desperately in need of one more province ;>)


Thanks for the article - who would have expected it from the NY Times.


Terry

You can add the province of Texas anytime. Once you've proven you can govern Texas, we'll gladly  give you the choice of getting Oklahoma or Alabama next

Rats!  I was planning on giving Texas and Arizona back to Mexico.  Procrastination gets you every time.

[OldLeatherneck]

JimD


At some time Canada & the States will of course merge, We're desperately in need of one more province ;>)


Thanks for the article - who would have expected it from the NY Times.


Terry

You can add the province of Texas anytime. Once you've proven you can govern Texas, we'll gladly  give you the choice of getting Oklahoma or Alabama next

Rats!  I was planning on giving Texas and Arizona back to Mexico.  Procrastination gets you every time.

Maybe we could foment a war between Mexico and Canada, whereby the loser gets to keep both Texas and Arizona.

[Bruce Steele]

Science
Man, introverted man, having crossed
In passage and but a little with the nature of things this latter
century
Has begot giants; but being taken up
Like a maniac with self-love and inward conflicts cannot manage
his hybrids.
Being used to deal with edgeless dreams,
Now he's bred knives on nature turns them also inward: they
have thirsty points though.
His mind forebodes his own destruction;
Actaeon who saw the goddess naked among leaves and his hounds
tore him.
A little knowledge, a pebble from the shingle,
A drop from the oceans: who would have dreamed this infinitely
little too much?

Robinson Jeffers :

[Sleepy]

Thought I'd seen and heard a lot. And of course I've heard of Donald Trump.

We do have 20% of the Swedish people who support a party that want's to see an opinions register (has been illegal since 1969) for muslims (and journalists), denies climate change and want's to shut down our borders to all immigrants.
Fine, I hear them and I see them every day, but I also see the refugees. Among those a lot from Syria now.

Today I saw this:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/donald-trump-wants-to-ban-the-internet-will-ask-bill-gates-to-close-it-up-a6764396.html

“We have to talk to them about, maybe in certain areas, closing that internet up in some ways. Somebody will say, 'Oh freedom of speech, freedom of speech.' These are foolish people."

Ok, so I'm one of the foolish ones, fine.

Then I saw this:
http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/2016-national-gop-primary
Graph attached below.

Please tell me that graph is wrong?

[Bruce Steele]

Sleepy, I live in an affluent area but the republican right wing has a strong foothold here. DT probably has a strong support base here but it is not economic stress that is causing this hard shift towards fascism, more like I got mine and everyone else can ( eat cake ). There is a strong anti -Latino message that goes with the anti-Muslim bent but the rich around here are totally dependent on  cheap Latino labor, go figure.  None of this is rational, immigrants statistically pose a very very small threat to these peoples safety . They call themselves Christian, they like their guns and big trucks. They really need to be publicly called out by the rest of us but there isn't anything like a public forum to do so. I have been booed out of a question and answer session following a fracking promotional movie because I stood up and upset their groupthink. They are willing to include violence if you push them intellectually.
 They will likely lose this election but our military expansionism is largely driven by a similar mindset.
My advice is cut us off , make us get visas to leave, don't buy our weapons , don't support our foreign bases, make us live in the cesspool of our own making. Don't allow us to use our weapons to enforce
our mindset elsewhere. We are collectively trying to maintain a diminishing power base and the left goes along with it far to easily. Without the support from the rest of the world we will wither away as we have not the energy resources to perpetuate this madness . It come down to oil and military power and who is willing to wield weapons to maintain them. The immigrations noise is just a method to promote the larger goal of maintaining our wealth  via violence, verbal, imagined and real. 

[Sleepy]

Thanks Bruce, unfortunately you confirm some of my fears, but I do appreciate when people write about their home turf a bit more. Good that the republicans likely will loose though.

My parents lived through WW2 and they didn't talk much about it, but what they did say was enough. There are too many disturbances today, different than back then but all over the world, and there's been a debate here with people like Wilhelm Agrell and others, speculating about what might come out of it all. We probably won't recognize the signs today, until it's too late. And then those like Isak Svensson who say that it's dangerous to talk about such things since it will only feed the extremists. I don't know, but for me, not talking is always the worst option.

[Sleepy]

Regarding Trump, Swedish Vattenfall is in a joint venture here:
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-35106581

History will judge those involved unfavourably and the outcome demonstrates the foolish, small-minded and parochial mentality which dominates the current Scottish government's dangerous experiment with wind energy.

I don't know if I should laugh, or cry.

[JimD]

A Christmas Story for y'all. 

One can't fix most of the problems discussed in this blog unless the direction of the empire is changed or it is just eliminated. 

......So 101 years after the Christmas truces along the Western Front there is still no peace on earth. And the long suffering American taxpayers, who foot the massive bills generated by the War Party’s demented and destructive policies, have no clue that Imperial Washington is the principal reason.

http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/christmas-2015-why-there-is-no-peace-on-earth/

[JimD]

Hey!  We're #1!  Woot, woot.

http://www.military.com/daily-news/2015/12/28/us-increasingly-dominates-global-arms-trade-congressional-report.html

..."In worldwide arms transfer agreements in 2014 -- to both developed and developing nations -- United States dominated, ranking first with $36.2 billion in such agreements or 50.4% of all such agreements," the report states. "Russia ranked second in worldwide arms transfer agreements in 2014 with $10.2 billion in such global agreements or 14.2%. The value of all arms transfer agreements worldwide in 2014 was $71.8 billion."...

Imagine what 2015 numbers were like.

[JimD]

The Sovereign Citizen movement and right wing militia's

US radicalism on the right.  There are lots of these folks where I live.

Some of these folks live near where my son lives in CA.  They have shot at the local police at least once and are a constant issue locally.  In the Nevada standoff mentioned in the link below there were a host of pictures of them holding sheriff's deputy's, BLM officers and others at gunpoint.  None of them ever were charged.

https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/ideology/sovereign-citizens-movement

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/oregon-ranchers-occupy-national-wildlife-refuge_56888a61e4b0b958f65be382?

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/oregon-ranchers-reject-cliven-bundy-family-occupation/

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/cliven-bundy-cattle-battle-continues-to-rattle-washington/

[wili]

"None of them ever were charged."

That wouldn't have anything to do with skin pigmentation, would it?? 

[JimD]

Ouch!  And this is the Obama administration.

http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/US-Immigration-Crack-Down-on-Central-American-Families-Begins-20160103-0028.html

[JimD]

So interesting news this morning.

North Korea claims the seismic event which just occurred there was the result of them testing a hydrogen bomb.  Should this prove true what does the rest of the world do about it?

[OldLeatherneck]

So interesting news this morning.

North Korea claims the seismic event which just occurred there was the result of them testing a hydrogen bomb.  Should this prove true what does the rest of the world do about it?

JimD,

Good question.  While there are a multitude of things that the world could do in response, most of them could have very serious consequences.  Among these are:

1.  The US has the capability of using non-nuclear weapons to destroy North Korea's nuclear infrastructure.  This however, would almost certainly cause Kim Jong-Un to invade South Korea with his million man army.  Another risk would be that he might have nuclear tipped rockets that could be fired into the  south from conventional launch platforms.

2.  South Korea, with  help of allies, could use covert means to attempt to "decapitate" North Korea's leadership.  This would be fraught with risk, unless they could ascertain significant support from within North Korea.

3.  Most probably, further UN sanctions will be imposed, resulting in further hardships for the starving masses and will have little impact on the  behavior of the North Korean Leadership.

In summation, I think the Kim Jong-Un picked this time to detonate this device just get get the world's attention.  With  the world focused on the problems in the middle east, he wanted to get his name back on the world scene.

Has anyone notticed the similarity between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-Un.  They are both self-aggrandizing, attention seeking, megalomaniacs with bad hair!!

[JimD]

From the file of you can't make this stuff up.

Illinois college moves to fire professor who said Muslims, Christians worship same God
Wheaton College, an evangelical Christian university outside of Chicago, said on Tuesday it was taking steps to fire a tenured political science professor after she wrote in a Facebook post that Muslims and Christians worship the same God.....

I have had this very conversation a couple of dozens times with various evangelicals I have ended up engaging in conversations about religion and Muslims.  It comes as a complete shock to most of them.  That Muslims read the old Testament and many are very well versed in the Bible also shocks them.  The best one is asking them when they see the videos of the Haj and the crowd is walking in a big circle around the giant black obelisk in Mecca what it is they are doing.  They almost fall on the ground when they learn that that is Abraham's tomb.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-illinois-religion-muslim-idUSKBN0UK0IN20160106

[JimD]

The dearth of realists

From my experience in this world this question is very valid.  There was a host of minor functionaries in the US government in the days leading up to many of the mistakes mentioned in this article, some of them very loud voices, so of those voices threw away their careers in opposition, yet they had little meaningful voice.  And still do not.  But then they do not have much voice in climate changes issues either.

http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/01/08/what-would-a-realist-world-have-looked-like-iraq-syria-iran-obama-bush-clinton/?utm_content=bufferc8773&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

[JimD]

The Koch family:  founders of the John Birch Society, the US Libertarian Party, funders of the Tea Party, funders of climate change denial, blackest of the Black BAU'ers...

The father of the billionaires Charles G. and David H. Koch helped construct a major oil refinery in Nazi Germany that was personally approved by Adolf Hitler, according to a new history of the Kochs and other wealthy families.

The book, “Dark Money,” by Jane Mayer, traces the rise of the modern conservative movement through the activism and money of a handful of rich donors: among them Richard Mellon Scaife, an heir to the Mellon banking fortune, and Harry and Lynde Bradley, brothers who became wealthy in part from military contracts but poured millions into anti-government philanthropy.

But the book is largely focused on the Koch family, stretching back to its involvement in the far-right John Birch Society and the political and business activities of the father, Fred C. Koch, who found some of his earliest business success overseas in the years leading up to World War II. One venture was a partnership with the American Nazi sympathizer William Rhodes Davis, who, according to Ms. Mayer, hired Mr. Koch to help build the third-largest oil refinery in the Third Reich, a critical industrial cog in Hitler’s war machine.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/12/us/politics/father-of-koch-brothers-helped-build-nazi-oil-refinery-book-says.html?_r=0

[JimD]

This Month Marks 25 Years the U.S. Has Been at War in Iraq

Saturday, January 17, marked 25 years — a full generation — since the 1991 launch of a U.S.-led air war, “Operation Desert Storm,” that devastated Iraq, causing extensive damage to the country’s electrical, water, and sewage infrastructure, with terrible public health consequences.

A quarter-century later, the U.S. is still bombing, and over 3,400 U.S. troops are in the country. It’s part of a larger war raging in northern Iraq and Syria, with a ferocious, merciless entity driving the destruction: the Islamic State.

The countries of the region, and to a lesser extent European countries, have been overwhelmed by the largest refugee crisis since World War II.

http://fpif.org/month-marks-25-years-u-s-war-iraq/

[JimD]

Are we heading back to Libya?

If this happens on any scale it should provide a nice boost to the European immigration problem don't you think?

...We now have our answer, from the New York Times:

Worried about a growing threat from the Islamic State in Libya, the United States and its allies are increasing reconnaissance flights and intelligence collecting there and preparing for possible airstrikes and commando raids, senior American policy makers, commanders and intelligence officials said this week. … “It’s fair to say that we’re looking to take decisive military action against ISIL in conjunction with the political process” in Libya, [Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Joseph] Dunford said. “The president has made clear that we have the authority to use military force.”

https://theintercept.com/2016/01/27/the-u-s-intervention-in-libya-was-such-a-smashing-success-that-a-sequel-is-coming/

[JimD]

Another article on the planned ramp up in Libya.  The interesting aspect of this article is that it is more openly critical from a more 'mainstream' source in that rather from being from a liberal correspondent like Greenwald it is from a conservative publication. 

Of course the rhetoric being put out by all the presidential candidates (except Sanders) is that all of them are for more military action against terrorism than Obama has been.  Obama is weak according to them.  So one can bet that if a Republican gets elected their tune will change as it will be their team on the offensive.  Of course since Hillary is more militarily conservative than Obama they might even like what she ends up doing.

All this will help a lot in dealing with climate change and carrying capacity issues.  Such is how we make collapse happen quicker.

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/the-war-on-isis-expands-to-libya/

[JimD]

Hey Great Britain!  Don't be f**king with the structure of the Empire!

President Barack Obama plans to deliver a message to the British people: Stay in the European Union and say no to “Brexit.” That’s what Bob Corker, the Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, says he has been led to expect.

At a hearing earlier this month, his committee heard from two witnesses who had served in the Bush and Obama administrations. Both of them urged the U.S. to make it clear, as Britain prepares to vote on its membership in the EU, that Americans want it in.

As if the U.S. message wasn't clear already. The Obama administration’s mantra is that we want “a strong United Kingdom in a strong European Union.” It has even hinted that it would not sign a trade agreement with Britain if it left the EU.

Support for deeper British involvement in a more and more united Europe has been a bipartisan American policy since the early days of the Cold War.

So.  Don't mess with us or we will cut you out of our trade agreements and turn you into a developing country vice a junior member of those who get to make the rules and siphon off the wealth and resources.  Your choice.

Note the author thinks for a variety of reasons that the US should mind its own business.  But that is not likely to sway those making the decisions for the Empire.

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2016-02-24/u-s-should-stay-out-of-britain-s-decision-on-eu

[JimD]

A really excellent article on the state of the Empire.

http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176161/

btw  it is starting to remind me of 1968 these days here in the US.

[AbruptSLR]

The linked article was adapted from: "Poison Tea: How Big Oil and Big Tobacco Invented the Tea Party and Captured the GOP" (2016); and focuses on how the Koch brothers planned to and then proceeded to take partial control of the GOP via the Tea Party:

http://time.com/secret-origins-of-the-tea-party/

Extract: "Charles and David Koch—who, if their individual fortunes were combined in one place, would quite possibly represent the wealthiest person on earth—have almost certainly spent or raised more than a billion dollars to successfully bend one of the two national parties in America to their will. The long rise of the Tea Party movement was orchestrated, well funded, and deliberate. Its aim was to break Washington. And it has nearly succeeded, as America saw in the debt-ceiling debacle of 2011, prompted by the Republican Party’s demand that the president negotiate over deficit reduction in exchange for an increase in the maximum amount of money the US Treasury is allowed to borrow. There are no mistakes or accidents in the Tea Party movement. Its leadership has made certain of that.

[JimD]

An excellent take on the building decline of the empire.  Has some excellent points on how we got here, and where we are going...to include the rise of Trump and the poison pill of Hillary.

...And it’s in cities like Baltimore where the economic decline is most apparent. In its heyday, it was a prosperous middle and working class metropolis, with one of the largest and busiest ports on the east coast. Flooded with European immigrants in the early 20th century, Baltimore soon became a diverse mosaic of cultures, with new arrivals settling in ethnic neighborhoods that reflected old world customs.

In the 1950s, Baltimore was home to a host of thriving industries—particularly manufacturing and shipping—which created some three-fourths of all jobs. The city's residents had a median income 7 per cent higher than the national median; the percentage of Baltimore families earning middle-class wages was about one-fifth higher than in the U.S. as a whole; and the proportion of Baltimoreans living in poverty was roughly one-fifth lower than the corresponding national figure.

But then the city began to de-industrialize. From 1970 to 2000, Baltimore’s population fell by nearly one-third, from 906,000 to 651,000. Now it’s down to 620,000, and has the highest concentration of heroin addicts in the nation, many neighborhoods where households earn less than (US) $25,000 a year, with more than one in five adults out of work. It had 344 homicides last year – the highest per capita in its history (In comparison, with a population of 2.6 million, Toronto had only 55 homicides last year)...

..Now some wonder if the United States is at that critical point the Roman Empire once found itself – where the rot has set in and the future is looking bleak. “It’s more like the Roman Empire where you overextend your capacity to maintain the empire, you surrender your economic system to speculators, you need to base your political system in a form of political theater, which is how you end up with Nero and Caligula,” says Hedges. “And the citizens are kind of bought off with bread and circuses… which is sort of the entertainment complex in the United States, which is vast and huge and a very effective political pacifier… People essentially retreat into a kind of form of magical thinking…That’s what we are kind of seeing with Trump: the idea that he can bring back that prosperity that the white working class had in the 1950s and the early part of the 60s. It’s a non-reality belief system. But it’s what people desperately want to hear.”....

This economic crisis led to two important developments that ended up creating the empire’s fatal flaw: pressured by the business community, governments introduced free trade agreements that gave corporations and finance capital greater freedom to move factories and investment wherever labour was cheaper and civil society and environmental laws were weakest. And domestically, trade unions – which had fought for better wages during the post-war boom – came under withering assault.

The result of globalization and attack on labour rights was wages in the US and Canada (and in Europe too) stagnated – and have done so for more than 40 years. Unionization in the US has fallen from 35 per cent of all workers in 1954, down to 11.3 per cent today – and only 6.6 per cent in the private sector.

Consequently, the capacity of workers and the middle class to garner a bigger portion of the economic pie began to fall. Says Baker: “We decided to put American workers in competition with workers in China and in India and, of course, the effect was to lower their wages.”

I have mentioned before that my brother was one of the architects of what became known of as globalization several decades ago.  His quote to me back then was that he did not work for an American corporation but an international business and thus had no loyalty to the US.  His goal of free trade agreements was to reach the point where there was "labor arbitrage in place globally".

The evidence of this is no longer a matter of debate: For instance, in a recent survey, the US Federal Reserve Board asked respondents how they would pay for a $400 emergency. The answer was shocking: 47 per cent said that either they would cover the expense by borrowing or selling something, or they would not be able to come up with the money at all.

Two reports published last year by the Pew Charitable Trusts found that 55 per cent of households didn’t have enough liquid savings to replace a month’s worth of lost income, with 71 per cent were concerned about having enough money to cover everyday expenses. A similar study conducted by Annamaria Lusardi of George Washington University, Peter Tufano of Oxford, and Daniel Schneider, then of Princeton, came to the conclusion that nearly half of American adults are “financially fragile” and “living very close to the financial edge.”

Indeed, in the US, median net worth has declined steeply in the past generation – down 85.3 per cent from 1983 to 2013 for the bottom income quintile alone. According to research funded by the Russell Sage Foundation, the inflation-adjusted net worth of the typical household was $87,992 in 2003. By 2013, it had fallen to $54,500 - a drop of 38 per cent.

Consequently, this pauperization has meant the share of American adults living in middle-income households has fallen from 61 per cent in 1971 to 50 per cent in 2015, while the share living in the upper-income tier rose from 14 to 21 per cent over the same period. At the same time, the portion of the population in the lowest-income tier increased from 25 to 29 per cent.

Instead, wealth has been flowing upwards. Fully 49 per cent of US aggregate income went to upper-income households in 2014 – up from 29 per cent in 1970. The top 1 per cent of income earners received approximately 20 per cent of the pre-tax income in 2013, versus approximately 10 per cent from 1950 to 1980.

But as wealth has concentrated among the wealthy, they have not been shy about using it to further their economic ends. Now there is growing concern America is turning into an oligarchy – and democracy is disappearing as a consequence. “There is no democracy, it’s bought and sold,” argues Evans.

In 2014, a study by Martin Gilens, a professor of politics at Princeton, and Benjamin I. Page, a professor of decision-making at Northwestern University, examined this question and concluded that it was true. “The central point that emerges from our research is that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence,” they said.

This political interference by the 1 per cent is best demonstrated by Charles and David Koch, who control the Wichita, KA-based oil (US) $115-billion oil conglomerate Koch Industries, and are the seventh wealthiest people in the US, with a combined worth of almost (US) $90-billion.

Yet it’s unlikely to win him the White House. Instead, in November, Hillary Clinton will almost assuredly take over as president.

But what does that mean for the future of the American empire? After all, under Barack Obama, a Democrat and African-American, the problems of Americans only got worse. “She will be a good steward of the empire,” says Cohn. “She is more hawkish than Obama.”...

...But Trump is not the phenomena; Trump responds to the phenomena. So you put Clinton in power and you know you may get rid of Trump as a particular figure but you’re not going to get rid of that phenomena. You will certainly see another Trump-like demagogue rise up as this legitimate anger ripples through society.

If you think today is a mess wait until the next generation of political populist rises up to challenge the system in 2020.  America is going broke and rotting from the inside out.  What cannot stand will not.  All of this day to day dealing with real life issues will trump (nice pun!) climate change issues for ...ever?  Those who think we can just slide along on the green and black BAU gravy trains are in for a rude awakening ... about the time the train hits the river after flying off the tracks.


http://www.nationalobserver.com/2016/07/21/news/decline-american-empire-and-rise-donald-trump

[JimD]

What America decides to do on the global geopolitical stage is the key driver of everything.  A bald but simple statement backed up by the obvious realization that real progress on solving climate change and carrying capacity issues lie on the road which passes through Washington.  If Washington does not play there can be no solution.

So what is going on in the rooms where those who lay out the strategy of the American empire talk.  For those who do not know, over the last 50 years two voices have held dominance in this room.  Their views on what our overall objectives should be are largely fully compatible - American dominance.  However they are strong rivals and there are significant differences in their approaches.  We have largely followed the first of these men and occasionally the second.  Our likely next president is wholly in the camp of the first and is a devoted follower.  There is absolutely no reason to think she will not follow his strategic lead.  This approach relies on the constant use of military force and all the tools of diplomatic and economic force with the goal of furthering American power and maintaining the American empire.  The first man is of course Henry Kissinger.  The other is Zbigniew Brzezinski.

Below are two links to Brzezinski's current views.  They are very important and critical in that they are the least of the two approaches in terms of maintaining the empire - and completely incompatible with solving the existential problems of climate change and carrying capacity.  Kissinger's approach is much more militarily oriented.  Tell me how, given the outlooks guiding the American elite, we have any real world chance of implementing the kinds of social changes required to deal with the existential problems we face.

FYI I do not support the views expressed below and find many of them repugnant.  Brzezinski's expressed opinion's on what the other global actors should do going forward should not be taken at anything like face value as the intention of such recommendations always has as their ultimate goal the advancement of American interests.  Remember, trust no one and verify.  We are not your friends after all - allies perhaps - rulers frequently - enemies often.

http://www.the-american-interest.com/2016/04/17/toward-a-global-realignment/

As its era of global dominance ends, the United States needs to take the lead in realigning the global power architecture.

Five basic verities regarding the emerging redistribution of global political power and the violent political awakening in the Middle East are signaling the coming of a new global realignment......

...Taken together as a unified framework, these five verities tell us that the United States must take the lead in realigning the global power architecture in such a way that the violence erupting within and occasionally projected beyond the Muslim world—and in the future possibly from other parts of what used to be called the Third World—can be contained without destroying the global order. We can sketch this new architecture by elaborating briefly each of the five foregoing verities....

Maintaining the global order is a euphemism for maintaining American global dominance of course.

...The alternative to a constructive vision, and especially the quest for a one-sided militarily and ideologically imposed outcome, can only result in prolonged and self-destructive futility. For America, that could entail enduring conflict, fatigue, and conceivably even a demoralizing withdrawal to its pre-20th century isolationism. For Russia, it could mean major defeat, increasing the likelihood of subordination in some fashion to Chinese predominance. For China, it could portend war not only with the United States but also, perhaps separately, with either Japan or India or with both. And, in any case, a prolonged phase of sustained ethnic, quasi-religious wars pursued through the Middle East with self-righteous fanaticism would generate escalating bloodshed within and outside the region, and growing cruelty everywhere.
The fact is that there has never been a truly “dominant” global power until the emergence of America on the world scene. Imperial Great Britain came close to becoming one, but World War I and later World War II not only bankrupted it but also prompted the emergence of rival regional powers. The decisive new global reality was the appearance on the world scene of America as simultaneously the richest and militarily the most powerful player. During the latter part of the 20th century no other power even came close.
That era is now ending.....

The bolded section is referring to the Henry Kissinger approach.  Brzezinski is in favor of some retrenchment to maintain as much of the empire as possible while the Kissinger camp still favors the use and extension of American power.  While I think neither approach helps deal with our more important problems the fact remains that until the above dialog changes there will be no substantial  or meaningful progress on climate change or carrying capacity issues. 

http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/08/25/the-broken-chessboard-brzezinski-gives-up-on-empire/

edited to add missing text due to hitting the post button by accident.

[TerryM]

Over the years I've come to fear the influence of Brzezinski even more than that of Kissinger. The good Dr. always/usually appeared as a realist to my eye. A monster surely, but a realistic one, Brzezinski however, in my opinion, always seemed an ideologue more fixated on doing ill to Russia than doing good for America.

Brzezinski still thinks Putin is playing chess. Kissinger has long been aware that Go is the name of the game, and that Anglophones are just no good at playing Go. You didn't need to be a Chess Master or a Go Dan to recognise which game was being played out in Ukraine, or to notice that only one side was marching their troops into one encirclement after another. No brash rook advances or rapier like thrusts by bishops could overcome the strategic positionings of the necessary stones to end the liberty of the opposition.

Watch as things become clearer in Syria. Encircle, starve the enemy of ammunition, fuel, then open the door and entice more into the trap. Repeat as needed until the enemy's will is broken.
This is not the heroic capture of a king, rather the strategic placement of forces that cause the enemy to react in foreseeable ways. Ways that seem logical to the neophyte.



"Tell me how, given the outlooks guiding the American elite, we have any real world chance of implementing the kinds of social changes required to deal with the existential problems we face."


The answer of course is that as long as the "American Elite" remain in power, no solution is possible.
I am NOT advocating a coup,rebellion, or war to remove them. Any attempt strong enough to have any chance of success would be met with such resistance that the horrors of climate change would pale in comparison.
The American version of democracy won't allow even an aroused electorate to do the job & the elite media would never allow such an arousal.

The time to act was during Carter's presidency. If the American public hadn't been taken in by Reagan's "October Surprize". And of course if Carter could have seen through Brzezinski's war mongering advice, it's just possible that we would not be sitting on this climatic powder keg that is blowing up as we look on in amazement.

Sorry for straying so far from the topic.
We're cooked.

Terry

[ritter]

You two are so cheery lately. 

[budmantis]

This is my first attempt at cross-posting. I thought this might fit in well with this thread. It is not just because of the presidential election, but particularly it is THIS election that has me greatly concerned.   

Re: What Would a Donald Trump Presidency Mean to Combating AGW/CC
« Reply #186 on: September 17, 2016, 05:46:42 PM »

Terry: It must be interesting (and a bit disconcerting) to watch this election spectacle unfold from a neighboring country. The level of political dysfunction in the U.S. is alarming, which brings the question to mind: Can the center hold? Here's an op-ed from the Brookings Institution from April 2016 dealing with this question.

https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/can-the-center-hold/

[TerryM]

With THE ELECTION close upon us an interesting poll gives answer to the question of who Americans trust to be acting in the "best interests of the public"


The categories selected were:


Elected officials
Business leaders
News media
Religious leaders
K-12 principals & supervisors
Scientists
Medical scientists
The military


 Before reading on, ask yourself whether in your opinion the above can be trusted to act in the best interests of the public:


A great deal
A fair amount
Not too much
No confidence


The results surprised me even though I lived most of my adult life in the US.


American's trust in these groupings is the exact opposite of the order in which I presented them, with the military far more trusted than any of the others.


http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/10/18/most-americans-trust-the-military-and-scientists-to-act-in-the-publics-interest/


Apparently this bias in favor of the military increases with age. Memories of the draft, My Lai, and Hiroshima fade when superseded by visions of the glorious conquests of Grenada and Panama.


I suppose the upside is the high marks given to scientists when compared to politicians and clerics.


Terry

[magnamentis]

With THE ELECTION close upon us an interesting poll gives answer to the question of who Americans trust to be acting in the "best interests of the public"

intersting but not suprising while "none of them" as a "category" is missing to make it perfect IMO. i'm pretty sure that that category would have won :-)

[Sleepy]

Before reading on, ask yourself whether in your opinion the above can be trusted to act in the best interests of the public:
At this point I actually went for the military.

The results surprised me even though I lived most of my adult life in the US.
I often try to look at my own nation from the outside, I started with that while working abroad. People talk and people do, those two are not always the same.


Apparently this bias in favor of the military increases with age.
I simply can't understand that. Alzheimer's?

I suppose the upside is the high marks given to scientists when compared to politicians and clerics.
It surprised me that scientists came that high.

Polls are polls and I've never been to the US. Most people here vote for a better life, more money, more energy, more stuff, just more. But still, our main right wing party would probably be called communistic by many in the US. We get the leaders we vote for. When is enough, enough?

I posted this yesterday, a mini series of interviews with cab-drivers in the US made by SVT: http://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,1748.msg92439.html#msg92439

[TerryM]

The cab driver interviews were interesting, although what a driver tells his customers is often what he assumes will net him the largest gratuity. 


The concept of trusting the military, particularly the American military, to do the right thing is so twisted that I question how the sampling was conducted. I'd have rated them somewhere between used car salesmen & your friendly neighborhood drug dealer, and I'm 70 years old.


Much of what I concider disfunctional in the States could be ameliorated by disbanding the armed forces.


Terry

[Sleepy]

Terry, then you're not an alzheimers patient. 

The cab driver interviews were interesting, although what a driver tells his customers is often what he assumes will net him the largest gratuity. 

Yes that might be true, but their individual thoughts are not that interesting. I'm trying to understand the general attitude, and it's a different thing to see someone say something, than to read it.

[Bruce Steele]

Sleepy, I live in an affluent area but the republican right wing has a strong foothold here. DT probably has a strong support base here but it is not economic stress that is causing this hard shift towards fascism, more like I got mine and everyone else can ( eat cake ). There is a strong anti -Latino message that goes with the anti-Muslim bent but the rich around here are totally dependent on  cheap Latino labor, go figure.  None of this is rational, immigrants statistically pose a very very small threat to these peoples safety . They call themselves Christian, they like their guns and big trucks. They really need to be publicly called out by the rest of us but there isn't anything like a public forum to do so. I have been booed out of a question and answer session following a fracking promotional movie because I stood up and upset their groupthink. They are willing to include violence if you push them intellectually.
 They will likely lose this election but our military expansionism is largely driven by a similar mindset.
My advice is cut us off , make us get visas to leave, don't buy our weapons , don't support our foreign bases, make us live in the cesspool of our own making. Don't allow us to use our weapons to enforce
our mindset elsewhere. We are collectively trying to maintain a diminishing power base and the left goes along with it far to easily. Without the support from the rest of the world we will wither away as we have not the energy resources to perpetuate this madness . It come down to oil and military power and who is willing to wield weapons to maintain them. The immigrations noise is just a method to promote the larger goal of maintaining our wealth  via violence, verbal, imagined and real.

Mati just posted ( on the presidential nausea page ) an article from a Canadian publication that showed  U.S. households with incomes above $ 50,000 voted largely as the Majority that elected Trump.Those below those income levels voted mainly in the Clinton camp.  I don't see this breakdown published by U.S. media sources and that is because it isn't comfortable to either the left or the right that the richest 1% of the worlds population are all a bunch of dicks . If you would like to invest your money in the weapons market you might do very well over the next few years.
 None of this is good news for a planet that could use some humility and self sacrifice from the humans contributing the largest portion of the damage done and don't expect any such  news to penetrate the collective pathos of our elites on the left or the right.
The quote above was from months ago and I may have gotten the results wrong but I think I may have foreseen the portion of the electorate that  eventuated our sad results.

[sidd]

1) Re: " U.S. households with incomes above $ 50,000 voted largely as the Majority that elected Trump.Those below those income levels voted mainly in the Clinton camp"

While this is true, I note that a comparison to the 2012 results shows Clinton losing 16% of under 30KUS$ segment and 6% of  30-50K segment compared to Obama. TH sing toward Trump was strongest in the low income groups.

2) Trump won in precisely those states and counties whose economy was poor.

sidd

[magnamentis]

1) Re: " U.S. households with incomes above $ 50,000 voted largely as the Majority that elected Trump.Those below those income levels voted mainly in the Clinton camp"

While this is true, I note that a comparison to the 2012 results shows Clinton losing 16% of under 30KUS$ segment and 6% of  30-50K segment compared to Obama. TH sing toward Trump was strongest in the low income groups.

2) Trump won in precisely those states and counties whose economy was poor.

sidd

the majority of popular votes went to clinton, the majority of electoral votes is based on a cheat by southern states (counting slaves as citizens at that time) right after the civil war.

for my understanding the word majority only applies to a majority of "people" not of system based
artificial majorities. if that would be valid majorities all the communist leaders would have been elected by close to 100% "majorities" LOL

[wili]

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/11/08/us/politics/election-exit-polls.html?_r=0

   Under $30,000

Clinton 53%   ---     Trump 41%

$30,000 - $49,999

Clinton  51%   ---     Trump  42%

[sidd]

Correction: " TH sing toward Trump was strongest in the low income groups." should read
 "The swing from Obama-Romney 2012 to Clinton-Trump 2016 toward Trump was strongest in the low income groups."

[Sleepy]

Mati just posted ( on the presidential nausea page ) an article from a Canadian publication that showed  U.S. households with incomes above $ 50,000 voted largely as the Majority that elected Trump.Those below those income levels voted mainly in the Clinton camp.  I don't see this breakdown published by U.S. media sources and that is because it isn't comfortable to either the left or the right that the richest 1% of the worlds population are all a bunch of dicks . If you would like to invest your money in the weapons market you might do very well over the next few years.
 None of this is good news for a planet that could use some humility and self sacrifice from the humans contributing the largest portion of the damage done and don't expect any such  news to penetrate the collective pathos of our elites on the left or the right.
The quote above was from months ago and I may have gotten the results wrong but I think I may have foreseen the portion of the electorate that  eventuated our sad results.

I saw mati's comment (and also remember yours from last year). Wrote a comment in that thread, then I had to take a long break. I've seen these things brewing for a long time here, but I denied the reality of a Trump presidency. I sensed it but did not want to see it = denial.
A quote from the posted article:

It is not just an American problem. There is a striking similarity, in lifestyle, geography and beliefs, between those white Americans who voted for Mr. Trump and the white Britons who voted in June to recommend their country’s withdrawal from Europe’s economy and politics, on what surveys showed were largely xenophobic grounds. They also have much in common with the white French, Dutch and Austrian voters who have turned far-right parties of racial intolerance into significant political forces. It would be naïve to assume that groups of white Canadians are immune to the temptations of extremism, for many of us live in similar communities and circumstances.

Add Scandinavia as well.
I'm not impressed by the US. The unrest on this planet just got bigger. A lot.
I even got annoyed at my Ariens sno-thro the other day. Not that it matters, but I will actively stop supporting anything out of the US from now on.
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/us_politics/2016/11/donald_trump_chief_choice_said_to_be_imminent
Steve Bannon as the next chief of staff? My head is about to explode. I'm probably still in denial.  Climate Change? That's not a problem with people like that in the White House.
I really have to do something else now. Something real like comparing structures in snowflakes...

[Bruce Steele]

Sleepy, I tried to write something about the need for an organized worldwide boycott of
" Made in USA "  yesterday. It should also be an effort that includes those of us disaffected here in
" the homeland " .  ( that saying came out of the Bush years ). Marching is just pissing in the wind, money is the only thing the Alt Right is going to understand or respect.
 I realize writing this on a public forum will likely land me on some lists I probably would like to avoid . I don't fly anymore so I probably won't realize I have crossed some line until big brother knocks on my door but if I push hard enough that may be what eventually happens. We are all on a trend line now that spirals back to darker images of our not to distant past. Although I am talking about creating an economic boycott I have no doubt those currently taking the reins of power would view such efforts as something else. Unamerican at best and maybe something like economic terrorism .  I view it as the only viable option that might get their attention. Just like ISIS they really would prefer violence but I am not and will never support anything that gives them what they want. I am only talking about how to get to the 1 percent in a way that will get their attention and make them rethink how they prefer to rule the rest of us.
 In an ideal world home gardens, living simple and on the cheap, and avoiding U.S. brands, styles and keep up with the Jones mentality would be a vast improvement for planet earth. Maybe someday it will get a name ?
 So spread the word, organize public trash days for our products , invite the press while you send our stuff of to the dump. Have a little fun with it. Maybe we can make our little voices heard.  At the very least we gotta demonize brand Trump.
 Wish me luck , I use my real name, I am only a little afraid but sometimes you gotta risk things in life.

[mati]

There are some worrying parallels with the past:

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/11179774

Then after the War to end all Wars, we went and had another one. Again, for a historian it was quite predictable. Lead people to feel they have lost control of their country and destiny, people look for scapegoats, a charismatic leader captures the popular mood, and singles out that scapegoat. He talks in rhetoric that has no detail, and drums up anger and hatred. Soon the masses start to move as one, without any logic driving their actions, and the whole becomes unstoppable.

[Sigmetnow]

A quite nerdy look at the election in the Grand Scheme of Things.

Your Day-After-Trump Posts Forgot Something

Life is more complicated than linear trend vs. cycle. For example, you can have a linear trend and cycles. At the same time! That’s what global warming is — an unnatural linear trend superimposed upon various cycles, from the daily cycle to the yearly cycle to Milankovitch cycles of tens to hundreds of thousands of years. (Yes, I have a Ph.D. in atmospheric sciences.) But none of the climate change doubters I have ever talked to has ever been able to grasp this concept, at least not enough to understand that saying “cycles” exist does not disprove a linear trend superimposed on it.

Turning to the election, it’s easy to say that Trump’s election will lead either to the end of American democracy and life as we know it, or else it’s the Second Coming of Orange Jesus. But instead the Trump presidency will be superimposed on cycles of birth and death, among others, as well as other cycles that affect our country and democracy and our world. (And other non-cyclical phenomena as well. And don’t get me started on climate change.)

https://medium.com/@johnknox_uab88/your-day-after-trump-posts-forgot-something-131d9c6207ee