The Economics and Political Science Room
As a follow-up to the indoctrinated nonsense I’ve recently read, I’m offering a short piece to try to bring back a sense of reality. The US is not ‘realigning its assets’ in the Middle-East, it’s getting the hell out of there. The trade war hadn’t been won. Democracy hasn’t been brought to Islamic countries. Iran hasn’t been invaded or attacked and Rambo is a work of fiction and has no reality link to any special forces.
The problem I’d argue is that America suffers from a bad dose of indoctrinated exceptionalism and coupled with a Republic, the chaos you’re seeing now lies not in the fault of the world, but your own doing. The world is not lashing out and it’s not paranoid or fearful. With the help of Russia and China the world is keeping the US at a distance, just as previously it kept the other warlike and control freak nations like Germany and Russia at bay who also thought they were exceptional.
So let’s take a brief look at where this exceptionality led you. Compared to other nations in a historical timeline, America is brand new and was quickly taken over by the worst characters America had to offer and is already steeped in wars and bloodshed.
Of course it will upset some, it’s certainly not what they taught you, so let’s take a brief look at why the Republic and US dominance will and already is failing.
Why the US Republic Will Fail
Many Americans view the Republic as exceptional, when in fact it’s a re-hash of all the other Republics that have gone before it, or still exist. Even the constitution has been replicated by others. The USSR was a Republic, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam still is, as is the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Even the constitution isn’t exceptional. The Soviet Union had a constitution with the same rights and freedoms enshrined within it. It is no coincidence that the Republican Roman Empire fell to a dictatorship of Emperors, or that communist countries adopt the Republican system of governance.
The underlying fault of a Republic is that it takes power away from the people and hands it to representatives; supposedly the best and brightest, but in reality those who have become wealthy and influential by playing the system. Are characters like Obama, Trump or Clinton the best and brightest, or those sponsored by interest groups and corporations to benefit their own interests and political aspirations? The representatives then become ‘We the People’ on behalf of those they represent ignoring the democratic wishes of the people which is viewed as mob rule. The lobbyists and corporations in the US aren’t lobbying the people themselves, they’re lobbying the power base that is open to abuse.
https://www.fbi.gov/investigate/public-corruption
‘It is estimated that public corruption costs the U.S. government and the public billions of dollars each year …’
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2...-country-world
‘US corruption is off the charts, and since the US is still the number one economy in the world by nominal GDP, massive corruption here has a global impact.’
As the US went through an industrial revolution the people benefitted, but as the industrial era ended it exposed the inherent faults behind Republicanism, just as the end of British industrialization exposed the consequences of losing its colonies which produced its wealth and power. The inability of a Republic to adapt and change is now being played out between the polarized opposites as one half of America wants more democracy and the other half seek to keep the status quo. The freedom of the individual produced the very greed and quest for power which is now viewed as success and produces the so-called ‘winners and losers’ society.
The difference between a democracy and a Republic then is that in a democracy the people state their wishes to their representatives and in a Republic the representatives seek to convince the people that they will do what’s best for them – a common occurence in dictatorships. Although the constitution is designed to guarantee individual rights, it is also designed to keep a system in place that can’t be changed.
The razzmatazz and circus like rallies in American politics best reflects this as the various politicians seek to convince its audience that they know best and in turn attract the same God like adulation found in dictatorships. As the US declines in world influence, the alternative is for politicians to become Gods themselves, something unheard of in democratic societies and a substitute for the previous absolute rule of Monarchs. A perfect recipe for the authoritarianism that a constitution was initially designed to prevent.
All countries go through periods of change and learn to adapt to specific eras and circumstances. The US was founded in opposition to the European absolute rule of Monarchs, something long gone, but is unable to change and leaves its population trapped inside an unchangeable system.
Patriotism is a love of one’s own country, while nationalism is the notion that one country is better than and not just different from others. Exceptionalism provides the excuse for nationalism and why the US has been in an almost continual wars since its foundation. Domestically, poverty is soaring. An estimated 25% of Americans are delaying medical care because of the costs involved and according to a Federal Reserve survey, 46% of Americans said they didn’t own $400 to cover emergencies. In a democratic society this would be unacceptable, but in a Republic where a ruling and wealthy elite define what is good for the people it’s considered normal.
The current nationalist opinion that America is doing great was dispelled by MAGA, whose last word in that phrase was ‘again.’ It is a proven fact that once an empire declines it never regains its former glory.
https://www.thenation.com/article/ar...-china-russia/
‘Donald Trump was partly voted into office by Americans who felt that the self-proclaimed greatest power on Earth was actually in decline—and they weren’t wrong. Trump is capable of tweeting many things, but none of those tweets will stop that process of decline, nor will a trade war with a rising China or fierce oil sanctions on Iran.’
https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/04/02...-21st-century/
‘In his classic Foundation series, Isaac Asimov imagines a Galactic Empire, governed from the city-world of Trantor, that has maintained peace and prosperity for thousands of years but that is teetering on the brink of decline. The only person who sees this clearly is the psychohistorian Hari Seldon, who has mathematically determined that the core conditions for the Empire are unsustainable and will crumble over the course of centuries.’
The only way out of this is to change and put the people before the politicians, to limit greed and to take the words of the Founding Fathers as a direction and not literally. America was founded on individuality and self-reliance, not on endless wars and the speeches and promises of the Obama’s and Trump’s. That it now does so is a reflection of how far removed it is from its founding principles. The Nazis regarded their opponents as sub-humans. The Soviets wanted to kill theirs and establish a proletariat dictatorship. Fast forward and the current lot want to destroy the ‘s**t holes and ragheads.’ Eventually, the US will go the same way as the others who tried to control the world.
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Originally Posted by Peter1469
