Induveca wrote:Popper, not just Greece......Greece with guns.
I don't understand the US any longer. I completely understood, but didn't agree, with former US policy after military action. Invade Panama, overthrow Noriega, install puppet president. Panama Canal is safe/under US control, drug money laundering squashed to a large degree.
US supports invasion of Libya, Mali, Afghanistan with no real benefit to the country and massive expenditure. Meanwhile, on their own border Mexico presents a larger threat than all three combined. Russia and China are colonizing the entire Western Hemisphere other than US/Canada and taking over economies/governments with back door strategies. The US is losing at their own game.
I now see more Chinese goods vs American at a 10 to 1 clip in the Dominican Republic. As a kid 25 years ago it was the exact opposite. All new buses are Chinese, most car parts and cars, new resorts are run by Russian cartels regardless of who "owns" them. Same here 25 years ago, US cartels ran the resorts.
We are living through an age similar to the initial steep decline of Rome. The US dominated the world by being jerks, and taking resources/market share by semi-benevolent force (oxymoron I know). I think the world will long for the days of US capitalism vs the Chinese or Russian version in 10 years.
Frightening.
Lets not leave out the massive amount of people we killed in over throwing those governments, democracies, and in fighting our own wars. Truman, Johnson, Nixon, Reagan, Bush. It is simply disgusting. Trillions of dollars and millions of lives. And so much suffering. And all for what. What did Vietnam, Cambodia, Loas get us. Iraq and Afghanistan. And those are just the highlights.
50,000 US soldier died in Vietnam. You know how many we killed ? 3.5 Million. And we burned their forest and poisoned their land with chemicals. History is written by the winners. It takes a bit longer for the real truth to get out and it may never sink in because people don't want to believe what really happened and why.
To many people bicker about the small stuff. what they call government waste when the macro factors at play are much more scary and evil. The wasted capitol and lives since WWII with an out of control CIA and Pentagon has been a tragedy.
The Military Industrial Complex and war machine has been the biggest waste by far. All accomplish through propaganda to sell the idea of perpetual war as ok. And to do so, you have to keep the people in a constant state of fear. Fear the communists. War on terrorism. War on drugs. Hell, they even stoked the fires that there was a war on Christmas. These same people even tried to see the idea that Obama was not a US citizen. Basically an undercover agent of anti American interest in control of our country.
Keep the people in fear and they will elect you to do anything you want.
There were two clear turning points that lead us down this wrong path. One was after FDR and the ensuing build up of nuclear weapons as we turn Russia from friend to foe. The other was when we were at a turning point in the 60s. That was when JFK as President, then his brother when he going to run for President, and MLK were all assassinated. People that believed in peace and equal right. People that wanted to focus on what was going on inside our country over controlling the world. JFK was not a fan of like CIA and Pentagons Imperialistic view of the United States. He had to go. He was jeopardizing the big money war machine. And why MLK had to go speaks for itself.
Instead of there being a changing of the guards from the old WWII old establishment in Washington to the new guard of JFK, we reverted back to the old conservative guard of Johnson, then Nixon, Reagen the Bush. For 50 years we have been on this wrong path.
We are at one of those turning points again, only this time it is much more likely to stick. Much of what MLK spoke about is being realized and the old conservative war mongering approach to the world is falling out of favor. Once we wrap up this war in Afghanistan, people are going to start to take a good long hard look at what happen. What went wrong. Who took us there and why. And how will we approach the world moving forward. The old and their ways are dying off. The new generation is different.
We will see what happens. I feel the tide has turned. The change that was attempted in the 60s is going to take hold. 50 years. Not a surprise. Cycles seem to change every 40-50 years. That is the time it takes for a new generation to come to power.
This is what I spoke about before the R primaries. Its the end of a cycle. That brand of conservatism is coming to and end. They may try to put some new window dressing on it and sell it as new another election cycle but I don't think it will work. The country is center left and its likely to be that way for the next 40-50 year cycle.
