The Rise and Fall of the American Empire

[Peterf]

For sure a lower percentage of Swedes are dependent on social welfare to survive than here in the USA, but nevertheless, a high degree of dependence on government provided social services provided with all those high taxes is not producing a happier population. From what I am reading, children raised by single parents are as disadvantaged there as they are here; teenage depression and suicde rates are on the rise; and welfare rolls are expanding. (You are there and I am here so if what I am reading is wrong, I'm sure you will correct me.)

Consumer Prices in Sweden are 39.26% higher than in United States
Consumer Prices Including Rent in Sweden are 26.61% higher than in United States
Rent Prices in Sweden are 2.72% lower than in United States
Restaurant Prices in Sweden are 54.69% higher than in United States
Groceries Prices in Sweden are 26.81% higher than in United States
Local Purchasing Power in Sweden is 24.15% lower than in United States
Cost Of Living Comparison Between United States And Sweden

Evenso most Swedes believe themselves to be happier than the average American. So it really comes down to what floats anybody's boat.

I wonder if most Americans consider themselves to be happier than most Europeans?

The reason this applies to the thread topic is the question as the government takes over more and more control of how we are allowed to live our lives, are we a happier, more contented people because of that?

International comparisons are notoriously difficult and often misleading. Questions like "Are you happy?" come out differently in different languages. And get different answers. No Frenchman, highly individualistic, would ever admit that he is content with anything. Ultra conformist Swedes are more reluctant to complain.

What is clear is that Sweden's wealth relative to what it was in previous decades is declining and lavish welfare can no longer be afforded. This is accentuated by many years of uncontrolled immigration, largely from places like Somalia. There are now large numbers of people here quite unable to integrate - even if they wished to try - who are entirely supported by taxpayers.

There is wide acceptance among Swedes that standards in education and health care have fallen and are continuing to fall.

The price comparisons in the stats feel about right. I have personal experience of store prices in Canada (where I will be in two weeks time) and they are, on balance, lower than those here.

Thanks for that response. Like I say, you are there and I'm not, and the eye witness is generally more reliable than one forming notions and speculating from a distance.

You are absolutely right that a tiny country with a highly homogenous people sharing a common culture and a population about the size of one U.S. state is not really comparable to a nation as broad and diverse as we are.

But one thing the USA and Sweden (as well as Greece, Spain, Italy et al) do all have in common is that high taxes and more government control and meddling in all aspects of life were great at the beginning, but could not be sustained. And all are now suffering under the addiction to free stuff that cannot continue at its former rate without severe negative consequences, and ALL are seeing an erosion of their common cultures, quality of life, and standards of living.

Just one point. Sweden WAS a homogeneous people when I began to know the country well 40 years ago. Since then there has been massive immigration and now well over 1 million out of 10 million are foreign born. There are immigrant areas in all cities. This summer those in Stockholm suffered a wave of violence and torchings of public buildings, particularly schools, and private property. The third largest city Malmö is now dominated by foreign criminal gangs, mostly Muslim - the not very large number of Swedish Jewish residents have almost all left. (I have heard that US travel advice to tourists is to stay out of Malmö if they are Jewish).

Successive Swedish governments have naively allowed and even encouraged mass immigration and contributed to slow - well, not that slow - national suicide.

 

[Toro]

Romney lost because to many looking at his dismal record in Massachusetts he seemed just slightly to the left of his opponent.

I know that's the assigned talking point, but you can't get around the fact that no president with as abyssmal record as Obama has provided in his first four years has ever been re-elected. But Obama was. So is it possible that there were dynamics at work that had nothing to do with eithe candidate except that Obama was the president promising free stuff and Romney was not?

Or, perhaps it was because the Republicans sucked really bad.

That's probably more of an option.

This 47% excuse is nonsense.

Romney won old, white people. Most old, white people don't pay income taxes.

When Republicans assail the 47% as "takers," they are slamming a core constituency.

Republicans have lost the Presidential popular vote in 5 of the past 6 elections. Perhaps the GOP should be looking at itself rather than blaming others and finding excuses. After all, conservatives are generally pretty big on personal responsibility.

 

[Toro]

You truly are a lost partisan hack if you believe this ignorant, hateful garbage.

“…the masses were too incapable of free thought.”

It's what revolutionary Marxists thought too. When they mattered and were in power, they thought it was necessary to de-program the masses so they could understand that the Marxists were working in their interests.

Ideologues are pretty similar regardless of ideology.

 

[NoTeaPartyPleez]

America is NOT an empire. Never was and still is not.

I don't believe in empire building. We should have learned from the British.

 

[bripat9643]

Romney lost because to many looking at his dismal record in Massachusetts he seemed just slightly to the left of his opponent.

I know that's the assigned talking point, but you can't get around the fact that no president with as abyssmal record as Obama has provided in his first four years has ever been re-elected. But Obama was. So is it possible that there were dynamics at work that had nothing to do with eithe candidate except that Obama was the president promising free stuff and Romney was not?

Actually, yes there was. His name was Franklin Delano Roosevelt. It's clear that Obama studied FDR's methods very carefully and learned how to use government money to get himself reelected. Obama has turned virtually the entire government into part of his campaign apparatus. A good example is the way Obama has employed former ACORN workers to become "navigators" for Obamacare. The majority of the money spent on Obamacare has been used to campaign for the Democrat agenda.

 

[bripat9643]

Obama won because the masses were too incapable of free thought. Too compelled by the prospect of free things and entitlements the feel they so richly "deserved." So blinded by this they voted with their hearts, not their heads. They voted for hope and got despair. The voted for change, but instead got the status quo.


[MENTION=4301]boedicca[/MENTION]

I am a young man who chose to forgo the bondage of student loans, and will not be participating in Obamacare. I did not take in unemployment, I do not live on welfare or SSI. I choose not to further indebt an already indebted government. If you are looking for that one bright light to save this nation from the abyss, I shall serve as the first of many. I shall make it clear we are not as naive as these politicians think we are. I've watched and observed, and I've learned from the mistakes of the older adults before me. It will be ensured that the fates that have befallen my generation will not lay claim to the next. Perhaps I will be inspired one day to lead them in to a glorious new American dawn.

You truly are a lost partisan hack if you believe this ignorant, hateful garbage.

“…the masses were too incapable of free thought.”

Oh, brother – you’ve got to be kidding.

Like the typical petulant child, you and others on the right attempt to cast blame everywhere but where it belongs: with Romney and the GOP, they alone are responsible.

"Lost, partisan hack" must be a liberal euphemism meaning "rational intelligent American."

 

[Pop23]

From now on elections will be determined by who gives away more of other peoples money.

That's likely been true forever, but never as much so as now.

Add to that, in the future candidates will be offering lower deductibles and copays to get votes until there won't be anyone left to actually foot the bill.

Then our system dies

 

[Foxfyre]

I recently heard again Paul Harvey's radio broadcast entitled "If I were the Devil." He first introduced the concept to America in a 1964 newspaper column:

If I Were the Devil

If I were the Prince of Darkness I would want to engulf the whole earth in darkness.

I'd have a third of its real estate and four-fifths of its population, but I would not be happy until I had seized the ripest apple on the tree.

So I should set about however necessary, to take over the United States.

I would begin with a campaign of whispers.

With the wisdom of a serpent, I would whispers to you as I whispered to Eve, "Do as you please."

To the young I would whisper "The Bible is a myth." I would convince them that "man created God," instead of the other way around. I would confide that "what is bad is good and what is good is square."

In the ears of the young married I would whisper that work is debasing, that cocktail parties are good for you. I would caution them not to be "extreme" in religion, in patriotism, in moral conduct.

And the old I would teach to pray — to say after me — "Our father which are in Washington."

Then I'd get organized.

I'd educate authors in how to make lurid literature exciting so that anything else would appear dull, uninteresting.

I'd threaten TV with dirtier movies, and vice-versa.

I'd infiltrate unions and urge more loafing, less work. Idle hands usually work for me.

I'd peddle narcotics to whom I could, I'd sell alcohol to ladies and gentlemen of distinction, I'd tranquilize the rest with pills.

If I were the Devil, I would encourage schools to refine young intellects, but neglect to discipline emotions; let those run wild.

I'd designate an atheist to front for me before the highest courts and I'd get preachers to say, "She's right."

With flattery and promises of power I would get the courts to vote against God and in favor of pornography.

Thus I would evict God from the courthouse, then from the schoolhouse, then from the Houses of Congress.

Then in his own churches I'd substitute psychology for religion and deify science.

If I were Satan I'd make the symbol of Easter an egg

And the symbol of Christmas a bottle.

If I were the Devil I'd take from those who have and give to those who wanted until I had killed the incentive of the ambitious. Then my police state would force everybody back to work.

Then I would separate families, putting children in uniform, women in coal mines and objectors in slave-labor camps.

If I were Satan I'd just keep doing what I'm doing and the whole world go to hell as sure as the Devil.
Read more at snopes.com: Paul Harvey 'If I Were the Devil'

Here is his radio broadcast on the same theme some 30 years later.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3Az0okaHig]If I Were the Devil - (BEST VERSION) by PAUL HARVEY audio restored - YouTube[/ame]

Those who grieve the decline of the American culture and the slow but sure destruction of the American empire can relate to both.

 

[RandallFlagg]

I recently heard again Paul Harvey's radio broadcast entitled "If I were the Devil." He first introduced the concept to America in a 1964 newspaper column:

If I Were the Devil

If I were the Prince of Darkness I would want to engulf the whole earth in darkness.

I'd have a third of its real estate and four-fifths of its population, but I would not be happy until I had seized the ripest apple on the tree.

So I should set about however necessary, to take over the United States.

I would begin with a campaign of whispers.

With the wisdom of a serpent, I would whispers to you as I whispered to Eve, "Do as you please."

To the young I would whisper "The Bible is a myth." I would convince them that "man created God," instead of the other way around. I would confide that "what is bad is good and what is good is square."

In the ears of the young married I would whisper that work is debasing, that cocktail parties are good for you. I would caution them not to be "extreme" in religion, in patriotism, in moral conduct.

And the old I would teach to pray — to say after me — "Our father which are in Washington."

Then I'd get organized.

I'd educate authors in how to make lurid literature exciting so that anything else would appear dull, uninteresting.

I'd threaten TV with dirtier movies, and vice-versa.

I'd infiltrate unions and urge more loafing, less work. Idle hands usually work for me.

I'd peddle narcotics to whom I could, I'd sell alcohol to ladies and gentlemen of distinction, I'd tranquilize the rest with pills.

If I were the Devil, I would encourage schools to refine young intellects, but neglect to discipline emotions; let those run wild.

I'd designate an atheist to front for me before the highest courts and I'd get preachers to say, "She's right."

With flattery and promises of power I would get the courts to vote against God and in favor of pornography.

Thus I would evict God from the courthouse, then from the schoolhouse, then from the Houses of Congress.

Then in his own churches I'd substitute psychology for religion and deify science.

If I were Satan I'd make the symbol of Easter an egg

And the symbol of Christmas a bottle.

If I were the Devil I'd take from those who have and give to those who wanted until I had killed the incentive of the ambitious. Then my police state would force everybody back to work.

Then I would separate families, putting children in uniform, women in coal mines and objectors in slave-labor camps.

If I were Satan I'd just keep doing what I'm doing and the whole world go to hell as sure as the Devil.
Read more at snopes.com: Paul Harvey 'If I Were the Devil'

Here is his radio broadcast on the same theme some 30 years later.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3Az0okaHig]If I Were the Devil - (BEST VERSION) by PAUL HARVEY audio restored - YouTube[/ame]

Those who grieve the decline of the American culture and the slow but sure destruction of the American empire can relate to both.

Indeed. Some would call Paul Harvey a "modern day prophet" - I would not. All Harvey did was look at 1964, take the pulse of America (at that time) and then put 2 and 2 together; but it is eery as hell, isn't it?

The problem with America today is that they have no "vision" - no retrospective on what America WAS to be able to compare it to what America HAS BECOME. Why? Again, it has been "bred out" of the youth of today by the school systems.

It didn't take much for Harvey to look at the state of America in 1964 (which, all in all, was pretty damned good - but we were beginning to "change") and make the prediction that we were in decline - which we were.

The biggest problem that prohibits "America" from understand that there is a problem? Refusing to acknowledge that there is, indeed, evil in this world. You see, you can't acknowledge Satan (Evil) if you refuse to acknowledge God (Good).

It's the Ying and the Yang.

 

[Foxfyre]

I miss Paul Harvey. He didn't have the massive research staff that a lot of the modern day commentators have, and there were times I cringed when it was obvious he had fallen for one of those manufactured internet or e-mail scam stories that sometimes go viral.

But he did have a marvelous capacity for cutting through the shit and getting at the heart of things, and seeing things as they were.

A modern day prophet. Indeed he was.

 

[Foxfyre]

This 2010 piece from The Nation was referred to me:

Excerpt:

A soft landing for America 40 years from now? Don’t bet on it. The demise of the United States as the global superpower could come far more quickly than anyone imagines. If Washington is dreaming of 2040 or 2050 as the end of the American Century, a more realistic assessment of domestic and global trends suggests that in 2025, just 15 years from now, it could all be over except for the shouting.

Despite the aura of omnipotence most empires project, a look at their history should remind us that they are fragile organisms. So delicate is their ecology of power that, when things start to go truly bad, empires regularly unravel with unholy speed: just a year for Portugal, two years for the Soviet Union, eight years for France, 11 years for the Ottomans, 17 years for Great Britain, and, in all likelihood, 22 years for the United States, counting from the crucial year 2003. . . .
The Decline and Fall of the American Empire | The Nation

Ran across this article from The Guardian in 2011:

Excerpt:

Let me put an alternative hypothesis. America in 2011 is Rome in 200AD or Britain on the eve of the first world war: an empire at the zenith of its power but with cracks beginning to show.

The experience of both Rome and Britain suggests that it is hard to stop the rot once it has set in, so here are the a few of the warning signs of trouble ahead: military overstretch, a widening gulf between rich and poor, a hollowed-out economy, citizens using debt to live beyond their means, and once-effective policies no longer working. The high levels of violent crime, epidemic of obesity, addiction to pornography and excessive use of energy may be telling us something: the US is in an advanced state of cultural decadence.
Decline and fall of the American empire | Business | The Guardian

And even from Al Jazeera in a panel discussion in 2012:

Hello and welcome to Empire. I am Marwan Bishara. The United States has the world’s biggest economy, strongest military and the most influential culture. It’s the only power with a global project defended and supported by more aircraft carriers, Fortune 500 companies and most successful media-tainment conglomerates than any other. But America’s post-cold war optimism, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, has given way to pessimism, forecasting a declining power and more crucially, the end of an American era. The rise of new divisional and global powers, coupled with Washington’s recent war fiascos and financial crisis have worsened the outlook for America’s future.

Countless books have gone beyond recent developments to illustrate a persistent decline with titles like Suicide of a Superpower, The Empire Has No Clothes, Taming American Power, Nemesis, The Last Days of the American Republic, Colossus, The Rise and Fall of The American Empire and Selling Out a Superpower. But how serious are the Doomsday scenarios? Is this decline temporary or reversible and what does it mean to America and the rest of the world?

Well joining me to answer these questions and more are Tom Engelhardt, editor of the American Empire Project and a popular website Tomdispatch, the author of the United States of Fear. Susan Glasser, editor-in-chief of Foreign Policy magazine, former editor at the Washington Post and co-author of Kremlin Rising Vladimir Putin’s Russia And The End of Revolution. And Cynthia Enloe, professor of woman’s studies and international development at Clark University, the author of The Real State of America Atlas, Mapping the Myths and Truths of the United States and Bananas, Beaches and Bases, Making Feminist Sense of International Politics. Last, but not least, Stephen Walt, professor of International Affairs at Harvard University, the author of Taming American Power and co-author of the Israel Lobby. Our starting point is US strategic overstretch.
The decline of the American empire - Empire - Al Jazeera English