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A Bit About Today's Third World America ...
This Old Brit did a bit of own trumpet blowing yesterday, albeit in an innocent, light hearted, good natured way.
But everything's different today.
Sure there are still some pictures to see -- but today they're different too.
Earlier on this afternoon, we went were we often go - to look at the Liberal Avenger's latest offering.
We're glad we did; it was well worth the trip. Since thanks to Gordo from Appletree's excellent post we learned a lot today.
Thanks, Gordo. And thanks also Liberal Avenger.We sincerely hope that today, in our own small way, we help both of you to surprise some extra readers.
Perhaps the picture-clues we've posted can rouse enough curiosity to start the ball rolling, so to speak.
Particularly, when partnered with this quick clipped & pasted taster.
... ugly aspects of modern America: a crumbling and inadequate infrastructure, the inadequate response of an uncaring government to Americans in dire need, and a growing population of Americans living in poverty.
In short, the hurricane revealed that the United States is slipping toward Third World status.
And the signs keep coming. The number of homeless Americans now stands at over 750,000, and 90% of our National Guard units are rated “not ready” to respond to a major crisis. The majority of the federal discretionary budget is spend on the military and on the Ministry of Love Department of Homeland Security. The federal debt keeps climbing, raising the threat of a currency crisis:
We wonder who will be more shocked and/or sickened?
Americans or others?
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posted by Richard at Friday, March 02, 2007
6 Comments:
and to think they call africa the dark continent
You ended with:
We wonder who will be more shocked and/or sickened?
Americans or others?
Probably it will be the Americans. Too many of the better off live in blissful ignorance. They've already forgotten about Katrina and the Levees and the Neglect. Anything else that is happening is somewhere far, far away.
Yes, that's all true and there lies my dilemma.
Compare the situation to the end of 2nd WW. Beside their huge and sprawling military, half the industrial capacity of the World was concentrated in the US, largely still self-sustained for oil, plus being a major agricultural and even popular entertainment producer and exporter.
Therefore, the US dollar at the time was as good as gold. Also America had accumulated a huge so called 'soft power' (based on widespread goodwill toward it), when just with the most basic diplomacy and only a resemblance of fairness could accomplish anything it wanted, including to a surprising degree even with the USSR.
Now we know with certainity, that at the end of the 2nd WW the USSR was exhausted to a great degree, and the OSS and later the CIA greatly exagerrated its strength.
The strategic decision thus had been made, to contain Communism, following what the Kennan doctrine subscribed. However under this doctrine, -which on the surface of it,- only called for strategic defence, the US started the arms race, provoking the Cold War. For economic purpose, it has never really ended the war. The slow decline of the US has started, almost imperceptibly at first, but then has accelerated through the sixties, and came to the surface in the seventies, in the form of huge economic imbalances, such as deficit, debt levels, inflation and so forth. This phenomenon however, was nearly always overshadowed by the Soviets' condition, which was markedly worse.
As expected the USSR was the first 'to throw-in the towel', offficially renouncing Communism and even dissolving itself, which was a huge historical phenomenon, because even after the catastrophic aftermath of the First WW, Bolshevik Revolution and a subsequent bloody civil-war, it was still capable to 'hang-on' to its empire's holding. But no more, and we saw a huge entity falling apart, in front of our eyes.
And this was the second opportunity for Washington to relax its policies, disarm and convert most of its huge military-industrial complex into civilian purpose, after achieving all previous goals dreamed, and restore domestic prosperity and stability.
Not a chance.
As soon as the USSR demised, there were new voices came to the forefront, solemnly declaring the New World Order, which was eerily reminiscent of the Nazis beloved 'Neue Ordnung', and a new and actually accelerated drive has taken place, to attain 'full spectrum dominance'. (Unchallenged World-rule) Prof. Huntington in his milestone article (which he wrote in a suspiciously timely fashion, and was published in the Elitist CFR's periodical the Foreign Affairs,) has envisioned that 'Clash of Civilizations' style conflicts were going to replace the old Cold War and its proxy wars, and voilà just like magic, the world started to develop 'conflict-zones' and civilisational threats. The 9/11 fake terror attacks were only an added boost, and an accelerator toward an already designed path, giving excuse to declare the most naked agressive doctrines, such as preventive wars and domestic 'terror laws', mirroring Soviet laws and in some aspects even the Nazis famed Enabling Laws, and so forth.
How is the domestic side of things? It is at what is expected after the ravages of an unrelenting wartime economy and budgets for generations. The US is the former shell of itself, where domestic productive economy is largely gone, replaced by unheard levels of debts in all spheres of the economy, with the attendant stagnation, decline, and even pauperisation of various segments of its formerly vast middle-classes. Let's not forget that in this timeframe, there was a further concentration of the remaining economic activity into ever larger corporate entities, to the detriment of small private enterprises and farms, resulting in a run-away and ever increasing wealth concentration into ever fewer hands to the detriment of all.
So now we are at the juncture, when the US has exchanged nearly all its previous advantages, such as industrial based broadly distributed wealth, 'soft power' influence, to an unsolvable economic and financial crisis, growing domestic crisis, and a huge and lopsided miltary power, (in reality a cancerous growth on the society). The only available option to the cornered US, is to do a desperate 'mad-rush' for world hegemony, using its believed military advantage.
My dilemma is this: Have these all happened just by chance, through wholesale ineptness and by never-ending, consistent miscalculations haphazardly, or some/most of it was forsighted, predetermined, and forplanned somehow? How does one reconciles qualifiers such as; chance and haphazard with consistency and never-ending?
Before you call me paranoid, let me tell you that if someone would've given me the task to weaken and sabotage an all-around strong and healthy giant like the US, without going to a general war against it, I couldn't possible imagine a better succession of decisions and actions, what have taken place.
People need to be reminded DAILY of the realities of living in the US when you're not wealthy. Slavery still isn't that far away, even now.
Richard,
It is evident that waging wars outside helped Bush hide, first his own stolen victory, the social malaise that is gripping the country, and gave him pretext for inaction in terms social policies...
I'd hate to be the author of a "Doomsday" scenario, but I will take a stab at it.
I see one of two things happening:
1. A Financial Collapse started by a move to "teach America a lesson" but it gets out of hand and spreads world-wide and can't be stopped. Large numbers of people die, and not just in 3rd World Countries. American central government collapses. Food riots. Hoarding. Bread Lines. Criminal activity is rampant. But the governments of some American states manage to pull themselves together (if they have resources and intelligent leadership) and are able to provide some very basic essential services and, if they have diversified agriculture, can pretty much feed their citizens. Most states cannot do this.
In the meantime, the mega international corporations DO survive, stateless, but wealthy and powerful, operating under no regulations at all. They are now in a position to make profitable loans to countries of all kinds, including to the states that were originally part of America. More nations can be classed as "Third World countries."
Meantime, towns and cities lying on the coastlines are under water from the rising oceans worldwide, and almost all islands are underwater. Shipping and commerce is virtually at a standstill.
The survivors in the Western Hemisphere will be the Native Americans, including the Andean Indians, but only if they remember the wisdom of their ancestors.
2. The other scenario is all-out Nuclear War which eventually ends all life on the planet.
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