Peak America: Our run is over

[marmar]

by Paul B. Farrell


Peak America? Yes. We’re on the downside? Yes. Not exceptional? No. The questions come up a lot lately. In a Time magazine review of his new book “Superpower: Three Choices for America in the World,” foreign policy expert Ian Bremmer asks the blunt ones:

“What role does President Barack Obama believe America should play in the world? His words and his actions tell different stories,” says Bremmer. Bottom line, “words aside, Obama’s deeds suggest he’s not acting so much as reacting to crises as they appear.”

In his earlier best-seller, “Every Nation for Itself: What Happens When No One Leads the World?” Bremmer saw America’s spliting apart as a reflection of a global trend. He sees us living in a new “G-Zero, the new world order in which no single country or durable alliance of countries can meet the challenges of global leadership ... What happens when the G-20 doesn’t work and the G-7 is history?”

The big question: “Have we hit Peak America?” asked the elite Foreign Policy magazine last year. Yes. The cover was a mess, total confusion, chaos, fragmentation. Yes, everything’s peaking. We talk a good game about exceptionalism. But our internecine political conflicts prevent us from delivering on the braggadocio.

In “Superpower” Bremmer predicts even more fragmentation in America, reflecting our extreme political and cultural partisan conflict, plus Big Oil’s battle over climate science and carbon emissions. And across the world, it’s every nation for Itself. .....................(more)

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/peak-america-our-best-days-will-be-behind-us-after-2016-election-2015-06-10?link=mw_home_kiosk

[Hotler]

1. I ahve no hope. I see no future......n/t

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

2. Peak America? Probably. President Obama's 'fault'? Hardly.

We've 'peaked' because a bunch of loony conservative Republicans have spent half a century trying to drag us backwards in time to the Gilded Age.

[marmar]

3. If you read the whole piece he's not really blaming President Obama....

..... just saying that he's managing a country in an irreversible decline.

[nichomachus]

8. If you say it was all Republicans, you would be drastically wrong

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

9. Then I guess it's good the word 'all' is nowhere in my comment. nt

[nichomachus]

10. Talk about weaseling out of what you said

No, you didn't use the word "all," but Republicans were the only people you named. You didn't mentioned that Democrats -- including the Clinton and Obama -- bear a major share of the blame.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

12. I'm not weaseling out; I had no idea where you were going with your comment.

If you look at my comment history, you'll see I attack all crappy politicians and crappy policy, from both parties. The vast majority of regressive politics originates on the right, but yes, plenty of lousy 'blue dog' / 'new democrats' / DLC types have enabled them.

[el_bryanto]

4. That's kind of all over the place

And an example of a writer choosing a provocative title that doesn't exactly mesh with the argument the article is making. It's more that we are at Peak Homo Sapiens, than that we are at Peak America. Yes America's inability to lead will hasten this problem, but our environmental and population problems are going to hammer us either way.

Bryant

[olddots]

5. entropy doesn't sleep

[deutsey]

6. Strike another match, go start anew

'Cause it's all over now, Baby Blue.

[tridim]

7. "Obama’s deeds suggest he’s not acting so much as reacting to crises as they appear"

Is a shit statement in any context.

Fuck Bremmer and everyone else who has given up. They are WORTHLESS and a drag on progress.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

11. doesn't have to be...

probably will continue...

sP

[jwirr]

13. Emmanuel Todd's book After the Empire is a good read on this subject. He talks about what is

going to happen after the Berlin Wall fell and we had a one nation world power. He suggests that the new form of governmental action will not be every nation for themselves but instead regional alliances. Ex. China and the countries around that area. Russia and Europe. South and Central America. The Middle east. African. And finally that leaves the USA? Maybe Mexico, USA and Canada?

One problem is that neither of these authors seem to take into account the new multi-national corporations that are rapidly taking over the world. So I am not sure either is correct.