End of Empire - bang or whimper?

[ProudDad]

"If America's decline is in fact on a 22-year trajectory from 2003 to 2025, then we have already frittered away most of the first decade of that decline with wars that distracted us from long-term problems and, like water tossed onto desert sands, wasted trillions of desperately needed dollars.

"If only 15 years remain, the odds of frittering them all away still remain high. Congress and the president are now in gridlock; the American system is flooded with corporate money meant to jam up the works; and there is little suggestion that any issues of significance, including our wars, our bloated national security state, our starved education system, and our antiquated energy supplies, will be addressed with sufficient seriousness to assure the sort of soft landing that might maximize our country's role and prosperity in a changing world.

"Europe's empires are gone and America's imperium is going. It seems increasingly doubtful that the United States will have anything like Britain's success in shaping a succeeding world order that protects its interests, preserves its prosperity, and bears the imprint of its best values."

http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/149080


4 Scenarios for the Coming Collapse of the American Empire
By Alfred W. McCoy, Tomdispatch.com
Posted on December 5, 2010, Printed on December 12, 2010
http://www.alternet.org/story/149080/

[Lucian]

1. So what will happen if our empire collapses?

Will a new government form? Will the US break up into a couple different countries? What kind of government would we have?

[Vincardog]

2. The American Empire is in large part the Hundreds of military bases all over the world

[Speck Tater]

4. My own prediction is the US breaks into 4 to 8 separate countries.

Including at least one country that is ultra-right with a Taliban-like Christian theocracy.

[Lucian]

6. I was thinking at least two...

the North and the South. Maybe Jesusland will form afterall? :shrug:

[Speck Tater]

8. I based my guess on the idea that a government will be able to control...

whatever territory can be reached on horseback in a couple of days.

[FirstLight]

3. I keep thinking of a line..

from the new series "the walking dead"...last episode, when the cdc ran out of fuel to keep the generators going. The dr. said something about how the world ran on fossil fuel, but when the infrastructure broke down it stopped, and once the gas is used up...there's nothing else to keep civilization going...

Just spoke to a friend of my son's who is in the Air Force, he's due to ship out in feb. at 19 years old.
He is being briefed on korea becoming a conflict, and then russia & china will get involved... he believes we are on the brink of ww3.

and when the 'entitlements' are gone, we will have to grow our own food, and figure out our own survival...rainwater, energy, etc...

it's going to get really 'interesting' here in the next couple years
I am not excited to be living in these times, and i think it is happening faster than the 'models' say
just like climate change...they said we had 100 years, then 50, now 25...

good fucking luck, huh?

[Lucian]

5. It seems like we're like "The Walking Dead..."

people are zombies, will sit by and let things fail. And then we'll have to fend for ourselves when the government collapses.

Scary indeed.

[Speck Tater]

7. Look on the bright side. After the Black Plague...

Europe enjoyed unprecedented prosperity for a couple generations. Over-population stopped being a problem and labor became valuable again. So there is an up side to mass starvation. ;)

[Arctic Dave]

9. A bamper.

We will be like Baghdad.

[jwirr]

10. The scenarios in those articles probably are pretty correct as to

the big picture. What happens locally is entire up to how the people in each of our areas react to the situation. Kunstler in The Long Emergency suggests that there will be different reactions in regional areas. He has the south fighting a civil war over who will run the theocracy. He sees the southwest as almost uninhabited due to climate and water issues. It is interesting to read this book although the first 3/4 of the book is very depressing. But depending on what area you live in the rest of the book can give you hope.

[dave29]

11. There's no reason to work with anyone if you think it's all falling apart

[mikehiggins]

12. Like Macedon,Rome, Persia, England and all the rest

our nation is following the same track into irrelevance. The future belongs to obvious candidates like CHina, and less obvious ones like Brazil. When my grandkids graduate from high school (if there is such a thing as public education by then) they will confront a world no living American has had to deal with.

Wow! It's really gonna suck!

Luckily, at 65, I should be safely dead by then.:D

So long, suckers, and good luck