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What if 2/3 of Congress and 60 Senators were as pragmatic as him?

great video.. very well done.

I agree with alot of what he said there... but...

What if what America has done over the last 60 years.. while distasteful, often clumsy and sometimes wrong, has been the primary factor that averted a course that would have lead to a dystopic world.

Humans were not ready for the 20th century. The United States hegemony may have been the least worst option.

What's the word, um......hrmmm.....oh yeah....duh?



In order to get much of that across to us, a couple of gentlemen drove airplanes into buildings a few years back, but we still didn't catch on.

What if what America has done over the last 60 years.. while distasteful, often clumsy and sometimes wrong, has been the primary factor that averted a course that would have lead to a dystopic world.

Humans were not ready for the 20th century. The United States hegemony may have been the least worst option.

Who's to say that we aren't living in a dystopia, relative to the future we could have had?

Who says we aren't living in a utopia, relative to a future we could have had?

That is a chicken/egg argument. The present is what it is. We always bemoan the past, and hope for a brighter future. Otherwise we don't have anything to justify our existance.

These two sentences are a non-sequitor.


Humans were not ready for the 20th century. The United States hegemony may have been the least worst option.

Given the number of pooches screwed in just the last few years -- for no benefit at all -- I think that is safely disproved.

The political system we have created (and I'm not talking dems vs repubs here) has proven itself fundamentally incapable of dealing with a post Marshall Plan world, and as recently at 2008 was still acting like we had a major Soviet threat that was a fabrication of Soviet spies and all-too-eager MIC lackeys here since the early 1960s.

What if we hadn't been engaged in punishment isolation of Vietnam, Korea, Cuba, random other America states, et al, that were known to have failed mere years after we started for going into their fifth decades.

What if our response to the 1989 breakup of the Soviet hegemony wasn't to punitively destroy all attempts to transition major Russian states to open and functional economies?

What if neoliberalism only works when your client states do it? What if the whole Chicago school of economics has been unfounded and the efficient market hypothesis is demonstrably wrong? What if letting financials be the ONLY protected industry resulted in no others left? What if we've been effectively broke for 30 years and living on rapidly failing credit?

What if we still haven't learned we can't play asymmetric warfare despite us having used it to great effect on other people?

What if the war on drugs never had much of anything to do with stopping narcotics.

Who says we aren't living in a utopia, relative to a future we could have had?

That is a chicken/egg argument. The present is what it is. We always bemoan the past, and hope for a brighter future. Otherwise we don't have anything to justify our existance.

That'd make a good motivational poster caption, but is too head-in-the-sand for my tastes. Optimism and hope are good things, but not at the cost of accurate awareness.

'That is a chicken/egg argument. '

- Yes, otherwise known as a complete and utter fucking waste of time.

How refreshingly myopic.

The chicken/egg argument has long since been solved by scientists anyway (fyi: the egg came first), you need a new analogy!

Finally got a chance to watch it. Very profound, I just wish more people would listen to his message.

We can pick out a multitude of places where the US fucked up royally.

But has there ever been a superpower/empire that wielded its power so miserly? I would say that without a doubt, the US was the best possible outcome to be the global hegemon.

The future that was looking inevitable in 1939 was straight out of Orwells 1984. When I say that Humans werent ready for the 20th century what I mean is that technology was moving faster than we could comprehend and had the potential to entrap us. Think of all the technological breakthroughs that capitalism brought out, and channeled into profit potential rather than state control or military superiority.

Look at 1914 as a prime example. Major powers rushed into a war with attack plans based on cavalry charge and break throughs. Never mind that defenses were massively advantaged. That is a microcosm for the entire century.

What if we weren't the first to develop nukes. Would Stalin have shown restraint? MacArthur screaming at Truman to give him the go ahead to nuke the shit out of the Chinese border.

Americans are at core, isolationists. We have acted against our nature for the last 60 years. And thus.. we have made horrible mistakes. But the intention behind those mistakes was most benign in the history of empires. It wasn't good by any means, but it was the least damaging.

You can bet your ass Rome wouldn't have made the mistakes we made. They would have crushed all before them and brought the world to submission and fealty.

I guess my point is that what we have done is far from perfect... but nothing is. And im glad for Americas clumsy and dense mistakes than the brutal efficiency of someone else.

I don't see Americas intentions as evil. GWB didn't order the invasion of Iraq for territorial gain or imperialist desires... he ordered it because he genuinely believed it was the right thing to do. I can say that for almost every error in foreign policy we have made. Sure we fuck it up and down the line we look around and say "Fuck.. how did we get here?" but begin from a place of good intentions.

Heres what I believe about Americans. I believe that one of the core characteristics of the American people is we have this weird fetish for fairness. Its strong enough where it overrode our tendancy for isolationism and we tried to "fix" the world and make it fair for everyone. We want things to be fair, and no matter our political affiliations, we react strongly when we see something we believe to be unfair. Mostly, America is a fair place. You don't need bribes to advance in society, or get a job, or buy a house or be related to the right person or be in the right tribe.

Americans go overseas to many places and complain "Hey, thats not fair".. local people laugh and say "Where the fuck have you been, life hasnt been fair around here for 3,000 years... get used to it." There is an acceptance of corruption, an acceptance of tribalism and it isnt immoral to screw over an other for the sake of "yours".

This trait breaks through in all our policies. And it fucks us up.. because life ISNT fair. It is supremely UNFAIR. We have step lightly where we should be curb stomping. We pull our punches and try to make things good for everyone, and fair for everyone. It is an exercise in futility, and it makes us a goddamn shitty empire. But the world should be thankful that Americans labor under this grand delusion.

We can pick out a multitude of places where the US fucked up royally.

But has there ever been a superpower/empire that wielded its power so miserly? I would say that without a doubt, the US was the best possible outcome to be the global hegemon.

The Ottomans did a pretty good job with what they had. But the question is not "Is American Empire better than Mao/Stalin/de Gaulle empire?" but "Is American Empire better than NO American Empire?" I don't think anyone is going to posit that any of the best of all possible world includes Stalin murdering millions more people, but we didn't need to do decades of the stuff we did to prevent that.

Richard Perle, one of the PNAC talking heads behind the Rumsfelds of the last few administrations, made an tangentially profound statement when interviewed for his opposing view in 2005's Why We Fight, which is that we are not the nation we were going into the Marshall Plan. We are not the nation we were leaving Vietnam. We have changed, and our viewpoints and discussions are now framed and controlled by the results of where our nominal leaders got their heads stuck in between the BETTER DEAD THAN RED and WE ARE THE NEW ROME years.

It didn't have to be that way, and in fact we bent and folded virtually all of our constitution to get to where we are. We don't need to be perfect, but we need to at least look at ourselves honestly -- and all it takes is looking at the deification of Reagan to see just how many barriers we are putting up to that.

What if -- consider the null case.

The Ottomans did a pretty good job with what they had.

Except if you were an Armenian.

But I agree with alot of that.

We are in fact an empire in decline.. but I think it is a (semi) conscious decline. We are reverting back to our natural state of slumber and semi isolation.

GWB didn't order the invasion of Iraq for territorial gain or imperialist desires... he ordered it because he genuinely believed it was the right thing to do.

I'm going to call bullshit on this one right here. The Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld invasion of Iraq was a textbook case of the imperial temper and its motivations in action. Bush was all watered up to invade Iraq before 9/11, indeed, before he ever entered office, and moreover we have multiple smoking guns to prove it in the form of various memos between the three individuals in question, not to mention reams of evidence illuminating the lengths they were willing to go to during the two years they spent trying to fit the square Al Qaeda peg into the round Iraq hole in order to justify the invasion. Bush didn't invade Iraq because he thought 'it was the right thing to do'; he invaded because he was the 'Little Emperor' with an Oedipal hangup, stoked by his ideological and greedy handlers - an archtypically Roman case if I've ever seen one.

Leaving aside the holy war angle, as far as material or imperialist gain goes, just try and sell, with a straight face, that we didn't invade Iraq with those (now iron-clad, 40 year leases) oil fields in mind, or all the 'economic stimulus' for the defense industries and all those contractors who just happened to be owned by his cronies. Speaking of economic stimulus, an article in the business section of the BBC online today contained some very interesting data on global military spending (hit an all time record in 2008!) and there can be no doubt whatsoever who the primary economic beneficiaries of all the sales of war material in this latest 'War on Terror' (and other assorted wars, including those which are a direct result of said 'war' have been:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8086117.stm

Now keep in mind that these figures only refer to contracts with hardware-producing industries, and don't include personnel and all the ancillary expenses. The United States is very much in the *business* of empire, and to think otherwise is to be naive. Our increasing reliance on that business has created an ever accelerating treadmill for us wherein we're forced to spend more to put out the fires that sprung up as a result of the fires we deliberately set, ad infinitum...

Sure, immediately after WW2, there was a power vacuum in Europe as the old powers reconstructed (and China began its isolationist path to power), but after the 1950s, it wasn't really asking to be filled - the detente lines between us and the USSR were drawn and actions like the pointless embargo against Cuba caused far more trouble than their largely symbolic worth. And ask yourself, what have we reaped from the last fifty years of hegemony, of systematic covert and overt meddling in the affairs of other states, for no justifiable end whatsoever? Only more overhead in the form of balls we can no longer keep, nor afford to keep, in the air.

I do agree with you, L2, on one thing; that Americans are at heart decent people who believe that what they have done in the world has been justified for the larger cause of freedom. It doesn't take any degree of perception whatsoever, however, to see how that naive idealism has been exploited and converted into policy by those who stood to benefit from it, that for decades has existed primarily, if not only, to preserve power and resources at any cost. I'm not so fond of everything that comes out of Ron Paul's mouth, but in this case he's right on about the scope of this tragedy. Harkening back to the economy thread, what if...?

Regards,
Nydia

'
GWB didn't order the invasion of Iraq for territorial gain or imperialist desires... he ordered it because he genuinely believed it was the right thing to do.

I'm going to call bullshit on this one right here. '

- Me too. Christ L2, you know better than that. The spOILs of war are part of Empire, the exploitation of other states. That was what Iraq was about. You know that.

'I do agree with you, L2, on one thing; that Americans are at heart decent people who believe that what they have done in the world has been justified for the larger cause of freedom'

- As a historian of imperialism, I have to state something: every Imperial people think the same thing. We British had an unprofound belief in the justice of our civilizing cause. Yet we did some bad. So did the Spanish. The Belgians thought they were blessing the Congo, attempting to wipe out slavery, etc, but they royally fucked (and slaughtered) the Congonese.

Halo,

You are giving too much credit to Bush if you seriously think he is capable of thinking that far. The true crazy person that we should be pointing fingers at is Monsieur DICK Cheney.

Well yeah, when we say Bush, I think most of us mean his administration, not the puppet that danced out front :P