Saturday, March 19, 2011
The Empire is at it again
The Empire (yes, the U.S.) has decided to meddle once again in the affairs of another nation. After all, it says so in the Constitution, right? Oh, no, it doesn't. Oh well, the Wilson and Truman Doctrines say we can police the world. The American taxpayers don't mind, do they? Read the article here - thanks to antiwar.com.
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10 comments:
I usually agree with your posts, but goddamn. Would you sit by on a subway platform while thugs beat and robbed an innocent civilian? This isn't a matter of nations or interfering. This is about stopping a massacre of innocents.
We have absolutely no right to police the world. Period.
That is the truth and you have to accept it when it stings as well as when it comforts.
Not to mention the fact that i can't even rely on the government to deliver my mail, let alone do anything correctly in Libya.
Sorry, I agree with the first Anonymous poster on this too. Also, there is a discord between our values and strategic interests. I hope you understand that it is because "the empire" polices the world that we can afford the high standard of living we currently enjoy tody relative to the rest of the world.
Just think of the cost. Forget the fact that it's unconstitutional and immoral to force anyone to do anything against their will (even if you think you're helping them).
Our squadron (VFA-14), every month, would trash hundreds and thousands of dollars of material. We also ordered parts that cost millions of dollars and simply hide them so that when the next month rolled around, we could ask for more money. Why? Because if you don't spend the money that you're given this month, you can't justify asking for more next month.
The end of the fiscal year was the worst. Starting at the beginning of October (October is the end of the fiscal year in the military), we were told to order anything we could think of. From boots to the aircraft engine computer that cost upwards of half a million dollars (per engine with 2 per aircraft with 12 aircraft in our squadron). Everything! It gets worse. Pilots were also told to fly anywhere they wanted be it home, or to do a show over a favored football team game just to spend money. We would literally have midnight trash runs where we would be ORDERED to throw things overboard just so that at the beginning of the new fiscal year, we could ask for more money.
That is one squadron in one branch of the military and there are roughly 800 bases. Oh, and that is only counting the bases in other countries.
Then there is the fuel that is used to fly these things. Our Carrier would pull along side a refueling ship about once a month and we would take on about 5 million gallons of fuel. That's monthly over a span of 6 months and we were definitely not the only carrier deployed.
So set aside the fact that i've been to a lot of the countries that we have horrible relations with countries that we're "saving" from themselves and none of them want us there. Not. One. Set aside the fact that every time we police the world that we are trashing our Constitution. Set aside the fact that our founding fathers must be rolling in their graves.
It's costing us dearly.
Anonymous, your sentence stating that it is because we're the world's policeman is the reason we currently enjoy our high standard of living is completely false. How did you come up with that? And let's use Switzerland as an example. Their very high standard of living is because . . .? - they don't have an empire and don't police the world? Please explain.
Well, lets see...a county's standard of living is directly related to its reach of power. The more stronger an empire becomes, all things being equal, the more it can impose its system on those unwilling to follow it, and thus enjoy the fruits of that power. This dynamic can be seen throughout history, during current times, and it will continue to be seen well after us.
Power itself comes in different forms. Military strength is no doubt the most noticeable. However, it is one's economic might that determines who even has a military. Indeed Switzerland enjoys a high standard, even higher than ours here, but to think that they dont exert any hold whatsoever on the global order is wrong.
The Swiss are the private bankers of the world--its where all the governments and ultra capitalists keep their money. Their population is 7million with many being non-citizens. So, they dont have to police the world because their comparative advantage is in banking. This affords them neutrality on military affairs and more financial power than you can imagine...they have the best of both worlds.
Really? There is much more to Switzerland than that. Those people are geniuses. They haven't been in a foreign war since 1815. The explanation for this incredible achievement has little to do with them being the worlds bankers who holds everyone by the throat.
No one attacks the Swiss. Hell, they don't even attack each other. Their crime rate is tiny because of their gun laws. Yep, every male has to own a gun. And the women take regular trips to the gun range and i'll bet dollars to donuts that most of them are also gun owners. Those people are armed and any enemy would find this out quick enough.
But it's not just that. Their president has almost no power and their Congress is kept in check by the people. The people can overturn a law by getting 100,000 people to sign a petition. So even though the rich can buy a seat in Congress, they don't keep it long. This system sifts them out quickly.
They are also wise in their defenses. During the Cold War, the Swiss started a shelter building program that was finished 1991. Now there are enough well ventilated shelters to protect everyone. And i don't just mean personal shelters at homes. They have them at apartment buildings, at the schools and at their work places. Every single citizen is only a few minutes away from a shelter. Guess how much it cost? About 35 million a year. That is a lot of money, but we spend billions more than that yearly on a military who's seems to only have training on how to intervene in the Third World.
The only civil defense in the US is for the President and the backup supply of bureaucrats under Iron Mountain. Everyone else is pretty much screwed, unless of course you build your own shelter.
Switzerland doesn't send troops to intervene in other nations. They don't spend billions of dollars to fund dictators around the world. They don't donate hundreds of dollars to the Warsaw Pact through bank "loans." They sure has hell don't send billions of dollars worth of weaponry yearly to the waring tribes of the Middle East.
Switzerland has no enemies, yet they are armed to the hilt and dug into every mountain and under every city. They have a government that is truly controlled by the people and they have a gold standard.
The United States spies on everyone, intervenes everywhere, and supports every fraction in every single fight. Yet, we have no defense for our children. It's almost illegal now in some states to own a gun and those that do are labeled as 'gun nuts' or 'threats' to public safety. We don't have shelters or even a damned recovery plan if we are attacked. After 9-11, what did we do? We shredded the last pieces of our Constitution out of fear, destroyed the last dregs of our fiat currency and did more damage to our economy than the terrorists did.
Our standard of living is "in-spite of" not "because of." Our Empire is destroying what little high standard of living we have left.
We should model the Swiss. Our Founders did.
Well anonymous, if a stronger empire can impose it's will more easily the stronger it becomes, why has EVERY single strong empire collapsed throughout history? Why didn't one, just one, continue to get stronger and stronger and then completely dominate the world? Your analysis about Swiss banking also makes no sense.
Nice try. No analysis of Swiss banking was done here, so I dont know what you are referring to that does not make sense, but here is something for you to chew on:
The institutional backbone of ALL CENTRAL BANKS in the world, is headquarted in Switzerland. The BIS (Bank for International Settlements) is the entity that regulates all the countries central banking systems including your very own beloved Federal Reserve for which our chairmen "Helicopter Ben" sits on their board of directors. I dont know about you, but I would admit and say that if the whole worlds central bank is on their turf, they wield Power over the world that is of a different caliber.
As far as empires go, they collapse because of an unsustainable path of overextention and greed. The empire of Money is the only one that matter anymore. Will it too collapse one day?? ...only time will tell, but I would bet probably not.
Poor anonymous. Actually thinks the settlements done in Switzerland = the Swill CONTROL all central banks. Once again, flawed. Need to get away from those PUBLIC skools where you got your edukayshun and start doing some research on your own.
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