Washington, DC, with its monuments, resembles the heart of ancient Rome. Is the American empire facing the fate of its ancient predecessor?
What does the concept of empire even mean to people today?
Experts say the modern American empire has been built on military might.
"The US defense budget is almost 50 percent of global military expenditures," said Professor Michel Chossudovsky, director of Centre for Research on Globalisation in Toronto, Canada.
Its spending overshadows all other countries in the world combined. Buying the most advanced weapons systems that are "unequaled" according to analysts, making the US a super power unrivaled in its ingenuity.
It's an imperial project with an economic agenda.
"Imposing a colonial currency has always been an objective of the empire," said Chossudovsky. "What is sustaining the dollar is US military might."
And America has a hidden agenda to make the Pentagon budget so expensive that no one else can compete. It is made up of more than $700 billion a year and nearly 70 percent of American's income taxes.
Just a small fraction of that money would go far in a neighborhood like Washington DC's poorest, Ward 8. There houses sit dilapidated with windows are boarded up and the doors filled with cinder blocks. One in two children are living in poverty and one in every four adults has no job.
"Well I can see where there’s a lack of everything going around, especially the food and money problems," said Malcolm Franklin, a resident of the neighborhood.
All over the US, you can see signs of a tradeoff.
"The consequence of this war economy is the fiscal crisis," said Chossudovsky.
And as trillions of dollars have gone to bailing out Wall Street banks and defense spending combined, mainstream America has experienced, "the economic downturn, foreclosures, and job losses," according to a Washington DC food bank spokesperson. "People who used to donate to the foodback are now coming in for assistance," she added.
A country is becoming impoverished, while government deficits are now so high that despite a global War on Terror, even the military leaders of the empire are more worried that US credit is maxed out.
"I think the biggest threat we have to our national security is our debt," said Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff. "The interest on our debt is $571 billion in 2012."
That's a lot of money, and on top of that, everything produced in the economy that year isn't expected even to be enough to cover the principle.
"The United States is almost $14 trillion in debt and they want to take on more debt to keep bailing out the system, it’s not working," said Gerald Celente, director of Trends Research Institute.
The Congressional Budget Office agrees and has issued its most dire warning on the budget yet. It's a spending habit that's catching up.
"It's not sustainable," said Admiral Mullen.
And in this situation, it appears neither is the dollar.
"The dollar isn’t going to be worth a dime considering the direction they’re taking," said Celente.
And now the United Nations wants to dump it as the global reserve currency.
For comedians it amounts to this: "America officially became a third world country," says an "analyst" on the faux-news program The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.
For analysts, it's a little more complicated.
"This apparent hegemony of the US with this massive military budget worldwide is at the same time destroying the US as an imperial power," said Chossudovsky.
But it all appears to ponit in the same direction. And just as the sun has risen for other other Imperial powers in the past, from ancient Rome, to modern times, the sun has also set.
Experts say the modern American empire has been built on military might.
"The US defense budget is almost 50 percent of global military expenditures," said Professor Michel Chossudovsky, director of Centre for Research on Globalisation in Toronto, Canada.
Its spending overshadows all other countries in the world combined. Buying the most advanced weapons systems that are "unequaled" according to analysts, making the US a super power unrivaled in its ingenuity.
It's an imperial project with an economic agenda.
"Imposing a colonial currency has always been an objective of the empire," said Chossudovsky. "What is sustaining the dollar is US military might."
And America has a hidden agenda to make the Pentagon budget so expensive that no one else can compete. It is made up of more than $700 billion a year and nearly 70 percent of American's income taxes.
Just a small fraction of that money would go far in a neighborhood like Washington DC's poorest, Ward 8. There houses sit dilapidated with windows are boarded up and the doors filled with cinder blocks. One in two children are living in poverty and one in every four adults has no job.
"Well I can see where there’s a lack of everything going around, especially the food and money problems," said Malcolm Franklin, a resident of the neighborhood.
All over the US, you can see signs of a tradeoff.
"The consequence of this war economy is the fiscal crisis," said Chossudovsky.
And as trillions of dollars have gone to bailing out Wall Street banks and defense spending combined, mainstream America has experienced, "the economic downturn, foreclosures, and job losses," according to a Washington DC food bank spokesperson. "People who used to donate to the foodback are now coming in for assistance," she added.
A country is becoming impoverished, while government deficits are now so high that despite a global War on Terror, even the military leaders of the empire are more worried that US credit is maxed out.
"I think the biggest threat we have to our national security is our debt," said Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff. "The interest on our debt is $571 billion in 2012."
That's a lot of money, and on top of that, everything produced in the economy that year isn't expected even to be enough to cover the principle.
"The United States is almost $14 trillion in debt and they want to take on more debt to keep bailing out the system, it’s not working," said Gerald Celente, director of Trends Research Institute.
The Congressional Budget Office agrees and has issued its most dire warning on the budget yet. It's a spending habit that's catching up.
"It's not sustainable," said Admiral Mullen.
And in this situation, it appears neither is the dollar.
"The dollar isn’t going to be worth a dime considering the direction they’re taking," said Celente.
And now the United Nations wants to dump it as the global reserve currency.
For comedians it amounts to this: "America officially became a third world country," says an "analyst" on the faux-news program The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.
For analysts, it's a little more complicated.
"This apparent hegemony of the US with this massive military budget worldwide is at the same time destroying the US as an imperial power," said Chossudovsky.
But it all appears to ponit in the same direction. And just as the sun has risen for other other Imperial powers in the past, from ancient Rome, to modern times, the sun has also set.
Book includes 3 chapters by Michel Chossudovsky!
I do not think you can compare the global situation today, with any past comparison. The reason being that you have to factor in one hugh difference, science and technology, where do I start?. Mankind has the means to manipulate so many things to fulfill his dream, to pretend he is God. Remember, he couldn`t wait to try out his new toy on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Mankind is capable of doing ANYTHING evil, that the mind of man can conceive. Now on that you can compare with past comparisons, there are so many, where do I start?.
I can only come up with this as a reason for the insanity of
mankind...
Back in the 1960s at a press conference in the USA, a nuclear scientist
was asked..."Is uranium the most unstable thing in the universe"...The
nuclear scientist replied..."No, the most unstable thing in the
universe is consciousness".
Bush said, as the troops were being loaded onto airplanes to be sent to Iraq and Afghanistan, in late 2002, "We will succeed because America has the best trained and mightiest army the world has ever seen"
That's a shake of the fist at God and has, historically, repeatedly fails. Any emperor who uttered that and still lives is just waiting his turn. Bush rode into office on a stolen election and a pledge of "nationalism" meaning that America and ONLY America, and such client puppet states like Britain, Italy and Israel, who America allows, can be above any international law or treaty.
That's not Nationalism, nationalism would mean that EVERY nation enjoys the same equal sovereign status. The British skinned their way through World War One on the strength of that notion of "nationalism" and had the cheek to say that their reason for entering the war in the first place was "that all nations, small and great, might be free". That brought down, eventually, the last vestiges of their empire. There's a secessionist movement now in Scotland, Ireland rebelled during WW1 precisely because of that arrogant play on the English language, Small Nations being free, except of course those under the thumb of the British. It shan't be long that Wales will want to secede from the "united" kingdom.
America, my homeland, is next on the list. When a Nation declares itself an Empire, it loses first its own nation and then the Empire, leaving the former citizens of that nation, and subjects of that Empire, to fend for ourselves under a new foreign emperor. Our much vaunted technology availed us Naught in Korea and VietNam, and indeed falls handily into the clutches of the subjects of our dictatorial invasions. VietNam is a rising star in the east, now. China also, And India. The Intel Chipsets on the computer I'm using to write this is actually manufactured in China and the AMD chipset on the networked computer right next to it is made in India.
The Nuclear Genie was let out of the bottle in 1945 in America and 4 years later Russia had it as well. Not one of the developments on the "American" atomic bomb was actually accomplished by a native citizen of America. It was purest luck and a timely influx of some very talented refugee community that got the Bomb in the hands of America first.
The genie is long since out of the bottle and there's no way to stuff it back in.
The greatest insight into the mind of so many in power (I think), came from the mouth of one that thought he was God.
It's better to live one day as a lion, than a lifetime as a sheep.
Benito Mussollini (1883-1945)
You could say he...Had his day. How can (what little) sanity there is on this world, deal when so many that think the above?. I think it cannot.
The UNITED $TATES OF PERPETUAL WAR PROFITEERING has devolved into a third world plutocrazy where the wealth gap between the have and have $nots has become intermionably wide. Aside from being Israel's "bitch"... corp-rat fascist Amerika is a no vacation nation with even less health care. So how did this happen? Well... WHERE THERE IS NO INSIGHT, THE PEOPLE PERISH!
"How Easy Is It for Peaceful People to Violate the Patriot Act?"
http://www.truth-out.org/criminalizing-peacemaking61229