The decline and eventual fall of the USA as world superpower?

[kaaazuo]

ghandhi apparently missed the memo

 

Gandhi did not spearhead any revolution in India. His campaign to free India of British rule for over twenty years yielded no results. Britain relinquished empire after World War 2 and handed independence to a partitioned India in 1947. From Wikipedia, the following:

 

Stanley Wolpert has argued, The "plan to carve up British India was never approved of or accepted by Gandhi...who realised too late that his closest comrades and disciples were more interested in power than principle, and that his own vision had long been clouded by the illusion that the struggle he led for India's freedom was a nonviolent one."^[120]

[Apech]

Instead of the corporate media engaging in real journalism to inform the public as to the real problems we face, the royal baby is focused upon. I have never understood the fascination with the 'royals'.

 

 

Please do not denigrate our latest tourist attraction ... we are as ever desperate for money and attention.

Edited July 23, 2013 by Apech

[ralis]

This essay on neoliberalism was far too long to paste in it's entirety.

 

http://www.alternet.org/investigations/united-states-awash-public-stupidity-and-views-critical-thought-both-liability-and

 

"America has become amnesiac - a country in which forms of historical, political, and moral forgetting are not only willfully practiced but celebrated. The United States has degenerated into a social order that is awash in public stupidity and views critical thought as both a liability and a threat. Not only is this obvious in the presence of a celebrity culture that embraces the banal and idiotic, but also in the prevailing discourses and policies of a range of politicians and anti-public intellectuals who believe that the legacy of the Enlightenment needs to be reversed. Politicians such as Michelle Bachmann, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich along with talking heads such as Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck and Anne Coulter are not the problem, they are symptomatic of a much more disturbing assault on critical thought, if not rational thinking itself. Under a neoliberal regime, the language of authority, power and command is divorced from ethics, social responsibility, critical analysis and social costs.

These anti-public intellectuals are part of a disimagination machine that solidifies the power of the rich and the structures of the military-industrial-surveillance-academic complex by presenting the ideologies, institutions and relations of the powerful as commonsense. For instance, the historical legacies of resistance to racism, militarism, privatization and panoptical surveillance have long been forgotten and made invisible in the current assumption that Americans now live in a democratic, post-racial society. The cheerleaders for neoliberalism work hard to normalize dominant institutions and relations of power through a vocabulary and public pedagogy that create market-driven subjects, modes of consciousness, and ways of understanding the world that promote accommodation, quietism and passivity. Social solidarities are torn apart, furthering the retreat into orbits of the private that undermine those spaces that nurture non-commodified knowledge, values, critical exchange and civic literacy. The pedagogy of authoritarianism is alive and well in the United States, and its repression of public memory takes place not only through the screen culture and institutional apparatuses of conformity, but is also reproduced through a culture of fear and a carceral state that imprisons more people than any other country in the world. What many commentators have missed in the ongoing attack on Edward Snowden is not that he uncovered information that made clear how corrupt and intrusive the American government has become - how willing it is to engage in vast crimes against the American public. His real "crime" is that he demonstrated how knowledge can be used to empower people, to get them to think as critically engaged citizens rather than assume that knowledge and education are merely about the learning of skills - a reductive concept that substitutes training for education and reinforces the flight from reason and the goose-stepping reflexes of an authoritarian mindset."

Edited July 23, 2013 by ralis

[kaaazuo]

I don't think there is any other way out other than where America is going as a social system. To stay ahead, she needs to move at lightning fast speed. She has got to be stronger, better and faster; not because others may catch up and overtake her, but because that's what America is all about: opening new frontiers of excellence.

 

There is no room for slackers in the A Team. Quiiiicck march! Hup, two, three, four! Step-it-up, two, three, four!

Edited July 23, 2013 by kaaazuo

[ralis]

I don't think there is any other way out other than where America is going as a social system. To stay ahead, she needs to move at lightning fast speed. She has got to be stronger, better and faster; not because others may catch up and overtake her, but because that's what America is all about: opening new frontiers of excellence.

 

There is no room for slackers in the A Team. Quiiiicck march! Hup, two, three, four! Step-it-up, two, three, four!

 

Exactly what is your point? Sounds like more nationalistic BS rah rah rah, with everyone in lockstep.

Edited July 23, 2013 by ralis

[zerostao]

Please do not denigrate our latest tourist attraction ... we are as ever desperate for money and attention.

i heard this baby is now heir to an empire that has 54 nations and 2 billion people.

how much more attention do ya'll need?

[ralis]

NSA is lobbying against bill to curtail its powers. Since when does a government agency have the power to protect its own interest? The corporate military industrial complex grows stronger daily.

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/23/keith-alexander-justin-amash_n_3639329.html

[Vanir Thunder Dojo Tan]

personal accountability: its un-American. pay your taxes and shut up about the problems paying your taxes is causing.

[kaaazuo]

Exactly what is your point? Sounds like more nationalistic BS rah rah rah, with everyone in lockstep.

 

My point is that America's main stream society will not be thwarted. The country has always been one of promise and her people have always been hopeful about a better future. Hard work, love of God, family and country - ethos that have served Americans well. Fundamentally, the American consciousness is stable. If there is any conflict, it's peripheral, at the fringes of society, like freckles on an otherwise beautiful face.

[voidisyinyang]

https://twitter.com/robertodevogli/status/359992609579610113/photo/1

 

 

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=10211#.Ue-XFC6zrt4.twitter

Edited July 24, 2013 by pythagoreanfulllotus

[ralis]

Only in the U.S. are corporations allowed to behave like law enforcement with no warrant, probable cause, and no due process. PayPal stops accepting payments for some VPN's. Completely outrageous!

 

 

http://torrentfreak.com/paypal-cuts-off-pirate-bay-vpn-ipredator-freezes-assets-130724/

[ralis]

My point is that America's main stream society will not be thwarted. The country has always been one of promise and her people have always been hopeful about a better future. Hard work, love of God, family and country - ethos that have served Americans well. Fundamentally, the American consciousness is stable. If there is any conflict, it's peripheral, at the fringes of society, like freckles on an otherwise beautiful face.

 

One of promise for mega corporations which have been deemed persons by SCOTUS. Furthermore, the U.S. is a perpetual war machine, militarized police, homeland security, NSA (panopticon) TSA, world's police force, neoliberalism, banks being allowed to operate as mega casinos with everyone's money, most of the industry shipped overseas to China, military industrial complex, to name just a few problems.

Edited July 24, 2013 by ralis

[Vanir Thunder Dojo Tan]

just keep paying taxes. that will solve everything, paying taxes. and keeping money in banks. that's smart too. you'll fix the problem by continuing to do the same thing everyone else has done for the last 100 years. that will solve it. yup.

[voidisyinyang]

[voidisyinyang]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-louisiana-rig-fire-20130724,0,6693862.story

 

Natural gas rig blows out, is on fire off Louisiana coast

[ralis]

Justin Amash Amendment To Stop NSA Data Collection Voted Down In House

 

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/24/justin-amash-amendment_n_3647893.html

 

These reps still don't understand the 4th amendment!

[voidisyinyang]

yep pretty much party line though - dems voted for it mainly, repubs mainly for the fascist NSA....

 

 

Conyers also noted that this time, on the Democratic side, members up to and including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) pressured members to vote against the Amash amendment.

 

 

oops -

Edited July 25, 2013 by pythagoreanfulllotus

[ralis]

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/07/24/republican-nsa-mass-spying-precisely-the-way-our-government-ought-to-operate/

[ralis]

War, war and more war says Lindsey Graham who wants to authorize the use of force against Iran. Give a politician power and that is not enough!

 

 

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014547568

[ralis]

More censorship from Google. Thinking about switching browsers.

 

http://torrentfreak.com/google-removed-100-million-pirate-search-results-this-year-130725/

[rene]

More censorship from Google. Thinking about switching browsers.

 

http://torrentfreak.com/google-removed-100-million-pirate-search-results-this-year-130725/

 

Yes! How dare people expect to get paid for their efforts! How dare they! Everyone knows it's better for the collective if we just sponge off of the efforts or others! Rage! Rage against the individual! Rage!

 

~ Now if you'll excuse me, I think my pup needs a walk. (-:

[ralis]

Feds tell Web firms to turn over user account passwords

 

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57595529-38/feds-tell-web-firms-to-turn-over-user-account-passwords/

[rene]

Now that bows my neck.

 

Good links, ralis. I don't always agree with your thoughts, but I appreciate your efforts.

[kaaazuo]

One of promise for mega corporations which have been deemed persons by SCOTUS. Furthermore, the U.S. is a perpetual war machine, militarized police, homeland security, NSA (panopticon) TSA, world's police force, neoliberalism, banks being allowed to operate as mega casinos with everyone's money, most of the industry shipped overseas to China, military industrial complex, to name just a few problems.

 

This is what you get when you have a democracy and everybody has a point of view. If the smartest guy is not allowed to run the show, you get a mess that feeds on itself.

[ralis]

This is what you get when you have a democracy and everybody has a point of view. If the smartest guy is not allowed to run the show, you get a mess that feeds on itself.

 

With that you get jack booted storm troopers enforcing the will of one man. This country was founded on the rule of law as opposed to the rule of a single person i.e, divine right of kings.

 

You are a troll narveen!