Building a nation, building an empire and building a future.

quasar2010

I'll keep this as short as possible.
Take a look at any successful civilization across history and take a look at how it acheived its successes. Doesn't matter whether you look at the Greek empire, the Roman empire, the Victorian empire or the United States empire, they are all based on the same fundamental principles. Those principles are that they are more organised, more advanced and more ruthless than their enemies or opposition.
I believe that people become confused how those three underlying principles are applied in this day and age compared with the previous empires and this is where a lot of CT's are born.
The Greek, Roman and Victorian empires invaded, devided and conquered contenants, enslaved them, abused them and ultimately destroyed them for its own means. What makes anyone think the United States is anything different and that things have changed?
When the Greeks, Romans and Victorians built those empires things were very different in the world but by and large the peoples of those empires welcomed the expansion, the maintenance of and the preservation of that empire so that their way of life could be preserved for as long as possible.
The United States seeks to do exactly the same but it has a problem. That problem is that the rest of the planet, the US Government and most of its peoples might not neccessarily agree that this is the best idea.
Lets have a look at who built the United States into the massive entity that it is today.
Governments do not build nations, especially the United States. Governments do not build cities, create industrial might and they do not create wealth. The people that built the US were the people that came over from Europe during the industrial revolution, invested heavily in the building of a nation, built the railways, built the bridges and created a civilization out of experience of doing so in many nations across the world.
Governments which were in place at the time regardless of who they were couldn't stop this roller coaster, they could only try and keep it civilized enough for it to appear humane.
...And so it grew and grew and grew to what we have today. The government of the United States today still has no control of how things are or will be. The industrial machine that built the United states and all of the wealth within it, does.
The men behind that massive machine are the ones that place Governments in control of it not the people. The people do not decide which two candidates will fight to be president - the machine does. Those men behind this machine still have the ambitions of their forefathers in deciding what is best and not best for the USA. The problem is that the world has changed and if they want to invade a Country to exploit it for the good of the nation they can no longer do that in the same way as previous empires. The empire still needs to be expanded, maintained and preserved so that its citizens can have their way of life but its own citizens have failed to grasp this.
So, the machine will find its own way of doing it without the approval of its citizens by which ever means is neccessary.
My thoughts are this, if the machine got us where we are today and created this way of life for us all then long live the machine. If you want your way of life to be preserved then you either trust the machine to build a future for you and take what isn't ours like all the empires before us did or you can fight it. Personally speaking, I think I support the machine having thought about it because if I didn't then I would be an hypocrit seeing as all I have today is based on previous machines and the machine we have now.

Brown Bomber

quasar2010 wrote: »

The people that built the US were the people that came over from Europe during the industrial revolution

There was an "America" before Columbus these were the people who built America. The colonisers brought more than bridges and roads the brought the genocide and near extermination of 12 million native Americans.

Edit: Agree with the gist of what you're saying though.

joebucks

Good post Quasar. Since day dot there have been different groups trying to control this planet and achieve a 'New World Order'. Why would it be any different today. It's just like one big game.

Some quotes from ZBig Brzezenski's the grand chessboard:

This huge, oddly shaped Eurasian chessboard—extending from
Lisbon to Vladivostok—provides the setting for "the game."

“Never before has a populist democracy attained international supremacy. But the pursuit of power is not a goal that commands popular passion, except in conditions of a sudden threat or challenge to the public's sense of domestic well-being. The economic self-denial (that is, defense spending) and the human sacrifice (casualties, even among professional soldiers) required in the effort are uncongenial to democratic instincts. Democracy is inimical to imperial mobilization." (p.35)

"Moreover, as America becomes an increasingly multi-cultural society, it may find it more difficult to fashion a consensus on foreign policy issues, except in the circumstance of a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat." (p. 211)

Here is the pdf for the book:


http://sandiego.indymedia.org/media/2006/10/119973.pdf

quasar2010

There was an "America" before Columbus these were the people who built America. The colonisers brought more than bridges and roads the brought the genocide and near extermination of 12 million native Americans.

I agree that there was an America before Columbus and there was indeed an America between Columbus and the industrial revolution but my argument refers to when the US became a massive industrial nation on a par with the rest of the world. The civil war tore the US apart and interupted its industrial development for a long time. After the war ended in 1865 there was a massive influx of foreign labour and with it followed the money and the power to build. Within 50 years the US became one of the biggest industrial nations on the planet and has remained so ever since.
When you compare the US with another ex British colony such as India and you look at the differences between 1865 to 1915 of the two respective Countries, what happened in the US is unpresidented.
But what I think people need to understand is that the energy used for that superspeed development lies within that influx of people and money, not in Governments and that 'influx' developed into an unstoppable machine that would eventually govern its own destiny whether it has a Government or not.

Brown Bomber

quasar2010 wrote: »

I agree that there was an America before Columbus and there was indeed an America between Columbus and the industrial revolution but my argument refers to when the US became a massive industrial nation on a par with the rest of the world. The civil war tore the US apart and interupted its industrial development for a long time. After the war ended in 1865 there was a massive influx of foreign labour and with it followed the money and the power to build. Within 50 years the US became one of the biggest industrial nations on the planet and has remained so ever since.
When you compare the US with another ex British colony such as India and you look at the differences between 1865 to 1915 of the two respective Countries, what happened in the US is unpresidented.
But what I think people need to understand is that the energy used for that superspeed development lies within that influx of people and money, not in Governments and that 'influx' developed into an unstoppable machine that would eventually govern its own destiny whether it has a Government or not.

Government is good IMO, just that there isn't any non corrupted governments. You talk about people and money. If the world governments represented the people and not the money our quality of life would be unregonisable from today far less wars, poverty, suffering, inequality, stress etc.

quasar2010

Government is good IMO, just that there isn't any non corrupted governments. You talk about people and money. If the world governments represented the people and not the money our quality of life would be unregonisable from today far less wars, poverty, suffering, inequality, stress etc.

Any capitalist system works on the basis of the majority serving the minority, if we look at the distribution of wealth and compare it to a pie the same patterns nearly always occur.
The minority will take most of that pie but every now and again they give the majority a taste of it, enough to keep them happy enough so that the system remains intact. This however, is only over short periods of time and the minority will eventually take back that small slice of pie again. This is the boom and bust economies that we keep seeing over and over again.
The balance of wealth is very delicate during these repeated patterns but is designed not to collapse an economy but slow it down till all the wealth is back in the hands of the minority, the process then begins all over again.
All the politics that occur during these cycles of wealth are always secondary to it.

nyarlothothep

I'll qualify your argument to say that the minority have a pyrrhic reign, in the respect that all they are doing is following a base instinct for command of resources. Meaningful power is harnessed not through status but through intuition, we are living in the world of people who sought to improve conditions before us whether through civil rights, technology or legislation for workers etc. If the words of an unemployed academic can have a major influenced on the history of country like China then doesn't it stand to reason that power comes in many forms and some meek though they may be have deafening consequences later on in the primitive game of a struggle for limited resources? Another example would be the cult of Christianity in the days of the Roman Empire. Not only was it adopted by the Empire as an official religion it superseeded it.

All heirarchies collapse under the weight of their own inadequacies, the drive towards self deception and delusions of grandeur only serve to highlight the fragility of a given social system that desperately tries to convince itself that it is permanent when it is another drop in the ocean of history. To be honest rationalism and fairness are the order du jour in the quest for a harmonious society, try selling that to social inertia which transcends all classes, rich and poor.

quasar2010

the fragility of a given social system that desperately tries to convince itself that it is permanent when it is another drop in the ocean of history.

I agree with your centiments. Through history we have seen such systems collapse under their own weight but we have also seen extended systems be successful over long periods of time. A perfect example would be the Romans. The Romans saw many different changes to their culture, leadership and the boundaries but the their fundamental system remained intact for over 600 years. The US system I believe is trying to mimic the Romans, there are a lot of similarities between the two respective systems especially the corruption.