Showing posts with label AMERICAN EMPIRE. Show all posts
Showing posts with label AMERICAN EMPIRE. Show all posts
Friday, June 10, 2011
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Declare Your Independence From the Empire
Lew Rockwell
The peoples of the world once looked up to America and Americans. They held them in high respect and esteem. They respected their ideals. They respected their know-how and products.
Now, by its foreign policies of empire and their domestic counterparts, the U.S. government is destroying the dignity of America and Americans. Our morality is falling along with our productivity. Today, there is less and less of which Americans can be proud and there is more and more of which to be ashamed.
America can go in one of two ways. It can continue on the path of empire, in which case it continues downhill and impedes the world’s progress; or it can renounce empire, in which case it restores the dignity of Americans and imparts new opportunities to the peoples of the world.
America can lead the world down, in which case it becomes a backwater; or it can lead the world up, in which case Americans establish a moral center for freedom that radiates light to the world and opens up new paths for freedom everywhere.
Read Full Article
RELATED ARTICLE:
5 Best Countries to Escape America's Decline
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Raw Story Exclusive: US empire could collapse at any time, Pulitzer Prize Winner Tells Raw Story
 |
| Pulitzer Prize Winner, Chris Hedges |
Raw Story
America's military and economic empire could collapse at any time, but predicting the precise day, week or month of its potential demise is unattainable, according to a former New York Times war correspondent who spoke with Raw Story.
"The when and how is very dangerous to predict because there's always some factor that blindsides you that you didn't expect," Pulitzer-winning journalist Chris Hedges said in an exclusive interview. "It doesn't look good. But exactly how it plays out and when it plays out, having covered disintegrating societies, it's impossible to tell."
He explained that he learned this lesson as events unfolded around him in the fall of 1989. Then, members of the opposition to the Soviet Empire told him that they predicted travel across the Berlin Wall separating East from West Germany would open within the year.
"Within a few hours, the wall didn't exist," he said.
Hedges was one of roughly 135 activists who participated in an act of civil disobedience that resulted in their arrests outside the White House yesterday, even as Obama was unveiling a new report on progress of the war in Afghanistan.
Read Full Article
RELATED VIDEO:
Anti-war Activists Arrested Outside Whitehouse
RELATED ARTICLE:
The Phases of Empire
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Wednesday, December 15, 2010
13 Lies: An Abbreviated History of U.S. Presidents Leading Us to War
 |
| photo: Reuters |
Activist Post
Those of you who long ago figured out that George Bush lied about, and twisted, 9-11, the role of Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and Osama, and WMDs to justify the invasions of Afghanistan, and Iraq, and to create the War on Terror, will not be surprised to learn that our prior Presidents, and their complicit henchmen, have lied us into every war since our Revolution. Their stated reasons have not been legal, constitutional, or politically acceptable, so they invent one or more false reasons that they can sell to the people. The recent WikiLeaks disclosures confirm how our foreign policy is riddled with lies. Surprise!
Sadly, most people, especially the troops and their families, believe the lies and proudly support these "wars for defense of our Liberties." It doesn’t occur to them that our leaders would be so evil as to spend the lives of our troops to gain their hidden goals for Empire-USA (oil, power, land, etc.).
The secret plan of the Bush-Obama gang is to:
A. Take over all oil in the greater mid east (including the east of Caspian ‘xxstans’, and North Africa), which holds the world’s last reserves of easy-cheap oil, so we don’t have to share it with China, India, and others
B. Defend Israel at any cost (this helps congressmen and presidents get Israel’s AIPAC support for re-election). Control of oil was the hidden reason for the Balkans, Afghan, and Iraq wars.
Iran is their next target
Thus, the war drums are beating in DC to justify bombing Iran, so this is a good time to consider whether our leaders are lying again.
The sole purpose of our military is to defend the homeland from damage or invasion, or a serious threat thereof. It is not for managing world affairs as a global police force, or to build an empire to gain economic or political control of foreign lands and control our "interests" there. Unfortunately, these two missions have been the primary secret agenda for all of our wars since 1898.
Below are the facts on how we got into a few major wars. Each one could be (and has been) a book, and many other smaller wars also could be shown, so please forgive the brevity. The format is: war name; the lying President and the year it started; the stated reasons/lies for the war; and the real reasons.
1. War of 1812 (Madison, 1812) -- Lies: In 1812, Congress declared war on England based primarily on their kidnapping (‘impressment’) of our sailors at sea. Truth: To drive England out of N. America, so the war started with our failed invasion of Canada at Detroit. DC "expansionists" took advantage and started incursions to acquire Spanish Florida, and Mexican Texana territories.
2. Mexican-American (Polk, 1845) -- Lies: Fight to defend our Texas border with Mexico. Truth: The disputes started when residents stole The Republic of Texas from Mexico. We invaded and took the northern half of Mexico, now our entire SW region of five states.
3. Civil (Lincoln, 1865) -- Lies: Fight to end slavery and preserve the union. Truth: The South got tired of economic abuse by the North and had a perfect right to secede. It was not a civil war and it was unconstitutional, illegal, and immoral for the North to start a war to stop them. The Northern states who had the votes to control Congress, wanted to retain the South as a source of cotton and a customer for their manufactured goods (hence the high tariffs on imports in southern ports). Slavery was ended later by the Emancipation Proclamation, but only in Southern states, because the Union wanted the slaves as soldiers. Lincoln was a tyrant beholden to the railroad and canal interests; he jailed journalists and draft resisters who opposed him. Yet, to this day he is revered as a great President who saved the Union.
4. Spanish-American (McKinley, 1898) -- Lies: Spain blew up the US battleship Maine in Cuba’s Havana harbor. Truth: Hearst publicized, and Teddy Roosevelt mobilized, to use the accidental explosion to take over Cuba by starting a war in April, 1898. We then invaded the Philippines in May and annexed Hawaii in July. A busy time for the beginning of Empire-USA!
5. WWI (Wilson, 1917) -- Lies: Join Europe to "Make the World Safe for Democracy." Truth: Wilson was convinced to join by US and European industrialists who wanted to sell munitions and guns to the allies, and get paid when they won.
6. WWII (FDR, 1941) -- Lies: Defend the US from unprovoked attacks by Japan. Truth: FDR wanted to help his pal Winston Churchill, so poked Japan until he got his "incident."
7. Korean (Truman, 1950) -- Lies: Defend America. Truth: Truman and the Generals wanted a reason to have troops in the Far East area of our Empire.
8. Vietnam (Kennedy, Johnson, 1964) -- Lies: Johnson said Vietnam attacked our ships in the Gulf of Tonkin in August, 1964. Truth: The US didn’t want to lose the southeast Asia region, and its oil and sea lanes, to China. This "attack" was convenient. Kennedy initiated the first major increase in US troops (over 500).
9. Gulf War (G.H.W. Bush, 1991) -- Lies: To defend Kuwait from Iraq. Truth: Saddam was a threat to Israel, and we wanted his oil and land for bases.
10. Balkans (Clinton, 1999) -- Lies: Prevent Serb killing of Bosnians. Truth: Get the Chinese out of Eastern Europe (remember the "accidental" bombing of their embassy in Belgrade?) so they could not get control of the oil in the Caspian region and Eastward. Control land for bases such as our huge Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo, and for the proposed Trans-Balkan Oil pipeline from the Caspian Sea area to the Albanian port of Valona on the Adriatic Sea.
11. Afghan (G.W. Bush, 2001) -- Lies: The Taliban were hiding Osama. Truth: To build a gas/oil pipeline from Turkmenistan and other northern ‘xxstan’ countries to a warm water (all year) port in the Arabian Sea near Karachi (same reason the Russians were there), plus land for bases.
12. Iraq (G.W. Bush, 2003) -- Lies: Stop use of WMDs -- whoops, bring Democracy, or whatever.Truth: Oil, defense of Israel, land for permanent bases (we were kicked out of Saudi Arabia) to manage the greater Middle East, restore oil sales in USD (Saddam had changed to Euros).
13. Possible Iran War (Obama, 201?) -- Lies: They almost have an atom bomb; they are a threat to Israel; major killer of our troops in Iraq. Truth: Control their oil, defend Israel, and restore oil sales in USD only (they changed to add Euros and others). We created the regional conflict and shouldn’t be surprised that all neighbors (including our "friends" in Saudi Arabia) are helping Iraq. We exaggerate the threat to Israel, especially as Iran has allowed inspections and Israel has not.
If you approve of the current Bush-Obama wars, but are resting safely at home, you should join the Army’s Chicken Hawk Brigade. There is no restriction on age or sex, and you will get an exciting front-line assignment promptly. Then, you won’t feel badly about sending others to fight your wars for oil, religion, and Empire-USA.
Better yet, write, call, and vote against the NeoCon gang in Congress to stop their plans for war against Iran and others.
******************
David Redick is a Madison, WI businessman, author
, and President of Forward-USA, which seeks ways to improve government so we have more peace, prosperity, and justice.Related Article by David Redick:
How Governments Abuse Our Patriotism
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Thursday, December 9, 2010
Celente: American Empire is Collapsing
Youtube: RTV
As the US economy continues to struggle, it seems Wall Street and big banks are doing better than ever. The income disparity gap in the United States is the largest of all the developed industrial nations. The Trends Research Institute Director Gerald Celente says the American Empire is collapsing and the banks have committed the greatest bank robbery in the history of the world.
RELATED ARTICLES:
10 Skills Needed to Thrive in a Post-Collapse World
10 Signs The US is Becoming a Third World Country
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Print this page
As the US economy continues to struggle, it seems Wall Street and big banks are doing better than ever. The income disparity gap in the United States is the largest of all the developed industrial nations. The Trends Research Institute Director Gerald Celente says the American Empire is collapsing and the banks have committed the greatest bank robbery in the history of the world.
RELATED ARTICLES:
10 Skills Needed to Thrive in a Post-Collapse World
10 Signs The US is Becoming a Third World Country
Buy 1 Get 2 Free at Botanic Choice Buy 1 Bottle and Get 2 FREE (select items), plus Free Shipping on $25+ Expires 12/31/2010
Fresh food that lasts from eFoods Direct (Ad)
Live Superfoods
It is time to Wake Up! You too, can join the "Global Political Awakening"!Print this page
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Is America on the path to 'permanent war'?
CNN
When the president decided to send more troops to a distant country during an unpopular war, one powerful senator had enough.
He warned that the U.S. military could not create stability in a country "where there is chaos ... democracy where there is no tradition of it, and honest government where corruption is almost a way of life."
"It's unnatural and unhealthy for a nation to be engaged in global crusades for some principle or idea while neglecting the needs of its own people," said Sen. J. William Fulbright, then chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in 1966 as the Vietnam War escalated.
Fulbright's warning is being applied by some to Afghanistan today. The U.S. is still fighting dubious wars abroad while ignoring needs at home, says Andrew J. Bacevich, who tells Fulbright's story in his new book, "Washington Rules: America's Path To Permanent War."
As the Afghanistan war enters its ninth year, Bacevich and other commentators are asking: When does it end? They say the nation's national security leaders have put the U.S. on an unsustainable path to perpetual war and that President Obama is doing little to stop them.
Read Full Article
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War, What is it Good For?
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Is Military Spending Saving or Enslaving?
The Obama Doctrine
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Monday, October 18, 2010
One Nation, Under God, and Its Child Soldiers
by C.J. Maloney
Recently by CJ Maloney: Good Luck and Good Hunting
Whoever receives one such child in My name receives Me, but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.
~ Matthew 18:2–6
My brain did not begin the day thinking about war, the base activity which Lew Rockwell once termed "the murder end of the state." (Rockwell, Jr, Llewellyn H. Speaking of Liberty
. Auburn, AL, Ludwig Von Mises Institute, 2003, p.139) It was thinking about the beach, a far more pleasant activity. This being modern America, though, it wasn’t long, not even five minutes after our arrival, when my wife exclaimed an "Oh…my…God." That’s when I noticed she’d bought along The New York Times and the war crawled onto the beach with us.
She handed the paper to me in disgust, as if it were covered in filth. Shielding my eyes from the sun to read the article I see we’ve been arming and training Somalia’s army, at least the one we favor, and they in turn are using that money to arm children (some as young as nine) to fight our War of Terror. As I read further into it I am, needless to say, dripping in proud patriotism. What fresh hell is this? We’re back in Somalia?
I have vague memories of Mark Bowden’s Black Hawk Down
, a nice tale of our last disastrous fool’s errand into Somalia. Granted, we left once but an empire never truly leaves anywhere forever. Now, not wanting to put our own soldiers at risk this go round we are instead using locals as armed proxies to do our bidding. In this case, that means fighting whomever we’ve designated as the enemy for this month and, to make the American flag unfurl even more proudly in the sun, we’re arming and training child soldiers to do it.
All these little boy soldiers are funded and armed by a tentacle of the Pentagon called AFRICON, which was created in 2008 to make certain that no matter where in Africa mayhem may erupt an American weapons dealer will be there to cash in. Some of the latest entries onto the list of our "allies in the War of Terror" include Nigeria, Ethiopia, Liberia, Uganda, and now Somalia’s "Transitional Government." To the informed, that reads as if the local police department has been funding and arming the local pimps, drug dealers, Mafia dons, and cutthroats, but our War of Terror requires these types of compromises, so I am told.
Of course, all the guilty parties are just shocked to the very core of their shrunken, shriveled souls that American taxpayers have been (and are) arming children. "Now, now," the U.S. State Department says to the Somalia faction that we back, "Don’t you go using children as soldiers, you hear?" The head master of our Somalia proxy, a Fagin-like thug named Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, has ordered his army chief to conduct a "full review" to get to the bottom of things. The United Nations estimates that up to 25% of our allied army in Somalia consists of child soldiers, so it shouldn’t be too tough a task for him to find one of our little armed urchins.The more historical minded could sit back and wonder what all the (little bit of an) uproar was about, and would point to the ubiquitous drummer boys used by both sides during America’s Civil War. The American use of children in battle is nothing new; it merely faded as we climbed up the ladder of civilization. Over the past decades we’ve come tumbling back down that ladder and here we are, 2010, knowingly arming children to fight on the empire’s behalf. What we are seeing is what one always sees in a militarized society – the slow devolution away from civilized behavior and towards what the soldier-scholars call "total war," sparing no woman or child. It is the American Way.
While our political masters are upset, no doubt, over the embarrassment this caused them (for a few moments, until the story quickly faded) don’t think for a moment that this has made them cut off the flow of money, weapons, and ammo to these child soldiers. Our army of little African boys is "a critical piece" of our War of Terror in the Horn of Africa, say the experts. Plus, consider the cost savings, as doubtless Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has. Not too long ago he whined that an all-volunteer force was getting awful expensive, and according to The New York Times our little boy soldiers are getting paid, if at all, only $1.50 per day, and that’s quite a bargain by any measure.
So as not to appear too one-sided, it must be admitted that AFRICON has provided (and is providing) these children with certain job skills that they can fall back on until the end of their days. For instance little Ahmed, all of 15-years-old, was sent to Uganda at the age of 12 and taught by American trainers "how to kill with a knife." His fellow soldier Awil, now 12-years-old, says he "loves the gun."
And to be fair, while the political grandees around the globe have laws (specifically the Convention on the Rights of the Child) that prohibit the use of children in combat, neither the United States or Somalia ever signed it, so it’s a bit of a stretch to expect us to adhere to something we are not signatories on.
Enough. I stop reading the paper and watch my son running the length of the shoreline with the ocean waves his backdrop, and I think of all the children, barely older than he, that part of my every workday is spent to supply with weapons. I gag on a surge of patriotism.
There are many predictions on this site for the coming demise of the American empire, and with God’s mercy that blessed day can’t come soon enough.
Fresh food that lasts from eFoods Direct (Ad)
Live Superfoods It is time to Wake Up! You too, can join the "Global Political Awakening"!
Print this page
by CJ Maloney
Recently by CJ Maloney: Good Luck and Good Hunting
Whoever receives one such child in My name receives Me, but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.
~ Matthew 18:2–6
My brain did not begin the day thinking about war, the base activity which Lew Rockwell once termed "the murder end of the state." (Rockwell, Jr, Llewellyn H. Speaking of Liberty
. Auburn, AL, Ludwig Von Mises Institute, 2003, p.139) It was thinking about the beach, a far more pleasant activity. This being modern America, though, it wasn’t long, not even five minutes after our arrival, when my wife exclaimed an "Oh…my…God." That’s when I noticed she’d bought along The New York Times and the war crawled onto the beach with us.She handed the paper to me in disgust, as if it were covered in filth. Shielding my eyes from the sun to read the article I see we’ve been arming and training Somalia’s army, at least the one we favor, and they in turn are using that money to arm children (some as young as nine) to fight our War of Terror. As I read further into it I am, needless to say, dripping in proud patriotism. What fresh hell is this? We’re back in Somalia?
I have vague memories of Mark Bowden’s Black Hawk Down
, a nice tale of our last disastrous fool’s errand into Somalia. Granted, we left once but an empire never truly leaves anywhere forever. Now, not wanting to put our own soldiers at risk this go round we are instead using locals as armed proxies to do our bidding. In this case, that means fighting whomever we’ve designated as the enemy for this month and, to make the American flag unfurl even more proudly in the sun, we’re arming and training child soldiers to do it.All these little boy soldiers are funded and armed by a tentacle of the Pentagon called AFRICON, which was created in 2008 to make certain that no matter where in Africa mayhem may erupt an American weapons dealer will be there to cash in. Some of the latest entries onto the list of our "allies in the War of Terror" include Nigeria, Ethiopia, Liberia, Uganda, and now Somalia’s "Transitional Government." To the informed, that reads as if the local police department has been funding and arming the local pimps, drug dealers, Mafia dons, and cutthroats, but our War of Terror requires these types of compromises, so I am told.
Of course, all the guilty parties are just shocked to the very core of their shrunken, shriveled souls that American taxpayers have been (and are) arming children. "Now, now," the U.S. State Department says to the Somalia faction that we back, "Don’t you go using children as soldiers, you hear?" The head master of our Somalia proxy, a Fagin-like thug named Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, has ordered his army chief to conduct a "full review" to get to the bottom of things. The United Nations estimates that up to 25% of our allied army in Somalia consists of child soldiers, so it shouldn’t be too tough a task for him to find one of our little armed urchins.The more historical minded could sit back and wonder what all the (little bit of an) uproar was about, and would point to the ubiquitous drummer boys used by both sides during America’s Civil War. The American use of children in battle is nothing new; it merely faded as we climbed up the ladder of civilization. Over the past decades we’ve come tumbling back down that ladder and here we are, 2010, knowingly arming children to fight on the empire’s behalf. What we are seeing is what one always sees in a militarized society – the slow devolution away from civilized behavior and towards what the soldier-scholars call "total war," sparing no woman or child. It is the American Way.
While our political masters are upset, no doubt, over the embarrassment this caused them (for a few moments, until the story quickly faded) don’t think for a moment that this has made them cut off the flow of money, weapons, and ammo to these child soldiers. Our army of little African boys is "a critical piece" of our War of Terror in the Horn of Africa, say the experts. Plus, consider the cost savings, as doubtless Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has. Not too long ago he whined that an all-volunteer force was getting awful expensive, and according to The New York Times our little boy soldiers are getting paid, if at all, only $1.50 per day, and that’s quite a bargain by any measure.
So as not to appear too one-sided, it must be admitted that AFRICON has provided (and is providing) these children with certain job skills that they can fall back on until the end of their days. For instance little Ahmed, all of 15-years-old, was sent to Uganda at the age of 12 and taught by American trainers "how to kill with a knife." His fellow soldier Awil, now 12-years-old, says he "loves the gun."
Enough. I stop reading the paper and watch my son running the length of the shoreline with the ocean waves his backdrop, and I think of all the children, barely older than he, that part of my every workday is spent to supply with weapons. I gag on a surge of patriotism.There are many predictions on this site for the coming demise of the American empire, and with God’s mercy that blessed day can’t come soon enough.
October 18, 2010
CJ Maloney [send him mail] lives and works in New York City. He blogs for Liberty & Power on the History News Network website and the DailyKos. His first book (on Arthurdale, West Virginia during the New Deal) is to be released by John Wiley and Sons in February 2011.Copyright © 2010 by LewRockwell.com. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given.
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Wednesday, September 8, 2010
American History, American War, American Empire
American Empire Before the Fall
. By Bruce Fein. Campaign for Liberty, 2010. Vii + 219 pages.David Gordon
Lew Rockwell
It is hardly news that George Bush’s Iraq War has been a disastrous failure and that Barack Obama, learning nothing from his predecessor, has renewed and expanded our crusade in Afghanistan. Criticisms of recent American policy have not been slow in coming, and Bruce Fein, in this excellent book, has given us one of the best of these. But he does more than this. He embeds his criticism of our current military misadventures within a full-scale account of the history of American
foreign policy.
As Fein sees matters, our country began well. Washington and Jefferson rejected empire and instead sought to limit military action to the defense of the United States. Unfortunately, the lesser lights who assumed control of American foreign policy in the nineteenth century proved unequal to the task of upholding the wisdom of the Founding Fathers. Fein sees an early portent of trouble in the Monroe Doctrine, which exceeds the bounds of strict self-defense. Matters really got out of hand with the Mexican War, clearly an imperialist venture; and since then our policy has abandoned restraint, culminating in the twentieth century with the pursuit of world mastery.
Read Full Article
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