[AmericanThinker] A cursory examination of history reveals that the United States is mired in the same process that precipitated the collapse of the great empires of the past. The foibles and failures of human nature and their impact on the rise and fall of empires is amazingly consistent and the end result always inevitable. Can this nation avoid a similar fate?
Empires are defined as great military and economic powers encompassing large occupied or controlled land areas. Although they vary greatly, they average around 250 years in duration. The United States will be celebrating its 250th anniversary in 2026.
In 1976, Sir John Glubb, a distinguished British diplomat and general, wrote an essay on the fate of empires throughout history. He enumerated, based on 3,000 years of historical data, the six various stages in the rise and fall of empires.
These stages and how they apply to the United States are as follows:
The Age of Pioneers (The Revolutionary War and the founding of the Nation)
The Age of Conquests (The Western Expansion to the Pacific Ocean)
The Age of Commerce (Industrialization and evolution of a dominant middle class)
The Age of Affluence (The meteoric rise of the standard of living in the 20th Century)
The Age of Intellect (Global domination in the arts, medicine and technology)
The Age of Decadence (For 30+ years America has been increasingly mired in this age )
#1
The cancer set in around 1948 when those in Washington decided to become actively involved in trying to influence events beyond our borders, driven by the coup in Czechoslovakia, the insurgency in Greece and Turkey, and the Berlin Blockade. The Constitution was not set up to accommodate the concentration of power, resources, and money to engage in that activity. We see from here that price was the very republic they thought they were protecting.
#3
We've sought through prayer and action that we might avoid the cup that has been passed around since the beginning of the 20th Century. We hoped history itself would be lesson enough. No. We will be compelled to take that all corrupting dram against our will and faith. I pray for all the required strength to refuse it.
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
05/31/2023 11:03 Comments ||
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#4
^ The corrupting dram may come in a syringe, but it may come in a can with a pop top.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
05/31/2023 12:02 Comments ||
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#5
there is a possibility that Russia, China, NKor and Iran govts may collapse before ours does
Posted by: lord garth ||
05/31/2023 16:21 Comments ||
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Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Dmitry Bavyrin
[REGNUM] At a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham said "Russians are dying." He also said that the funding of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is “the best investment in the history of the United States.” This pair of phrases could make the senator a living symbol of our American enemy.
[Hot Air] Inside Washington, there is still significant consternation over the possibility that China may invade Taiwan and what the U.S. response would be. That’s understandable, given the current circumstances. But there is a larger and different type of "war" with China that doesn’t receive as much attention. China is in the process of conducting political warfare against the West in general and America in particular. That may soon be coupled with a form of economic warfare, considering how dependent we remain on them in key elements of the supply chain. The White House has been speaking to the leadership in the United Kingdom where they are grappling with the same issues. But in terms of having a long-term plan, the general consensus seems to be that we don’t have one. And that’s worrisome. (Free Beacon)
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Dmitry Bavyrin
[RIA] Yesterday's decree by President Vladimir Putin to denounce the CFE Treaty, the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe, was the final nail in the coffin of the security architecture that we and the Americans built following the results of the First Cold War.
#1
Now we can concentrate weapons on our territory in such quantities and where we deem necessary,
...IF you had 'em, and IF they worked once you got them there, you might have a point.
Trouble is, the time for a CFE breakout was a couple years ago. (THOUGHT EXPERIMENT: what would have happened say, 3-4 years ago if Putin had said, "We'll recommit to the CFE, but you gotta back off on Ukraine." ?)
The Baltics and Poland are not playing around now, Finland is working hard to make up for centuries of being lorded over by your nation, and the Swedes just overturned a century or two of neutrality to make sure they aren't Putin's next target.
#2
I don't think there are any aspirations for the Russians to push further west (unlike NATO which has pushed further east despite the Cold War being over for 30 years).
But for those Putin haters out there, be careful for what you ask.
#3
Putin declared that where there is a Russian community it will be Russian once again. That's Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, all members of NATO. How expensive would a thermonuclear exchange be? It's far cheaper to drain the bear now than be force into that situation.
#4
The Latvians, Estonians, and Lithuanians screw with the ethnic Russians but absolutely nothing like what Ukraine has been doing in Donbas for almost ten years.
What Putin needs is a Reagan-esque rescue of dental students like in Grenada, then it'll be o.k.
#5
The 'ethnic Russians' in the Donbas kinda started that one, DooDah.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
05/31/2023 7:40 Comments ||
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#6
the ethnic Russians
Many of those ethnic Russians settled there in the latter Soviet and post-Soviet years, as I recall, never bothering to learn the local language and customs, and fussing loudly when the natives demanded their children learn both in school.
#8
...IF you had 'em, and IF they worked once you got them there, you might have a point.
Yes, yes. We've seen in Ukraine that the Bear is not so fearsome as we'd been led to believe. Why, then, do you still fear him so badly? Do you seriously believe Putin will move on Poland or the Baltic states where he would be met with NATO forces that have moved steadily east since the collapse of the Soviet Union?
And Sweden? The last time Russians fought Swedes was in 1706 when the Swedish Empire under Charles XII threatened Russia. The last time Russia fought Finland was 1939 when Stalin ruled the Soviet Union. Yes, the Soviets were aggressive, I didn't like them either, but they're gone now and Finland has been free since WWII.
Why look for trouble where there is none? Don't we have enough problems with the Middle East and China?
History shows Russia has been invaded from the West far more often than the West has been invaded by Russia. I wouldn't count Ukraine either because 1) Ukraine is not the West and 2) it's NATO and Joe Biden trying to expand into Ukraine that have caused all the trouble since the 2014 Maidan Coup, sponsored by Baraq Obama.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
05/31/2023 13:19 Comments ||
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[AnNahar] Ottoman Turkish President His Enormity, Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan the First ...Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him. It's a sin, a shame, and a felony to insult the president of Turkey. In Anatolia did Recep Bey a stately Presidential Palace decree, that has 1100 rooms. That's 968 more than in the White House, 400 more than in Versailles, and 325 more than Buckingham Palace, so you know who's really more important... won reelection in a runoff Sunday, following a nail-biter first round two weeks earlier. Having secured another five years, Erdogan now faces a host of domestic challenges in a deeply divided country, from a battered economy to pressure for the repatriation of Syrian refugees to the need to rebuild after a devastating earthquake.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
05/31/2023 00:00 ||
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#1
Erdogan's two-decades in power have been marked by a huge boom in construction.
I seem to recall Erdoğan's family and/or cronies benefited from this construction boom. And all those buildings that crumbled during the most recent earthquake were built on Erdoğan's watch.
#2
10 years ago, one dollar bought about 2 Turk Lira
today, one dollar buys about 21 Turk Lira
Granted that one accomplishment is the third Bosporus Bridge which is not just beautiful but also has one of the highest towers of any bridge in the world (about 1000') and is, I think, the widest suspension bridge in the world (about 190'). It opened in 2016.
Posted by: lord garth ||
05/31/2023 9:25 Comments ||
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#3
I was listening to Sputnik and they mentioned how one of the Turkish Ministers made a statement saying if you are an ally of the Americans, you were an enemy to Turkey.
#4
I was listening to Sputnik and they mentioned how one of the Turkish Ministers made a statement saying if you are an ally of the Americans, you were an enemy to Turkey.
BLUF:
[WIRE] He contended that "every fiscal debate is basically about where to place the deck chairs on the Titanic" unless entitlement spending is addressed.
"Politicians all know this. But they’re incentivized to play kabuki theater over all the rest of the spending so as to avoid the third rail of American politics," he said. "They kick the can down the road. The iceberg is right there, but they’re screaming about where the chairs should go."
#2
This ought to be on a big screen in both chambers of Congress. Or maybe we should require each Congresscritter to wear the debt total on a placard around their necks. Or maybe we should emulate the Romans and have an aide following each Congresscritter to remind them every ten minutes what the debt total is.
Posted by: Matt ||
05/31/2023 10:49 Comments ||
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#3
I knew a guy who worked for the Dept of Community Affairs of the Commontheft of PeeAye. At one time, he was installed as financiam manager of two ajacent "distressed communities" One of them would later have Fester Fetterwetter as mayor.
This guy's entire job was to go to every council meeting and remind the respective councils that they had no money, nada, none to spend everytime they tried.
Needless to say, they didn't want to hear it. Unlike the US gummint, however, they couldn't print their own money.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
05/31/2023 11:22 Comments ||
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#4
How much does the Biden-McCarthy uniparty proposed debt deal increase the individual taxpayer debt burden in the U.S.?
#7
No cap and the due date falls during a lame duck session where they will attempt to shovel dirt over the shallow grave that they have dragged the American people into.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
05/31/2023 12:23 Comments ||
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[PJMedia] Holy extra-constitutional abuse of political prisoners, Batman!
Via the Associated Press (emphasis added):
Less than two months after he pleaded guilty to storming the U.S. Capitol, Texas resident Daniel Goodwyn appeared on Tucker Carlson’s then-Fox News show and promoted a website where supporters could donate money to Goodwyn and other rioters whom the site called "political prisoners."
The Justice Department now wants Goodwyn to give up more than $25,000 he raised — a clawback that is part of a growing effort by the government to prevent rioters from being able to personally profit from participating in the attack that shook the foundations of American democracy.
An Associated Press review of court records shows that prosecutors in the more than 1,000 criminal cases from Jan. 6, 2021, are increasingly asking judges to impose fines on top of prison sentences to offset donations from supporters of the Capitol rioters.
The U.S. legal system is now transparently weaponized against what the DHS has alternatively described as "domestic terrorists" and "white supremacists" — according to the Department, the #1 terror threat in the country.
Markus Maly, a Virginia man scheduled to be sentenced next month for assaulting police at the Capitol, raised more than $16,000 from an online campaign that described him as a "January 6 P.O.W." and asked for money for his family. Prosecutors have requested a $16,000-plus fine, noting that Maly had a public defender and did not owe any legal fees.
"He should not be able to use his own notoriety gained in the commission of his crimes to ’capitalize’ on his participation in the Capitol breach in this way," a prosecutor wrote in court papers.
How in any way is it within a prosecutor’s purview — whose job is to prosecute particular, defined crimes based on legitimate suspicion guilt — to wade into the private financial donations collected by private citizens, which are fully legal? If there were a plaintiff who donated to one of these defendants who claims he or she was misled about the use of the money, that would be a different story. But that’s not what’s going on here.
I hesitate to turn this into a whole Trump-bashing thing because, frankly, he gets enough criticism in conservative media at the moment (which is fair enough), but where the hell has he been all these years on the Jan. 6 political prisoner thing?
I watched via live stream as Trump explicitly encouraged them to march on the Capitol. While he may not have encouraged them to riot, he did say that the only way to take the country back was through strength (paraphrasing), which is a statement open to interpretation by a crowd of people already angry (not without cause) at the outcome of the recent election they felt was rigged.
Then, after the fact, while he reportedly watched the chaos unfold on live TV, he basically left them in the lurch — most unforgivably, in my view, the nonviolent offenders who got swept up in the Deep State’s nonstop campaign to make an example of them. He recently promised to take a look at pardoning some of them if and when he gets into office, which is a laudable development, but, outside of that, he has not been as forthcoming with his moral or financial support as he should.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
05/31/2023 00:00 ||
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#1
Trudeau did something similar. I don’t see a legal defense fund as profiting. I also don’t see a legal or Constitutional basis to seize the money. There is probably a RICO basis to seize the BLM kitty, what there is left of it.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
05/31/2023 12:07 Comments ||
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26 May
[IsraelTimes] Jason Greenblatt, ex-Middle East special representative, says Biden making expansion of Abraham Accords harder, and gives money too easily to Paleostinians
The Biden administration has misjudged its approach to the Middle East, a bigwig from the Donald Trump ...Oh, noze! Not him!...
Continued on Page 49
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
...Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him. It's a sin, a shame, and a felony to insult the president of Turkey. In Anatolia did Recep Bey a stately Presidential Palace decree, that has 1100 rooms. That's 968 more than in the White House, 400 more than in Versailles, and 325 more than Buckingham Palace, so you know who's really more important...
