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Gibbon, schmibbon

By Owen Paine on Wednesday January 7, 2009 05:25 PM

"We’re just one big seamless pay-to-play nation going the way of ancient Rome at an astonishing clip."
That's Pam Martens at Counterpunch, doing some asiding whilst running us all past the latest developments in the nation's Madoff moment.

Lines like that are a commonplace these days, aren't they? Cato-esque folks like to compare Uncle's present global hegemonion to that greatest of all occidental Imperia.

But even if we indeed are taking the Romish way to empire, why the fast decline bit? If FDR is our Octavian (shown above), then we got, what? 350 pretty damn good years of killin' and maimin' ahead of us. Oh, there'll be your basic ups and downs, sure, your Elagabalus-es and your Vespasians. But why all this hell-in-a-handbasket shit?

It's all pure hysterics. No, comrades, we'd best dig in for the duration -- maybe for the next score of generations. The Knievel Empire has a long run still ahead of herself as She-who-must-be-obeyed on the planetary daredevil circuit.

Comments (8)

dermokrat:

Well actually I'm pretty sure that's impossible - the biosphere will collapse long before then if the U.S. consumer empire continues on as is. Likewise I'm not convinced by economists that we aren't still headed for global economic meltdown. Too early to say for any of these things, no?

op:

derm be of good cheer
mother earth can take anything uncle sam can dish out

300 years of industrialization
worse then a major asteroid ???

i think not


okay so we get a great dying


like a new jerusalem
there will be a new eco-plex too

op:

derm be of good cheer
mother earth can take anything uncle sam can dish out

300 years of industrialization
worse then a major asteroid ???

i think not


okay so we get a great dying


like a new jerusalem
there will be a new eco-plex too

Peter Ward:

Well, I think it's dubious to claim the environment can take any amount of abuse we hurl at it. At any rate, localized consequences of climate change, such as the melting of permafrost, are creating problems at present and the effects of arctic and antarctic glaciers sliding in mass into to the ocean and melting are obvious enough to predict.

But, apart from potential environmental catastrophe, is reality of modern weapons and the increasing efficacy of DIY terrorism especially the potential use of nuclear weapons, an outcome widely prophesied in intelligence literature (as was 9/11 before it happened). It's apparent that violent imperialism is suicidal and therefore can't carry on much longer, a fact Israel seems determined to prove sooner rather than later.

Al Schumann:

Owen, all the strains put on nature's carrying capacity come with an assaults on humans. That falls hardest on those least able to cope with the direct, initial violence and the industrial scale of the hazards that follow. The new eco-plex is being built on their bones.

I'm certain that Mother Nature can handle whatever Uncle Sam and his wannabes dish out. I'm certain that a lot of us can handle the way She reacts. A "lot of us" may even include most of us. But it seems a needless chance to take.

Big Green can solve two problems in one throw. Any remediation is going to be labor intensive. Full employment and a labor market that's as tight as... but that analogy is best left for another comment.

op:

i agree with you all

hell during that time of the lunar cycle
when my inner eddie burke facet is upper most
and shines forth in all its fractional glory
i might even share derm and peter's
richly rewarding woeful countenance

Al Schumann:

There's definitely a thuggish dichotomy tucked away. Labor is intrinsically green, until handed the stark, brutally enforced choice between jobs and conservation. Green is an affectation for the haute bourgeoisie. Most of them love it the way Teddy Roosevelt loved conserving prey for a vacation shoot. In Al Gore and his ilk, that passes for enlightenment. He gets tears in his eyes as he jets around handing out flyers on the benefits of compact fluorescents. Dick Cheney considers it a personal virtue, available for those who work hard enough in the right kind of service.

op:

post humanism might still color earth green
for xmas

but thats earth 3030

for now ???

well with the passing
of the JUDEO Godhead back in 1859
just might be
that all we adamites covenants
with said Creator
may have expired

including
our planetary usufruct grant
to all Our Mother's sufaces
and workable cracks

browning Her at will
may be null and void

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