Imperial Entropy: Collapse of the American Empire

http://www.energybulletin.net/4474.html

It is quite ironic: only a decade or so after the idea of the United States as an imperial power came to be accepted by both right and left, and people were actually able to talk openly about an American empire, it is showing multiple signs of its inability to continue. And indeed it is now possible to contemplate, and openly speculate about, its collapse.

The neocons in power in Washington these days, those who were delighted to talk about America as the sole empire in the world following the Soviet disintegration, will of course refuse to believe in any such collapse, just as they ignore the realities of the imperial war in Iraq. But I think it behooves us to examine seriously the ways in which the U.S. system is so drastically imperiling itself that it will cause not only the collapse of its worldwide empire but drastically alter the nation itself on the domestic front.

All empires collapse eventually: Akkad, Sumeria, Babylonia, Ninevah, Assyria, Persia, Macedonia, Greece, Carthage, Rome, Mali, Songhai, Mongonl, Tokugawaw, Gupta, Khmer, Hapbsburg, Inca, Aztec, Spanish, Dutch, Ottoman, Austrian, French, British, Soviet, you name them, they all fell, and most within a few hundred years. The reasons are not really complex. An empire is a kind of state system that inevitably makes the same mistakes simply by the nature of its imperial structure and inevitably fails because of its size, complexity, territorial reach, stratification, heterogeneity, domination, hierarchy, and inequalities.

n/t

...it has been clear that this empire is dying. It is a shame that most can't see that, but as the author says, a society when faced with collapse clings to the "values" that were instrumental in its making. We are doomed.

The question now is, "Where do we go or what do we do to best insulate our families from the most negative impacts of this impending collapse?"

Where will I be safe?

It was a totalitarian system, frequently brutal, but was essentially ANTI-empire. No Japanese were permitted to leave Japan, and (with the carefully circumscribed exception of the Dutch) NO foreigner was permitted to enter.

This may sound like a pedantiic point, but it indicates SLOPPY research. I'll read that article, but will bear that in mind.

pnorman
On edit: It was Catholicism, that with considerable accuracy, was perceived as the front for the Spanish and Portuguese Empires, and was the primary object of the exclusion. The Dutch, being non-proselytizing Protestants, were permitted. For the same reason, England was also permitted to trade. But they found the conditions so burdensome and demeaning that they didn't bother.

When I heard the word "empire" tossed about the first couple of times, I wasn't terribly surprised because the people using it were well know to be as nutty as GooGoo Clusters. Everything I had heard associated with the term "Empire" ranged from being kind of bad to being horribly, excruciatingly, awfully, evil. Our American History books in school liked to present the idea that whereas "Old World" powers had been bent on establishing colonies around the globe, America, land of proud, freedom-loving people, never followed suit--we even gave independence to the Spanish colonies that we "won" in the Spanish-American War (after some *cough* slight *cough* delay)! And of course we had the Nazi Reich (=empire), the Empire of the Rising Sun, and the Soviet Empire as examples of what happens when Empires Go Bad, or Start Out That Way, and a good case for the argument that, really, they always did. To see Americans start referring to an American Empire -- and see nothing either ironic or disturbing in such a phrase -- was, for me, one of the most disillusioning developments of my life. (Of course, that personal worst has since been surpassed many times over, once the GooGoo Clusters were running the show.)

How do we get out of all this trouble? How about stop being an empire. Concentrate on maintaining a robust manufacturing sector that can support our country, research alternative energy and stop depending on everybody in the world for every damn thing.

And welcome to the DU:smoke:

I love your post, because you're pointing out the most important part about being a successful country: a strong economy, a well trained labor force.

A country's true strength is in its people. The NeoCons will never figure that out. All they know is how to steal.

you can see real parallels with the U.S. Overreach is the name of this problem. The Athenian League overreached in Sicily and met their demise finally in Siracusa. Iraq just may be ours.

Strange, isn't it, how all of this happened before and yet nobody learns from it? In the Peloponnesian War Thucydides chronicled the tragedy so that other nations to follow would learn from Athens' folly. Where is our Thucydides?

What about Karl Krause's Last days of Mankind?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0804463662/102-5872965-0560960?v=glance&n=283155

I have read that its ridicules the same sorts of actors who are draging us all down. I plan to get a copy (if I can find out).

came out of WW1. There was a lot of disenchantment coming out of the barbarity that happened. Then came a pandemic flu that just added to the misery.

Here is another parallel. Athens was hit with a deadly plague that wiped out one third of its population and sickened many more. Athens was the world's first democracy. The Athenians liked to boast that they were "spreading democracy" (sound familiar?). By losing the War with Sparta, it lost not only its empire, but its democracy as well. I fear we are getting to that same place.

"The History of the Peloponnesian War" by Thucydides is a classic that is in every library. One small (but important) part of it, Pericles' Funeral Oration, was required reading in my undergraduate Humanities Seminar. In it Pericles extols Athens' democratic way of life that was the envy of other Greek cities.

It's worth a look...