Ahhh, the demands of Empire

House to vote on 2011 military spending
By Peter Urban - Gannett Washington Bureau
Posted : Friday May 21, 2010 16:53:44 EDT

WASHINGTON — The House is expected to vote next week on a bill authorizing up to $708 billion in military spending next year that includes significant construction money for base expansion in Guam.

The bill would authorize nearly $577 million in construction on Guam, primarily for the planned expansion of Andersen Air Force Base. Congress is still working on a separate budget bill that would provide the actual funds for the 2011 fiscal year.

The House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday unanimously approved the bill, 59-0.

Delegate Madeleine Z. Bordallo, who serves on the committee, commended her colleagues for “ensuring that the military buildup on Guam is done right.”

Bordallo, a Democrat, said that the bill contains several provisions she requested to provide federal assistance to help Guam provide the local infrastructure needed to support the military buildup.

That is the alternative to empire, you know. Life would be pretty limited.

But our empire is overwhelming our country. Running an empire is really a horrible job. It is completely incompatible with self-sufficiency, self-reliance and independence. The individual is crushed in an empire. Our nation is crushed by our empire. We can't maintain our empire without a huge federal government. Local needs are ignored because we have to feed our military beast in order to insure that our empire maintains its supremacy in the world.

The interesting thing is that the Republican, Teabagger types are aware of the pain and pressure that being an empire is placing on them. They just haven't figured out that all that pain and pressure is due to the fact that we are trying to maintain an empire, that it is not due to some liberal agenda but rather to their own "We rule the world" agenda.

Once they get that connection, Fox News is history, So who is going to let them in on this big secret?

There was an excellent show on PBS by Terry Jones about "Barbarian" societies that were doing quite well ( and for much longer than 300 years) before the Roman Empire decided they wanted to plunder them. They had extensive trade networks without the heavy overhead of empire. Far more equitable too without a burdensome elite to support. Also true for other regions although this show only looked at the Roman Empire.

Whatever we come up with may not have to be either empire or strictly local. Maybe we can eliminate the empire and go back to fair trade. Civilization, we should try it.