What collapsing empire looks like

[nebris]

By Glenn Greenwald

As we enter our ninth year of the War in Afghanistan with an escalated force, and continue to occupy Iraq indefinitely, and feed an endlessly growing Surveillance State, reports are emerging of the Deficit Commission hard at work planning how to cut Social Security, Medicare, and now even to freeze military pay.  But a

Comments

[nebris]

http://nebris.livejournal.com/tag/mass%20democracy%20has%20failed

[cieldumort]

lol

[alobar]

You may wish to comment here:
http://alobar.livejournal.com/3999196.html?thread=7840476

[badnewswade]

A collapsing imperium indeed. As you say, it's nothing they haven't imposed on other countries. Check this article from around ten years ago:

http://www.gregpalast.com/the-globalizer-who-came-in-from-the-cold/

Considering the track record of these "reforms" it looks like the US is going to stay in real recession indefinately.

[badnewswade]

PS - a lot of those people voted for it. Colorado, for instance:

To close a budget gap - the city’s voters, many of whom favor smaller government, turned down a property tax increase in November, and a taxpayer’s bill of rights makes it hard for city officials to raise taxes - Colorado Springs has stopped collecting trash in its parks, stopped watering many medians on its roads and reduced its police force.

THat's not the work of a shadowy elite - that's just because the right wing are more organised and louder than the left wing. The same thing has happened in my country - progressive politicians are obsessed with this years trendy cause while ignoring bread-and-butter issues. But most importantly of all, the citizen, the basic unit of democracy has failed. They make stupid descisions, and they have to live with the consequences.

Democracy only fails when people demand power without responsibility. North Dakota, as has been noted elsewhere, is the most socialist state in the US, and pretty much the only state not in deep debt and

[kayjayuu]

Caveat to North Dakota and socialism. We have a state-owned bank which works with our businesses and is the bank through which the state moves its money. That's the extent of it. While the state-owned mill is the largest in the country, it's less a powerhouse and more an anachronism. Last year it lost $10 million but the manager got a 4% raise. Sounds familiar.

North Dakota is conservative at the state level and historically more liberal at the federal level (until this upcoming election). Local political works may sound a bit more socialist, but we'll be the first to tell you that our lack of debt and better economy is not due to the state, but to the people's tightwad-ism fiscal conservatism.

[cieldumort]

Re socialism and relative strength of state economies, check out Texas. Texas has had one of the most, if not the most, powerful rebounds out of the Great Recession of any state in the country. And it's almost entirely because of how much Texas tends to embrace big, big, big government (ironic, that, isn't it! (Texas - home of Ron Paul, et. al.))

[jsl32]

texas has a thriving grey market economy or three, actually. and one can reasonably dispute any 'powerful rebounding' stuff going on.

it really is another country, and it's misleading to try to claim anything about its approaches (plural) to government. there was certainly no big government where i live(d), but the median income was higher than bluer spots like seattle. but down where nasa was, there were a few high salaries from nasa supporting a mostly not-so-median population.

reality has a bias towards nuance and complexity.

[kayjayuu]

Since I live an hour's drive away from the updated county in question, I will comment

But this is North Dakota...

[nebris]

...a shithole full of crackers. ;)

~M~