I'll have to think about this one Indu - you've asked me a VERY challenging question (that in all likelihood seems beyond my abilities to answer).
But I think it would be a good/helpful exercise to work on. After all, we keep thinking about all the problems, but how many of us actually attempt to think of the solutions? Most of us - when confronted with the size of the seemingly insurmountable problem that is the U.S. Empire - simply give up (for multiple reasons).
The starting point for a solution would be a hypothetical - that somehow the U.S. realizes that to save the country (not the empire) it needs to reduce the size of its empire to only N.America, Western Europe, Australia, and NZ (assuming it has come to the realization that the only way for the country to survive is to go through the route of empire amputation). Given this 'hypothetical' realization, then what would it do to get from where it is to where it needs to go?
Maybe some Think Tanks (domestic or international) might have (or are) working on such a scenario...
Thanks Chang for taking the trouble. I don't think an empire can reform itself. It has to implode and explode and disintegrate.
For a phoenix to rise out of the ashes of empire, the American people will have to revolt - from apathy to awareness to make a revolution. Of course it is going to be harder for a people who have been conditioned, lobotomised and brainwashed by an institutionalised system.
One has to realise - as Bertolt Brecht implores - that it is so hot underfoot, that they have to get out of the burning house.
Incidentally the Cuban Revolution is 72 years old today. If not for the machinations of US empire it would have been a beacon of light for the previously colonised global south.
Needless to say the fall of empire will be the panacea for the whole world.
>>"I don't think an empire can reform itself. It has to implode and explode and disintegrate."
You may be right, Indu. My fear is that 'how much else of the world/planet' will the U.S. Empire take with it when it implodes/explodes/disintegrates? No other Empire in history had the kind of weapons of today (nuclear weapons), hence I think the rules of the game have been irrevocably changed by technology.
>>"Needless to say the fall of empire will be the panacea for the whole world."
IF there is any world left after the fall of empire... (sci-fi movie/tv-series scenarios come to mind here)
>>"...it would have been a beacon of light for the previously colonised global south."
I'll leave the dreaming up to you, as I myself cannot envision an 'alternate history' in which either the U.S. or Europe would have let such a scenario/reality come to pass.
Maybe a better world is possible (sometime in the near/distant? future), but I guess our lives happen to exist within a NEW DARK AGE that has begun some time ago. Who knows? Maybe in several hundred years (or 100,000+ years taking into account half-lifes of nuclear isotopes) the earth will be ok and better species have populated it? (that's my positive thought for the day 😄😵)
I am not as optimistic about humans. Human species create structurally unstable societies where success is only measured in power and money. That is why we have endless wars and aggressions. Some wars are defensive and just. But as long as the western supremacist ideology exists humanity has no future.
Chang, How can the U.S. Empire disentangle itself from Israel... Israel is part of the empire.
I'll have to think about this one Indu - you've asked me a VERY challenging question (that in all likelihood seems beyond my abilities to answer).
But I think it would be a good/helpful exercise to work on. After all, we keep thinking about all the problems, but how many of us actually attempt to think of the solutions? Most of us - when confronted with the size of the seemingly insurmountable problem that is the U.S. Empire - simply give up (for multiple reasons).
The starting point for a solution would be a hypothetical - that somehow the U.S. realizes that to save the country (not the empire) it needs to reduce the size of its empire to only N.America, Western Europe, Australia, and NZ (assuming it has come to the realization that the only way for the country to survive is to go through the route of empire amputation). Given this 'hypothetical' realization, then what would it do to get from where it is to where it needs to go?
Maybe some Think Tanks (domestic or international) might have (or are) working on such a scenario...
Thanks Chang for taking the trouble. I don't think an empire can reform itself. It has to implode and explode and disintegrate.
For a phoenix to rise out of the ashes of empire, the American people will have to revolt - from apathy to awareness to make a revolution. Of course it is going to be harder for a people who have been conditioned, lobotomised and brainwashed by an institutionalised system.
One has to realise - as Bertolt Brecht implores - that it is so hot underfoot, that they have to get out of the burning house.
Incidentally the Cuban Revolution is 72 years old today. If not for the machinations of US empire it would have been a beacon of light for the previously colonised global south.
Needless to say the fall of empire will be the panacea for the whole world.
>>"I don't think an empire can reform itself. It has to implode and explode and disintegrate."
You may be right, Indu. My fear is that 'how much else of the world/planet' will the U.S. Empire take with it when it implodes/explodes/disintegrates? No other Empire in history had the kind of weapons of today (nuclear weapons), hence I think the rules of the game have been irrevocably changed by technology.
>>"Needless to say the fall of empire will be the panacea for the whole world."
IF there is any world left after the fall of empire... (sci-fi movie/tv-series scenarios come to mind here)
>>"...it would have been a beacon of light for the previously colonised global south."
I'll leave the dreaming up to you, as I myself cannot envision an 'alternate history' in which either the U.S. or Europe would have let such a scenario/reality come to pass.
Maybe a better world is possible (sometime in the near/distant? future), but I guess our lives happen to exist within a NEW DARK AGE that has begun some time ago. Who knows? Maybe in several hundred years (or 100,000+ years taking into account half-lifes of nuclear isotopes) the earth will be ok and better species have populated it? (that's my positive thought for the day 😄😵)
I am not as optimistic about humans. Human species create structurally unstable societies where success is only measured in power and money. That is why we have endless wars and aggressions. Some wars are defensive and just. But as long as the western supremacist ideology exists humanity has no future.
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