Category: Japan

AMERICA, an EMPIRE in TWILIGHT Series

Paul Fitzgerald and Elizabeth Gould on

PART IV, The End of Illusion Neoconservative pundits howled when Yale historian Paul Kennedy suggested in his 1987 study The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers that America and its global Empire, like all empires before it, was in a process of decline. The Conjurer by Hieronymus Bosch, circa 1450–1516 (Photo: Public domain via Wikimedia Commons) The Conjurer by Hieronymus Bosch, circa 1450–1516 (Photo: Public domain via Wikimedia Commons) The disintegration of the Soviet Union just a few years later in 1991 seemed to undermine Kennedy’s thesis, as the United States expanded its influence into the U.S.S.R’s former territories and moved on Moscow to bury the former communist economy. However, following the financial crash of 2008 and the chaos caused by Washington’s military adventurism in Iraq and Afghanistan, the illusion of American inevitability quickly vanished. Now, 30 years later, the idea that any empire facing unprecedented debt, political gridlock and military failure could somehow sustain itself purely on willpower and social media can only be described as delusional.The disintegration of the Soviet Union just a few years later in 1991 seemed to undermine Kennedy’s thesis, as the United States expanded its influence into the U.S.S.R’s former territories and moved on Moscow to bury the former communist economy. However, following the financial crash of 2008 and the chaos caused by Washington’s military adventurism in Iraq and Afghanistan, the illusion of American inevitability quickly vanished.

Now, 30 years later, the idea that any empire facing unprecedented debt, political gridlock and military failure could somehow sustain itself purely on willpower and social media can only be described as delusional.

From Bush to Trump: Culture, Economy and War: The Pillars of the NEW WORLD ORDER

Federico Pieraccini on

… The Trump victory fits into this decadent scenario. Are we facing a true revolutionary who intends to rid forever global hegemonic aims, or is he simply a well-thought-out pause, created by the elites to revitalize the economy, arrest the internal discontent in the country, and rebuild the army to resume the march toward global hegemony in 2020? This is the typical million-dollar question that I tried to give an answer to in a previous article. At the moment, it is difficult to interpret and predict which path will be taken by the elected president. Both have many arguments to support them and can easily be disputed or accepted. Only time will tell if the reality around us is already now placed in a multipolar world order, or if we are in a convulsive transition phase in which the United States remains anchored to the role of global power hoping to preserve the ‘unipolar moment’ it began in 1989.

 

IF Trump CAN DEFEAT the OLIGARCHY, He Can Go Down in History as Trump the Great

Paul Craig Roberts on

Liberals, progressives, and the left-wing (to the extent that one still exists) are aligning with the corrupt oligarchy against president-elect Trump and the American people. They are busy at work trying to generate hysteria over Trump’s “authoritarian personality and followers.” In other words, the message is: here come the fascists. Liberals and progressives wailed and whined about “an all white male cabinet,” only to be made fools by Trump’s appointment of a black male and two women, one a minority and one a Trump critic. The oligarchs are organizing their liberal progressive front groups to disrupt Trump’s inauguration in an effort to continue the attempt to delegitimize Trump the way the paid Maidan protesters were used in Kiev to delegitimize the elected Ukrainian government.

Trump and the “COLLAPSE of CAPITALISM”

James Petras on

US officialdom and their media megaphones have systematically concocted narratives having less to do with political reality and more with their hallucinogenic world view. Pre-election and post-election reportage weaves a tapestry of fiction and fantasy. We will discuss the most pernicious of these remarkable foibles and fables and their predictable failures. 1. Collapse of Capitalism The pundits, prestigious editorialists and ‘economists with gravitas’, have convinced themselves that the election of Donald Trump would ‘lead to the Collapse of Capitalism (COC)’. They cited his campaign attacks of globalization and trade agreements, as well as his ‘reckless’ swipes at speculators. In reality, Trump was criticizing a specific kind of capitalism. The pundits overlooked the variety of capitalisms that constitute the US economy. With their snouts deep in the trough, their own vision was limited; their curly tails blindly twirled meaningless formulae on blackboards; their ample backsides flapping away in place of their mouths. Thus occupied, they easily ignored Trump’s glorification of national capitalism.