Quigley hypothesized America’s eventual collapse, along with much of what is going on today. He also mentioned that the downfall would likely be like a waterfall, rather than a steady decline.

I couldn’t have said it better.

In some ways that statement is a lot like the old “I always find the thing I’m looking for in the last place I look.” truism. Of course you do, you stop looking once you’ve found it.

Of course a society’s peak is followed by decline, otherwise it wouldn’t be a peak.

None of the old collapse models apply here. The difference is that current circumstances are different. The global resource pie (as predicted back when Kissinger was creating his food control genocide in order to increase future ruling elite pie share), has now become reality. The global resource pie has become smaller. Population increase IS a significant problem, especially given the ridiculous in nature, and excessive, consumption rates of western societies. Add to that, peak oil, global pollution, melting ice caps, etc., and you can see why the ruling elite who control the central banks have bought into the neocon, two tier, ‘few elite and ruled masses in perpetual conflict’ concept. Consumption has already slowed and the intentional divisiveness machine of talking agitators is running full tilt everywhere. Vinny G’s post attests to the divisiveness.

You are now an Indian, your cowboy status is over! Acceptance of reality is the first stage of positive change.

What will turn this around is for the scamerican middle class, and western nation global middle classes, to realize that they are now looked upon as Indians by the ruling elite who control the central banks. Their high consumption cowboy status was allowed when needed to amass power for that ruling elite, to exploit the worlds Indians (third world nations), but it is now over, and they now too become Indians in the eyes of the scum bag powers that be. They must see clearly that their masters have turned on them and that they are a target for being thrust into a very divisive perpetual conflict misery. They must also recognize that their complicity in exploiting others was wrong and change their ways by voluntarily changing their consumption values with an eye to sustainability. Technology can easily provide for us all if it is fairly and conscientiously applied by the people, in the interest of the people, and not by corporations in the interest of the ruling elite.

Giving the boot to the scum bag ruling elite is job one. It can be and will be fun! In scamerica it will require ending the divisiveness by recognizing our common interests, election boycotts, and a rewrite of the constitution.

Deception is the strongest political force on the planet.

What nobody is addressing is the fact that, by and large, living in an imperial state does nothing to improve the lives of the majority of residents. Before the conservatives and reactionaries jump on me and start arguing how “we are the wealthiest nation on Earth” and other nonsense, please be aware that I understand the concept of mathematical averages, unlike the apparent majority of Americans. Of course, on average, we are a wealthy country- the amount of wealth concentrated in the hands of fewer than 1% of the citizenry is staggering. But the truth is, if America ceases to be a “superpower,” “empire,” or however you wish to term it, the vast majority of American lives aren’t going to worsen. On the contrary, if they are affected at all, many of them might change for the better once some of the resources we expend on a daily basis to maintain a military presence throughout the world are directed toward domestic issues.

The question shouldn’t be, “How do we stop the fall of the American Empire?” It should be, “How do we make sure the fall leaves us looking more like The Netherlands and less like Iran?”

Ferguson’s ideological biases were no better put on display than in his treatment of what happened in Chile during the 1970s, as told in his PBS special The Ascent of Money. He engages in so many half-truths and distortions that his accounting descends into little more than neocon and neoliberal propaganda.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/ascentofmoney/featured/the-ascent-of-money-episode-3-risky-business/97/
(Chile episode is between minutes 27:00 and 38:00)

The fact that Ferguson totally omits from his account the prominent role the US played in Allende’s overthrow, or how US corporations benefitted from the coup, is perhaps the most telling example of his playing fast and loose with the facts. Less cunning neocons like Boot don’t bother with such half-truths, candidly admitting the US role in “imposing the rule of law, property rights and other guarantees, at gunpoint if necessary.” (Max Boot, “American Imperialism? No Need to Run from Label,” USA Today, May 6, 2003)

Ferguson frames the conflict as being one between the state socialism of Allende and the state capitalism of Pinochet, and sides with the state capitalism of Pinochet. So Ferguson gives us a choice between half-truth vs. half-truth, error vs. error.

Ferguson then gushes over Milton Friedman, “the Chicago Boys” and Margaret Thatcher and lauds their advocacy of the ownership society—the privatization of social security.

For a less bowdlerized and more complete telling of what happened in Chile I recommend Greg Grandin’s account:
http://www.counterpunch.org/grandin11172006.html

After reading Grandin, perhaps one can understand why Grandin branded Ferguson a “neo-imperialist.”

Putting the morality of empire to the side, the risk of listening to ideologues like Ferguson is getting drug into their propaganda, for a true cost-benefit analysis of empire is not possible if one is loaded down with neocon/neoliberal ideology. Hannah Arendt in Crises of the Republic perhaps said it best, writing about our misadventure in Vietnam:

The ultimate aim was neither power nor profit. Nor was it even influence in the world in order to serve particular, tangible interests for the sake of which prestige, an image of the “greatest power in the world,” was needed and purposefully used. The goal was now the image itself, as is manifest in the very language of the problem-solvers, with their “scenarios” and “audiences,” borrowed from the theater. For this ultimate aim, all policies became short-term interchangeable means, until finally, when all signs pointed to defeat in the war of attrition, the goal was no longer one of avoiding humiliating defeat but of finding ways and means to avoid admitting it and “save face.”

Image-making as global policy—not world conquest, but victory in the battle “to win the people’s minds”—is indeed something new in the huge arsenal of human follies recorded in history.

This same attitude is coming to the fore in Britain too. Some customers enter our shop *expecting* to be ripped off. We do computer repairs. Almost none of our customers have have any idea how their computer works and because of their ignorance we have to be very, very careful in how we treat them these days, particularly with regard to personal data – if it’s lost – and we always do our utmost to avoid that, all hell breaks loose. If we back it up we break nearly every privacy law in the country, it’s catch 22, so we back it up anyway because it’s the only professional thing to do.

This type of attitude is the problem with 1) an education system in which “everyone is a winner” there are no losers as it might hurt their feelings. And 2) excessive consumer rights laws (meaning they do not have to A) think. B) take reasonable care of what they buy. As an example recently one guy wanted the headphone jack repaired BUT he also wanted a warranty on the entire 2 year old laptop for a year! We did not take job – his unrealistic expectation spoke of immediate and future trouble.