  |
 |
| |
|
|
|
 America in the Time of EmpirePosted on Nov 26, 2007
By Chris Hedges This column was originally published by the Philadelphia Inquirer. All great empires and nations decay from within. By the time they hobble off the world stage, overrun by the hordes at the gates or vanishing quietly into the pages of history books, what made them successful and powerful no longer has relevance. This rot takes place over decades, as with the Soviet Union, or, even longer, as with the Roman, Ottoman or Austro-Hungarian empires. It is often imperceptible. Dying empires cling until the very end to the outward trappings of power. They mask their weakness behind a costly and technologically advanced military. They pursue increasingly unrealistic imperial ambitions. They stifle dissent with efficient and often ruthless mechanisms of control. They lose the capacity for empathy, which allows them to see themselves through the eyes of others, to create a world of accommodation rather than strife. The creeds and noble ideals of the nation become empty cliches, used to justify acts of greater plunder, corruption and violence. By the end, there is only a raw lust for power and few willing to confront it. The most damning indicators of national decline are upon us. We have watched an oligarchy rise to take economic and political power. The top 1 percent of the population has amassed more wealth than the bottom 90 percent combined, creating economic disparities unseen since the Depression. If Hillary Rodham Clinton becomes president, we will see the presidency controlled by two families for the last 24 years. Massive debt, much of it in the hands of the Chinese, keeps piling up as we fund absurd imperial projects and useless foreign wars. Democratic freedoms are diminished in the name of national security. And the erosion of basic services, from education to health care to public housing, has left tens of millions of citizens in despair. The displacement of genuine debate and civil and political discourse with the noise and glitter of public spectacle and entertainment has left us ignorant of the outside world, and blind to how it perceives us. We are fed trivia and celebrity gossip in place of news. An increasing number of voices, especially within the military, are speaking to this stark deterioration. They describe a political class that no longer knows how to separate personal gain from the common good, a class driving the nation into the ground. “There has been a glaring and unfortunate display of incompetent strategic leadership within our national leaders,” retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the former commander of forces in Iraq, recently told the New York Times, adding that civilian officials have been “derelict in their duties” and guilty of a “lust for power.” The American working class, once the most prosperous on Earth, has been politically disempowered, impoverished and abandoned. Manufacturing jobs have been shipped overseas. State and federal assistance programs have been slashed. The corporations, those that orchestrated the flight of jobs and the abolishment of workers’ rights, control every federal agency in Washington, including the Department of Labor. They have dismantled the regulations that had made the country’s managed capitalism a success for ordinary men and women. The Democratic and Republican Parties now take corporate money and do the bidding of corporate interests. Philadelphia is a textbook example. The city has seen a precipitous decline in manufacturing jobs, jobs that allowed households to live comfortably on one salary. The city had 35 percent of its workforce employed in the manufacturing sector in 1950, perhaps the zenith of the American empire. Thirty years later, this had fallen to 20 percent. Today it is 8.8 percent. Commensurate jobs, jobs that offer benefits, health care and most important enough money to provide hope for the future, no longer exist. The former manufacturing centers from Flint, Mich., to Youngstown, Ohio, are open sores, testaments to a growing internal collapse. The United States has gone from being the world’s largest creditor to its largest debtor. As of September 2006, the country was, for the first time in a century, paying out more than it received in investments. Trillions of dollars go into defense while the nation’s infrastructure, from levees in New Orleans to highway bridges in Minnesota, collapses. We spend almost as much on military power as the rest of the world combined, while Social Security and Medicare entitlements are jeopardized because of huge deficits. Money is available for war, but not for the simple necessities of daily life. Nothing makes these diseased priorities more starkly clear than what the White House did last week. On the same day, Tuesday, President Bush vetoed a domestic spending bill for education, job training and health programs, yet signed another bill giving the Pentagon about $471 billion for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1. All this in the shadow of a Joint Economic Committee report suggesting that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been twice as expensive than previously imagined, almost $1.5 trillion. The decision to measure the strength of the state in military terms is fatal. It leads to a growing cynicism among a disenchanted citizenry and a Hobbesian ethic of individual gain at the expense of everyone else. Few want to fight and die for a Halliburton or an Exxon. This is why we do not have a draft. It is why taxes have not been raised and we borrow to fund the war. It is why the state has organized, and spends billions to maintain, a mercenary army in Iraq. We leave the fighting and dying mostly to our poor and hired killers. No nationwide sacrifices are required. We will worry about it later. It all amounts to a tacit complicity on the part of a passive population. This permits the oligarchy to squander capital and lives. It creates a world where we speak exclusively in the language of violence. It has plunged us into an endless cycle of war and conflict that is draining away the vitality, resources and promise of the nation. It signals the twilight of our empire. Previous item: The Not-So-Sick Man of Europe Does Matter Next item: How Not to Help Africans Elsewhere: . CommentsAre you a Truthdig member yet? Login now, or register with Truthdig.
Comment Pages:
«1
2
By thomas billis, November 27, 2007 at 12:42 am # No one did this to us we did it to ourselves.We allowed ourselves to be drawn into petty squabbles while the treasury was being looted and we were sold down the river.When John Edwards says the system is rigged and corrupt it gains no traction.It is not that I support John Edwards but why is he the only one saying it.One previous commenter mentioned Kevin Phillips.If you want to get a really scary history of all this read American Theocracy by Kevin Phillips.It expands on the themes Mr Hedges makes and makes a great case for the war of resources. The ones we are involved in now aptly termed petro wars.
By Chris, November 26, 2007 at 7:32 pm # Most of us are familiar with what is the believed ancient Chinese proverb and curse: “May you live in interesting times.” Chris Hedges article explains why these are interesting times. History repeats itself. Our military weight is dragging us down. You can’t bomb countries into seeing the light, anymore than parents can beat their children into loving them.
By Alan MacDonald, November 26, 2007 at 7:17 pm # Chris Hedges concludes with, “It signals the twilight of our empire.” Wrong! It’s not ‘our’ empire. We don’t want an empire, but a democratic republic. Yes, there is an empire, but it’s a global corporatist Empire, which has taken over our ‘country’, our ‘democracy’, our ‘republic’, and our peoples’ sovereignty. And this corporatist Empire is hiding behind the facade of a phony ‘Vichy American’ government that they control, just as the Nazi Empire occupied and set up a phony ‘Vichy French’ government against the people and for the Empire. The seminal difference is that this facade of ‘Vichy America’ is orders of magnitude more sophisticated propaganda than ‘Vichy France’ in that it was constructed with two supposedly opposition parties and a supposedly objective press, which the Nazi Empire never dreamed of. The global corporatist Empire would love us all to think of ‘their’ Empire as being an ‘American Empire’ because that implies that average Americans will somehow benefit by being falsely proud citizens of an Empire (like the British Empire or the Roman Empire) and will benefit financially from the strength and economic power of the top-dog empire ---- but only the corporatist class clearly does and will continue to be the beneficiaries, and we will pay the cost in blood, freedom and treasure. Chris, it’s not an American Empire --- it’s their empire, although they are glad to pose as patriotic Americans while they screw us and kill our kids.
By Macz, November 26, 2007 at 7:03 pm # This will be an unpleasant historical observation, but Dictatorship was an innovation which allowed the Roman state to continue to exist for almost 400 years after the collapse of the Republic. Perhaps it will be the same for ours.
By jbart, November 26, 2007 at 4:30 pm # To ALL of you “regular” bloggers to this site…
By jc, November 26, 2007 at 3:23 pm # When it comes right down to it, I plan to take up arms for the sake of the republic not the empire. Almost all our other rights have been taken away. If weapons are ever outlawed then you might as well roll-over game over.
By 1drees, November 26, 2007 at 2:05 pm # Actually what happenned was that the Average American was fooled into believing a lot of FALSE things that was actually responsible for this fall. A lot of people had started to repeat propaganda like parrots ( & many still do)so when you talk one thing and do another surely you are not going to wind up where you were talk ing about coz you only wind up where your actions lead you.
By Deborah, November 26, 2007 at 12:54 pm # The solution to our problem with our government is Armed Revolution. Bush/ Cheney et. al must be tried for and convicted of treason, war crimes and all underlying misdemeanors including lying. Of course, you have to be armed, be willing to die, tortured and give up our comfortable Western lifestyle to accomplish this. Who’s ready to be disappeared with me to Gitmo?
By GW=MCHammered, November 26, 2007 at 9:14 am # National News announced that Russia sports the earth’s most millionaires and that China is growing its military at a rabid rate. Bu$hCo believes these historic rivals of democracy are as addicted to dollars of materialism as he and we. Sure they are. In a true global economy, the American people would be free from K-Street and Capitol Hill; we’d get our share of global bounty minus Big Pharma, Big Oil and even Wal-Mart influence… I see UPS and FedX in Asia and around the globe. I don’t need these middlemen telling me what to pay. And government repeatedly proves it isn’t there to protect my pet or even my children. If we connect the dots, K-Street owns Capitol Hill and each owns a big piece of our pocketbook. We all work for one machine: American Communism by any other name.
By MS, November 26, 2007 at 9:10 am # In response to #115897. Do the masses know what’s happening to them? Yes, we know we’re losing financial ground with each passing year, but the masses around me seem to still blame their personal decline on “liberal” politicians. They still vote based on their belief of biblical mythology. They still consume way out of porportion to their earnings. They still believe the party of elitism when they’re told that “socialized medicine” is communism and labor unions take away their “right to work”. If we, the masses, understand where this downward spiral is taking us, why do we still claim this is the “best country in the world” to live in as we are blithely led to the slaughter?
By Corporate Jesus, November 26, 2007 at 8:13 am # Secession is the answer. It’ll be Blackwater troops fighting for the Union then. Secession - the entire world will be better off for it.
By hollywood, November 26, 2007 at 7:12 am # Throw the goddam motherfucking wankers out NOW!
By Barbara, November 26, 2007 at 5:46 am # Nothing to do but wait till we hit complete bottom and hope the masses have the will to start over.
By writeon, November 26, 2007 at 5:45 am # But somehow I doubt the American Empire will go quietly from the stage. That just doesn’t seem to be the Anglo-Saxon way. Look at Britain, it fought two devastating wars with it’s great European rival Germany, and virtually destroyed itself economically in the process, sacrificing its position for what? I’m considering the two world wars as one big war, with a kind of “truce” in the middle, and world war two functioning as a form of blowback for the first one! Compare the British Empire in 1900 to the British Empire in 1960, the contrast is striking. I put my money on the United States following the same tragic and almost inexorable route towards disaster. Unless the people rise up and take back the Republic, before it’s too late. But after having more or less ruled the non-communist world for the around fifty years, I doubt this will be an easy task.
By Randall Wallace, November 26, 2007 at 5:37 am # Bravo!!! Beautifully written and very incitful. But the question of the century is what can be done about it. We are to afraid to confront the head Nazis and try them in a world court. Perhaps to afraid to gather in mass in front of the halls of congress and throw all of them out into the gutters. Is there anyway to get the article on Fox News or some other lumpen tabloid? Would the masses even understand what stands in the way of having a free country again?
By BossKitty, November 26, 2007 at 5:32 am # Mr. Hedges Add Your Comment |
|
UN Envoy Heads to Burma with Urgent Relief Message
Email
Print
Share
Del.icio.us
Digg
Facebook
Ma.gnolia
Newsvine
Reddit
StumbleUpon
Yahoo
Jump to Comments
Bazaar|Podcast|About Us|Contact Us|User Agreement|Privacy Policy|Comment Policy
Copyright © 2008 Truthdig, L.L.C. All rights reserved.
COMMENT TOOLS:
Hide comments
Show comments
Comment on this article