The decline and eventual fall of the USA as world superpower?

[Vanir Thunder Dojo Tan]

I think my previous statement sums it up accurately and appropriately.

But I digress: Yes and no. all government bluffs are at the very least with intent to follow through, if not capability. SO yes, im sure its "just" a bluff, but given the resources and compliance, it would be pulled off just as fast as it would be lied about.


I'm calling their bluff on a daily basis, badmouthing their practices and comparing government officials to treasonous traitors one could kill without committing any crime!


... which I got suspended for, on no part on the NSA/CIA/FBI/DEA/ETC. ... so its not the government im concerned about right now. "they" haven't touched me in regards to my disestablishmentarianism... which, granted, im not exactly a compelling speaker, nor am I leading any followers, but both those statuses would run contrary to my pursuit of exemplification rather than leadershit.


So the question is not weather its a bluff or not, but weather or not anyone is willing to call that bluff. I'm not willing to not call their bluff.

[ralis]

I remember this appropriate statement from Star Trek. It should read "A matter of internal security"

 

[zerostao]

did the presidents talk today to try and ease our fears about all of this spying on us do anything to ease our fears?

 

and this:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-09/americans-giving-up-passports-jump-sixfold-as-tougher-rules-loom.html

 

http://www.ehow.com/how_6592457_give-up-citizenship.html

[zerostao]

this guys resoucefulness has one apparent flaw from my viewpoint. yes he maybe saving on rent.

i have heard living spaces are small in the big apple but i didnt realize just how much,,,

but the flaw from the way i see it is, too many folks will approach the dumpster looking for food and he will never be able to rest or eat in peace. speaking of gardens............

 

[shamanu]

 

hold on a minute

scientists must go by facts

your 17 trillion includes other stuff.

we need to compare us public debt with those of other countries, apples to apples,

the usa isn't as bad as europe,

included for info are figures for the united kingdom, japan, russia and china:

 

europe

germany - 3.4 trillion economy and public debt 81% of gdp

france - 2.6 trillion economy and public debt 90% of gdp

italy - 2.0 trillion economy and public debt 127% of gdp

spain - 1.3 trillion economy and public debt 84% of gdp

 

united kingdom - 2.4 trillion economy and public debt 90% of gdp

japan - 5.9 trillion economy and public debt 214% of gdp

china - 8.2 trillion economy and public debt 32% of gdp

russia - 2.2 trillion economy and public debt 7.7% of gdp

 

usa - 15.7 trillion economy and public debt 72.5% of gdp

 

the usa is the most technologically powerful economic engine on the planet

with every other country in tow

if we fall, the whole world fall with us.

What is the source of your data?

 

Here is debt % of GDP from World Economic Forum:

 

 

http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=z6409butolt8la_&ctype=l&met_y=gd&hl=en&dl=en#!ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=gd&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=world&idim=country_group:EU+27&idim=country:USA:DEU:FRA:ESP:GBR:CHN:RUS:ITA&ifdim=world&tstart=1123624800000&tend=1312927200000&hl=en_US&dl=en&ind=false

Edited August 10, 2013 by shamanu

[idiot_stimpy]

 

narveen is banned

 

[zerostao]

yup he is, if he had just accepted his short suspension he would have been just about ready to return too.

but he chose to go a different route. and during this same time 2 formerly banned members were allowed to return thru the front door becoz they handled their moderation in a much more mature way.

[ralis]

LEAKED: Intelligence Agencies Running Mass Number of Propaganda Accounts on Social Media

 

http://politicalblindspot.com/leaked-intelligence-agencies-running-mass-number-of-propaganda-accounts-on-social-media/

[ralis]

did the presidents talk today to try and ease our fears about all of this spying on us do anything to ease our fears?

 

and this:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-09/americans-giving-up-passports-jump-sixfold-as-tougher-rules-loom.html

 

http://www.ehow.com/how_6592457_give-up-citizenship.html

 

I think this is window dressing with no change behind the scenes. The machine keeps growing and has no off switch!

[ralis]

Like I said there is no off switch.

 

Michael Hayden, Former NSA Chief: After A Major Attack, U.S. Likely To Seize More Surveillance Powers

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/11/michael-hayden-nsa_n_3739610.html

 

To see the full video of Michael Hayden. http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50152752n Just another authoritarian/apologist for more and more security! His claim that the spying program is extremely complicated and poorly understood by the public is disingenuous!

[zerostao]

[Thunder_Gooch]

Ralis I know it sounds like the most absurd David ike lizard man stuff, but seriously you should look into John Titor's story. Back in 1999 it was the most absurd story, this was America and that could never happen, well he's been spot on and if he's right this ends in WW3 with Russia with 50%+ of the global population dying.

Like I said there is no off switch.

 

Michael Hayden, Former NSA Chief: After A Major Attack, U.S. Likely To Seize More Surveillance Powers

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/11/michael-hayden-nsa_n_3739610.html

 

To see the full video of Michael Hayden. http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50152752n Just another authoritarian/apologist for more and more security! His claim that the spying program is extremely complicated and poorly understood by the public is disingenuous!

Edited August 11, 2013 by More_Pie_Guy

[ralis]

Ralis I know it sounds like the most absurd David ike lizard man stuff, but seriously you should look into John Titor's story. Back in 1999 it was the most absurd story, this was America and that could never happen, well he's been spot and if he's right this ends in WW3 with Russia with 50%+ of the global population dying.

 

 

Star Trek has also predicted a major WWIII sometime early this century. It was mentioned several times during several of the series.

[zerostao]

considering the present positions of russia and the usa i am a little confused which side to choose at the moment,

i prefer to sit the whole thing out. if that is possible

[ralis]

George Orwell comments on his writing of 'Nineteen Eighty Four' and why he wrote it.

 

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/08/12/george-orwell-s-letter-on-why-he-wrote-1984.html

 

 

 

To Noel Willmett

18 May 1944
10a Mortimer Crescent NW 6

Dear Mr Willmett,

Many thanks for your letter. You ask whether totalitarianism, leader-worship etc. are really on the up-grade and instance the fact that they are not apparently growing in this country and the USA.

Corbis, Wikimedia Commons

I must say I believe, or fear, that taking the world as a whole these things are on the increase. Hitler, no doubt, will soon disappear, but only at the expense of strengthening (a) Stalin, ( the Anglo-American millionaires and © all sorts of petty fuhrers° of the type of de Gaulle. All the national movements everywhere, even those that originate in resistance to German domination, seem to take non-democratic forms, to group themselves round some superhuman fuhrer (Hitler, Stalin, Salazar, Franco, Gandhi, De Valera are all varying examples) and to adopt the theory that the end justifies the means. Everywhere the world movement seems to be in the direction of centralised economies which can be made to ‘work’ in an economic sense but which are not democratically organised and which tend to establish a caste system. With this go the horrors of emotional nationalism and a tendency to disbelieve in the existence of objective truth because all the facts have to fit in with the words and prophecies of some infallible fuhrer. Already history has in a sense ceased to exist, ie. there is no such thing as a history of our own times which could be universally accepted, and the exact sciences are endangered as soon as military necessity ceases to keep people up to the mark. Hitler can say that the Jews started the war, and if he survives that will become official history. He can’t say that two and two are five, because for the purposes of, say, ballistics they have to make four. But if the sort of world that I am afraid of arrives, a world of two or three great superstates which are unable to conquer one another, two and two could become five if the fuhrer wished it.1 That, so far as I can see, is the direction in which we are actually moving, though, of course, the process is reversible.

As to the comparative immunity of Britain and the USA. Whatever the pacifists etc. may say, we have not gone totalitarian yet and this is a very hopeful symptom. I believe very deeply, as I explained in my book The Lion and the Unicorn, in the English people and in their capacity to centralise their economy without destroying freedom in doing so. But one must remember that Britain and the USA haven’t been really tried, they haven’t known defeat or severe suffering, and there are some bad symptoms to balance the good ones. To begin with there is the general indifference to the decay of democracy. Do you realise, for instance, that no one in England under 26 now has a vote and that so far as one can see the great mass of people of that age don’t give a damn for this? Secondly there is the fact that the intellectuals are more totalitarian in outlook than the common people. On the whole the English intelligentsia have opposed Hitler, but only at the price of accepting Stalin. Most of them are perfectly ready for dictatorial methods, secret police, systematic falsification of history2 etc. so long as they feel that it is on ‘our’ side. Indeed the statement that we haven’t a Fascist movement in England largely means that the young, at this moment, look for their fuhrer elsewhere. One can’t be sure that that won’t change, nor can one be sure that the common people won’t think ten years hence as the intellectuals do now. I hope 3 they won’t, I even trust they won’t, but if so it will be at the cost of a struggle. If one simply proclaims that all is for the best and doesn’t point to the sinister symptoms, one is merely helping to bring totalitarianism nearer.

Two and two could become five if the fuhrer wished it.

You also ask, if I think the world tendency is towards Fascism, why do I support the war. It is a choice of evils—I fancy nearly every war is that. I know enough of British imperialism not to like it, but I would support it against Nazism or Japanese imperialism, as the lesser evil. Similarly I would support the USSR against Germany because I think the USSR cannot altogether escape its past and retains enough of the original ideas of the Revolution to make it a more hopeful phenomenon than Nazi Germany. I think, and have thought ever since the war began, in 1936 or thereabouts, that our cause is the better, but we have to keep on making it the better, which involves constant criticism.

Yours sincerely,
Geo. Orwell

[XVI, 2471, pp. 190—2; typewritten]

1. and 2. Foreshadowings of Nineteen Eighty-Four.

3. Compare Nineteen Eighty-Four, p. 72, ‘If there is hope, wrote Winston, it lies in the proles.’

[zerostao]

his term of petty fuhrers, i have always called little hitlers, his label sounds more academically sound.

 

if I think the world tendency is towards Fascism, here is the general indifference to the decay of democracy.

[ralis]

Rather lengthy NY Times article on Edward Snowden. Well worth the read.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/18/magazine/laura-poitras-snowden.html?hp&_r=0

[voidisyinyang]

http://www.alternet.org/media/15-things-americans-would-know-if-there-were-liberal-media?paging=off

 

15 Things Americans Would Know if There Were a "Liberal Media"

[zerostao]

 

[zerostao]

just another quaint latin phrase

 

e pluribus unum

[ralis]

http://www.juancole.com/2013/08/greenwald-terrorist-dictatorship.html

 

JUAN COLE: How to turn a democracy into a STASI authoritarian state in 10 easy steps

 

 

 

1. Misuse the concept of a Top Secret government document (say, the date of D-Day) and extend classification to trillions of mundane documents a year.

2. Classify all government crimes and violations of the Constitution as secret

3. Create a class of 4.5 million privileged individuals, many of them corporate employees, with access to classified documents but allege it is illegal for public to see leaked classified documents

4. Spy on the public in violation of the Constitution

5. Classify environmental activists as terrorists while allowing Big Coal and Big Oil to pollute and destroy the planet

6. Share info gained from NSA spying on public with DEA, FBI, local law enforcement to protect pharmaceuticals & liquor industry from competition from pot, or to protect polluters from activists

7. Falsify to judges and defense attorneys how allegedly incriminating info was discovered

8. Lie and deny to Congress you are spying on the public.

9. Criminalize the revelation of government crimes and spying as Espionage

10. Further criminalize whistleblowing as “Terrorism”, have compradors arrest innocent people, detain them, and confiscate personal effects with no cause or warrant (i.e. David Miranda, partner of Glenn Greenwald)

Edited August 19, 2013 by ralis

[ralis]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/19/guardian-hard-drives_n_3782382.html

 

Guardian Editor: U.K. 'Security Experts' Entered Offices And Destroyed Hard Drives

[zerostao]

shit is ramping up

[Thunder_Gooch]

Yup sure as ****ing *** is guys. Remember what they were saying about the snowden leaks being just the tip of the iceberg, the really awful stuff hasn't come out yet.

 

**** is about to get really real, really quick.

 

I wish I had known where this all was going when I was a child so I could have gotten the **** out when I had a chance.

Edited August 20, 2013 by More_Pie_Guy

[gendao]

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/19/guardian-hard-drives_n_3782382.html

 

Guardian Editor: U.K. 'Security Experts' Entered Offices And Destroyed Hard Drives

Vaz said it was "extraordinary" that police knew that Miranda was Greenwald's partner and that the authorities were targeting partners of people involved in Snowden's disclosures.

 

The case drew the ire of watchdog groups.

 

"It's incredible that Miranda was considered to be a terrorist suspect," said David Mepham, the British director at Human Rights Watch. "On the contrary, his detention looks intended to intimidate Greenwald and other journalists who report on surveillance abuses."

 

Britain's laws are not unique. U.S. customs officials can search the electronic devices of anyone entering the U.S. without a search warrant. According to a 2011 internal Homeland Security Department report, officers at the border can search the devices and in some cases hold on to them for weeks or months. The DHS has said such searches help law enforcement detect child pornographers or terrorists.

Obama has Prosecuted More Whistleblowers than All Other Presidents COMBINED

 

Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton each prosecuted financial crime more aggressively than Barack Obama.

 

But that doesn’t mean that Obama is failing to prosecute. He is just aiming at a different type of target. The New York Times reported last year:

 

In President Obama’s 26 months in office, civilian and military prosecutors have charged five people in cases involving leaking information, more than all previous presidents combined.

“Obama … has brought more prosecutions against whistleblowers under the Espionage Act than any previous president and all presidents combined.”

AMY GOODMAN: [T]he number of people who have been indicted are more than all presidents combined in the past.

WILLIAM BINNEY: Right. And I think it’s to silence what’s going on.

Edited August 20, 2013 by vortex