Musings on a Failing Empire

If one could pinpoint the beginning of the fall of the United States, it would be post WW ll around 1947 with the creation of the National Security State. After this date, the CIA went into full swing, creating “secret” wars across the planet. The National Security apparatus joined with big business, and the actions of war became an economic necessity. The cursory evidence of this observation is the US has been in perpetual war from this time. Dwight Eisenhower, in his farewell speech, cautioned the American people of what he called “The Military-Industrial Complex.” This is the coalescing of the military, Wall Street, corporations, and the main stream media. There's no doubt that “Ike” would be turning in his grave at the sight of what his beloved country has become in the present time.

There are two other times in American history that has guaranteed the eventual fall of the American empire. The first was the Telecommunications Act of 1996. This Law consolidated all the media companies that are currently owned by only five corporations. The largest media conglomerates that earn the most revenue are Comcast, Walt Disney Company, AT&T, and ViacomCBS. Many critics call this concentration of media authoritarian and State-controlled. As these corporations own all our news and information, many have compared them to past totalitarian regimes. The only source of news in communist Russia, for example, was the newspaper Pravda and the state-run television station.

Currently with the advent of the major internet companies such as Google, we have gigantic social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, which are privately owned companies and have total control over their content and editorial rights. Although these social media platforms claim that censorship is only incurred when hate speech or inciting violence is published, one only needs to glance at who's been de-platformed over the last few years to know this is simply not true.

Centralized media is a tool of an authoritarian centralized government. Allowing tech giants like Facebook to decide what is fake news and what isn't is at least a 'freedom of the press' issue, and a steep, slippery slope, that will lead us no-where but towards authoritarian rule.

The second most damaging law that has contributed to the failing of the American Empire was the reversal of the Glass Steagal Act of 1933. This Law separated investment banking from retail banking. By repealing this law enabled commercial banking and investment banking to merge. This led to the housing crisis of 2008 and the significant recession of the same year. Contributing harshly to the economic suffering, President Obama bailed out the banks for billions of dollars, ignoring the millions of American people that had lost their homes.

Also during the nineties under the Clinton administration, created NAFTA. In essence, this trading Law allowed large companies to ship their businesses overseas to acquire cheap labor, enhancing their profits. Again, the American people lost out, losing their jobs on a mass scale. This is not to mention the nation-wide infrastructure crumbling (where huge factories once existed), creating ghost towns across the land.

What we have seen over more than a decade is a huge transference of wealth away from the poor and middle classes to the top of the economic food chain.

At the start of COVID 19, the world witnessed the largest transference of wealth to the top 1% in the US that has ever been seen before in the world's history. While the corporations, banks, political donors, and other countries received billions, a suffering American people received a measly $600. And even as I write this today, the government continues to quibble about $1400.

Slowly but consistently, the American government has set the system in favor of themselves and the wealthy. And indeed, the rules are different for them as well.

A great example of this was the Robin Hood incident a few weeks ago. A group of ordinary Americans decided to play the stock market. This group bought into bricks and mortar company Game Stop that the big hedge fund companies began to short, betting on the video store chain to go out of business. This, of course, brought up the stock price, and as a result, the hedge fund companies lost billions of dollars. Robin Hood blocked these little investors from buying any more stocks. This is unheard of from a broker. Politicians and denizens of Wall Street appeared on cable news crying foul. What this revealed is that the system is fixed. Only the rich can play this game, and the ordinary guy “needs to get a life.”

Back in the seventies, one could work a factory job, own a house, raise a family, and save for the kids to go to college. Because the government has rigged the entire system in their favor, hoarding all the money for themselves, the 99% are left with virtually nothing.

Forget the identity politics and fighting each other over “cultural issues," we must focus our attention on policies that will benefit the people.

The US began its descent in 1947 with the creation of the National Security State. This led to many propagandized and expensive wars that are forged for profit. During the Clinton administration, Wall Street was deregulated, causing economic havoc for millions. Large companies that used to give millions of Americans' jobs are now gone, sent overseas to gain maximum profit. Obama decided to bail out the bankers rather than the American people. This caused an ever-widening economic chasm between the population and the few oligarchs at the top, including government officials.

The time of “rugged individualism” and “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” is gone; all the money is centralized and owned by the few.

Honestly, I don't have an answer for these issues, but the system cannot be continued to run by a few capitalist sociopaths and a pack of chickenhawk warmongers. The world is headed in a whole new direction.