As Americans, our ancestors built a global empire, as did the British. Most of us inherited the empire and largely take it for granted. But what does this actually mean? What did it take to build the empire? What are the advantages and disadvantages of living in an empire state? Also, how do other countries, particularly third world countries, view our empire? What are the main goals and needs of an empire?

Shana, good to see you are still a advocate of the truth,
not a easy job at all.
My five cents.

Lets use the Eskimo's as a example, they have tons of oil
that American Corporation covete but dont want to pay for.

Fox News runs a program on how the Eskimo's are the number one
Marijuana growers in the world due to Global Warming. They state
that the Arctic has become a massive jungle of Marijuana. The American public believe the fabricated story.

The USA airforce starts spraying the Eskimo's with Agent Orange even though they dont have anything green growing for thousands of miles. Eskimo's start dying real slow and painful deaths, the women start giving birth to Kangaroos and they have no idea how to survive in a deep freezer.

Bingo, American Coporations strike it big and make billions
of dollars and dont have to bother building a school or church
for the Eskimo's because they are all dead, they claim they
were all eaten by killer whales and possibly by freezing kangaroos.

This is how Americans do business and built a Empire.

Cause and Effect are the chancellors of god.

1945 America
Finance sector - TINY
Inovation - HUGE
Manufacturing - HUGE

2011 America
Finance Sector - HUGE, full of thieves.
Inovation - SO SO, OVERSHADOWED BY THE WALL STREET CROOKS.
Manufacturing - HUMPTY DUMPTY DONUTS.

= dead, dying America.

O for goodness sakes...get a room...LOL

We tried to arrange this but Perky and Barb got wind of it and threatened to tell our spouses, they are doing gods work.

Shana, you had a concern that Pakistan was next on the USA
hit list but I think not. Looks like the Eskimo's are safe
for a few months unless America decides to attack everybody.

US Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich has called for a military strike against Iran's refineries to stop the country's peaceful nuclear program.


The US should bomb Iran's refineries "as a last recourse," Gingrich said earlier in a 2012 presidential debate in Washington.

The former House speaker opined that the US could break Iran within a year with "cutting off the gasoline supply to Iran and then, frankly, sabotaging the only refinery they have."

His hawkish comments came as Washington and its allies are putting pressure on Tehran over its nuclear program, imposing unilateral sanctions on the country following the November 8 report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

In an earlier presidential debate earlier this month, Gingrich advocated increased covert terrorism against Iran.

He suggested employing “maximum covert operations to block and disrupt the Iranian program including taking out their scientists, including breaking up their systems. All of it covertly, all of it deniable.”

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has a message for his successor
.
“Any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should 'have his head examined,' as General [Douglas] MacArthur so delicately put it.”

It's amusing when an entity such as the IAEA or the US issues a statement about Iran's nuclear program, it's always worded with "suspected" or "may have" or "might be developing" a nuclear weapons plan. In reality, there is no evidence of that, per all of the inspections. It certainly is possible, but we simply have no evidence. Suspicion alone is not grounds for legal sanctions, or military action.

It's also very hypocritical for the US to constantly claim that we are "a nation of laws," when we don't extend the same legal protections to other nations. As I've said before, it's all about maintaining and expanding the global empire, regardless of international law and state sovereignty.

Iran is a special case, they are Persian people not Arabs.
They have friends in high places such as China and Russia.
China sells America tons of stuff but buys very little from
you (trade imbalance on a grand scale). The Chinese buy a lot
of stuff from Iran and has a superb relationship with them as
does the Russians.

So, when you start meddling with Iran you are going to make China and Russia very angry. How they react will be interesting
My mechanic claims that America will not touch Iran due to their special relationship with these major powers, time will tell.

Shana, America makes it's own rules and ignores all the agencys
you mention.Kinda like the biggest kid in the playing field who can do what he wants until Russia and China step in as a team and then things will change in a heart beat.

The USA's "economy" is just an empty baloon which is going to explode as the world leaves the dollar as the reserve currency and all those trillions of dollars that the USA printed without any correspondence with their real (non existent) economy come back to them

Keep in mind China has tons and tons of cash and their is a saying "he who has the gold makes the rules" this will be interesting.

War with Iran To Save The Economy?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03yJSiy7sxA&feature=fvst

I will say this much. We (Americans) need to thank our lucky stars that OPEC still trades oil via U.S. currency. Due to that sole fact, there is a global desire for the U.S. Dollar (USD) to remain as strong as possible. The weaker the USD, the more oil costs on a global market. That effects everyone including recently oil thirsty countries like China and India.

I remember reading a few years ago that Iranian President Ahmadinejad wanted to weaken the United States by purposing to OPEC to abandon trading oil via the USD and use the Euro instead. If that had actually happened I wonder if the USD/Euro position would have switched, making our economy more resembling the current European market which is far more unstable?

I guess we will never actually know that answer to that, yet at the same time our "trump card" is keeping us from spiraling completely out of control economically IMHO.

the ONLY way to save the economy, in the short-term, is to steal some natural resources...typically from the middle east. natural resources have instrinsic value, paper money does not. our paper currency (fiat money) has no instrinsic value at all, since abandoning the gold standard in 1971. Fiat money is simply an expectation of future value.

Brad is right about the Petro $, Saddam wanted to or was selling his oil for Euro's which resulted in the Iraq people getting
17% more money for their oil. This was the tipping point for
George W decision to attack them.

Shana,
Stealing resources from poor countries has been an American tradition for a long time, 80% of South America has thrown you
out, the Arabs are now waking up too which doesn't bode well for you. I'm not sure how many jobs this creates for average Americans, I'm sure it helps the rich.

I read a long article by a clever man who basically said if a country gives up it's manufacturing jobs it's basically commiting suicide. Your polititians have assisted coporations
in sending way to many jobs to other countries.

I think America needs manufacturing jobs and this will slowly start to happen when oil prices rise and it's way too expensive to ship goods from Asia. This will happen but it's still early
days. I learnt this from a book called $200 barrel oil written
by a Canadian Economist.

The only guy who makes sense to me in America is Ron Paul, he has tons of practical ideas. The real sad part of America is the
government is not watching out for the people, just the banks
and wealthy corporations. This has got to change for there to
be any HOPE. If Ron Paul gets anywere near a place of power
they will kill him for sure and blame the Eskimo's.



http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/11/2011112995048821377.html#disqus_thread

This is all a predictable story. Americas famed "grassroots improvisatory tradition" is but a lost heirloom and has been gradually eroded by entrenched and backwards impositions. So many of their decisions regarding internal and foreign policy make absolutely no sense, especially when compared to the precedence set by other nations around the world for how issues like equitable healthcare, high-quality education and industrial stewardship should be best approached. This is precisely why America is rightfully receiving so much resistance when trying to proselytize the rest of us.

Maybe it's simply a case of too much conceited arrogance, as the now unfounded belief of American exceptionalism continues to mislead and blind a political system that can't seem to get much of anything right. Time to swallow the pride and learn from the trials and tribulations of other nations. Probably not going to happen until it's much too late, when an entire military arsenal has been spent trying to impose and defend the indefensible

"I read a long article by a clever man who basically said if a country gives up it's manufacturing jobs it's basically commiting suicide. Your polititians have assisted coporations
in sending way to many jobs to other countries. "


Exactly. It is shocking how many US manufacturing facilities (of all sizes) have been relocated overseas, in the past five to ten years. I believe the number is in the tens of thousands.

domestic manufacturing and exports is basic mercantilism, it is extremely effective and it creates new wealth. It built the incredible US/global economy over the last century.

unfortunately, in recent decades, mercantilism has been largely abandoned by US business, in favor of foreign production in order to exploit lower production costs. the result has been huge/abnormal profits for US corporations, up until recently. this short-term profit paradigm, coupled with the raping of US workers, has set the US on a path to economic failure. Initially, outsourcing US production to foreign countries looks attractive, but it is suicide in the long run. those foreign companies, given access to our manufacturing methods and technology, will invariably copy them, and produce their own comparable products to compete with the US companies.

what is especially disturbing is that the Republicans, largely responsible for this outsourcing trend, have continued to deny that outsourcing our production is bad. they claim the only real problem is "consumer confidence."

The worlds best selling Auto.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5WZBiTRD-A&feature=related

The first car seen by 60% of the developing world's population is the Land Rover.

Worldwide, #1 animal slaughtered for meat is the goat.

1 of every 6 earthlings is Chinese.

All the major religions are failing because they were based on fear and hate, not love.

"All the major religions are failing because they were based on fear and hate, not love."


also, science has debunked the ancient religious dogma. that superstition worked on ignorant people. It doesn't work on educated people in the 21st century, when the facts contradict the ridiculous dogma. for example, the christian bible states that "god" (Yahweh) literally sits on his throne up in the sky on the firmament dome. well, since we invented airplanes and spacecraft, that has been completely debunked. no dome, no throne. maybe the biblical god was an alien hovering above the Earth in his spacecraft? LOL

It's amusing that the moderator completely deleted the "misery index" thread, no doubt after someone ran to the mod and cried like a baby. when the discussion turned to religion, it must have really hit a nerve with certain fundamentalist readers who are ruled by their emotions, rather than knowledge and logical thinking.