Half A Century of Empire: A Progress Report

Burning the Midnight Oil for the Arc of the Sun

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We are sabotaging our main labor resource with mindless rote learning to pass "achievement" tests to avoid being punished for not being full of kids of upper middle class households, we are allowing our equipment resource to collapse through lack of demand and we are sabotaging our natural resource through treating nonrenewable resources as an excuse to destroy renewable resources and treating renewable resources as non-renewable resources, which is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

In fifty years we have gone from technological leadership on all fronts to technological leadership only in some of those areas under the umbrella of War Department Industrial Policy, and from massive trade surpluses that demanded recycling via overseas investment and imports to maintain international liquidity, to massive trade deficits to allow the Chinese to export their unemployment to us.

In forty years we have gone from energy independence to importing twice as much oil as we produce.

And thirty years, we have shifted our record on land wars in Asia from 0-1 with one draw, to at best 0-2 with two draws, and at worst 0-3 with one draw.

If this damn Empire collapses soon enough, we might have a chance to start rebuilding from the catastrophe it represents, but an equally plausible outcome is falling apart into a squabbling series of small and mid-sized nation states, many harboring revanchiste dreams of re-establishing the Empire.
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We built this Empire out of immediate and temporary needs, some of them in service of public interests, some of them in service of vested private interests. For the good of the Republic, it is long past time to tear it down.

The life of one American service man or woman is not worth all the profits that have been made by all the Imperial War profiteers in the last half century. And it has been about nothing but Imperial War Profiteers profits for decades now.


Burning the Midnight Oil ~ Forgotten Years

d-_-b A Wartime Thanksgiving d-_-b

Burning the Midnight Oil for the Arc of the Sun

I am thankful that we have not engaged in any more reckless and ill-considered invasions followed by interminable occupations than we have already done.

   

   

   

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Midnight Oil: My Country promotional video clip

Was it just a dream, were you so confused
Was it just a giant leap of logic?
Was it the time of year, that makes a state of fear
Methods, were their motives for the action

and did i hear you say
My country right or wrong

Did you save your face
Did you breach your faith
Women, there were children at the shelter
Now who can stop the hail
When human senses fail
There was never any warning, no escape

Did I hear you say
My country right or wrong
My country oh so strong
My country going wrong
My country right or wrong

I hear you say the truth must take a beating
The flag a camouflage for your deceiving
I know we all make mistakes

This is not a case of blurred vision
It's a case of
   black holes,
      pocket holes,
         soul holes

And did I hear you say
My country right or wrong
My country oh so strong
My country going wrong
My country right or wrong