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Title: Exclusive: US Empire Will Fall Due To Lack Of Faith, Not Finances Or War, Author Warns
Source:
RawStory
URL Source: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/01/ ... g-washington-author-tells-raw/
Published: Jan 27, 2011
Author: Nathan Diebenow
Post Date: 2011-01-27 12:55:52 by Brian S
Keywords: None
Views: 126418
Comments: 176
As many in the American empire longingly talk of "recovery" from the most devastating economic condition since the Great Depression, others have begun thinking in a very different direction, urging fellow citizens to prepare for the worst. Dmitry Orlov, author of "Reinventing Collapse: The Soviet Example and American Prospects," is one of the latter. Soon, he told Raw Story in an exclusive interview, Americans will "stop expecting anything of Washington," turning the US into more of a "banana republic" than a super power. Orlov, who witnessed the Soviet Union's collapse from within, lamented that the American empire's condition is so severe there is "absolutely nothing" most can do to keep it alive or hasten its demise. "Basically the people in this country are powerless," he suggested. "So they should probably focus on things closer to home." Orlov, born in born in Leningrad (now known as Saint Petersburg), moved to the United States at age 12 and became an engineer. In his book, he detailed his experiences with the Soviet collapse on numerous visits to Russia in the late 1980s, early 1990s. He covered similarities between the two superpowers in their twilight and suggested ways for Americans to adapt to their new post-empire environment. Amid horrid unemployment and a national deficit soaring past World War II levels, Orlov theorized that the US empire would eventually collapse -- not from finances or war, but from a lack of faith in the system. It would happen over three overlapping stages, he said: financial, political and commercial. "We're fairly far along in the financial collapse trajectory while political collapse has now really only started with the last election," he said. By the next election cycle, Orlov figured, the United States would be in the throes of a "banana republic" such that the voters would exchange one inept political party for another inept political party while expecting different results. While nothing constructive would result from this behavior, he said, the next meaningless shift in 2012 may be the last straw. "That will run its course where people walk away in disgust and stop expecting anything of Washington," he said. Environmental and social catastrophe "People will lose access to various products that they need," Orlov said. Much has already collapsed in the commercial sphere. Vacant strip malls and deserted grocery stores clutter the landscape in many parts of the country. "You also have people whose only source of food is food stamps," he said. "That's becoming predominant in a lot of communities." But let's not fail to mention an overemphasis on military expenditures and unused industrial areas, Orlov insisted, describing them as mis-investments made by both empires. "To this day, the former Soviet Union is littered with abandoned or semi-abandoned industrial sites just as the United States is," he noted. By Orlov's estimation, the US military will never voluntarily quit being the world's largest oil consumer and largest polluter. Moreover, any plans suggested to the military to end its oil dependency in 30 years are an act of "desperation," he said. "They have set their hair on fire and are running around in circles. That's their drill right now," Orlov quipped. But what really seemed to rock the Soviet empire to its foundations, Orlov explained, was devastation of Russia's physical environment as a result of industrialization. The prime example was the nuclear reactor accident in Chernobyl in 1986. To this day, the site continues to produce very high levels of childhood leukemia, cancers and other diseases. "[The Chernobyl accident] caused a great number of people, including people in some positions of authority, especially in the scientific community in Russia, to seriously mistrust the government, and [they] started doing their own research, making their own observations that disquieted them even more," Orlov explained. Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev's "glasnost" policy allowed enough truth out to undermine the remaining Soviet authority to the point where those who operated the system lost interest in perpetuating it, Orlov said. While likening the Chernobyl disaster to the Deepwater Horizon accident in the Gulf of Mexico on his blog, Orlov said that he expects no hearts of American leaders to bleed over their destroyed environment any time soon. "I don't see the elite in the United States at quite that level of desperation quite yet -- probably because they are a little bit less attuned to what's going on," he said. "They are a little bit more sheltered from the public at large. But that might change."
As the financial collapse runs its course, Orlov said, people can expect some imports to be cut off. Energy, above all cheap oil, will be the most important import to dry up. Transportation fuels will also become scarce, bringing on the next stage of social collapse: the commercial sphere, he noted.
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#1. To: Brian S, go65, lucysmom (#0)
The USA is already a "banana republic" in one regard, the wealth distribution disparity is much or greater than it was in Latin America back when they were all dictatorships. http://www.businessinsider.com/its-official-in-terms-of-income-inequality- america-is-now-a-banana-republic-2010-11 IT'S OFFICIAL: America Is Now A Banana Republic One of the hallmarks of banana republics, says the NYT's Nicholas Kristof, is income inequality. In some countries, the wealthiest 1% of the population takes home 20% or more of the national income. And now the same is true in America: The richest 1 percent of Americans now take home almost 24 percent of income, up from almost 9 percent in 1976. As Timothy Noah of Slate noted in an excellent series on inequality, the United States now arguably has a more unequal distribution of wealth than traditional banana republics like Nicaragua, Venezuela and Guyana. C.E.O.’s of the largest American companies earned an average of 42 times as much as the average worker in 1980, but 531 times as much in 2001. Perhaps the most astounding statistic is this: From 1980 to 2005, more than four-fifths of the total increase in American incomes went to the richest 1 percent. ------------- LOL, the tea bagging peasants were cool with getting the crumbs of the remaining 1/5th of the wealth because they were living large on credit cards. Now that's over too. Maybe in 2012 the tea baggers will wake up and realize they were snookered by the GOP ideology of trickle down?
And the historical solution that the leftists always employ is to make every equally poor, except of course for the party apparatchiks who get to control everything.
Actually this statement of yours admits there is a problem - and trickle down supply side economics of the GOP made the 1% rich 4/5th richer and the rest of the 99% of the population gets to share the 5/5th crumbs.
Stop whining you commie bastard.
Gandhi was a commie because he wanted Indians to determine their own fate, not the British. Martin Luther King was a commie when he worked for freedom for all Americans. If Jesus came back and preached the same message today, he's be a commie too.
Unless the history reels are wrong, How people can be romantic about communism is a mystery to me. Communism was supposed to be a better form than religion, They just made new flags up and killed ,...just like Religions do.
You're right. Communism is the religion of the far left. To them, it has all the attributes, including ethics and morality.
Communists use lies and deception. I see the same theme with the Watermelon Earthers.
So Paul Ryan and Michelle Bachmann are communists? http://factcheck.org/2011/01/factchecking-the-gop-response/
Factcheck.org is another Obama gentle spin cycle. You really need to stay away from the pages that only tell you what you want to hear.
#95. To: Rudgear, go65 (#31)
You do realize you are asking a socialist to do his own thinking instead of demanding the collective to do it for him,right?
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/LatestBy the next election cycle, Orlov figured, the United States would be in the throes of a "banana republic" such that the voters would exchange one inept political party for another inept political party while expecting different results.
#2. To: Godwinson (#1)
(Edited)
distribution of wealth
#3. To: jwpegler (#2)
(Edited)
And the historical solution that the leftists always employ is to make every equally poor, except of course for the party apparatchiks who get to control everything.
#5. To: Godwinson (#3)
Actually this statement of yours admits there is a problem - and trickle down supply side economics of the GOP made the 1% rich 4/5th richer and the rest of the 99% of the population gets to share the 5/5th crumbs.
#7. To: Ibluafartsky (#5)
Stop whining you commie bastard.
#16. To: lucysmom (#7)
Gandhi was a commie because he wanted Indians to determine their own fate, not the British.
Most first event/emergence communist overthrows of nations goobs,kings etc,
begins with violence and ends with Millions getting slaughtered,...and I mean,...millions.
Unless these people are secret/open chaos/malthusians.
#17. To: Parrot with speed dial (#16)
#20. To: Rudgear (#17)
You're right. Communism is the religion of the far left. To them, it has all the attributes, including ethics and morality.
They are like a virus which spreads resulting in complete violent madness.
They cheer to see people who have paid for their own land,...or own it via historic inheritance.
so ya,...in the USA,...landowners pushed off because of commie EPA,...or some fucking newt or smelt in the creek.
This is Russian/Chi Com communism where the state throws you off the land and will kill you if you are caught sneaking back onto it.
Americans would be horrified if they saw the maps the UN has to relocate and allocate land distribution.
Recent Global orgy in Cancun boasted about removing people off the land as an imperative.
#29. To: Parrot with speed dial, godwinson, rudgear (#20)
Communists use lies and deception.
FactChecking the GOP Response
Ryan and Bachmann made two new false claims, and repeated other talking points, in their responses to the president's State of the Union address.
We fact-checked President Obama’s State of the Union address, but what about the Republican response speeches? We found two new claims that we haven’t covered before:
In the official response, Rep. Paul Ryan said that "trust in government is at an all-time low now that the size of government is at an all-time high." He’s wrong on both counts. Trust has been lower, and government has been larger, in the past.
In her own rebuttal to Obama, Rep. Michele Bachmann said that the bailout cost "$700 billion." The net cost actually is estimated to be much less — $25 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
In addition, the two Republicans repeated several false and misleading charges we’ve already written about. Our readers will be familiar with many of them, such as claims that the stimulus didn’t create jobs (it did), that the health care law hurts job growth (experts say the impact will be small), and that "16,500 IRS agents" will enforce that law (that’s based on a flawed, partisan analysis).
#31. To: go65 (#29)
Replies to Comment # 31. You really need to stay away from the pages that only tell you what you want to hear.
End Trace Mode for Comment # 31.
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