75% of DU respondents to poll say America is an empire, is it time to bring the empire down?

[originalpckelly]

Poll question: 75% of DU respondents to poll say America is an empire, is it time to bring the empire down?

"All good things must come to an end."
-Chaucer

If all good things must end, then surely all bad things must?

*Edited to make clearer that it's a reference to a poll question from yesterday.

[John Q. Citizen]

1. Empire isn't worth it. It costs way more than it returns.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

2. Yes. But, it's doing a helluva job of bringing itself down.

Indulging in a cranked up version of it's predecessors journey to "used to be".

[AndyA]

3. We just need to take down the people who have been controlling things

for a long time. We can start with The Bush Crime Family, and go from there. It's apparent that junior thought he could get away with whatever he pleased while in office. Start there, and we'll have taken a big step in the right direction.

[ixion]

4. Already coming down under it's own weight and mismanagement

and as for the quote: There's never anything good about ANY empire, IMO.

[wyldwolf]

5. which equates to what? .000000001% of the US population?

[originalpckelly]

6. We're usually fairly ahead of the game...

soooo...

[wyldwolf]

8. yeah, good luck with that

[Warpy]

7. One doesn't bring empires down

because the cost in resources and lives is just too appalling to contemplate.

One should always wait for them to start to collapse under their own weight and merely assist the collapse. This can be done quite passively through non cooperation.

Since Afghanistan is where empires go to die, I'd say we're just about there.

[Echo In Light]

12. Good point: due to greed an empire will collapse on its own

[originalpckelly]

13. I agree. It's like we're on 1549, and now we've lost our engines...

only now if we glide the plane in will we have a safe landing.

[sufrommich]

9. How did you get all DU members to vote? I don't recall voting. nt

[BuyingThyme]

10. I don't understand the question(s).

[Occam Bandage]

11. I wonder how many of the people voting "yes,"

expressed offense at Rush Limbaugh implying that he wanted America to fail.

[sufrommich]

14. Or how many answering "yes" recognize that bringing an

"empire" down means a new "empire" takes it's place. I assume none of the "yes" voters have ever taken a history class.

[originalpckelly]

19. Physics disagrees with you.

All systems tend to find an equilibrium, and this system is doing that. Imagine a bunch of life rafts out in the ocean. The people in each raft can tie themselves together, so that when the waves come they rise with the waves, instead of being overwhelmed. But there's a catch, when they tie themselves together, the waves get bigger and bigger as more of them are joined. The waves are trying to tear the life rafts apart.

This is in effect what's been happening in the economy. You can view a recession as the product of bad decisions, or you can view it as the natural forces of self-correction in any system, including an economy. As the system gets larger (more life rafts tied together) the larger the waves get. This occurs because more resources have to be exhausted before self-correction occurs.

I have to come to conclude that this is what's going on with business cycles. That you can either have the system correct all at once, or continuously. In a larger system the feedback builds up and hurts more when it comes. We must strike a balance between delaying all correction until one big release and having to get by all alone.

[ZombieHorde]

15. I am not so sure I understand what you are asking.

What do you mean by, "bring the empire down"?

[originalpckelly]

18. More than anything else, this is an economic empire, and the government its puppet.

The illusion of choice in elections keeps us from realizing how little control we have, but in reality the rich pick which candidates have a likelihood of being voted for by the majority, because they decide who to fund and not to fund. Funding allows politicians to buy advertisement and publicize themselves, raising their profile, and in turn increasing the likelihood that people will vote for them.

It's not like there's an actual shadowy conspiracy, it's so fucked up that there doesn't have to be one, the overt facts that we just accept as true are a part of the system of control.

Because it's an economic empire, it can be brought down with manipulation of the economy through boycotts and other stuff that's not violent. We're very fortunate.

[BlueJac]

16. All empires end..........

ours will end too! Check out history.

[TBF]

17. It's falling on it's own. The only discussion right now is how we come out of

the crash.

[raccoon]

20. If you aren’t familiar with “The Course of Empire,”

a series of paintings about the life cycle of an Empire, check it out.

http://pasleybrothers.com/jefferson/course_of_empire.htm

Destruction

[originalpckelly]

21. I could see all those ticker tape parades in the 40s and 50s...

as Consummation of Empire.

Wikipedia has higher resolution:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Course_of_Empire

Hopefully, there won't be any violence, as this isn't a traditional government branch empire, but one that sources its power from the economy.

In life there are about four branches of power:
1. The economy
2. Government
3. Popular culture
4. Religion, though religion is considered popular culture in some nations

[Zorra]

22. It is the Global Corporate Empire that we need to bring down, not America.

"The global power of the financial centers is so great, that they can afford not to worry about the political tendency of those who hold power in a nation, if the economic program (in other words, the role that nation has in the global economic megaprogram) remains unaltered. The financial disciplines impose themselves upon the different colors of the world political spectrum in regards to the government of any nation. The great world power can tolerate a leftist government in any part of the world, as long as the government does not take measures that go against the needs of the world financial centers. But in no way will it tolerate that an alternative economic, political and social organization consolidate. For the megapolitics, the national politics are dwarfed and submit to the dictates of the financial centers...."

http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/mexico/ezln/1997/jigsaw.html

[GreenTea]

23. It sure is costing us a huge amount of our tax dollars all around the world!