thers!

Thersday!

THERSday!

Well, my student Eli can write and defend his dissertation when he puts his mind to it, becoming my first Ph.D. and the third in the department. Today has been a pretty good day here in the northern Rockies.

THERS!

Because the “we” that matters is not we the people.

Spot. Fucking. On.

Sadly, it rarely ever has been.

Woohoo! Congratulations to you and the new PhD!

I’m hep. That doesn’t make what Thers said any less true though. :)

Because the “we” that matters is not we the people.

Bing! Bing! Bing! We have a winner!

Evening.

Glad to hear it!

Thankee veddy much! He did a really good job and the committee was really impressed. A couple thought it would become a standard source.

Evening, Thers. True, our ship of State is askew. As progressives we need to nudge it as best we can and not be dissatisfied and give up when our first nudge does not right the ship. Me included.

yay dr dick and the little dr!!!

Hi Thers.

Here’s the best interview I’ve heard on what the U.S. can’t do while it sprints down the rabbit hole of dying empire.

Short version: Empires can end graciously or not.

Gracious example= U.K. Which is only reason why Gandhi was successful (& parenthetically why Gandhi tactics in Palestine have not been).

Or not gracious: most of the other empires.

Toward the end of the interview, McCoy points out that while the U.S. determined to force peeps to its will, it is forsaking the usual stuff that makes empires great, particularly science. (We could add humanitarian treatment of U.S. population.)

What I found most intriguing about the interview was the hypothesis that U.S. had more power while U.S.S.R. existed than it has now. Works like following: If country wasn’t in U.S. sphere, it was in Soviet sphere, which was worse. So U.S. was able to capture local elites to its own end bc alternative sucked more.

Now no one cares one way or other about U.S. bc alternative is self-determination.

So mourn the sweet days when U.S. could topple regimes with tens of millions and a CIA ops team, when now U.S. can no longer gain control of a country with full scale invasion & nation building costing trillions.

It is a never ending battle, but we can never admit defeat. If we ever quit fighting, they will take away everything that we have built over the past century.

A couple thought it would become a standard source.

Wow! Cool. Give that man a super PhD. So now all you got are the ladies…..

What we are doing here is no different than what the voters used to do in taverns and meeting halls and etc. But we musn’t be complacent with just sitting and ranting, nor do I think we will be in the end. There is always a final straw that gets people out into the streets. A match that sets off the conflagration and it’s usually innocuous and unexpected.

Yeah. Part of it is he picked an unstudied, but important topic, which helps a lot.

As to the ladies, when I was younger I always dreamed of being a “chick magnet.” This wasn’t quite what I had in mind. On the other hand it is pretty cool in its own right.

Talking and forging community is important, even vital, but we also have to act.

All right, I have a crap day tomorrow — must to bed. Have fun!

Now if Obama could use the Osama bin Dead momentum to do some FDR type moves. Oh well….

Very cool. And as one of TBogg’s commenters says, Death Before Taxes!

g’nite thers

Where I come from, that is “Death before Texas!” (no offense to Margaret or any other Texans in the crowd).

You might as well try to get a horse to do the flamenco. Ain’t gonna happen.

Night!

Really would be a flying pig moment.

…but we also have to act.

I thoroughly agree and I wasn’t suggesting that we sit on our hands until the population erupts in anger.

Interesting reality check…so why not ask the US MIC bases to leave if no skin to lose?

ObL’s fate was decided by one of Obama’s patented Death Panels™.

Actually I was just agreeing with you and amplifying what I thought you were saying.

aka tipping point.

According to interview I linked to above, the tipping point for Arab revolutions was Soviet demise. Irony abounds.

There is a domestic analogy, though I haven’t identified it yet.

Last night, in an interaction with oldgold, I typed that neocons & neolibs won the Cold War which oldgold hypothesized was a war that U.S. won.

Oldgold & I talked past each other. S/he thought I meant that policies of neocons & neolibs were cause of U.S. victory.

Not at all what I meant. I meant that, whatever was responsible for U.S. victory in CW (my own hypothesis is stooopid econ policies which self-destructed USSR; but whatever), the neocons & neolibs won bc, without Soviet oppo, noecons neolibs were able to impose their policies on U.S.

Analogous to Iranians winning U.S. war against Iraq. Even though Iran was not a direct belligerent, final result was that Iran is now much more powerful locally (control over both Iraq & Iran) than before U.S. invasion.

Anyhow, wrt tipping point, there may come one in the U.S., but it is not apparent to me yet.

WI seems like closest example, but too soon to tell.

Night Thers.

It’s not for us peons to question 1000 military lily pads all over the world.

IOW, empires that choose to end ungraciously, like the U.S., are immune to reason.

I don’t think Wisconsin is the tipping point though it was a close thing. If anything Wisconsin is going to be a warning that historians look back on a shake their heads because the politicians ignored it.

I figured but I just wanted to be clear. :)

I think you are basically right about the demise of the Soviet Union. Biggest problem from my perspective was too much rigid centralized control over the economy and devoting an unsustainable percentage of GDP and productive capacity to defense industries (not unlike a certain current super power which will remain nameless in this latter).

I’ll reserve judgment until more evidence available. *g*

Agreed! Like I said, it’s almost always unexpected.

I’m not so much interested in what caused demise of USSR (have my hypothesis, aka “belief” and am sticking to it until someone pokes me in the behind with contrary evidence I can’t ignore).

I’m much more interested with all the uninvestigated implications of U.S. victory.

Like it might be phyrric bc now no one give a FF about the U.S.

I think it may be part of a trend (similar eruptions now happening in Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan) that marks the tipping point, but not in itself.

Could be. The thing about despots is they always create the people who bring them down.

Apparently the Tea Parties are having fits over Ryan’s budget. Don’t like it at all. They wanted everything cut for “those” people, not them.

Not our choice but the host country’s choice…so why are they not. They want to be part of the One World PNAC plan instead of independent nation?
You are one smart cookie, Nothing stays the same it is all impermanent. The survival dance is challenging I like Ashoka’s plan…ban violence.

You know, my Uncle said something once that still kind of sticks out in my mind to this day. We have the 2nd amendment which upholds the right to bear arms, and the vast majority (yeah, what a generalization) of us are essentially nothing more than civilized barbarians.

I’m still quite young and I can definitely tell you that we seem to be more a culture of violence and fighting due to being constantly bombarded by that sort of stimuli. Control the environment, you control the behavior.

I think it may be Pyrrhic because we are making some of the same mistakes that they did. I think the decreasing influence of the US has more to do with structural shifts in the world system than the absence of the USSR (I think that we also tend to overinflate our earlier influence). Outsourcing has actually diminished our economic significance while bolstering the economies and productive capacity of a number of developing countries. What we see now is China emerging as a potential economic superpower and countries like Korea, Taiwan, Brazil, and India exercising an increasing amount of economic muscle, particularly in their corners of the world.

Well that has been pretty obvious. Their whole opposition to taxes has always been “you are taking our hard earned money and giving it to those lazy, shiftless, unworthy people.”

Power vacuums create opportunity. I bet Ecahn could do a wonderful model if motivated as to the possibilities of shift in powers. Iran more Saudi less…China more USA less…India more Pak less and so so on for all continents. One can day dream.

Doesn’t surprise me a bit. All the teabaggers were ever good for is complaining in four-part harmony.

I think you have a point there. In the absence of the USSR, we loosened our grip on the system, which allowed others to take more initiative than we or the Soviets allowed them to during the Cold War.

Part of interacting with the rest of society requires that you pay taxes, it’s your civic duty and it’s what you do as a citizen. If you even remotely want to interact with society, then you should pay your taxes. Otherwise, I’d argue that you have no right to be a part of that society. Simple enough.

I hate the idea that I have to give up a percentage of my pay to taxes, but that’s part of being an adult and learning to be a responsible citizen. I have no problem with it at all, especially if it goes to help those less fortune than myself.

I’d argue that our education system and civics classes have failed these poor, unfortunate souls. Instead of being pissed off at their selfishness and arrogance, I feel only pity.

Ah, but local interests is exactly what I was referring to in 40.

During bilateral power, locals had to choose btw U.S. & U.S.S.R.

Now they get to choose btw U.S. & themselves.

Voila!

U.S. loses.

Cue irony.

U.S.”wins” CW & “loses” most power struggle thereafter.

Again, too soon to tell, but certainly provides insight into ME uprisings in recent times, and abject failures of U.S. to draw certain telling examples into U.S. sphere, like failed Venezuela coup & Georgia attempt.

They wanted everything cut for “those” people, not them.

Yep. I’m wondering if any of them are going to wake up and see how they’ve been manipulated this whole time by those same wealthy people who they now revile. I think that might be too much to expect though.

you’re in montana??

M’eh. My older brother went to the same high school I did, took almost all of the same classes I did and he turned into a “Libertarian” who refused to pay his taxes for several years by declaring himself a “sovereign citizen” or some such nonsense, then whined loudly and blamed everybody but himself when the IRS caught up with him. He’s also a very intelligent person.

He also lives in Oak Hill and his home was recently saved from a wildfire by a C-130 dropping water on it three streets from his own. I wonder how he feels about paying taxes now? Something tells me that nothing has changed.

Time for me to toddle off. This was a big day and I am beat. Take care all.

Yep. In the western part of the state.

how did it get so fucking late??? i’m outta here. night all. take it easy as best you can

Global corps are definitely part of the hypothesis, discussed in the interview link above.

But so is BRIC, also in the interview & diff fr global corps.

BRICs, with resources of their own, have been able to say FU to U.S., and U.S. controlled WB, IMF.

U.S. response (and remember that is very important as to how soon & how spectacularly U.S. empire will fail) is to launch military actions against more & more (Muslim) countries, while starving everything worthwhile domestically, like science & social welfare.

U.S. foreign AND domestic actions combine to spin U.S. empire into oblivion more quickly than if U.S. responded intelligently in either sphere, let alone both spheres.

g’nite dr dick and bfl

big state, huh? many the miles you are away from the land of the great osage. this a permanent thing? at least temporarily? i’ve always imagined Monatana to be one of tghe most beautiful places in the usa. in the summer. is it?

night sooooze. night dr. dick

Night DrD

Oya BfL

Think I’m gonna get in bed too. Actually slept last night and so far tonight the tooth is doing okay. Oyasumi Nasai koinu.

good news margaret. g’nite

It is about 1600 miles from where I grew up on the eastern edge of the Great Osage. This is permanent and I have been here for 13 years now. Montana really is gorgeous, especially here in the west (I am not a fan of the Great Plains, so most of the eastern part of the state leaves me cold). Summers here are gorgeous as well, as long as the forests are not burning. Generally in the 70s-80s and sunny all summer (the lack of rain is a big reason the forests tend to burn). Now I really do have to head to bed.

My niecy is holding my hand thru some personal difficulties.

She & I are at opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to PhRMA research, since she earns her living that way and I am dismissive of most of it.

So she & I had a telling conversation with a couple on Sat on that subject. I gave my rant on big PhRMA (laughingly-referred-to-as) research, and she contributed examples of the kinds of dermatology drug research studies she oversees in a small private practice.

We actually ended up with a small meeting of the minds, in the context that she agreed that BIG PhRMA was the worst wrt protocols, difficulty of carrying them out, all the usual stuff you would imagine.

Will have more conversations with her to listen to her experience and tell her about my context. Have high hopes.

Don’t know whether that same thing can happen with your relatives, i.e. whether you can latch onto something that is personal that fits your model but violates your relatives, but that is the only way I’ve been able to worm my way into a political conversion.

In the 70′s I a was in Africa and onserved Japanese bottom gathering resources in Africa as China Built a railway to Zambia to get that resource. So now resources may determine the power stuggle rather than Military power. Krugman got his awards for regional trade models. Trade pacts may be a defining tool in balance of power. Globalizing has weakened our influence. Many ideas back fire having unintended consequences like empowering Iran with Iraq regime change. Greed seems to trump wisdom in the village of DC.

Yeah, big pharma are the absolute worse on following protocol and their Independent Review Boards are anything but independent.

eI’ve noticed that Chinese are dancing circles around U.S. wrt resources. Cue IRONY.

Krugman, gah. An uninspiring command of the obvious.

What I particularly liked about the interview was that the U.S. now counted for bupkis.

I.E. (LOL) U.S. is still laboring under the delusion that it is a global power, and flailing around wildly under that delusion, which may well include bombing Iran and certainly includes wasting trillions, while a large part of the rest of world yawns.

Time for nighty nite.

Luv y’all.

g’nite ecahn

That’s because teabaggers are to stoopid to realize they are “those people”.

Like everything that reaches a peak, the United States must slip or curve downward. No nation has stayed on top of the rest of the world forever. The best the United States can hope for is that the current downward slide moves into a curve of sustainable mediocrity (better by far than a crash and agonizingly decades-long recovery).

Industry is what fueled U.S. wealth. With most of that gone, now, even our military industrial complex is incapable of sustaining itself. Without convertible manufacturing plants, the military is limited to using its most deadly weapons against those old foes, Russia & China, should we or they decide to attack the other, making nuclear war likely for lack of being able to tool less apocalyptic defenses.

So, it is my conclusion that if the United States is doomed to not curve out of a crash, it will use what weapons it has to take the rest of the world down with it.

And then there is thishttp://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Az43IjZf25M

One of the things I was taught about the Space Race was that it was a kind of stand in for war wrt being a driver of technical innovation without the death and destruction of war. But war is so much easier. Much better source of political photo ops, much more macho, lends itself so much to accusing one’s opponents of a lack of patriotism/support for The Troops, you name it. So if you can arrange to have your wars fought elsewhere, as we’ve mostly been able to, so much easier to go out and whale on some unfortunate country.

I know we can’t make the horse drink (to continue the analogy from upthread), but wouldn’t it be great to take the money we’re spending on wars (I’d also like most of the rest of the $$ we’re spending on the MIC, but baby steps) and apply it to a massive infrastructure project – all that preventive maintenance on bridges, dams, levees, and roadways we’ve been irresponsibly ignoring, work on redesigning our power grid with a view to including renewables, that kind of stuff. I don’t think Obama would support it, since he had the chance with the stimulus and chose not to take it.

Of course, actually believing that a great public education system is a public good would help, too.

I used to work at the R&D site for a chemical company, and most of the new researchers were coming from China, India, Europe. Not a good sign.

Thanks to corporations I don’t think america can even put its pants on in the morning