We need to control our borders so the insane money worshippers and Left-Right globalization advocates can’t continue to drive down the price of labor with mass immigration; we need to dismantle the vast government bureaucracies and government unions sponging up so much of the economy and discouraging entrepreneurs, and dumbing down the population with the failing public school system; we need school vouchers redeemable at private schools, and to encourage the opening of more and more private schools; we need to encourage Christianity instead of allowing Hollywood, commercialism, and cultural Marxism to bludgeon it; we need to go into trust busting mode and dismantle many of the huge, soulless, monopolistic corporations and banks run by unpatriotic internationalists and corporatists in order to spur competition and stimulate innovation and entrepreneurialism; we need to dismantle the satanic military-industrial, war-profiteering complex which has encouraged the government’s printing of monopoly money in the false and evil belief that it could coerce the world into playing by the U.S. economic rules and maintain the petro-dollar and the dollar as the world’s reserve currency at the point of a gun indefinitely; the existence of the military-industrial, war-profiteering-complex has also encouraged arbitrary and unnecessary wars that have helped destroy our economy, our reputation, and our morality, and has encouraged the delusions of grandeur of our Washington politicians, many of whom are already megalomaniacs and sociopaths; we need to elect politicians who will enforce the Constitution, and cull the laws of the land down to the essentials, which they then enforce competently and tenaciously; we need to dismantle the K Street lobbying complex in general, and the Israel lobby in particular, which encourages many of the warmongering abuses mentioned above; we need to get Israel off of American welfare, and other countries around the world as well, with any ensuing vacuum being temporarily filled by American NGO’s; we need to shape up the U.N., and turn it into a real peace-keeping force, with the world deciding collectively to which hot spots and emergencies it should be deployed, but only under strict and limited circumstances (the never-ending conflict and perpetual sore spot between Israel and environs, for example, comes to mind).

I enjoyed this article very well thought out and presented…I have a couple of comments

Monsanto needs to be charged with crimes against humanity…and ordered to use some of their crimal monies to help clean up the damages they have done to our environment and our health…

yes, it will take grass roots trickle UP movements for change…demanding a life better for ALL…we ALL live by the rules we have allowed and it is time for some rule changing…

these criminal corporations cannot be tolerated any longer they parade around the globe with their senseless acts against humanity and our planet with no responsiblity or self honesty…

WE the people can make a difference and if they don’t hear us…we shout louder…until they do…we cannot sustain this evil lifestyle of killing each other and the planet much longer..

Thanks for the email article, and I looked at it on your site, too. Let me know if what I say below should be done via your blog, if there is a difference.

I fully agree with your remarks that the current US stage of Empire expansion is hazardous. We have millions of people being paid excessively well for doing unproductive, massively wasteful, and unsustainable jobs in the war, financial, medical, and government bureaucracies. They are largely isolated and cocooned, and unprepared for productive work in the local real economies. I find no reasons to believe that real change can come from the controlling hierarchy. (Consider the bankers. Is it true that three big banks are giving, or have already given, $43.7 billion in bonus payments? Such funds could only come from bailout sources.)

Only a deep national crisis can cause structural change, and this would induce panic among the highly entitled circles. The routine and traditional response to crisis and panic that may threaten authoritarian control is war, because it arouses the population to work harder (increases productivity), and distracts us from the real problems of exploitation. Empires are not introspective or corrective about internal domestic improvements.

In fact, the war for propping up the Empire has been under way for decades. This is the character and purpose of the war on terror, a perpetual war to keep an unsustainable bloated authoritarian bureaucracy in place. This controlling minority feels highly entitled to protect their wealth and other illusions at all costs, certainly including the sacrifice of the less wealthy majority population. Constitutional guidelines and democratic principles are now little more than a propaganda illusion.

As you say, grassroots activities are the only way for recovering and extending US democratic methods, but it is a skill-set challenge since massive outsourcing, beginning long ago with food, has deprived us of the resourceful methods with which this country was built. Local food systems are the best beginning, coupled with education for improved human communication and group work skills that lead to myriad projects of alternative energies, health care, construction, and all the other enterprises that enrich cooperative, enterprising ecovillages, and improve qualities of life for the entire web of life.

Such an effort was initiated by the federal government about seventy years ago, which resulted in the development of Greenbelt and two other people and nature friendly villages, but was quickly stopped by private developers. Today, such an experimental effort would never be supported from a high level of government.

The grassroots movement has begun in many areas of the US. Go Local Ecovillages Now! Create a life affirming Post-Empire USA! Local people working together can improve everything. We can and must regain and rebuild our own nation.

Ralph Nader was partially correct when he said that there’s no real difference between the Democrats or the Republicans. Whoever first stated that the Republicans are shameless and the Democrats are spineless, spelled out the one difference. Both parties (with the notable exceptions of Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul) are in the pockets of Wall Street, large corporations, Israel, the military / industrial complex, and special interests.

It’s now more evident than ever during Obama’s first disappointing year in office, with the Wall Street bailouts, the health care “reform” bill, and the escalation of the wars. How do you expect Progressives and the left to feel? I know I’m probably not going to be voting any more. It’s a waste of time and energy with the current corrupt system in the whorehouse that the Capital has become.

The big deal being made about Scott Brown’s victory is also absurd. He just swings the political pendulum in the other direction. Our current government is just a metronome of misery for average American citizens.

Unless viable other poitical parties take advantage of these circumstances and make inroads, nothing is going to change. Even if every legislator was voted out of office and replaced with freshmen. The two party system is entrenched, broken, and just doesn’t work. 

Change must start with working to build new political parties. Otherwise the pendulum will continue to swing back and forth from bad to worse.

I enjoyed your article immensely, I just read this and your “How Can Localities Cope if the Dollar Crashes?” Piece. Both articles are wonderfully written and shown a lot of insights. You shown great wisdom both from your age and your understanding of the problem at hand.

Keep it up. I just like to add one other thing to your advice. Reduce Personal Debt! I live a minimalistic life style, I live within my means. I do not buy things I can not afford by the cash I have in my bank account. I think a lot of people should learn to be happy with the things they have instead of always wanting more.