We Are the Children of Empire

We are the children of Empire. From the first stirrings of civilization, we can draw a direct line from the ancients of the middle east, through the Greek and Roman empires to the Germanic/British empires all the way to our dominant and triumphant empire of these United States. Our European conquest of the New World, which us Americans are direct beneficiaries, was violent, brutal and comprehensive. The Spaniards, of course, created the largest and most brutal, using genocide of the local natives as a way to satisfy their lustful greed. Once the Native Americans couldn’t provide the necessary manpower to satisfy this very Christian empire, they began the largest slave trade known to human history, using mainly Africans. The English desperately tried to emulate the “success” of the Spaniards. Starting with Jamestown and quickly moving through the Massachussetts Bay Company, the English established the American colonies as a wealth pump for Mother England. They created a systemic elimination of Native Americans through broken treaties, the use of “English Justice”, germ warfare and sheer brutal violence (see the Pequot and King Phillip Wars). Once we gained control from the Atlantic Coast to the Pacific and all points in between, we moved to Latin America and began our expansion into the Pacific Asia arena. Our incursion into the international stage began with the American Civil War and extended through the Spanish and Philippine Wars and into the World Wars. Once the World Wars were completed, the British had lost their overseas dominance and were replaced by the USA/USSR dichotomy. This, of course, collapsed with the Berlin Wall which left the USA all alone at the top with the rising star of China quickly trying to push its way to the top. It has always been about money, power and control. Ego, greed, lust. The USA doesn't bother with physical conquest and permanent occupation anymore, but much prefers to establish puppet governments. Look to Cuba until Castro, the Banana Republics and Iraq. "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" by John Perkins is a good place to see the inner evil of our economic empire. To truly understand how this progression was possible, and why it matters to us today, it is necessary to understand how empires use energy and especially how our American Empire has used our energy resources to gain our top spot in the world pecking order. Looking at how energy propelled the American "success" story will be the topic of the next post.

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setting the framework

In the past, my writing has been sporadic in its outlook as well as in its output. I hope to change that on both accounts, the former by providing a framework and focus to the general direction of my posts and the latter by posting on a weekly basis on every Thursday night. We shall see. I am often pulled in many directions at once but I will try my best.

I have two primary goals in my writing.

1.To articulate the decline and fall of the American Empire.

This topic is overwhelming in its evidence and therefore endless in its possibilities but I will attempt to focus on a few highlights:
a. Resource depletion especially oil
b. Population/economic growth
c. Economic/societal disintegration due to the conflicting trends of population/economic growth and resource depletion

2. To convince you, the reader, that support for Vermont secession is the only moral, economic, and sustainably viable option for the coming decades and centuries.

I will address the historical record as a way to help divine a more just and equal government that is dedicated to preserving our basic human rights. This will include:

a. The formation of a truly egalitarian nation
b. The 1777 Vermont Constitution
c. Freedom and Unity
d. A sustainable competitive market place.

I look forward to this task and I hope you, the reader, will join me on this journey. What I especially hope for is that you will also choose to participate and become part of the conversation by posting your comments and opinions.

...but I love republicanism

Wow. Incendiary, volatile, angry. My previous post is all those things. At this point, I think it necessary to differentiate between Republicans and republicans.

The ideal of republicanism is a long standing tradition within the Vermont ethos. Little "r" republicanism is essentially a government "of the people, by the people, and for the people". This means that if we want our government to provide universal health care, then the government should provide universal health care. If we want to shutdown Vermont Yankee, then we should be able to shut down Vermont Yankee.

Unfortunately, the modern Republican Party does not serve the people anymore but instead works to preserve and promote the wealthy and the privileged. They serve the multi-national corporation and the people who run them. Members of the Republican Party are no longer republicans.

This is our highest ideal, this republicanism. As we lose our power to control the actions of our government, as the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, continue to fester, as corporations become more important than people, as security becomes more important than liberty, we lose our republicanism and we become...enslaved.

PS. Thank you my dear readers for waiting such a long time for a post. I will be writing more often, I promise. And look Mom...no "f" words!

All Republicans are Fucking Liars

"At last we have more room to play.
All systems go to kill the poor tonight.

Gonna
Kill kill kill kill kill the poor.
kill kill kill Kill kill the poor
kill kill kill Kill kill the poor…Tonight"

The Dead Kennedy's 1980

All Republicans are Fucking Liars. Yes, I said it. Finally the truth is out. You think Republicans care about the deficit? What a laugh. The recent Congressional Budget Office report projects a 1.5 trillion deficit for the upcoming year, an increase of 400 billion from its previous projections. Why? Because of the renewal of the huge Bush era tax cuts. Yes, that's right. The Republicans actions caused a massive increase to the very thing they have stridently campaigned against. So obviously, when they are freakin' out about the deficit, they are fucking lying.

So what is their real agenda? Well, the first and most important thing is to preserve the wealthprivilege that is the perceived birthright of the uber-wealthy. There is a decade’s long trend of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. Allowing extremely wealthy people to keep more money than they know what to do with is a detriment to our society at large.

The second part of their agenda is related to the first and becomes apparent after looking at what they are cutting from federal spending and that is to cut as much spending for the poor as they can. They are cutting every service that government offers. Do you think those services serve the wealthyprivileged? No, they serve the poor. Who is going to take the brunt of all this deficit reduction? That's right, the poor. Who is getting tax cuts? Oh yeah, I already mentioned that; the fucking rich. To the wealthyprivileged and their Republican (and sometimes Democrat) lackeys, the poor are never going away and any investment on the lower demographic is a waste of money that they should have. This also speaks to the essential racism of Republicans, because guess what? A high proportion of the poor are people of color and who gives a fuck about them. Never mind the poor white trailer trash. Fuck them too. They are only fodder for manipulation, the stupid fucking ignorant idiots (that probably is not very PC, sorry).

The third prong is the advancement of cultural agenda of the white man's wealthprivilege that is narrowly defined by their Judeo-Christian arrogance that has dominated and destroyed everything and everyone in its path for the last 600 years (ask a native american about immigrants). This allows Republicans to gay bash, to declare Obama’s birth certificate invalid and to call him a Muslim; to cut funding for Planned Parenthood and for heating aid for the poor; to build walls on our borders and to call those in dissent unpatriotic. If you don’t say the pledge of allegiance you’re unpatriotic. If you don’t wear a flag lapel then you are not a true American. If you don’t believe in ruining every last acre of global real estate in the pursuit of fossil fuel, then you must be a God-damned Commie. It is ultimately anti-freedom and anti-liberty and the very definition of tyranny.

And of course, we are also seeing a full court press on workers rights. Not only are Republicans wanting to maintain a large poverty class, they are also interested in destroying what’s left of our middle class. Events in Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio and Idaho confirm this. All one needs to do is to see the motivations of such scumbags like Rupert Murdoch and the Koch brothers to see their nefarious trends.

Please, please, please be vigilant towards those who would like to steal our rights. Cut benefits for the poor and disadvantaged to balance the budget? Well at least tax the fucking rich. They need to pay a disproportionate amount because they are the only ones with any kind of discretionary money. I’m sorry, but they can wait another year to upgrade their Porsche SUV. The rest of us are struggling just to survive.