The Dissolution of the United States as a Superpower

a reply to: MKMoniker

I agree with you in that regard. I would say that widespread and unchecked corruption is a major indicator of the failing health of an empire. As the empire ages, people become able to more and more extort the rest of the populous out of money, they become entrenched and slowly drain the empire of life weakening it. It is a slow strangle though, rather than a swift kill blow. Even the Roman Empire was plagued by consolidation of wealth to the few. That's how the feudal ages came about after the Empire's downfall.

a reply to: cavtrooper7

Thanks for your reply. What is an Objective Force Warrior? I couldn't find anything on it.

The Russian military Spec Ops may not be that good. But Putin hELPED created the federal FSB. (This seems to be getting back to the idea of a Specialized Protection Force, much as Hitler had with the SS, that can operate domestically or in foreign environs, and only takes orders from the top.)

www.globalsecurity.org...
GLOBAL SECURITY: RUSSIA'S "FSB"
"The FSB's power is rooted in the influence of President Vladimir Putin, a former director, and a vast network of former officers that has permeated all sectors of Russian government and society. It is estimated that, among Russia’s 1,000 leading political figures, 78% have worked with the FSB or its predecessors. With this sort of clout at its disposal, FSB carries out intelligence, counter-intelligence, counter-terrorism, economic crime investigation, electronic intelligence, border control and “social monitoring.”

"SPEC OPS in the western sense are not easy to create, only a fraction of our militaries can make it."

I don't think so. I counted about thirty specialized U.S. Spec Ops in this article:

www.businessinsider.com...
(2013) MOST ELITE SPECIAL FORCES IN THE U.S.

And, as I've posted elsewhere, military-style Spec Ops are also being created in some domestic police or sheriffs' departments:

www.special-ops.org...
OREGON COUNTRY "TACTICAL NEGOTIATIONS TEAM"

With rogue shooters killing dozens of innocent people at a time, and the increasing mortality rate for police all over the country, I don't begrudge them forming "Tactical Negotiations" teams within their departments. As long as they have set parameters, and are only called upon in the most dangerous situations. These county officers in Oregon seem to have planned it correctly, since the unit was created in 1976 and they only average 25 calls a year.

a reply to: spy66

Thanks for your post.

What people don't realize, is that the greedy Global Elitists are driving our foreign policy for their own war-profiteering interests - AND to get their claws into a "proposed" gas/oil pipeline that could generate billions:

www.prisonplanet.com...
(March 2013) BILDERBERG ELITISTS OVERHEARD PLOTTING TO GET THE U.S. TO START WAR IN SYRIA

ftmdaily.com...
(August 2013) WHY SYRIA? AN EXAMINATION OF THE IRAN-IRAQ-SYRIA PIPELINE
"n the summer of 2011, just weeks after civil war broke out in Syria, the Tehran Times released a report entitled, Iran, Iraq, Syria Sign Major Gas Pipeline Deal. The report provided details on Iranian plans to export its vast natural gas reserves to Europe through a pipeline that traverses both Iraq and Syria. This new Iran-Iraq-Syria pipeline would reportedly be the largest gas pipeline in the Middle East and would span from Iran’s gas-rich South Pars field to the Mediterranean coastline in Lebanon, via Iraq and Syria."

a reply to: MKMoniker

www.prisonplanet.com...
(March 2013) BILDERBERG ELITISTS OVERHEARD PLOTTING TO GET THE U.S. TO START WAR IN SYRIA

Good ol' Alex Jones.

It has to be true if AJ is running with that story.

Ever wonder who is "pulling our strings"? What grand egos plot each country's moves - and wars? Why the lamestream media in the U.S. is practically worthless, puffing up minor stories like Ebola while more important news is never reported?

Driving the U.S. economy into the ground, while graduating high school students who can barely read - and won't ever get good jobs - as well as college graduates taught only Theory by tenured profs who have never worked a day in the field they teach? Why there is such an active suppression of genius-level innovation and creative technology? Read on ...

www.globalresearch.ca...
THE TRUE STORY OF THE BILDERBERG GROUP - AND THEIR ULTIMATE OBJECTIVES

– “one international identify (observing) one set of universal values;”

– centralized control of world populations by “mind control;” in other words, controlling world public opinion;

– a New World Order with no middle class, only “rulers and servants (serfs),” and, of course, no democracy;

– “A ZERO-GROWTH SOCIETY” without prosperity or progress, only greater wealth and power for the rulers;

– MANUFACTURED CRISES AND PERPETUAL WARS;

– ABSOLUTE CONTROL OF EDUCATION to program the public mind and train those chosen for various roles;

– “centralized control of all foreign and domestic policies;” one size fits all globally;

– using the UN as a de facto world government imposing a UN tax on “world citizens;”

– expanding NAFTA and WTO globally;

– making NATO a world military;

– imposing a universal legal system; and

– a global “welfare state where obedient slaves will be rewarded and non-conformists targeted for extermination.”

Never mind a handful of Ebola cases pushing the U.S. toward possible martial law, the other Superpowers in the world (Russia and China) seem to be getting chummier than ever. And while the U.S. embraces its HiTech Advances and Internet as the road to the future, China and Russia will achieve more - and faster - with old fashioned railroads.

nextbigfuture.com...
CHINA MOVING AHEAD WITH "GLOBAL LAND BRIDGE" VISION - WITH TRANS AFRICAN RAIL LINE AND 'NEW SILK ROAD'

nextbigfuture.com...
REPORTS THAT CHINA AND RUSSIA ARE TALKING ABOUT A JOINT $250 BILLION BEIJING-TO-MOSCOW HIGH SPEED RAILROAD

(NOTE: Once the U.S. crawls out from under the economic, militarized debacle of Team Obama, Russia and China will be the only Superpowers still standing - and we'll be lucky to crank up some personal electricity thru solar panels.)

Obama has been an abysmal President, whether he is or is not "engaged." And yet there is a "reality disconnect" by his Team. Michelle Obama is campaigning in Denver, and calls her husband's job performance "phenomenal".

www.denverpost.com...
MICHELLE OBAMA STUMPS FOR SEN. MARK UDALL IN DENVER, COLORADO
"Sometimes," she said, "when things get better, we forget how bad they were." She offered up what she called "facts": Job growth is up, unemployment is down and working families are paying less in taxes.

"And because of the Affordable Care Act, millions of Americans have finally gotten health insurance," she said to cheers that nearly drowned her out.

"A Denver Post poll released last week showed about two-thirds of likely voters say their opinion of President Obama is a factor in their decision Nov. 4. Obama's approval rating is 41 percent, compared with 56 percent who disapprove."

(This must be just a reflection of the Team Obama campaign strategy: over-simplify, offer no details that contradict what you just over-simplified, and if you have to - outright lie. And as far as Obamacare, another front page discussion on ATS is from a family man whose cost for health insurance just went up 78% for 2015.)

nypost.com...

EX-CBS REPORTER'S BOOK REVEALS HOW LIBERAL MEDIA PROTECT OBAMA
"Now that she’s no longer on the CBS payroll, this pit bull is off the leash and tearing flesh off the behinds of senior media and government officials. In her new memoir/exposé “Stonewalled: My Fight for Truth Against the Forces of Obstruction, Intimidation, and Harassment in Obama’s Washington” (Harper), Sharyl Attkisson unloads on her colleagues in big-time TV news for their cowardice and cheerleading for the Obama administration, while unmasking the corruption, misdirection and outright lying of today’s Washington political machine.

"The administration, with the full cooperation of the media, has successfully turned “Benghazi” into a word associated with nutters, like “Roswell” or “grassy knoll,” but Attkisson notes that “the truth is that most of the damaging information came from Obama administration insiders. From government documents. From sources who were outraged by their own government’s behavior and what they viewed as a coverup.

”After Pelley and Shevlin aired a report that wrongly tarnished reports by Attkisson (and Jonathan Karl of ABC News) on how the administration scrubbed its talking points of references to terrorism after Benghazi, and did so without mentioning that the author of some of the talking points, Ben Rhodes, was the brother of the president of CBS News, she says a colleague told her, “[CBS] is selling you down the river. They’ll gladly sacrifice your reputation to save their own. If you don’t stand up for yourself, nobody will.”

Is everyone under the impression that one day a large part of North America is going to disappear? Yes one day US power wil strink but it will always have nukes so therefor it will always have power.

originally posted by: Ancient Champion
Is everyone under the impression that one day a large part of North America is going to disappear? Yes one day US power wil strink but it will always have nukes so therefor it will always have power.

How capable the US will be in the future conserning their nuckes, Depends on their financial capabillity. It COSTs Money to maintain and drift these Things.

The US have debt far byond the moon, so it dosent look good.

a reply to: tsurfer2000h

BELIEVE me when I say THERE are times when "STUPID" kills.

a reply to: MKMoniker

I mean our OWN militaries in that response.
The adaptive thought process forsered in the west is the winning edge. I would have no doubt of any other men being succesful if THEY HAD access to the same western training,but in order to execute THAT same training as WE do you have to IGNORE rules ALOT.
What enevitably happens is the only thing correct about any plan is the starting location.
YOUR butt has to make it up from THERE based on your training and discipline.
THE US armed forces fight like we play football.
My 56 yr old brother is a SWAT member. Police groups aren't special units just tactics.

a reply to: spy66

Doesn't mean the US is going to be powerless in the future. What will happen and what people want to happen are two different things.

The US will stay one for many, many, many years to come.

We have been heading towards third-world nation status for years, though obviously that will take many years to happen.

Causes of this include other countries working together to overcome their dependence on us, the cost of endless war, globalization, immigration/population growth, corporate greed and influence, a divided populace, and the decrease in the education of Americans and increase in dirtbags that would rather play with guns than be useful citizens.

a reply to: cavtrooper7

Thanks for your reply. And I am very pro-military, nobody needs to question that.

What I question is how Team Obama has treated our military branches since he arrived in office in 2009. He has never had any military service, and both fears and loathes the military. (And since most military folks vote Republican and/or Conservative, Obama must think he can diss the military and not lose any votes.)

And I understand that most Spec Ops have dangerous missions to accomplish that may be outside the rule book. But Spec Ops are mushrooming in every country, and Team Obama has been using them like his personal security force, much like Russia's Putin with their FSB:

www.businessinsider.com...
RUSSIAN SPEC OPS TRAINING REGIME

Curiously, the late Tom Clancy's last book, "Command Authority", was supposedly about a U.S. President with a personal Spec Ops force that answered only to him. It wasn't long after it came out, than Clancy was dead:

www.amazon.com...=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1414591467&sr=1-1&keywords=tom+clancy+new+rele ases
TOM CLANCY - "COMMAND AUTHORITY"

My point is that Team Obama is using Spec Ops (or ex-Spec Ops "contractors") like their personal militia. So it's quite possible some of them trained (and might still be embedded in) the ISIS. Which some people are now comparing to that other mismanaged quagmire, VietNam:

dailycaller.com...
PENTAGON OFFICIAL MAPS OUT SIMILARITIES BETWEEN OBAMA'S ISIS AND KENNEDY'S VIETNAM

If anyone doubts what Team Obama has done to the pride, morale and future of this country, take a gander at this:

www.washingtonexaminer.com...

GIVING UP: 40% OF WOMEN, 28% OF MEN, 39% OF YOUTH DON'T WANT A JOB
"Nearly four in 10 Americans, or 92 million, are not in the labor force and now there’s a reason why: They have simply given up and don’t want to work.

"According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the largest group of people not in the labor force are those who don’t want a job, a remarkable statement on the nation’s work ethic. The federal job counter said that 85.9 million adults last month didn’t want a job, or 93 percent of all adults not in the labor force."

(Anyone surprised after six disastrous years under the non-leadership, non-motivating putrified miasma of the current Administration? And typical of tiny minds, instead of improving their performance, Team Obama just goes after their critics with claws bared.)

a reply to: MKMoniker

I don't think it's because of Obama specifically, he hasn't helped matters but these issues come from Congress. I understand completely where these people are coming from. Wealth inequality is at the highest point in the countries history, wages are being rapidly outpaced by inflation, benefits were cut, working hours were cut so that even if you do have a job you can't earn enough, and careers have been replaced with service sector jobs destroying our upward mobility. Why would anyone want to work under those conditions?

Congress hasn't tried to do a damn thing to fix it. One party in Congress is running on a platform of wealth inequality is a good thing because you might be rich some day and the other is running on a platform of mandating you purchase products. Not working (if you can actually find a job... they don't exist) is a rejection of both. If you're going to be in poverty you might as well have your time, and you can't be forced to purchase something if you have no money to buy it in the first place.

a reply to: Aazadan

Excellent post! Thanks.

This country also has a problem of rapidly advancing technology - and too few are educated and motivated enough to ride the crest of this advancement. The rest are left in the dust, and the social impact is:

1) Growing wealth/success inequity.

2) Poorly schooled kids in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math), that leaves them totally unprepared for the evermore technical jobs out there. (Manufacturing jobs with robotics is begging for workers who have just the basic technical skills to program and run the robotics. And not every company can afford a BAXTER robot that can learn by watching a demonstration. And has anyone figured out what Google is up to, after buying up tons of robotic companies in the past year or so?)

3) A confused and disheartened work force, either working for pennies below their education level, or working several jobs at an unliveable minimum wage just to make ends meet. The burn-out and despair are now tangible with that poll - and our ever-rising suicide rate.

I don't know what all the answers are. I doubt we're going to get a federally-mandated "living wage/minimum wage". But States and Cities have passed their own elevated minimum wage, and the rest of the States may have to pick up the slack.

And as our schools struggle, I think all young people should learn how to do computer code - even if it means taking lessons off the Internet. This is now what typing was when I was in high school - a very basic skill than can open a lot of employment doors.

code.org...

learn.code.org...

www.codecademy.com...

www.techspot.com...
DOZENS OF ON-LINE RESOURCES TO LEARN HOW TO CODE

originally posted by: MKMoniker
And as our schools struggle, I think all young people should learn how to do computer code - even if it means taking lessons off the Internet. This is now what typing was when I was in high school - a very basic skill than can open a lot of employment doors.

I've gone back and forth on this. On the one hand I'm biased towards doing that so I see the use in it. On the other hand I don't see where to reasonably fit it into a curriculum. On top of that there's the issue that some people simply can't code, no matter how much you teach them they don't grasp concepts like variables and instantiating objects. It's not any failing or unwillingness to learn on their part, their brains simply don't work that way.

If we were going to teach anything tech related as an add on to typing I would personally lean more towards spreadsheets, databases, and SQL than a programming language.

a reply to: Aazadan

Thanks for your post. But I still think young people learning "to code" is the best, basic skill they can learn:

lifehacker.com...
TECH SKILLS AND COURSES GOOGLE RECOMMENDS FOR SOFTWARE ENGINEERS
"Software engineering is one of the most in-demand and best paying careers, but learning computer science can also pay off even if you don't do it professionally. Google has a guide on the courses and experiences future software engineers should consider."

eddinit.wordpress.com...
KIDS LEARN TO CODE WITH ART, MUSIC AND VIDEO GAMES

www.forbes.com...
WANT TO BE A GAME DESIGNER? LEARN TO CODE!