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<DIV class=headline>Stacy Herbert offered JCash's rendition of NIN's "Hurt"
<A
href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmVAWKfJ4Go">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmVAWKfJ4Go</A> as
background music for reading this piece by the Great Greenwald. Herbert,
and bff Max Keiser and Greenwald are all expats, probably for somewhat different
reasons. Stacy and Greenwald definitely tend to the left while Max and I
are likely more toward the right although Max is closer to the edge.</DIV>
<DIV class=headline> </DIV>
<DIV class=headline>Really some of us expected a major sort of crash in the
70's that was somehow forestalled, and another one was expected in the late
80's. Wilkerson predicted the Gulf War and offered it as a prophetic sign
of a greater calamity to come.</DIV>
<DIV class=headline> </DIV>
<DIV class=headline>What's Next? It seems that the general population in
the US is really too weak, lazy, willing to be misinformed, and co-opted by
various schizmatic ideologies to take any real action against their
taskmasters.</DIV>
<DIV class=headline> </DIV>
<DIV class=headline>It really doesnt matter if the people have guns at this
juncture. The government has the big guns.</DIV>
<DIV class=headline> </DIV>
<DIV class=headline><FONT size=4>What collapsing empire looks like</FONT></DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV id=story_mps2034616 class="story clearfix greenwald">
<DIV class="byline clearfix"><SPAN>By <A
href="http://www.salon.com/author/glenn_greenwald/index.html">Glenn
Greenwald</A></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV class="sbody permalink">
<DIV id=story_preview_mps2034616 class=story_preview>
<DIV class="art l"><STRONG></STRONG> </DIV>
<DIV class="art l"><STRONG>(updated below)</STRONG> </DIV>
<P>As we enter our ninth year of the War in Afghanistan with an escalated force,
and continue to occupy Iraq indefinitely, and feed an endlessly growing
Surveillance State, reports are emerging of the Deficit Commission hard at work
planning how to cut Social Security, Medicare, and now <A
href="http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/08/source-debt-commission-fights-over-freezing-military-pay-slashing-benefits.php"
target=_blank>even to freeze military pay</A>. But <A
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/07/us/07cutbacksWEB.html?hp"
target=_blank>a new <EM>New York Times</EM> article</A> today illustrates as
vividly as anything else what a collapsing empire looks like, as it profiles
just a few of the budget cuts which cities around the country are being forced
to make. This is a sampling of what one finds:</P>
<P></P>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
<P>Plenty of businesses and governments furloughed workers this year, but
Hawaii went further -- <STRONG>it furloughed its schoolchildren</STRONG>.
Public schools across the state closed on 17 Fridays during the past school
year to save money, giving students the shortest academic year in the
nation.</P>
<P>Many transit systems have cut service to make ends meet, but Clayton
County, Ga., a suburb of Atlanta, decided to cut all the way, and <STRONG>shut
down its entire public bus system</STRONG>. Its last buses ran on March 31,
stranding 8,400 daily riders.</P>
<P>Even public safety has not been immune to the budget ax. In Colorado
Springs, the downturn will be remembered, quite literally, as a dark age:
<STRONG>the city switched off a third of its 24,512 streetlights to save money
on electricity, while trimming its police force and auctioning off its police
helicopters.</STRONG></P></BLOCKQUOTE>
<P>There are some lovely photos accompanying the article, including one showing
what a darkened street in Colorado looks like as a result of not being able to
afford street lights. Read the article to revel in the details of this
widespread misery. Meanwhile, the tiniest sliver of the wealthiest -- the
ones who caused these problems in the first place -- <A
href="http://modeledbehavior.com/2010/07/22/income-inequality-a-deeper-look/"
target=_blank>continues to thrive</A>. Let's recall what former
IMF Chief Economist Simon Johnson <A
href="http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/05/the-quiet-coup/7364/"
target=_blank>said last year in <EM>The Atlantic</EM></A> about what happens in
under-developed and developing countries when an elite-caused financial crises
ensues:</P>
<P></P>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
<P>Squeezing the oligarchs, though, is seldom the strategy of choice among
emerging-market governments. Quite the contrary: at the outset of the crisis,
the oligarchs are usually among the first to get extra help from the
government, such as preferential access to foreign currency, or maybe a nice
tax break, or -- here's a classic Kremlin bailout technique -- the assumption
of private debt obligations by the government. Under duress, generosity toward
old friends takes many innovative forms. Meanwhile, <STRONG>needing to squeeze
someone, most emerging-market governments look first to ordinary working folk
-- at least until the riots grow too large.</STRONG></P></BLOCKQUOTE>
<P>The real question is whether the American public is too apathetic and trained
into submission for that to ever happen.</P>
<P> </P>
<P><U><STRONG>UPDATE</STRONG></U>: It's probably also worth noting <A
href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704913304575370950363737746.html"
target=_blank>this <EM>Wall St. Journal</EM> article from last month</A> --
with a subheadline warning: "<STRONG>Back to Stone
Age</STRONG>" -- which describes how "<STRONG>paved roads</STRONG>,
historical emblems of American achievement, are being torn up across rural
America and replaced with gravel or other rough surfaces as counties struggle
with tight budgets and dwindling state and federal revenue." Utah is
seriously considering <A
href="http://articles.latimes.com/2010/feb/15/nation/la-na-utah-school15-2010feb15"
target=_blank>eliminating the <STRONG>12th grade</STRONG>, or making it
optional</A>. And it was <A
href="http://www.philly.com/philly/news/new_jersey/20100806_Camden_preparing_to_close_library_system.html"
target=_blank>announced this week</A> that "Camden [New Jersey] is preparing to
permanently shut its <STRONG>library system</STRONG> by the end of the year,
potentially leaving residents of the impoverished city among the few in the
United States unable to borrow a library book free."</P>
<P>Does anyone doubt that once a society ceases to be able to afford schools,
public transit, paved roads, libraries and street lights -- or once it chooses
not to be able to afford those things <A
href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/12/01/politics/main5846260.shtml"
target=_blank>in pursuit</A> of <A
href="http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/07/21/97915/state-dept-planning-to-field-a.html"
target=_blank>imperial priorities</A> and the maintenance of a <A
href="http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/" target=_blank>vast
Surveillance</A> and <A
href="http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/01/26/defense">National
Security State</A> -- that a very serious problem has arisen, that things have
gone seriously awry, that imperial collapse, by definition, is an imminent
inevitability? Anyway, I just wanted to leave everyone with some light and
cheerful thoughts as we head into the
weekend.</P></DIV></DIV></DIV></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>