Text 14304, 293 rader
Skriven 2005-10-07 10:29:00 av Michiel van der Vlist (2:280/5555)
  Kommentar till text 14271 av Raymond Yates (1:3613/48)
Ärende: forever in debt
=======================
Hello Raymond,

 >>> No, and that's not the only component required for a classical
 >>> empire.

 MV>> No one used the term "classical empire". Let's call it an
 MV>> "empire new style" then.

 > Ok, but we'll have to have a new discussion then..

Why? When I wrote "the US empire won't last that long" I didn't limit the scope
to "classical empire". So why should I suddenly start a new discussion because
of your wish to limit the topic of present discussion?

 >>> By defintion, empires have conquests of the military nature,

 MV>> Whose definition?

 > Classical Empire.

If you mean by "classical empire" the Roman Empire and others before that, that
may be true. But for the more mdern empires as the British, that certainly does
not hold. They were build as much on trade as on military might.

 >>> and the inhabitants of the conqured lands become vassals of the
 >>> "winners".

 MV>> There are some opinion makers here in The Netherlands who say we have
 MV>> de facto become a vassel state of the US.

 > Possibly, but "De Facto is not De Jure.

For the inhabitants of the "vassal state" "de jure" is irrelvant for their
perception. For the it is "de fact" that makes their perception.

 > This fails the classical test.

What classical test?

 > You are obviously not subject to US Law, so there you are..

Not so obvious to me. Don't open that can of worms again....

Other than that: even the Romans alllowed conquered states to retain their own
laws. Up to a point.

 >>> Now yes, we have a huge military, chock full with very expensive
 >>> equipment. And yes, we have troops stationed all over the world
 >>> (the sun never sets) but there are significant differences.

 MV>> Not all that significant I'd say.

 > Sure it is, we do not dictate to the sovereign governments,

Oh, but you do. You just do it in a more subtle way than other did.

 > we do not have a Governor that dictates policy, we are not
 > in countries as conqueror.

Not as openly as it used to be done. The resuot is the same however, there is a
net flow from goodies from the "conquered" places to the US.

 > In most cases troops are stationed in foreign countries as
 > part of mutual defense arrangements,

Mutual? Can you tell me where the Ducth air force base in the US is located?

 > at the invitation of the soverign governments.
 > That's a far cry from being an occupying power.

Not as far as you believe I think.

 >>> Most cases (and there are currently exceptions, sad to say) we
 >>> are where we are by invitation.

 MV>> I bet Ceasar would make the same claim...

 > He could try, but he would fail at making people believe it.

Just as you are not entirely succesfull in making me beleive it regarding the
US.

 > after all, Gaul wasn't hurting anyone when he invaded it,
 > and he certainly brought a lot of it back to Rome when he left..

Same goes for the USA and Hawai....

 > Fact is even in Iraq, we can be invited to leave by the
 > government..

And will you really go if they did? I'll believe it when I see it.

 > although I doubt that's going to happen at this moment as the
 > results would not be good for the country, but even so.

I think you have manouvered yourself in a lose/lose situation. Leave and it
will be bad. Stay and it will get worse. I think that in the long run it will
be better if you got the hell out of there. But of course that is not going to
happen whil GWB is still in the driver's seat as it would imply an admission of
defeat.

 >>> We do not have colonies in the traditional sense of the term,

 MV>> But you do have them in the *new* sense of the term. Hawai is a de
 MV>> facto colony of the USA. And it does not even need a big stretch of
 MV>> the imagination to call it a colony in the *traditonal* sense of the
 MV>> term.

 > Hawai'i is a state, admitted to the Union. it's not a colony.

A colomy by another name is still a colony.

 > While the circumstances of it's original annexation was a bit
 > less than forthright (something I have had occasion to study) to a
 > degree it falls into the catagory of a corporate takeover with
 > government collusion, rather than a colonisation.

A conquest by another name is still a conquest.

 >>> We have not behaved like a traditional empire, in that we have
 >>> not dictated terms to places we have occupied,

 MV>> Are you sure about that? My guess is that some would feel different
 MV>> about that. You may not have doen it at gunpoint but used more subtle
 MV>> mehods, but I am sure that many would say that you have dictated terms
 MV>> in some places and on some occasions.

 > Possibly, but I was referring to the more obvious tack. Of course
 > the more subtle course is what governments do. Every Government,

The difference is that the US has the military and economic might give some
teeth to a polite request.

If our minister of justice politely asks for the release of say Menno Blom, he
is ignored. When your secretary of state were to ask for the release of an
American soldier in the custody of the ICC.... Well, remember the The Hague
Invasion Act?

 > in fact, as that's part of what the Ambassador's job is, to
 > convey the sense and opinions of the government that he serves.

I know what an ambassador is. My uncle Jan Lubbers (not related to Ruud Lubbers
that got entangled in a sex scandal at the UN) was the Dutch ambassador in
Washington.

 > I can think of several examples of that within the last
 > hundred year involving non-US countries, and I'm sure you can, too.

 > Dictated and persuaded are two different things, after all.

They are two flavours of the same thing: get the other to do what you want. One
is the stick, the other the carrot. Usually one employs a combination of the
two.

 MV>> You may already have forgotten about the "The Hague Invasion Act",
 MV>> but many here haven't.

 MV>> Well, that wasn't all that subtle...

 > Indeed. You'd have to know some of the players in that drama
 > like Senator Jesse Helms, (he was at the time my Senator) and I
 > agree that it ruffeled quite a few feathers.  Simply put though,
 > the US position /whether I agree/ /with it or not/ is:

 > "The stated purpose of the amendment was "to protect United
 > States military personnel and other elected and appointed
 > officials of the United States government against criminal
 > prosecution by an international criminal court to which the
 > United States is not party".

I know what the official position of the USA is. It does not make me feel any
better. The bottom line is still that there was a threat of a military
invasion.

 >>> as nearly every place we've been we've left to allow their
 >>> own sovereign governments to form.

 MV>> Provided of course those governments were USA friendly. If not...

 > Even if not.. I can't off-hand think of any place we've been
 > that we're still in because we didn't like the form of government,

But there are plenty of examples where after helping a government or leader in
the seat that you went back in for another regime change when the deal turned
saur. Papa Doc comes to mind. As does Noreiga...

 > Iraq included.

Iraq is another example of a deal turning saur. Saddam was an alley at the time
of the Iran/Iraq war.

 > Iraq is charting it's own course, without out interference I might
 > add, and taking a course we might not have picked for them I might
 > add, but, that's how it works.

Again: I will believe it when I see it.

 >>> Another factor is the fragmentation of power. There is an
 >>> equal amount of power held in the hands of multinational
 >>> corporations as there is in our own government.

 MV>> Just as it was in the 17th century with the VOC and the Dutch
 MV>> government. There was much power in the hands of Trading Cooperations.

 > VOC? that like the Dutch East India Company?

The very same. A trader's association. A kartel as we would say today.

 > The same was true with the British, and the French, but in all
 > those cases they were literally arms of the State, or very
 > closely associated with it.

Not at all. The VIC was no more an arm of the Ducth government than that
Microsoft is an arm of the US government.

 >>> Our days may be numbered , that's true, but if/when the
 >>> economy crashes (as we know it will) it will be exactly
 >>> like the 1930's...

 >>> Worldwide.

 MV>> Maybe. Maybe not.

 > Based om my research, there's no maybe not about it. the world
 > is too interlinked financially for it to be otherwise.

But some societies are less vulnerable than others. Ty US is especially
vulnerable because there everything revolves araound money.

 > if, for example the T-bills held by other nations become
 > valuless in a collapse, that starts a chain reaction.

This may sound stupid, but I do not know what a T-bill is.

 > How is that going to be stopped?

I don't know. But maybe the overall effect would not be as great as you think.

My largest asset is my house. That would still be there when the T-bills have
their value reduced to the paper they are printed on. The same goes for
everything else that affects opur daily lifes. The railways and the roads will
still be there. The cars and the trains will still be there. Tha gas in the
north will still be there and the pumps to get it up will still be there. So
what's stopping socitey from just moving on?

 > At the moment since no currencies are backed by anything solid
 > (as far as I know) and they all float, (and the banks are well
 > aware that they are skaintg on /very/ thin ice) if one goes,
 > they all go, to greater or lesser degrees.

That has always been the case. Gold backing never meant anything as gold has no
intrinsic value in itself either. Just like the banknotes, it is al based on
faith.

Consider the following: In the time when the dollar was still based on gold,
suppose a sourcerer got himself access to Fort Knox and turned all the gold
into yellow painted lead. What would happen?

Well nothing of course. That is, nothing would happen unitil someone would
notice. Only /then/ would hell break loose. Up until then; bussiness as usual.
Mind yoiu, it could take quite while. Maybe ther has been no gold in fort knox
for years. Maybe it WAS turned intoi iron years ago and nobody noticed yet.
Think about it.

 >>> Who comes to the rescue then?

 MV>> The Chinese?

 > Doubtful, they hold, I think, the most T-bills ATM.

Which may be a good incentive for them to "rescue" them...

 >>> If it were me, I'd not be cheering for the collapse.

 MV>> I am not cheering. But sticking the head in the sand is no good
 MV>> either.

 > And some of us are not doing that at all. One thing that may
 > help here is renewed economic growth,

Ah, yes that old mantra. The problem is that we can not go on growing forever.

 > A strong America, /responsibly led/, is not a bad thing..

I have bad feelings when I hear the word "strong" in combination with the name
of a country. We have heard that too often in the past here in Europe and it
seldom led to anything good...


Cheers, Michiel

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