Dismantling an empire

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Originally Posted by Rollo

Section 12 of the Potsdam Agreement:The occupying forces of the Allies shall be withdrawn from Japan as soon as these objectives have been accomplished and there has been established in accordance with the freely expressed will of the Japanese people a peacefully inclined and responsible government.

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/asi...c/10211314.stm
Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has announced his resignation after just eight months in office.
It comes after he broke an election pledge to move an unpopular US military base away from the island of Okinawa.

I take it that this wasn't "peacefully inclined and responsible government"?

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Originally Posted by Bob Riebe

You are wrong- again- and again- and again- and .....

"Ninety eight percent of South Ossetia's population hold Russian passports, Russian is the lingua franca and the Russian rouble their currency."

S. Osettia is the enclave spoken of in the article.

Main Entry: en·clave
Etymology: French, from Middle French, from enclaver to enclose, from Vulgar Latin *inclavare to lock up

: a distinct territorial, cultural, or social unit enclosed within or as if within foreign territory

Read the article before you flatulate with your keyboard, or bow before your wiki-god.

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Russian passport does not necessarily mean an ethnic Russian. South Osseatia is only recognized as an independent country by Nicaragua, Russia, Venezuela and Nauru, so they obviously need some other passport and currency than South Ossetian, if they want to go abroad or trade. Language means little. For example, most Americans speak English although they aren't English, so do most Irish.

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Originally Posted by Rollo

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/asi...c/10211314.stm
Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has announced his resignation after just eight months in office.
It comes after he broke an election pledge to move an unpopular US military base away from the island of Okinawa.

I take it that this wasn't "peacefully inclined and responsible government"?

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At least they didn't listen to the "freely expressed will of the Japanese people".

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Originally Posted by Eki

Yes, it might not happen for example in the US. To me it seems that Americans aren't very willing to compromise, they want to see "blood" and the other party win and the other party lose, not some wishy-washy compromise.

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I am not sure about that, Eki. For me part of Americans, the red voters, or more likely part of the Republican voters might be as you describe them, as evident from the forum. But in the end, the people elected Obama, who is seen to be more willing to compromise and seeking peaceful solutions. In the past elections, the Republicans had more voters only once, at the second win of W., we all know that the first one was a bit fishy, like the 1998 British GP, lol :)
But there are powers, firms, rich and influential people, for which wars are good. And they use their massive influence to convince other people that they are right, that's at least what I think. I am sure that most people in the USA want to enjoy life and be happy, except maybe some ultra religious cuckoos ;)

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Originally Posted by Eki

Russian passport does not necessarily mean an ethnic Russian. South Osseatia is only recognized as an independent country by Nicaragua, Russia, Venezuela and Nauru, so they obviously need some other passport and currency than South Ossetian, if they want to go abroad or trade. Language means little. For example, most Americans speak English although they aren't English, so do most Irish.

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Read the article it says you are wrong, but then you rarely are not, read the article.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSL1268080

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"My goal in life, my political goal, is to unite my people," the self-styled president, Eduard Kokoity, told Reuters in an interview in the enclave's capital Tskhinvali.

"We will build our own state, which will be in alliance with Russia, together with Russia and I am not excluding that one day, we will be part of Russia," he said.

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Ethnically distinct from Georgians, South Ossetians speak their own, Farsi-related language and say they have been separated from their fellow people in the neighbouring region of North Ossetia in Russia.

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Finland was an own state in alliance with the European Union until 1995, when it became part of the European Union. Finland is still Finland and Finns are still Finns, that didn't change.

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Originally Posted by Bob Riebe

I would say the probably he greatest cancer is all the political or government employees who are NOT elected and damn near never get fired but collect wages and benefits that put to shame what the grunts on Wall St. get.

They remain there... influencing political decisions but not responsible to the electorate that pays their wages..

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Actually I would have to include the elected ones in particular, since their decisions on public matters are influenced by corporations/special interests groups. Which is why I'm an advocate for public-funded campaigns.

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Originally Posted by Jag_Warrior

... The sheer amount of intellectual laziness is going to be our undoing. Far too many people have a greater desire to belong to a major club (which is all the Democrat and Republican parties are) than to think for themselves. And worse yet, now we have these political echo chambers (for the left and the right), so that people only have to hear things that they agree with. They are quite honestly AFRAID to hear or see anything which challenges their ingrained beliefs. I think back to the wingnuts who were afraid to send their kids to school when Obama addressed the schools last year. How pitiful is that? Afraid that the President was going to fill their kids with subliminal messages and corrupt them. People who are afraid of census workers, but don't mind that Equifax knows more about them than their own mother. That's the level of delusional paranoia that boggles the mind. I was checking out various political boards last summer and I was shocked at how many people could do nothing more than repeat the various talking points that they'd heard from the talking heads on TV and radio.

Considering our current financial state, let's just see how much longer we can sustain this level of (needless) military spending... Until those on the left realize that there have to be cuts to entitlements and those on the right realize that we are not the policemen of the world, we're pretty much stuck on this road to fiscal ruin, IMO..

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:up: Exactly!

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Originally Posted by F1boat

I am not sure about that, Eki. For me part of Americans, the red voters, or more likely part of the Republican voters might be as you describe them, as evident from the forum. But in the end, the people elected Obama, who is seen to be more willing to compromise and seeking peaceful solutions... But there are powers, firms, rich and influential people, for which wars are good. And they use their massive influence to convince other people that they are right, that's at least what I think. I am sure that most people in the USA want to enjoy life and be happy, except maybe some ultra religious cuckoos...

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Blue voters (Democrats) have no claim for being egalitarian anymore than Red voters (Repubs.) believe they’re the designated spokespersons for God. Take it from Obama on down to the local avenues – it doesn’t matter.

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Originally Posted by Bob Riebe

Hmmm-- compromise-- you think the "palestinians" should get land (and be called a country) that they never owned, espcially as they care nothing about the majority of "their" land taken by Jordan; therefore you must be on the side of the South Ossetians who broke away because they wanted to be part of Russia.

S. Ossetia is only a small piece of land that neither threatens nor benefits Georgia.

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who was driven off the land???

ever wandered around israel and saw all those derelict mosques?

Hopefully some of the members here (who want to better understand the topic, rather than just make hackneyed partisan points) will take the time to read the book I mentioned a few pages back: Thomas Madden's Empires of Trust.

Rethinking what I said before, the U.S. would be seen as an empire (of sorts). But it's an empire as Madden describes it: an empire of "trust". He refers to Rome as this same sort of empire. He's much more well versed on the subject than I am, but I have noticed that to make his point that Rome was an empire of trust, and not of conquest, he glosses over some of the sticky details (like the full extent of what happened to Carthage and Gaul at the hands of the Romans).

But he details three types of empires:
empires of trust (Rome and the U.S.)
empires of commerce (Venice and the British Empire)
empires of conquest (Alexander's Greek empire)

With an empire of trust, the defeated are usually rebuilt rather than oppressed (the Marshall Plan). And most of the time, a certain moral code will be applied to the defeated... the same moral code that would be extended to an ally. As Madden points out, this is why Abu Ghraib and some of the goings on at Gitmo didn't sit right with many Americans. We want to be able to maintain, at least the facade, that we possess a degree of moral superiority over our enemies. And like the Roman's desire to turn barbarians into proper Latins (or kill them trying), we want to spread democracy and freedom around the world... whether you want it or not. But anyway, it's Madden's contention that we can basically be trusted to act in a certain way, whether you're friend or foe. And so, those who are smart enough to see that, well, they spend their money on infrastructure, education or what have you, while the U.S. Navy, Air Force and Marines maintain their security. I haven't completed the book yet, but I've noticed that Madden hasn't mentioned that the Romans didn't exactly "work for free". Julius Caesar found great wealth as he conquered Gaul, for example. If we had gotten even 10 barrels of free oil out of Iraq, I might have less of a problem with it. But the last time I looked, the bill for the American taxpayer for our "freedom mission" into Iraq stood at around $1 trillion (yeah, with a "T"), and the Iraqi treasury had something close to $100 billion stashed away in reserves. IMO, that's three shades of stupid.

Even with what he seems to be leaving out or glossing over, it's a seriously interesting book. His definitions of empire certainly made me rethink my position on the question of "empire", as it applies to the U.S. Hopefully a few of you will take the time to buy it or pick it up at the library.

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Originally Posted by Jag_Warrior

Country by GDP Rank ($ Amt.) / Military Spending $ Amt / % of Global Milit. Spending

#1 United States ($14.430 Trillion) / $607 Billion / 41.5%
#2 Japan ($5.108 Trillion) / 46.3 Billion / 3.2%

Whether it's military expenditures or entitlements, or more likely, a combination of the two, this path that we're currently on will not lead to a good place .

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Yes, I know . . . I'm late on this one . . .
but 41.5% . . . . . 41.5% is being spent for the military in a country like mine where the economic situation is dire, the education is mediocre, health care is sick and our infrastructure is in need of a facelift.

Yes, the military in this day and age need a % . . . . but 41.5%?

Our grandchildren will look back at this and say . . . WTF?????

As a matter of fact, we should be the ones saying that.

It's nuts.

*now I will duck because I can see the salvos coming this way.
peace dammit!!!!!!!!!
:s mokin: