The US is a Plutocracy.

Americans are fond of ascribing to Virtue that which belongs to Good Fortune.

Weak tea.
"Take away our corporate right to profiteer and you'll DOOM the USA to a Nazi-Communist dictatorship. IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT?"
Or DOOM you to a subhuman standard of living if you let the hippies(Indians) take over.
Lenin allowed incentives under the New Economic Policy and Hitler never took over any corporations except Jewish ones.
No facts just continuous Bircher hyped up fear-mongering.
With all these right wing think tanks you'd think they'd be able to really prove their case with scientific evidence (except they are anti-science).
In fact the Tea Party is looking for the next Hitler, to save America from the secret(librul) enemy from within.
In the meantime, they'll vote GOP.

What do dictatorships have in common? They limit the powers of Unions. They control the Press. They attack Educators. They create minority scapegoats, they.... Oh, I forgot. They're already doing that stuff in good ol USA...I guess all you need is 'the leader'. Hey, maybe it'll be a cute Grandma in a skirt!!

Get some high fat vittles under your belt and a good sit com in the house and next thing you know you'll feel safe! Imagine that.

The fights and struggles never end.

I liked the video. It was fun.

Cheers from the wet coast. Good luck, everywhere and everyone.

How we got what we have? Stole it from the natives who lived here.

But, back to the original topic. Founding mythology forms national identity, and becomes self reinforcing. People very much fall for identity politics. Get them to identify with certain beliefs, as being what makes them special, and they stick to them. Even if the identity only somewhat matches the actual history. We also have a lot of Calvinism. I've always found this to be a strange one. The idea was God only picked a small number of "elected" for his fovor, in this life and the next. And nothing an unelected soul would do could get him into God's favor. You would think it would yield to passive resignation. Instead, people were determined to show to their contemporaries that they were worthy, by making tons of money. Now, we still have the remnants of this philosophy. We think the rich got there because they are superior people, and the poor are unworthy people with unworthy personalities. So we fall for Ayn Rand type narratives, and for demonization of welfare mothers etc.

We also think God selected special people to come to the US, to form a special city on the hill. So we got ahead, because we are special people choosen -and favored by god. This is termed American Exceptionalism.

The USA is the flagship of western civilisation.
Too bad it is sinking.
I find no schadenfreud in that fact.

Too bad it was built on an ephemeral resource.
I guess that our discount rate is too great. (Nod to Nate)

OK. So let us decrease it.
What do I see?

1) Economic contraction. (See, it is not too difficult to predict the future)
2) Increased competition for basics.
3) Increased difficulty in successfully raising offspring, leading to smaller, tighter bound families. (Errors of judgment will have more dire consequences.)
Leading. . .
4) (Here be there dragons!) to another surge of encephelisation. ie bigger heads. (Sorry ladies).

We are superfluous:
When plentiful and disposable labor is available at $30 a month, there is no need to engage cared-for labor at a hundred times that cost++.
The setting is too expensive:
Why do a process where any mess has to be cleaned-up?

1.
Get the U.S. government out of America:
Eliminate minimum and insured wages.
Deregulate owner's use of their lands.
Remove oversight of claims and quality.
Unburden profit of the yoke of taxation.
Restore the environment to the industrial commons.

2.
Accommodate unproductive populations:
Expand the for-profit prison system.
Engage in continuous war.
Legalize euthanasia.

3.
Suppress insurgency:
Bust the unions.
Control the media.
Eliminate education.

4.
Increase productive populations:
Unfetter immigration.
Repeal child labor laws.
Decriminalize sex work.

All the world will come to enjoy congress with our common class.
The elite shall flourish in a boundless garden of bliss.

Or should we starve?

This is called "The Race to the Bottom".
It is distinct from "Being Driven Over a Cliff".

My question to you is this:
Does halting these dynamics require finding a voice?

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http://www.pointblanknews.com/artopn2220.html
Narcissism and Poverty: Triggers of Terrorism

One of the best ways to become a great nation is to find a land that you can invade - exterminate (or exploit to extermination) the locals, populate or re-populate with your own people, and exploit the natural resources that are abundant in this "living space".

The Serbians attempted this in Bosnia - we called it genocide.

The Nazis tried this, with their "living space" being Poland and the Ukraine - we called that genocide.. But the had two good precedents.

The Spanish did it in Central and South America. We call that colonialism.

The English (and other Europeans) did it in North America. We call that Manifest Destiny.

But in all 4 cases, the transient greatness of the nations (okay, except for Serbia) were the result of invasion, genocide and exploitation. In big difference is that the 1st two were in areas that were already populated by nations of similar development, technology and long standing relations. The aggressors were eventually stopped by their "peers".

The 2nd two examples were in lands that were developmentally and technologically far weaker, and that were geographically (and are) distant enough from rival "peers" to make intervention impossible or difficult. This allowed time to entrench the genocide and control. Eventually the victors have written histories that completely obscure the facts of "How we got what we have" and replaced those facts with new creation myths.

The problem for the United States is that it needs to learn from the Spanish experience in Central and South America - eventually the easily appropriated, and easily exploited resources run out, and the transient advantage is lost. The only remaining advantage is of distance, and in a coming age of expensive fuel, as New Zealanders say, the "tyranny of distance" will force adaptation.

In contrast to the Twilight Zone proposal of "no tools" whatsoever, there is the short-story book called "The Hatchet"

--a young boy is stranded in the Canadian wilderness with almost nothing but a small metal hatchet.

Then again, in response to the BorgWar propaganda about the dumb injuns', there is Jared Diamond's "Guns Germs and Steel"

"How we got here" in truth is a long and complicated story that starts with the Big Bang, and Evolution, and all that other stuff.

We didn't get here in six days.

The first video identifies (at 11:30) what the producers feel are the three things needed to survive:

1) natural resources
2) human energy
3) tools

I only partly agree and feel they have a few facts askew. This view, as evidenced in the film's portrayal of the limited technology of the Native Americans, is an example of what James Howard Kunstler calls "technotriumphalism," whereby technology is seen as the ultimate savior of humanity, and the one thing that will propel us into the future.

Here's my own take on what the three things are needed to survive ....

Technology is NOT our savior, nor is technology even that which propels us forward. Instead technology is merely a platform upon which any given civilization rests. A Stone Age civilization rests upon a platform of Stone Age technology. A Bronze Age civilization rests upon a platform of Bronze Age technology. And an Industrial Age civilization rests upon a platform of Industrial Age technology.

But, by calling it a "platform," there is a dual implication. First I am implying that the platform is holding something up (that would be the civilization in question). And second, I am implying that the platform is somehow elevated, and is itself held aloft by something else. Here's my own list of (my layman's opinion on) the three things needed to hold up that platform:

1) natural resources
2) energy (any kind of energy, including animal power, water power, wood, coal, oil etc, not just human energy)
3) knowledge/skill

My own list of three is not too terribly different than the list of three offered by the film. But my list makes no mention of tools because in my outlook the tools are the result of the synthesis of those three. In other words, the tools are the resulting technology, ipso fact, the resulting tools/machines/technology are themselves the actual platform being held aloft by the three "legs" in my list. So I have a three-legged stool here. If you take away just one of those three legs, then the whole platform comes tumbling down, and the civilization collapses. When it collapses, it collapses "downward" to a lower level of civilization, reorganizing itself upon a lower and less advanced platform of technology.

When it comes to advances in technology, (aka advances in civilization) there is an unwavering requirement made of the three “legs” holding everything up: two of them MUST remain constant in order for advancement to the next level to happen. Those two are 1) the availability of natural resources, and 2) the availability of energy. But the “leg” called knowledge needs to keep changing and advancing, never remaining static. If the “leg” called knowledge stays static, then the civilization will remain static and simply keep maintaining itself, endlessly using energy and using natural resources. But if that “leg” keeps progressing, then the civilization can expand upward to higher and higher levels of advancement. And so the “leg” called knowledge/skill becomes extended upward onto the next level, and the next level, and the next, etc. That way the knowledge of each successive platform builds upon the prior one. But as a civilization collapses downward, the higher and more advanced body of knowledge that was originally needed when upholding the higher platform becomes lost in the shuffle.

As for why the heck the USA made out so well? We had an entire continent of natural resources, we had lots of knowledge (and that knowledge only kept expanding for 200+ years) and the energy available (hydro power especially in the Northeast, and wood, then coal, then oil) was likewise quite abundant. There's also the two very important but often overlooked facts of our a) shunting the Native Americans out of our way, and b) exploiting African salves. And NONE of these factors I've cited here in this paragraph had anything to do with God or freedom but instead they are the products of underused resources, convenient historical timing, and political shrewdness. So the success if the USA is not a testament to democracy, merely to one awesomely huge boatload of luck. The energy and the natural resources were virtually untapped, and the knowledge just kept accelerating.

We fooled ourselves into thinking that our nation’s unique achievement in human history was due to how virtuous we were. When the sad truth is we were just plain lucky on an infathomable scale of unprecedented good luck when compared to any other nation in history. But that luck is about to run out simply because the natural resources and the enegry are about to run out.

While it's certainly possibly for human knowledge to keep expanding, it's certainly NOT possible for either energy or natural resources to remain infinitely available. Both must surely come to an end one day. We naively distracted ourselves for the past 200+ years with the whiz-bang-gee-aint-that-cool bedazzlement of our ever-growing knowledge (focusing upon the tangible fruits of all three "legs", the every-expanding plaform of tools, machines and tecnology), and turned our backs upon the dwindling supplies of our natural resources and our energy. Thus, as far as this ongoing winning streak we've enjoyed at the poker game of life, the bright and glorious future of George Jetson and Captain Kirk are not in the cards for us. Those other two "legs" are starting to wobble, and no matter how grand and thick and hardy that the third "leg" called knowledge may be at this time (a leg that has compounded in its girth over many millenia) the other two legs are growig thinner by the year and will soon give out. I just hope we cna arrange a comfortable landing for ourselves when the time comes for us to start descending downward again. I also hope we can somehow manage to preserve some of our current knowledge and not lose too terribly much of it.

One of the books I've read that gives a lot of insight as to the acquisition of wealth is Kevin Phillips' "Wealth and Democracy." One conclusion he makes is that, for the US anyway, piracy was a major means of accumulating wealth for early Americans. In the US, as in Great Britain and France and other countries in those days, privateers sailed under 'Letters of Marque' which gave them license to piracy.

In later times, especially in the latter 19th century in the 'age of the robber barons' cozy deals with paid-for politicians enabled the mining companies, logging companies and others to buy federal land at ridiculous prices (and I think they are still doing this), laying the groundwork for vast accumulation of wealth that, to my mind anyway, should have been shared more equitably among the people.

In more recent times, one might concede that the oft-cited fortunes of people such as Bill Gates and Warren Buffett were accumulated honorably by creating real value for their many customers. Mass marketing can, I suppose, actually allow accumulation of large fortunes without resorting to the tools of crony capitalism or simple violence rationalized by documents such as the aforementioned letters.

However, I would maintain that most wealth that is concentrated in the hands of very few has not been acquired in a way that benefits many people. The impossibility of separating the honestly earned wealth from the stolen wealth in my opinion is a good reason to have a progressive taxation system, among other things, to provide some of a leveling effect on the disparities of wealth in our system. Affirmative Action was, I believe, intended to address the issue of the disparity of privilege between the upper and lower classes, analogous to a progressive tax in some ways. I think it's too bad that this has become a whipping boy for American conservatives.

My 2c worth on how we got what we have.

PS
One of the 'Reaganisms' that I remember clearly from when he was the president was Reagan's response to one of his aides who told him that Philippines dictator Marcos had stolen ~$10 billion from the people of the Philippines and sequestered it in various banks around the world. Reagan said essentially, "I though all his wealth was come by honestly!"

Finally got around to a log in for this site. I normally shy away from conversations on the net, but I am impressed with the commentary and insight of many of the people here.

Thanks for the video. I found the fact they overlooked the ruin of the rest of the industrial world amusing.

When I was a young fellow in thee 1970's, and a boy scout (of course!) we had a very good Scout Master who on a camping trip out in the country of Breckinridge county KY, had us play a thought exercise. These were the waning days of the "cold war", so here is what imagined:

Suppose the "big one", the nuclear war came while we were on our camping trip. We could not go back to the towns, we were on our own. All we would have is what we had brought with us...and it may well be all we would EVER have, and what we could extract from the natural world around us. We would have to survive from scratch.

What would we do?
What would we NEED first?
What would we want, what would we miss first about the culture we had known, a culture that had been 5000 years plus in the making?

It was a VERY informative little exercise. In the discussions that followed, I realized that what we would need first, as certainly as food, water, clothing and shelter, is something that we ALWAYS had with us, but we seldom actually have to use, something that would determine our longer time survival:

IDEAS.

The whole of human history is an EXTRACTION industry...we are a parasitic species, a predatory species. It is only the power of IDEAS, of hard thought (and thought, if it is to be useful, IS HARD.) that seperate us from being just another animal milling about waiting to die, living from one bite to the next, from one kill to the next.

Where is the thought of today to come from? How is it rewarded? What is the worth of the IDEA? Who decides? Who pays? An idea is useless unless it can be shared and applied. But once shared or applied it is easliy used by all with no compensation to the thinker. How does one benefit from thought if thinking, if ideas, receive no reward?

nuff said, you can play out the whole rest of human history from the above.

RC

Ah! Great American propaganda! Who said it was only Goebbels and Gorky that could do good old propaganda! Nay, gentle reader, the producer and writer of these films are just as much propagandists as anything the Nazis or Red Russians came up with.

Yes, indeed! America, the land of the free.... and the land of the most unequal distribution of wealth this Great Blue Marble has ever seen. The land where the power lies with greedy bankers who make nothing, do nothing worthwhile but still keep the peasantry in bondage. The land where the highest office of President is bought and sold in a grotesque Carnival of Dollars every fourth year; the place-man's allegiance going greasily to the highest corporate bidder.

Yeah, America - the Land of the Free - staved off the Commies. But look how you ended up - men on Wall Street paying themselves $300,000,000 per year but taking no personal risk in the company they 'steward'. Yeah! That's Capitalism. Wonderful, beautiful Capitalism! The bank teller gets the minimum but the CEO gets $300 million? And when his 'empire' gets found out for being bankrupt... never mind, just get the politicians - which he owns - to bail him out! Wonderful, wonderful Capitalism!

USSR 1950: Stale bread for the poor, caviar for the rich.
USA 2010: Capitalism for the poor, socialism for the rich.

What a wonderful world.