We have entered the post-American era

Pax Americana is dead. We have entered a post-American world.

Too hasty? Well, according to the Economist magazine the American President is no longer the world's most powerful leader. That mantle belongs to China's Xi Jinping.

It is Xi who talks about being the champion of globalisation and international trade, while Donald Trump's mantra is "America first".

At risk is a global order imagined by Woodrow Wilson, the US president during World War I: democracy, capitalism, interventionism, that laid a platform for economic growth, innovation, human rights.

Political scientist Joseph Nye saw this future more than a decade ago when he published The Paradox of American Power.

Writing after the September 11 terror attack, Mr Nye warned about the dangers of American complacency.

The US changed its gaze

After the collapse of the Soviet empire and the end of the Cold War, Nye said the United States stopped paying attention to the world and turned their sights inward.

Even those who did look beyond America, he wrote, "became arrogant about our power, arguing that we did not need to heed other nations. We seemed both invincible and invulnerable".

Tragically Osama Bin Laden reminded America just how vulnerable it was.

Fast forward and America is rubbing up against the limits of its power.

War and recession have left it weary.

The Obama years began with a theme of hope. Remember his victory speech? "This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal."

His critics called it the "Moses speech".

Eight years later, those same critics declared the Obama presidency a failure.

Even in the sober-minded journal Foreign Affairs, Harvard University's Professor of International Relations Stephen Walt said it was "a tragedy, especially when it comes to foreign policy.

More at source
http://www.msn.com/en-au/news/world/stan-grant-we-have-entered-the-post-american-era/ar-BBIuvDS?li=AAgfLCP&ocid=ientp

veya_victaous wrote:

Pax Americana is dead. We have entered a post-American world.

Too hasty? Well, according to the Economist magazine the American President is no longer the world's most powerful leader. That mantle belongs to China's Xi Jinping.

It is Xi who talks about being the champion of globalisation and international trade, while Donald Trump's mantra is "America first".

At risk is a global order imagined by Woodrow Wilson, the US president during World War I: democracy, capitalism, interventionism, that laid a platform for economic growth, innovation, human rights.

Political scientist Joseph Nye saw this future more than a decade ago when he published The Paradox of American Power.

Writing after the September 11 terror attack, Mr Nye warned about the dangers of American complacency.

The US changed its gaze

After the collapse of the Soviet empire and the end of the Cold War, Nye said the United States stopped paying attention to the world and turned their sights inward.

Even those who did look beyond America, he wrote, "became arrogant about our power, arguing that we did not need to heed other nations. We seemed both invincible and invulnerable".

Tragically Osama Bin Laden reminded America just how vulnerable it was.

Fast forward and America is rubbing up against the limits of its power.

War and recession have left it weary.

The Obama years began with a theme of hope. Remember his victory speech? "This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal."

His critics called it the "Moses speech".

Eight years later, those same critics declared the Obama presidency a failure.

Even in the sober-minded journal Foreign Affairs, Harvard University's Professor of International Relations Stephen Walt said it was "a tragedy, especially when it comes to foreign policy.

More at source
http://www.msn.com/en-au/news/world/stan-grant-we-have-entered-the-post-american-era/ar-BBIuvDS?li=AAgfLCP&ocid=ientp

veya_victaous wrote:not America, America is fucked... You're about to go through the 'Navel Gazing while it all burns' phase of empire

and the rest of Us will have Xi Jinping as leader of the free world

Maddog wrote:

veya_victaous wrote:not America, America is fucked... You're about to go through the 'Navel Gazing while it all burns' phase of empire

and the rest of Us will have Xi Jinping as leader of the free world

Is China free now?

veya_victaous wrote:

Maddog wrote:

Is China free now?

yeah, pretty everywhere but in US propaganda

it still has Poverty etc but generally it's citizens are free, many holiday in Australia.
I fact it is almost easier for an Aussie to get Visas etc to work in China than the USA.

Maddog wrote:

veya_victaous wrote:

Maddog wrote:

Is China free now?

yeah, pretty everywhere but in US propaganda

it still has Poverty etc but generally it's citizens are free, many holiday in Australia.
I fact it is almost easier for an Aussie to get Visas etc to work in China than the USA.

I didn't ask about poverty. Do you think the typical person in Hong Kong would say that the Chinese are free?  

Are Google and Facebook available to all of the Chinese?

Activists and human rights defenders continued to be systematically subjected to monitoring, harassment, intimidation, arrest and detention

Maddog wrote:

veya_victaous wrote:

Good.

Hopefully we will start to act like Switzerland.

Maddog wrote:

veya_victaous wrote:

yeah, pretty everywhere but in US propaganda

it still has Poverty etc but generally it's citizens are free, many holiday in Australia.
I fact it is almost easier for an Aussie to get Visas etc to work in China than the USA.

I didn't ask about poverty. Do you think the typical person in Hong Kong would say that the Chinese are free?  

Are Google and Facebook available to all of the Chinese?

Maddog wrote:The government continued to draft and enact a series of new national security laws that presented serious threats to the protection of human rights. The nationwide crackdown on human rights lawyers and activists continued throughout the year. Activists and human rights defenders continued to be systematically subjected to monitoring, harassment, intimidation, arrest and detention. Police detained increasing numbers of human rights defenders outside of formal detention facilities, sometimes without access to a lawyer for long periods, exposing the detainees to the risk of torture and other ill-treatment. Booksellers, publishers, activists and a journalist who went missing in neighbouring countries in 2015 and 2016 turned up in detention in China, causing concerns about China’s law enforcement agencies acting outside their jurisdiction. Controls on the internet, mass media and academia were significantly strengthened. Repression of religious activities outside of direct state control increased. Religious repression conducted under “anti-separatism” or “counter-terrorism” campaigns remained particularly severe in Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region and in Tibetan-populated areas.

https://www.amnesty.org/en/countries/asia-and-the-pacific/china/report-china/

WhoseYourWolfie wrote:

Maddog wrote:


Good.

Hopefully we will start to act like Switzerland.

More like Yugoslavia...

Just a matter of when, not if we see the Divided States of Amerika break up into 3 or 4 smaller entities..

Then Maddog and his good ol' boy buddies can try and build their own "New Switzerland" in a future newly independant Texas.  

Original Quill wrote:

WhoseYourWolfie wrote:


More like Yugoslavia...

Just a matter of when, not if we see the Divided States of Amerika break up into 3 or 4 smaller entities..

Then Maddog and his good ol' boy buddies can try and build their own "New Switzerland" in a future newly independant Texas.  

Y'all have arrived at precisely where I'm at, and have been at for the past 6 or 8 months: picking up the broken pieces.  The United States is no more, so what now?

Y'all have been dismissing my idea of the Pacific States of America, but in the wake of the break-up of the US is it such a preposterous idea after all?  I'm where you are at presently, only I arrived a few months before y'all.

California is the perfect nucleus for a new, western nation.  It's the 6th largest economy in the world.  It  faces the new world, the Pacific economy, and the future of opportunity.  It's heavy enough to compete with China.

Just as Europe was the old, decadent world, what lies east of California/Arizona is the old nation--south of Maryland, it's decadence.  The PSA offers a downsized, manageable, governable entity, not so abstract and removed that a cartoon character can take over and we can't do anything about it.  It's a magnificent opportunity.

WhoseYourWolfie wrote:

Maddog wrote:The government continued to draft and enact a series of new national security laws that presented serious threats to the protection of human rights. The nationwide crackdown on human rights lawyers and activists continued throughout the year. Activists and human rights defenders continued to be systematically subjected to monitoring, harassment, intimidation, arrest and detention. Police detained increasing numbers of human rights defenders outside of formal detention facilities, sometimes without access to a lawyer for long periods, exposing the detainees to the risk of torture and other ill-treatment. Booksellers, publishers, activists and a journalist who went missing in neighbouring countries in 2015 and 2016 turned up in detention in China, causing concerns about China’s law enforcement agencies acting outside their jurisdiction. Controls on the internet, mass media and academia were significantly strengthened. Repression of religious activities outside of direct state control increased. Religious repression conducted under “anti-separatism” or “counter-terrorism” campaigns remained particularly severe in Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region and in Tibetan-populated areas.

https://www.amnesty.org/en/countries/asia-and-the-pacific/china/report-china/

While referring to Amnesty International's reports, also take some time to consider their reports on some of the more "capitalist" democracies, semi-democracies and non-democracies --  the likes of the USA (especially with regard to continuing FBI attacks against Native Americans, as well as all those broken "treaties"..), Mexico, Uraguay, Brazil, Nigeria, Kuwait, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Chad, Libya, Syria, etc...

Maddog wrote:

Original Quill wrote:

Y'all have arrived at precisely where I'm at, and have been at for the past 6 or 8 months: picking up the broken pieces.  The United States is no more, so what now?

Y'all have been dismissing my idea of the Pacific States of America, but in the wake of the break-up of the US is it such a preposterous idea after all?  I'm where you are at presently, only I arrived a few months before y'all.

California is the perfect nucleus for a new, western nation.  It's the 6th largest economy in the world.  It  faces the new world, the Pacific economy, and the future of opportunity.  It's heavy enough to compete with China.

Just as Europe was the old, decadent world, what lies east of California/Arizona is the old nation--south of Maryland, it's decadence.  The PSA offers a downsized, manageable, governable entity, not so abstract and removed that a cartoon character can take over and we can't do anything about it.  It's a magnificent opportunity.

El Presidente!!!

Original Quill wrote:

Maddog wrote:

El Presidente!!!

  I am but a founder and a voice of wisdom.  Let the people speak.