by Eric Zuesse, The Duran:
Right now, the center of the American empire — the U.S. Government itself — is in the early stages of shedding some of its colonies, especially in Europe (such as by demanding them not to consume the most inexpensive fuels that were available to them, which came from Russia — and which had fueled European industries and kept EU countries economically competitive with other nations), and is just now starting to shed even its own public, by slashing the federal programs (such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and services to the poor) that have the highest public support. This self-cannibalization is normal for an empire in decline, because its billionaires (its richest, the country’s aristocracy — the individuals who collectively control the Government), have been the beneficiaries of empire, and can no longer keep up the lifestyles to which they are accustomed, unless they extract it increasingly from their colonies and from their own public.
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No longer can they extract even more from conquests (via invasions, coups, or otherwise) — basically looting the vanquished. Destroying countries outside the empire (such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Venezuela, and Iran) becomes increasingly replaced by destroying itself.
“The West” — the U.S.-and-‘allied’ (i.e., colonies) countries — are shrinking as a percentage of global GDP PPP (Gross Domestic Product at Purchasing-Power-Parity, this being the real measure of an economy). Their approximately 2,000 billionaires, whose percentage of that national wealth has been increasing while that of their countries are declining, are becoming less and less dependent upon exploiting the entire world (which thereby is becoming increasingly capable of self-defense and thus of defending itself against further expansion of the U.S. empire). Thus, these billionaires are becoming more and more dependent upon exploiting their own people — their domestic population of workers and consumers. It is the stage of imperial over-reach. Consequently, for example, America’s current President, the Republican billionaire Donald Trump, who represents America’s billionaires who have funded his political career, is now seeking to extract from the American people yet more money to further-enrich those billionaires. This is being done despite the news-media of the Democratic Party’s billionaires focusing increasingly upon how unpopular this extraction from the public is among the American people. And increasingly the Democratic Party billionaires’ theory of why Trump is so blatantly doing this, is that it will drive down so low the American people’s respect for America’s Government, as to make the public favor increased privatization of everything, which will then mean even higher profits for America’s billionaires. This die-off (attrition) of America’s Government will thus be very profitable for America’s wealthiest individuals. Not only will the public become more desperate (and willing to work for lower wages etc.), as those federal protections get taken away, but ultimately everything will become privatized so that this model of capitalism (the resultant purification of American ‘libertarianism’: the ‘free market’) will approach even closer to 100% than they now already do — so that the controlling billionaires will end up in control over everything in America (including basic services to the public, and especially to the poor — the most desperate people of all). Anyone who isn’t a billionaire will be dependent upon billionaires. This is how it has been in America ever since, at least, 1980.
For example, the Newhouse family are Democratic Party billionaires who control such news-media as the liberal USA Today and the intensely neoconservative (i.e., favoring further expansion of the U.S. empire) New Yorker, and such online sites as Reddit. On March 27th, their USA Today headlined by their Arizona newspaper the Arizona Republic’s columnist E.J. Montini, “Elon Musk has a dodgy plan to gut Social Security and please billionaires”, which is a remarkable headline because it openly acknowledges the opposition between billionaires and Social Security. It has thus stepped into politically progressive territory, though the Newhouse billionaires are as hostile toward progressives as Republican billionaires are. (Democrats are liberals — not proressives.) This has become a real war between Republican billionaires and Democratic billionaires. So, even within The West’s imperial country itself — the U.S. — things are starting to come apart.
