[GJM] Fw: [globalnetnews-summary] Game Over: Thirty-Six Sure-Fire Signs That Your Empire Is Crumbling

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Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] Game Over: Thirty-Six Sure-Fire Signs That 
Your Empire Is Crumbling



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Game Over: Thirty-Six Sure-Fire Signs That Your Empire Is Crumbling
What Really Happened
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/gameover.php
by David Michael Green

So. You've built yourself an empire, eh?

Well, bully for you!

What's next, you ask? Well, now you've got to do what everybody does when 
they have an empire, of course. You've got to worry about it falling apart, 
mate!

But how to tell for sure? Let me see if I can be helpful. Here are some 
rules of thumb to keep in mind, thirty-six sure-fire indicators that your 
empire is falling apart:

You know your empire's crumbling when the folks who are gearing up their 
empire to replace yours start blowing up satellites in space. And then they 
don't bother to return your phone calls when you ring up to ask why.

You know your empire's crumbling when those same folks are cutting deals 
left, right and center across Asia, Latin America and Africa, while you, 
your lousy terms, and your arrogant attitude are no longer welcome.

You know your empire's crumbling when you're spending your grandchildren's 
money like a drunken sailor, and letting your soon-to-be rivals finance your 
little splurge (i.e., letting them own your country).

You know your empire's crumbling when it's considered an achievement to 
pretend that you've halved the rate at which you're adding to the massive 
mountain of debt you've already accumulated.

You know your empire's crumbling when you weaken your currency until it 
looks as anemic as a Paris runway model, and you're still setting record 
trade deficits. (Hint: Because you're not making anything anymore.)

You know your empire's crumbling when "the little brown ones" (thank you 
George H.W. Bush - certainly not me - for that lovely expression) in country 
after country of "your backyard" blow you off and proudly elect 
anti-imperialist leftist governments.

You know your empire's crumbling when you can't topple those governments and 
replace them with nice puppet regimes - like in the good old days - even if 
you wanted to. And you badly want to.

You know your empire's crumbling when one of their leaders comes to the 
United Nations and makes fun of your emperor, calling him the devil, and 
joking about smelling sulphur where he just stood. And though a few folks 
cringe, everybody laughs.

You know your empire's crumbling when just about your entire military land 
force is tied up in a worse-than-useless war launched on the basis of 
complete fabrications, that every day is actually making you less - not 
more - secure from external threat.

You know your empire's crumbling when almost half the soldiers in that war 
are high-paid mercenaries, and you don't dare institute a draft.

You know your empire's crumbling when you send soldiers into war with two 
weeks training and a lack of armor, and then you keep them there for three, 
four and five rotations.

You know your empire's crumbling when a member of the Axis of Evil can test 
missiles and explode nuclear warheads, and all you can do about it is mumble 
some pathetic warnings about how they better not do that again or there will 
be consequences.

You know your empire's crumbling when you even think that there is an Axis 
of Evil.

You know your empire's crumbling when a rag-tag military hodge-podge of 
irregulars has you pinned down in an endless fight you can't win, but also 
can't lose.

You know your empire's crumbling when you're too dumb to even ban Humvees as 
a first step toward ending your dependency on a foreign-owned crucial 
resource.

You know your empire's crumbling when you trade your prior moral leadership 
on human rights issues for global disgust at your torture, 'extraordinary 
rendition' (a.k.a. kidnaping for torture) and the dismantling of nine 
centuries worth of civil liberties progress.

You know your empire's crumbling when you blow off international law that 
you once helped create, and undermine the institutions of international 
governance that you once helped build.

You know your empire's crumbling when opinion polls confirm that every month 
you're more and more despised throughout the world.

You know your empire's crumbling when you can't even pull off the hanging of 
a tin-pot murderous former dictator without turning him into a hero.

You know your empire's crumbling when you're the richest country in the 
world, but nearly 50 million of your people don't have basic health care 
coverage.

You know your empire's crumbling when the World Health Organization ranks 
your healthcare system 37th 'best' in the world, just above Slovenia, and 
just below Costa Rica. (And far below Colombia, Cyprus, Saudi Arabia and 
Morocco.)

You know your empire's crumbling when instead of making it easier for 
citizens to obtain a higher education, you're making it harder and more 
expensive.

You know your empire's crumbling when your government gives tax breaks to 
industries as a reward for exporting your jobs elsewhere.

You know your empire's crumbling when the so-called 'opposition' party can't 
even turn that obscenity into a viable campaign theme and use it to clobber 
the worst emperor in your history.

You know your empire's crumbling when your middle class has been stagnant 
for three decades, while the wealth of the hyper-rich continues to climb 
through the roof.

You know your empire's crumbling when your reaction to that is to exacerbate 
the problem by enacting tax policies that massively increase further still 
the gap between the rich and the rest.

You know your empire's crumbling when the predatory class has taken over 
your government and is stripping the country of everything not bolted down 
to the floor. And then it sells the floor itself, as well, to your rivals.

You know your empire's crumbling when you're spending tens of billions of 
dollars you don't own on new nuclear warheads and space weapons that don't 
work, to be used against an enemy you don't have.

You know your empire's crumbling when one of your cities drowns and your 
government does next to nothing before, during and after.

You know your empire's crumbling when a massive environmental nightmare is 
looming around the corner, and your emperor not only ignores it, but claims 
it isn't real while taking steps to exacerbate it.

You know your empire's crumbling when your emperor is warned by a CIA 
briefer of an imminent terrorist attack of vast proportions, and responds by 
remaining on vacation and dismissing the briefer with the words: "All right. 
You've covered your ass, now."

You know your empire's crumbling when the same emperor drops everything to 
fly across the country from his vacation home in order to sign a bill 
intervening on the wrong side of a personal medical drama involving a single 
family.

You know your empire's crumbling when gays and immigrants are used as 
diversionary issues to keep people from thinking about the pillaging of 
their country and their wallets actually taking place. And it works.

You know your empire's crumbling when people are getting more religious and 
less scientific, not the other way around.

You know your empire's crumbling when your political leaders start to be 
chosen by dynastic rules of succession.

And you especially know your empire's crumbling when the most idiotic child 
of one of the least accomplished leaders in its history is not only crowned 
as the next emperor, but is even revered for a time by most of the public as 
a great one.

Rome? Britain? Spain?

At this rate we'll be lucky to end up like Belgium.