Chris Hedges: Brace Yourself, the American Empire Is Over

[denjohn]

An in depth interview that touches a lot of the topics here in Free Speech.
In the spirit of Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn.
" Hedges offers an interesting interpretation of events that one rarely hears in the mainstream media."
http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.co ... an_19.html

[drober23]

I listened to about a half hour of Mr. Hedges discussion, and am not on board with most of his individual arguments. I agree with his general premise, but not with his explanations for most of it. Here is my pot-shot at explaining why American influence may be on the decline:

In a way, the 50's and 60's were an aberration. With WWII quickly following upon the destruction of WWI, most of the other global powers had shattered themselves while the US was largely unscathed. This put the US in a dominant global position, and we prospered as our economy was churning out goods and as other countries had to rebuild.

Due largely to these post-war advantages, the US was poised to take advantage of the superabundance of cheap energy resulting from the rapid exploitation of oil and to some extent natural gas. The world was in a "wealth generation" mode based upon the low cost to produce energy from fossil fuels, and the US was leading the charge.

The reality of cheap energy is fading fast. Oil production may be able to continue to rise for a bit, but the easy to reach oil is being used quickly. New sources exist, but will be more costly both monetarily and environmentally to extract from the earth. These increasing costs will be passed along to the users of the energy. Since the US uses much more energy per capita than any other country, this will have a larger impact here.

The combination of other countries catching up and surpassing our economy, and the rapidly increasing cost of our energy addiction, will lead to real problems. The refusal for us, as a society, to address these issues in a long-range manner will make the problems worse.

[denjohn]

Well said Drober, and I doubt Mr Hedges would disagree re peak cheap energy and it's contribution to our economic decline, tho his approach seems to be broader and emphasis perhaps more social justice oriented.
The causes of our predicament are many, I believe your and his views are not mutually exclusive.
I believe he has very compelling 'individual arguments', some a lot more subtle and insightful to those who already get peak cheap fossil fuel, "an interesting interpretation of events that one rarely hears in the mainstream media."

[Amskeptic]

Well said Drober,

=D> I agree.