A Decade Of Self Delusion

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  • Jack Ryan

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    A Decade of Self-Delusion - HUMAN EVENTS

    A Decade of Self-Delusion
    by Patrick J. Buchanan

    12/29/2009


    About the first decade of what was to be the Second American Century, the pessimists have been proven right.

    According to the International Monetary Fund, the United States began the century producing 32 percent of the world's gross domestic product. We ended the decade producing 24 percent. No nation in modern history, save for the late Soviet Union, has seen so precipitous a decline in relative power in a single decade.

    The United States began the century with a budget surplus. We ended with a deficit of 10 percent of gross domestic product, which will be repeated in 2010. Where the economy was at full employment in 2000, 10 percent of the labor force is out of work today and another 7 percent is underemployed or has given up looking for a job.
    Between one-fourth and one-third of all U.S. manufacturing jobs have disappeared in 10 years, the fruits of a free-trade ideology that has proven anything but free for this country. Our future is being outsourced -- to China.

    While the median income of American families was stagnant, the national debt doubled.

    The dollar lost half its value against the euro. Once the most self-sufficient republic in history, which produced 96 percent of all it consumed, the U.S.A. is almost as dependent on foreign nations today for manufactured goods, and the loans to pay for them, as we were in the early years of the republic.

    What the British were to us then, China is today.

    Beijing holds the mortgage and grows impatient as we endlessly borrow on equity and refuse to begin paying it down. The possibility exists of an eventual run on the dollar or even a U.S. debt default.

    Who did this to us? We did it to ourselves.

    We sold ourselves a lot of snake oil about the Global Economy, interdependence, free trade and "it doesn't make any difference where goods are produced." The George W. Bush Republicans ran up the deficit with tax cuts, two wars and a splurge in social spending to rival the guns-and-butter of the Great Society.

    Abandoning its role as the fellow who comes and takes away the punch bowl when the party's getting good, the Fed kept the money flowing fast and free, creating the tech bubble that burst in Y2K and the stock and housing bubble that burst at decade's end.

    To pull us back from the cliff's edge, over which we were headed a year ago, the Fed doubled the money supply, while the administration ran up deficit spending to the highest level since World War II.

    Unlike World War II, however, there is no end in sight to these deficits.

    The stock market, which flat-lined over the decade, had to surge 50 percent in 2009 to retrieve the worst losses since the Depression.

    Everyone, it seems, except for Washington bureaucrats and Wall Street, for whom the bonuses never seem to stop, has been hammered by the sinking home values and shrinking portfolios.

    After Sept. 11, the nation was united behind a president as it had not been since Pearl Harbor. But instead of focusing on the enemies who did this to us, we took Osama bin Laden's bait and plunged into a war in Iraq that bled and divided us, alienated Europe and the Arab world, and destroyed the Republican Party's reputation as the reliable custodian of national security and foreign policy.

    The party paid -- with the loss of both houses in 2006 and the presidency in 2008 -- but the nation has not stopped paying.

    With nearly 200,000 troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and another 30,000 more on the way, al-Qaida is now in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and North Africa, while the huge U.S. military presence in Afghanistan and Iraq serves as its recruiting poster.

    Again, it is not a malevolent fate that has done this to us. We did it to ourselves. We believed all that hubristic blather about our being the "greatest empire since Rome," the "indispensable nation" and "unipolar power" advancing to "benevolent global hegemony" in a series of "cakewalk" wars to "end tyranny in our world."

    After a decade of self-delusion and self-indulgence, we must stop deceiving ourselves. As Hurricane Katrina demonstrated, the "can-do" nation that won World War II in Europe and the Pacific in less than four years, that put a man on the moon in the same decade JFK said we would, is history.

    We have a government that cannot balance its books, defend its borders or win its wars. And what is it now doing? Drafting another entitlement program as we are informed that the Social Security and Medicare trust funds have unfunded liabilities in the trillions.

    At the end of the first decade of the 21st century, the question is not whether we will preside over the creation of a New World Order, but whether America's decline is irreversible.
     

    Jack Ryan

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    And now we see a perfect example of both how we got here and why it's not going to get any better.
     

    Phil502

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    I think a lot of those problems were started by the democrats and finally exploded later on when Bush was in. I am not saying the Reublicans are great but the economy does not stop and start on a dime.

    Buchanan has said a lot of things there but not the whole story.
     

    LEaSH

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    Amazing that a dyed in the wool conservative can write that and people will still jump up and cry that it's the liberals.

    Some will never accept the fact that the conservatives of the past decade are just as complicit if not orchestrating this pending trainwreck. All indications lead a reasonable person to believe that what is happening now (and in the near future) is completely by design. I don't even wear aluminum foil!

    This country is NOT going to change for the better. No matter who gets blamed by whom.
     

    CarmelHP

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    Amazing that a dyed in the wool conservative can write that and people will still jump up and cry that it's the liberals.

    Some will never accept the fact that the conservatives of the past decade are just as complicit if not orchestrating this pending trainwreck. All indications lead a reasonable person to believe that what is happening now (and in the near future) is completely by design. I don't even wear aluminum foil!

    This country is NOT going to change for the better. No matter who gets blamed by whom.

    "Dyed in the wool" how? He actively sought to have Al Gore win the Florida recount.
     

    LEaSH

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    "Dyed in the wool" how? He actively sought to have Al Gore win the Florida recount.

    Are we talking about the same guy???

    He challenged Bush senior for nomination when billary won in '92 - so maybe there's bush hatred - or something we don't know.

    But I still stand by my statement when I say he's far more conservative than what we've seen in the whitehouse the past decade. He worked in the whitehouse under Nixon, Ford, and probably Reagan. I don't think he worked under Bush sr. - maybe wrong. I'd say he's pretty 'dyed in the wool'. Whatever he hates about the Bush family may or may not be real. Could be personal - could be philosophical.

    The point that I was stating is that the childishness of those that will forever look past these facts presented in the article and dismiss it as 'democratic drivel' and still not recognize things as contrived goals of both parties.

    I think that the Bush Mafia cares as much about the country and its people as much as the Pelosi Mafia cares.
     

    edsinger

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    Yeah I think its crap.

    When the chips were down and things were really looking bad last year, people all over the world flocked to the DOLLAR, not the Euro or yen.

    Lets look at it from something I posted in July....

    https://www.indianagunowners.com/fo...nt/39639-a_different_look_at_the_economy.html


    The numbers are no longer exact, but even at 90% GDP in debt, we are in MUCH better shape than most countries.

    The US is the worlds engine, still. China must have the US or it is nothing..

    Just an opinioin
     

    Archbishop

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    OK I'll give you my "childish" assessments. And yes I'm quite aware of who Buchanan is.
    He spends the first half of this article telling how bad things are getting. No denying any of that, but then implies that tax cuts and wars are to blame. This completely ignores corruption and bad marketing that have run viral through or banking market and didn't really get to full steam until after the democrats took control of congress. He seems to later imply that a bad economy is part of what allowed the dems to take the congress in 96. (It was due to screw ups on the part of the Republicans, but this wasn't one of them.)
    Also toward the end of this article he is saying that the two wars were nothing but mistakes and have accomplished nothing but spreading global terror and ruining our reputation around the world.
    I left off quite a bit to this, but in short he spends half the article stating how sucky things are and then turns around and blames it on his own party ignoring any and many contributions to this downward spiral by the liberals and just plain greed and corruption outside of any politics.
    Having said all of that I want to make sure what I'm saying is understood, I realize that the republicans share in this blame it just rubs me the wrong way that he has over simplified and blamed it entirely on the republicans.
     

    Cygnus

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    OK I'll give you my "childish" assessments. And yes I'm quite aware of who Buchanan is.
    He spends the first half of this article telling how bad things are getting. No denying any of that, but then implies that tax cuts and wars are to blame. This completely ignores corruption and bad marketing that have run viral through or banking market and didn't really get to full steam until after the democrats took control of congress. He seems to later imply that a bad economy is part of what allowed the dems to take the congress in 96. (It was due to screw ups on the part of the Republicans, but this wasn't one of them.)
    Also toward the end of this article he is saying that the two wars were nothing but mistakes and have accomplished nothing but spreading global terror and ruining our reputation around the world.
    I left off quite a bit to this, but in short he spends half the article stating how sucky things are and then turns around and blames it on his own party ignoring any and many contributions to this downward spiral by the liberals and just plain greed and corruption outside of any politics.
    Having said all of that I want to make sure what I'm saying is understood, I realize that the republicans share in this blame it just rubs me the wrong way that he has over simplified and blamed it entirely on the republicans.

    I only questioned whether you knew who he was because you called it Democratic drivel. I don't think I called you childish or disparaged you. If I did hey sorry.
    I get your opinions. I just think ole Pat is brutally honest. The bad moves by the left are pretty self -evident. I think he's pointing out the beam in the Republicans eye. I do think the wars were bungled by the last admisistration. Especially Iraq. That takes nothing away from the folks who served and continue to serve bravely though. I'm in the camp of we should have finished off the Taliban and there terrorist buddies and then re-evaluated but hey hind site is 20/20. I think he's right on the mark regarding manufacturing leaving the country and NAFTA. All of which the Republicans were all too willing to be a part of
    I also think f it rubbed you the wrong way then Pat has succeded in his efforts.
     
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    Jack, the Chinese are not the British.

    We can't blame our collective national laziness on Chinese efficiency and eager workers.

    We have hard-workers here too, but the difference is our corporations have no faith in We, the People. China's corporations know their populace is an efficient cash-cow for them. We lose of our own accord, Jack. We let it get this way.
     

    Archbishop

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    I only questioned whether you knew who he was because you called it Democratic drivel. I don't think I called you childish or disparaged you. If I did hey sorry.
    I get your opinions. I just think ole Pat is brutally honest. The bad moves by the left are pretty self -evident. I think he's pointing out the beam in the Republicans eye. I do think the wars were bungled by the last admisistration. Especially Iraq. That takes nothing away from the folks who served and continue to serve bravely though. I'm in the camp of we should have finished off the Taliban and there terrorist buddies and then re-evaluated but hey hind site is 20/20. I think he's right on the mark regarding manufacturing leaving the country and NAFTA. All of which the Republicans were all too willing to be a part of
    I also think f it rubbed you the wrong way then Pat has succeded in his efforts.
    Nah, we're good man, someone else referred to my first on line comment as childish. Which I found odd as it was just that a online comment fairly devoid of anything that I would consider childish......
     

    LEaSH

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    I apologize for that.

    I probably should have stressed that as I would like to see Republicans get their selves in order rather than play a role of blamelessness.

    The idea that criticizing the Republican party would make Buchanan (or anyone else) sound like a dem is absurd.

    If the Republicans don't get their house in order soon, they wont be able to challenge the left for leadership this voting season - or two years from now.

    And I do think he hates GHWB and everything tied to him.
     

    Cat-Herder

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    blah blah, point all the fingers you want. Until We the People throw out the blood-sucking career politicians and realize the left/right paradigm is designed to divide and conquer us, America will continue to slide into the pocket of the Global Corporatists.
    And, I might add, it deserves to.
    In a country where the Constitution and Bill of Rights are ignored for 'security', we will have neither security nor rights.
     

    Jack Ryan

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    Jack, the Chinese are not the British.

    We can't blame our collective national laziness on Chinese efficiency and eager workers.

    We have hard-workers here too, but the difference is our corporations have no faith in We, the People. China's corporations know their populace is an efficient cash-cow for them. We lose of our own accord, Jack. We let it get this way.

    The point of the article is we were a colony of the British and we are becoming colonized by the Chinese. That is how the Chinese are becoming what the British were to the US.
     

    edsinger

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    This cracks me up, we are not even close to a colony of the Chinese...come on.

    America has her problems for sure, but we still and for the foreseeable future will remain the worlds only Superpower..

    This is FACT.
     

    haldir

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    We wanted free trade and we got it. We flooded our markets with cheap textiles from China so now all of our textile manufacturers are out of business. The WalMart is able to sell cheap clothes to us so we are happy with the trade off. So then China begins to manufacture hardware, durable goods and other items. We lose those industries but it is okay. We have more cheap goods at the WalMart to buy. But we still have the auto industry in this country and the thousands of suppliers that go along with that business. But those good American companies start making more and more of their product in Mexico or other countries. Then there is more competition from auto manufacturers in other countries. So our one big American industry begins to weaken. Then suddenly we are hit with a financial crises, the likes of which we haven't seen in decades if ever. So the weakened auto industry collapses as well. Do we really have any hopes that industry will be restored in this country. We have way too much government regulation. The costs of doing business in this country with the Unions, Health care costs, OSHA, EPA regs, payoffs to politicians are way higher here than in those other countries. We can no longer compete unless something changes.

    As far as being the lone superpower, what does that get us? How long does that last? I am reminded of the Japanese Admiral that was said something about fearful of waking us because of our industrial might. NOt as much a fear now, is it?
     
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