Money quote(s):
"Gideon Rachman got his otherwise much-ignored Financial Times column linked on the Drudge Report, this week. (Drudge is "the bull" in this scenario.) In his smuggest, most superior, British tone, he lectured the Americans on "the management of decline." "
Even last October (when this saw print), it was far too late for any Europeans (even the British) to be lecturing Americans on this topic.
"(T)he phrase was meant to be droll: to ridicule the mindset of people who were destroying the British economy through nationalizations, while walking away from her responsibilities "east of Suez"; who portrayed Britain's decline as inevitable, and themselves as the ingenious lords of this great recessional dance."
The British have always done droll quite well.
"We "running dogs of American imperialism" (as the Maoists used to call us) regret the decline of American power, not necessarily from adoration of everything American, but because the alternative to American power in the world is Chinese power, and the rise to consequence of an array of regional powers perhaps nastier. For as America goes down, these unspeakable powers go up, relatively, and get their opportunity to throw their weight around."
True enough. America's decline, to the extent that it is real and not merely public relations in advance of reality, does not occur in a vacuum. Nature, and international relations, abhores a vacuum.
"In a similar way, in a previous generation, many not British themselves, cheered on the works of "British imperialism." For imperialism is always with us, and the British form was rather more benign than, say, the German form.
That is a point characteristically lost upon "progressive" minds, with their underlying, usually unexamined, utopian premises. This has been on exhibit throughout the Arab Spring, where it is assumed that the overthrow of Arab dictators must naturally lead to roses."
Clearly Mr. Warren's crystal ball was working pretty well last year, since he saw where the Arab Spring would almost inevitably lead in places like Egypt.
"Decline is of two kinds, relative and absolute. The relative decline of the U.S. was inevitable, as other countries which had destroyed themselves through war and totalitarianism gradually recovered, and wealth with its accompanying powers was disseminated through the world. The misfortune here is that America's allies in Canada, Europe, and elsewhere, declined their share of military expenditure. All were content to let the U.S. carry the weight of NATO, while they embarked on nanny-statist ventures more advanced than the American.
These in turn contributed to absolute decline: and to the effective bankruptcy of states across the European Union, as well as America and Japan. Behind the budgetary catastrophes are the demographic realities of aging societies, which can never catch up. They simply don't have enough working young to pay all the "entitlements."
Relative decline was unavoidable; but absolute decline was a choice."
Relative decline isn't such a bad thing when a rising tide is lifting other countries out of poverty. It's less of a good thing when poor countries are getting poorer.
""Managing decline" now means making the best of the fallout; of choosing what we can still afford and what we can no longer. The British "managed their decline," and now sneer at Americans whose turn it is to manage theirs.
There was in Britain a Churchillian force that did not accept decline. It "won the war" on its last sprint, then snuffed out just after.
There is likewise in the United States today a force - call it Tea Party - that does not accept inevitable decline. It is allied with every other faltering life force in American society. And, as an exponent of this "rabid right" myself, I will not only cheer them on, but continue biting their detractors. "
10/19
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