See you through it, Mando Maire
5 hours ago
Sunday, 13 February 2011
The Decline and Fall of the American Empire
A soft landing for America 40 years from now? Don’t bet on it. The demise of the United States as the global superpower could come far more quickly than anyone imagines. If Washington is dreaming of 2040 or 2050 as the end of the American Century, a more realistic assessment of domestic and global trends suggests that in 2025, just 15 years from now, it could all be over except for the shouting.
Despite the aura of omnipotence most empires project, a look at their history should remind us that they are fragile organisms. So delicate is their ecology of power that, when things start to go truly bad, empires regularly unravel with unholy speed: just a year for Portugal, two years for the Soviet Union, eight years for France, 11 years for the Ottomans, 17 years for Great Britain, and, in all likelihood, 22 years for the United States, counting from the crucial year 2003.
Future historians are likely to identify the Bush administration’s rash invasion of Iraq in that year as the start of America's downfall. However, instead of the bloodshed that marked the end of so many past empires, with cities burning and civilians slaughtered, this twenty-first century imperial collapse could come relatively quietly through the invisible tendrils of economic collapse or cyberwarfare.
But have no doubt: when Washington's global dominion finally ends, there will be painful daily reminders of what such a loss of power means for Americans in every walk of life. As a half-dozen European nations have discovered, imperial decline tends to have a remarkably demoralizing impact on a society, regularly bringing at least a generation of economic privation. As the economy cools, political temperatures rise, often sparking serious domestic unrest.
Available economic, educational, and military data indicate that, when it comes to US global power, negative trends will aggregate rapidly by 2020 and are likely to reach a critical mass no later than 2030. The American Century, proclaimed so triumphantly at the start of World War II, will be tattered and fading by 2025, its eighth decade, and could be history by 2030.
Significantly, in 2008, the US National Intelligence Council admitted for the first time that America's global power was indeed on a declining trajectory. In one of its periodic futuristic reports, Global Trends 2025, the Council cited “the transfer of global wealth and economic power now under way, roughly from West to East" and "without precedent in modern history,” as the primary factor in the decline of the “United States' relative strength—even in the military realm.” Like many in Washington, however, the Council’s analysts anticipated a very long, very soft landing for American global preeminence, and harbored the hope that somehow the US would long “retain unique military capabilities… to project military power globally” for decades to come...
Despite the aura of omnipotence most empires project, a look at their history should remind us that they are fragile organisms. So delicate is their ecology of power that, when things start to go truly bad, empires regularly unravel with unholy speed: just a year for Portugal, two years for the Soviet Union, eight years for France, 11 years for the Ottomans, 17 years for Great Britain, and, in all likelihood, 22 years for the United States, counting from the crucial year 2003.
Future historians are likely to identify the Bush administration’s rash invasion of Iraq in that year as the start of America's downfall. However, instead of the bloodshed that marked the end of so many past empires, with cities burning and civilians slaughtered, this twenty-first century imperial collapse could come relatively quietly through the invisible tendrils of economic collapse or cyberwarfare.
But have no doubt: when Washington's global dominion finally ends, there will be painful daily reminders of what such a loss of power means for Americans in every walk of life. As a half-dozen European nations have discovered, imperial decline tends to have a remarkably demoralizing impact on a society, regularly bringing at least a generation of economic privation. As the economy cools, political temperatures rise, often sparking serious domestic unrest.
Available economic, educational, and military data indicate that, when it comes to US global power, negative trends will aggregate rapidly by 2020 and are likely to reach a critical mass no later than 2030. The American Century, proclaimed so triumphantly at the start of World War II, will be tattered and fading by 2025, its eighth decade, and could be history by 2030.
Significantly, in 2008, the US National Intelligence Council admitted for the first time that America's global power was indeed on a declining trajectory. In one of its periodic futuristic reports, Global Trends 2025, the Council cited “the transfer of global wealth and economic power now under way, roughly from West to East" and "without precedent in modern history,” as the primary factor in the decline of the “United States' relative strength—even in the military realm.” Like many in Washington, however, the Council’s analysts anticipated a very long, very soft landing for American global preeminence, and harbored the hope that somehow the US would long “retain unique military capabilities… to project military power globally” for decades to come...
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Alfred W. McCoy @'The Nation'
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Patti Smith - London 1976 +
PATTI SMITH
London 1976 [no label, 1CD]
Live at the Roundhouse, London, May 17, 1976 - very good audience recording?; plus bonus tracks from 1975 and rare interviews. Ripped from vinyl.
Reviewing a 2007 concert at the Roundhouse in London, Kevin Harley wrote in The Independent: “You’ve got to have faith when it comes to Patti Smith. In May 1976, playing her first-ever UK shows at the Roundhouse, she aspired to alchemise rock ‘n’ roll, politics and poetry in an outsider’s bid for revolution and transcendence. The conviction holds firm: Smith’s concerts are testimonies to a belief that rock has to strive to matter.”
While Smith’s belief in the power of rock has not wavered, as her 2010 year-end Bowery shows continue to indicate, not many were fortunate enough to witness Smith’s early shows in the United Kingdom.
But thanks to booomboom, who shared these tracks from an ultra rare vinyl on Dime, fans can now celebrate in this slice of Patti Smith history.
Click on the highlighted tracks to download the MP3s (these are high quality MP3s - sample rate of 224 kbps). As far as we can ascertain, these tracks have never been officially released on CD.
London Roundhouse, May 17, 1976
Track 01. Free Money (7.0MB)
Track 02. Pissing In A River (7.0MB)
Track 03. Pumping (My Heart) (4.4MB)
Track 04. Ain’t It Strange (12.2MB)
Track 05. Gloria (11.1MB)
Track 06. Time Is On My Side (5.6MB)
Poetry reading at St. Mark’s Church, January 1, 1975
Track 07. Histories Of The Universe/Seven Ways Of Going, Parade* (13.4MB - megaupload link)
This track is also offered as a free download here. (According to the wikipedia, 12 albums are available for free download in MP3 format by Giorno Poetry Systems at UbuWeb.com).
November 29, 1976
Track 08. Hungerthon Interview WNEW (8.2MB)
Live at Central Park, May 11, 1975
Track 09. Piss Factory (7.9MB)
Track 10. War Is Over (2.0MB)
Track 11. Land (11.9MB)
With Scott Muni (?), early 1976
Track 12. Radio Interview WNEW (20.6MB - visit the html page to download the track)
Track 12. Radio Interview WNEW (megaupload alternative link)
* Also found on Cash Cow - The Best of Giorno Poetry Systems, 1965-1993 (discontinued).
@'BigO'
John Coltrane - Interview with Arnold Blume (June 15th 1958)
This previously unreleased full recording (from June 15, 1958) has been made available in conjunction with the Slought Foundation "Coltrane." initiative. An excerpted transcription, "An Interview with John Coltrane” by August Blume, was first published in The Jazz Review 2, no. 1 (January 1959)
Recorded at Blume’s home in Baltimore, Maryland prior to that evening’s performance of the Miles Davis Quintet (with John Coltrane, Red Garland, Paul Chambers, and Philly Joe Jones) at The Crystal Caverns, Washington, D.C.
Audio (46 min)
@'slought.org'
Liberated from HerrB's sadly closed 'Pathways To Unknown Worlds' blog!
REpost: Underground Resistance - Transition
There will come a time in your life when you will ask yourself a series of questions.
Am I happy with who I am?
Am I happy with the people around me?
Am I happy with what I’m doing?
Am I happy with the way my life is going?
Do I have a life or am I just living?
Do not let these questions restrain or trouble you just point youself in the direction of your dreams
Find your strengh in the sound and make your transition.
Find your strengh in the sound and make your transition.
Do not spend too much time thinking and not enough doing.
Did I try the hardest at any of my dreams?
Did I purposely let others discourage me when I knew I could?
Will I die never knowing what I could have been or could of done?
Do not let these doubts restrain or trouble you just point yourself in the direction of your dreams.
Find your strength in the sound and make your transition. There will be people who say you can’t - you will.
There will be people who say you don't mix this with that and you will say "watch me".
There will be people who will say play it safe, that's too risky - you will take that chance and have no fear.
You won't let these questions restrain or trouble you.
You will point yourself in the direction of your dreams.
You will find the strength in the sound and make your transition.
For those who know it's time to leave the house and go back to the field.
Find your strength in the sound and make your transition.
Underground Resistance - 'Transition' (Acapella)
FACT mix 214 - Optimo (Jan '11)
Download
Tracklist:
Odd Machine – Phase In (edit)
Cindytalk – Our Shadow, Remembered
Alvo Noto & Ryuichi Sakamoto – Morning
This Mortal Coil – Song To The Siren (JD Twitch Reversion)
Zoviet France – The Decriminalisation Of Country Music
Sun City Girls – Come Maddalena
Forest Swords – The Light
Oneohtrix Point Never – Young Beidnahga
No Man – Days In The Trees
Tomita – Clair De Lune
Conrad Schnitzler – Ballet Statique
Peter Baumann – This Day
Reichmann – Wunderbar
Duet Emmo – The First Person
Carol – So Low
Zoviet France – Vienna (extract)
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