Huh? Me, a leftist? OK, I read Chomsky sometimes. He's right about some things. The one (only?) thing the best leftists are good at is pointing to a lot of the bad shit in 'capitalist' (read: US) society that nobody wants to see. But as for the communists, war has had little to do with it. The soviets in the end beat themselves and imploded their economy, and the practical Chinese recognized the inevitable. Come to think of it, the one thing that might end up killing the US is the hard-on sported by the so-called right wing to convert the US economy into a command-driven one via the military industrial complex. In other words, the problem with the republicans is that they're Stalinists in disguise and, as you look to point out, supply and demand (or physics) will get them in the end: You can only print up so much funny money. As for winning in Vietnam...do you mean in this universe? And saying that we were 'winning' except for the cut in funds is kinda like saying "we were winning except for running out of bullets and soldiers"... -TD> Date: Sun, 18 Nov 2007 12:02:01 -0500> To: camera_lumina@hotmail.com; clips@philodox.com; dgcchat@dgcchat.com; cypherpunks@al-qaeda.net> From: rah@shipwright.com> Subject: RE: Kissinger: Nation-State Collapsing, Film At 11> > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----> Hash: SHA1> > At 6:28 AM -0500 11/18/07, Tyler Durden wrote:> >The Vietcong chased our guys up the stairs of the ebassy to the choppers.> > After a so-called "democratic" congress took away *all* their money?> > We were winning in Viet Nam. Hell, we *won* the Tet "offensive", for that> matter.> > We lost on college campae, where history is written, apparently, by losers.> And in the media, which is the first draft of same, also written by losers,> in the long run.> > Unwash you mind, Tyler, and learn not to regurgitate leftism so much, hmmm?> > Yes, boys and girls, "empires" are, currently, like for the last 12,000> years or so, what happens when you win too many fights. Life's a bitch and> then the empire falls. Which is what Kissinger, oddly enough, is saying.> Which is nonetheless true even if The Dick Cheney, er, Darth Vader, Of The> Nixon Administration said it.> > Better inside the tent pissing out, frankly.> > If you really want to freak your knee-jerk reflex out, go read, horrors,> Victor Davis Hanson's "Carnage and Culture", and come back when you change> your underwear. The west wins wars because it makes more stuff and kills> more people. The VietCommies are knocking on *our* door to do business, not> us on theirs. They used the *West's* technology, and even one of its more> broken pseudo-sciences-cum-religions, Marxism, because they had none of> their own that would work. Still do.> > Certainly, crypto, and geodesic networks, have the potential to re-organize> society, because society maps pretty much to is communications> architectures, but, at the moment, we're still stuck in a world of> hierarchy and book-entry transactions. Lots of people nailing manifestos on> the church doors (see this list, 15 years ago, now...), but nobody's> printed 'em for the peasants and princes to read and burn down the> cathedrals with yet.> > Though, strangely enough, Kissinger himself notes, underneath his black> helmet and around puffs of his ventilator, and if you can bestill your> jerking knees that long to read that far, that the nation-state's days are> numbered.> > Probably, I would claim, because of geodesic networks, and maybe even> crypto :-).> > Kewl.> > Cheers,> RAH> > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----> Version: PGP Desktop 9.0.6 (Build 6060)> > iQA/AwUBR0BwB8PxH8jf3ohaEQKUwwCgqhgDzNCSn3s3qMZGiB+mLiQLJ50An3Dw> eeK89iW2Zto4yDV0kDK0Q3N0> =wn6r> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----> > -- > -----------------> R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@ibuc.com>> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA> "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,> [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to> experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' _________________________________________________________________ Put your friends on the big screen with Windows Vista. + Windows Live. http://www.microsoft.com/windows/shop/specialoffers.mspx?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_CPC_... ediaCtr_bigscreen_102007