tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1585995614037680457.post6118527847948626689..comments2023-11-28T09:02:03.742+01:00Comments on The Seneca Effect: Elegy for a Disappearing Empire: was the US Domination of Europe a Good Thing? Ugo Bardihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18231859786466899924noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1585995614037680457.post-32811303993427830522022-09-15T23:05:03.735+02:002022-09-15T23:05:03.735+02:00I as an ex Briton never regarded the EU as a norma...I as an ex Briton never regarded the EU as a normal feature of Europe life. Charlemagne, Napoleon and Hitler tried it, the EU is the closest to managing it. In the long term it is the national specifics and resultant tensions that define Europe from ground up, not some top down multinational imposition. The US is not part of this, it is an overseas export trying to be what Europe cannot. By contrast Russia is Europe's largest state and an integral part which is why doing unto them at the behest of the US is counter productive. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1585995614037680457.post-66307851655502205532022-09-15T22:23:03.984+02:002022-09-15T22:23:03.984+02:00Whether or not an Imperial relationship even exist...Whether or not an Imperial relationship even existed could be argued ( I think it did, but it was brief : only one generation) certainly the situation with fossil fuels and food for many years now, and Russia most recently shows a tipping point has passed for the US ,UK , and EU. The "Western Empire". Not.<br />Art Deco <br /> Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1585995614037680457.post-24814715554951936662022-09-15T01:16:24.766+02:002022-09-15T01:16:24.766+02:00The whole West is turning into a police state, whe...<i>The whole West is turning into a police state, where the government controls all the media and criminalizes dissent.</i><br /><br />This is the kind of dissenting statement that supplies its own evidence of untruth (unless, of course, you are in jail now). <br /><br />But to your larger point about the relationship of the US to the EU, which you suggest is that "the imperial center is extracting resources from its client states in Western Europe to the point of beggaring them": the US does run a modest trade deficit with Europe, mostly because Germany is such a gigantic export machine, but I expect that now that the EU and Germany have no access to cheap gas, the trade balance will reverse. If so, will you then say that the EU is the imperial center and is extracting resources from its client states in North America to the point of beggaring them?<br /><br />On the whole, I can see a case to be made for the whole of the Global North to be an empire which feasts on the resources of the Global South. But Europe as a subservient part of a US empire, not so much. You're over-reaching there.<br /><br />Joehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01251330546889158364noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1585995614037680457.post-39046444478957692992022-09-14T17:56:48.165+02:002022-09-14T17:56:48.165+02:00Yes, but later on the USSR increased its oil produ...Yes, but later on the USSR increased its oil production to the point that in the 1970s it produced significantly more oil than the US. The USSR was always a resource-rich state, its problems were different ones.Ugo Bardihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18231859786466899924noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1585995614037680457.post-81877082070119656322022-09-14T11:12:51.126+02:002022-09-14T11:12:51.126+02:00"The Roman Empire faded, but the Roman influe..."The Roman Empire faded, but the Roman influence on British customs and language remains visible to this day"<br /><br />True. Read my short comic piece about the UK's coins, "Ruling out Britannia" :<br /><br />http://www.worldofcoins.eu/forum/index.php/topic,38599.msg243706.html#msg243706Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1585995614037680457.post-1940286763353963322022-09-13T22:37:09.051+02:002022-09-13T22:37:09.051+02:00As an Englishman, I considered myself a good Europ...As an Englishman, I considered myself a good European. In normal times I would have voted to stay in the EU, but by the time of the Brexit referendum, I was so furious about the EU's treatment of Greece that I abstained from the vote. I was subsequently horrified when I learnt that my country had voted to leave the EU.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1585995614037680457.post-12073118563449400082022-09-13T21:38:05.958+02:002022-09-13T21:38:05.958+02:00I am surprised at the tone of this article. Most o...I am surprised at the tone of this article. Most of it spent comparing the USA and USSR, and not even a mention that at the end of WW2 the USA was producing 86% of the world oil? From there a lot of ramifications. The USSR had a much smaller economy because it had less oil to start with, which was also developed later. Obviously this tardiness is due in large part to a retrograde czar before the USSR, who did lose decades compared to the West...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1585995614037680457.post-60651164845607601592022-09-13T09:31:52.396+02:002022-09-13T09:31:52.396+02:00Britain's past coal reserves were more preciou...<b>Britain's past coal reserves were more precious than all what the empire Britain has managed to command and commanding.<br /><br />The US past coal, crude oil and natural gas reserves were more precious than all what the US achieved of an empire overseas - since James Watt.</b><br /><br />Humans are idiots, they needed to realise that a nation should never consume from its own national fossil fuel reserves - being geographically inside the nation.<br /><br />Going for overseas fossil fuel reserves to build and empire - required burning fuels from the national reserve - first - though.<br /><br />Is not this a chicken and egg situation?<br /><br /><b>Indeed - humans are idiots - fossil fuels were not created by nature to be burned by humans - but rather the reserves must have been kept hardly touched - in the ground</b>.<br /><br />Why so?<br /><br />When fossil fuels are burned - they end up mainly burned to control fossil fuels reserves.<br /><br />In the process - an <a href="https://the-fifth-law.com/pages/the-peak-oil-musical-chairs%E2%84%A2-calculator?ugo=https://www.senecaeffect.com/2022/09/elegy-for-disappearing-empire-was-us.html" rel="nofollow">Energy Musical Chairs Game<a rel="nofollow"> reality materialises - rather than an Empire nor a Civilisation.<br /><br />When fossil fuel reserves are burned to protect fossil fuel reserves from others - the reserves are gone - in no time - forever.<br /><br />Humans needed to be more developed ethically, morally and intellectually before they mass-extract any of the fossil fuel reserves - if at all.<br /><br />"<a href="https://the-fifth-law.com/pages/press-release?ugo=https://www.senecaeffect.com/2022/09/elegy-for-disappearing-empire-was-us.html" rel="nofollow">Energy, like time, flows from past to future</a>"<br /><br />Wailing.<br /><br />Scenes from Baghdad - living the Energy Musical Charis Game Reality <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCCtDMrRZd0" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCCtDMrRZd0</a>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1585995614037680457.post-46103496502701543682022-09-13T09:04:48.476+02:002022-09-13T09:04:48.476+02:00Britain's past coal reserves were more preciou...<b>Britain's past coal reserves were more precious than all what the empire Britain has managed to command and commanding.<br /><br />The US past coal, crude oil and natural gas reserves were more precious than all what the US achieved of an empire overseas - since James Watt.</b><br /><br />Humans are idiots, they needed to realise that a nation should never consume from its own national fossil fuel reserves - being geographically inside the nation.<br /><br />Going for overseas fossil fuel reserves to build and empire - required burning fuels from the national reserve - first - though.<br /><br />Is not this a chicken and egg situation?<br /><br /><b>Indeed - humans are idiots - fossil fuels were not created by nature to be burned by humans - but rather the reserves must have been kept hardly touched - in the ground</b>.<br /><br />Why so?<br /><br />When fossil fuels are burned - they end up mainly burned to control fossil fuels reserves.<br /><br />In the process - an <a href="https://the-fifth-law.com/pages/the-peak-oil-musical-chairs%E2%84%A2-calculator?ugo=https://www.senecaeffect.com/2022/09/elegy-for-disappearing-empire-was-us.html" rel="nofollow">Energy Musical Chairs Game<a rel="nofollow"> reality materialises - rather than an Empire nor a Civilisation.<br /><br />When fossil fuel reserves are burned to protect fossil fuel reserves from others - the reserves are gone - in no time - forever.<br /><br />Humans needed to be more developed ethically, morally and intellectually before they mass-extract any of the fossil fuel reserves - if at all.<br /><br />"<a href="https://the-fifth-law.com/pages/press-release?ugo=https://www.senecaeffect.com/2022/09/elegy-for-disappearing-empire-was-us.html" rel="nofollow">Energy, like time, flows from past to future</a>"<br /><br />Wailing.<br /><br />Scenes from Baghdad - living the Energy Musical Charis Game Reality <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCCtDMrRZd0" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCCtDMrRZd0</a><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1585995614037680457.post-24250883212368772882022-09-12T20:15:24.686+02:002022-09-12T20:15:24.686+02:00Excellent article, Western Europe's power/weal...Excellent article, Western Europe's power/wealth seriously declined when they lost the wealth they were looting from their colonies & also while the cold war was going on, the US dominated these vassals more politically rather than economically. They needed their minions to believe they were a benign friend and protector to show the Soviet population that life was better in the West. But after the dissolution of the SU, as US power too has faded, they have resorted to bullying us, their vassals, through economic exploitation as well as political. <br /><br />We have now been coerced through our Quisling 'leaders' into also supporting the US's economic war on the Eastern rising superpowers and will pay with our destitution because we are more afraid of our 'friend' than the supposed 'enemy'.<br /><br />So, like the UK committing slow economic suicide with brexit, Europe is similarly imposing needless sanctions on itself that it cannot afford. Until our sheeple understand this and force our ruling elite to change course, we the serfs will shiver hungrily in the dark this winter and all that follow. You truly deserve the rulers you accept and it is amazing that in an era when we have never had so much access to knowledge before, we still fall for simple propaganda like only the smallest children.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1585995614037680457.post-89974056172884387832022-09-12T00:34:08.009+02:002022-09-12T00:34:08.009+02:00I don't think it's terribly likely the US ...I don't think it's terribly likely the US will occupy Western Europe. More likely, it'll simply keep pushing Europe toward anti-Russian policies that are ruinous for Europe (but useful for the US), and then when Europe is in (economic) ruins, the US will simply say "sorry, can't help ya." Are you ready for a Russian lifestyle? Russia circa 1994, that is. Irenanoreply@blogger.com