{"id":19904,"date":"2016-04-13T12:44:10","date_gmt":"2016-04-13T17:44:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=19904"},"modified":"2016-04-13T12:44:10","modified_gmt":"2016-04-13T17:44:10","slug":"the-end-of-the-american-empire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=19904","title":{"rendered":"The End of the American Empire"},"content":{"rendered":"

The End of the American Empire<\/a><\/h3>\n

I\u2019m here to talk about the end of the American empire. But before I do I want to note that one of our most charming characteristics as Americans is our amnesia. I mean, we are so good at forgetting what we\u2019ve done and where we did it that we can hide our own Easter eggs.<\/p>\n

\n

I\u2019m reminded of the geezer\u2014someone about my age\u2014who was sitting in his living room having a drink with his friend while his wife made dinner.<\/p>\n

He said to his friend, \u201cyou know, we went to a really terrific restaurant last week. You\u2019d like it. Great atmosphere. Delicious food. Wonderful service.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s the name of it?\u201d his friend asked.<\/p>\n

He scratched his head. \u201cAh, ah. Ah. What do you call those red flowers you give to women you love?\u201d<\/p>\n

His friend hesitated. \u201cA rose?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cRight. Um, hey, Rose! What was the name of that restaurant we went to last week?\u201d<\/p>\n

Americans like to forget we ever had an empire or to claim that, if we did, we never really wanted one. But the momentum of Manifest Destiny made us an imperial power. It carried us well beyond the shores of the continent we seized from its original aboriginal and Mexican owners. The Monroe Doctrine proclaimed an American sphere of influence in the Western Hemisphere. But the American empire was never limited to that sphere.<\/p>\n

In 1854, the United States deployed U.S. Marines to China and Japan, where they imposed our first treaty ports. Somewhat like Guant\u00e1namo, these were places in foreign countries where our law, not theirs, prevailed, whether they liked it or not. Also in 1854, U.S. gunboats began to sail up and down the Yangtze River (the jugular vein of China), a practice that ended only in 1941, when Japan as well as the Chinese went after us.<\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The End of the American Empire I\u2019m here to talk about the end of the American empire. But before I do I want to note that one of our most charming characteristics as Americans is our amnesia. I mean, we are so good at forgetting what we\u2019ve done and where we did it that we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[13454,3602,5493,259,8977,13455,827],"class_list":["post-19904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","tag-amb-chas-w-freeman","tag-american-empire","tag-counterpunch","tag-empire","tag-manifest-destiny","tag-monroe-doctrine","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19904"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19904\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19905,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19904\/revisions\/19905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}