RE:who gets to make the rulesMarner16 wrote: Interesting discussion tonight.
I'm not a historian, but from what I can tell, whoever had the biggest guns, or prior to guns, who were the best archers or swordsmen or whoever ruled the seas made the rules.
During my lifetime, the Americans have financed the biggest army and have pretty much ruled the world. The only time that American domination was challenged was by the iron curtain until the USA bankrupted the USSR with the threat of Star Wars.
Another fact of my life dating back to the fifites, is that oil has been the real currency of the world.
Until fracking, America wasn't self-reliant for oil, so they felt they had to exert their will in places that did have oil. Since the Americans were in a cold war with Russia, the States took the strategic position of using the CIA and their military to exert control over the Middle East.
Here's my rant:
What does all of the above have to do with today now that the future of oil use and supply is up in the air? I guess it depends upon the will of the American public, or the 1%, or more realistically, the 0.1% of the 1% if the number is even that high.
The easy solution would be to take over Venezuela and Alberta (who should welcome the US with open arms as there is no way the US could treat Alberta worse than Ottawa) to secure whatever oil supply they need for as long as they need it.
Finding a method to stop methane leaks has to be a whole lot easier and a fraction of a decimal point of turning North America green. Surely the best brains in the country could create highly efficient scrubbers in an economical way.
I have my doubts that the ROW is going to cooperate in any way with America to bring down GHG across the planet, so the best America can do is to make sure their local enviroment is as clean as possible. Maybe America should start planning sea walls instead of finishing the Trump wall. Maybe America could convert some of its myriad of domestic reserve military bases into strategic centers to combat forest fires instead of the whatever the redundant military bases currently do.
While America has been degenerating into a complete clusterf*ck, China continues to take over virtually ever supply chain in the world.
There was a time when America used its military advantage to keep China in check, but it looks like those days are over. While China has built up its own military presence, it appears that it has used is advantages in both creating and using computer hacking and dare I say drug warfare. As America's financial clout deteriorates and China's escalates, how long will America be able to keep China at bay? Not long imo.
I have been telling anyone that will listen (a small and dwindling audience as I get older) for many years that America needed to secure its oil supply chain (via Canada initially and later fracking) and stop meddling in the Middle East. The point was to have the US reduce its military budget by a trillion dollars per year (the actual budget is less than a $1 trillion but when all the suppliers are considered, the real number is much higher) so that America could rebuild its manufacturing. If America ran a couple of warships up and down its east and west coasts, nobody would be able to touch them by historical military tactics.
The US could use the trillion dollars savings per year to rebuild their infrastructure and economy. They have one of the best sources of raw materials in Canada and a cheap labour force in Mexico to draw upon as part of their rebuild.
I don't know if my ideas make sense, but surely they can't be anything worse that what we have seen from the USA in the past 20 years or more.
Rant complete!
Good post!
Rather than taking over Alberta, all they would need is a change in government. Hell they could even accomplish the task of the resources just by talking and agreeing. If the current government didn't play along, then punish them through sanctions and tariffs....hehehe....sound familiar?
Kanaduh is doomed without their neighbors to the south either way so might as well play ball.
IMO