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writing for godot

Can Armageddon be Stopped?

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Written by Richard Kane   
Monday, 20 December 2010 00:07
There is a nagging feeling, that the Western World may face something like total collapse. Some gleefully stocking up on supplies and weapons, expecting to be a survivor in a new world out there. Some grab gold, not realizing that in an utter disaster gold too, could be worthless. Some like Ron Paul want America to forget alliances or helping anyone else, and collectively grab for ourselves, with tariff walls in US’s favor. However, huge tariff walls fueled the first depression. If the US enacted them other nations would follow. Some want a revolution against the rich, since the rich get richer at a faster rate, while the race for the bottom cutting wages around the world like a merry-go-round is leaving the poor destitute, forgetting that the rich have the power to sabotage such efforts, making total depression more likely. Why are so few not in an ideological notch not trying to find ways to survive the future?

I want to make suggestions for survival that goes beyond one ideological box which I will list later. I wish more could approach this subject not in one rigid direction.

President Bush in one area decided not to intervene despite feeling we needed to be there. After bin Laden threatened to suicide-bomb US attempts to stop pirates in Somalia, America backed out of fighting pirates. Italy (of all countries) started patrolling the waters with gun boats, and capturing pirates, and China escorted only its own ships.

Now the US is back in the pirate fighting business. In one incident, while in telephone contact with the crew, US swooped down on the ship grabbing the pirates, without anyone getting hurt. More such victories and the US bankrupting itself will come closer and closer. The world became mad at not only Saddam but the Khmer Rouge, and Pol Pot’s bloody repression in Cambodia. The world cheered Vietnam overthrowing the Khmer Rouge. This was probably an unreported reason that the US expected the same results in Iraq. However, Vietnam didn’t engage in “shock and awe” or “nation building”. But all or nothing is part of the US character whether right, left or center.

Some say Obama stopped a great depression with his bailouts. Some of the same people are claiming that he did somewhat the same thing with his latest 13 months unemployment stimulus, with debates about the rest of the package. However, since Obama keeps promising to make things better not skillfully preventing things from getting much worse, in 13 month if things continue to drift slightly worse, more people would be mad at him.

As for the West becoming a basket case, the economics of Norway and New Zealand are soaring, why can’t some Americans whether right, left or center, try to dwell on why?

The following is very specific suggestions aimed at prevent an economic disaster, I hope others come up with more and spread the word around that stopping the coming doom could involve changes in several directions.

Iceland is being bailed out by Europe, but it has the lowest business taxes in the world, so many companies make their cooperate headquarters there. Raising the business tax could be a condition for more aid. Then the US and Europe together raise the business tax to stop capital flight to where the tax was lowest.

There was efforts with some state governments to get prescriptions filled in Canada and elsewhere e this can save a lot of money on medical costs. The US embargo on Cuba is hurting the US economically and the more it succeeds the more Cubans in this country send foreign aid back to their relatives in Cuba. Some Americans took their Social Security check to Mexico where everything is cheaper and the US saved money on medicare and medicaid, but crime is getting in the way of new arrivals. Crime-free Cuba would be a perfect place to retire and no more Medicare costs. If the US would grant 10% of Medicare, Medicaid, SSI and welfare benefits to those going overseas, insurance countries to Americans in Cuba would make money from the US whenever they got sick until Cuba changed its laws to charge that amount to foreigners seeking medical care in otherwise free health care Cuba. Then the 10% adjusted up and down to the lowest point Americans would seek and get medical care overseas. One way or another a lot of money is being saved by having medical procedures done in other countries of the world, see medical tourism also online pharmacies Wikipedia, and
www.medicaldiscounts.com/employers_insurance.htm
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Some hospitals in the US, on an experimental effort, are trying to get robots to give bedridden patients baths and to feed them, with alarms temporarily to call a human nurse if the patent starts to resist. It would be far more humane for sick persons to seek medical nursing care where it’s cheap rather than a future in the US where machines, not people, treat the convalescent.

Some hope we will finally survive, by even at the last minute stopping military spending. The US is spending a huge amount by participating in the Afghan War. I say US participation (not sponsorship) because without comprehensive agreement including Pakistan, India, Iran and possibly also Saudi Arabia, Afghans will continue to die one way or another. If the US quickly withdraws, only as the dollar starts collapsing, bin Laden will feel empowered and suicide-bomb withdrawing US troops as they try to seize weapons. The fact that there are no al Qaeda troops there doesn’t matter since the majority of suicide-bombers are in some way connected to al Qaeda, and there are plenty more suicides before they all kill themselves. There are other circumstances al Qaeda might attack withdrawing US troops. The Taliban at that point consider al Qaeda the enemy, but any agreement ahead of time would be smelled as a trick by the various Taliban factions,
http://readersupportednews.org//index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4131

Note every time there is a peace Jirga in Afghanistan, the drone war goes up. When the US unknowingly captured an al Qaeda higher-up he quickly turned in several friends along with the top Taliban connected elder who was urging peace with the Afghan Karzai government. On this false tip the US bombed and killed what could have been its most important contact in Afghanistan. So the US being sicked on peace leaders discourages others from trying. Incidentally, an al Qaeda double-agent turned in his buddies, and then offered to help get a top Taliban firebrand killed, instead blew up himself and 5 top CIA analysts. In Iraq and elsewhere they put on US and Iraqi Army uniforms. In one incident, what looked like Iraqi soldiers along with what looked like a US official and a translator came to the door in Iraq, killing all the adults. So none of the victims had a chance to hide or escape. In later incidents even the children were killed like in one surprising incident, the father was with the Awakening Council and the son an al Qaeda leader, the father, the wife and all the al Qaeda leaders younger brothers and sisters were killed.

The point of mentioning this is that a genuine willingness to stop military spending is not the same as succeeding to do so, especially if military spending is stopped at the moment the economy collapses. We got to get out of the Afghan War to survive the future but getting out is not as easy as just withdrawing as the al Qaeda suicide bombs. As with pirates the US seems helpless to either ignore the problem or else aid al Qaeda in helping the US go bankrupt. We are in a real corner whether ones ideology is left, right or center. I think the difference between a successful withdrawal and one where al Qaeda will look like more of a superman to those who think Muslim culture is being constantly trampled under foot can be subtle. A real problem is that there is no reason for the US and the Taliban to trust each other or each others intentions. Probably the best possibility is for the US and the Taliban to agree to go with whatever some mediator like Saudi Arabia decides. Unstructured withdrawal could result in massive jingoism if the withdrawing US troops are shot at or suicide bombed.

Please everyone come up with specific suggestions to prevent a doom from coming, and realize that every day the dollar still exists, as international currency, Obama is being at least slightly successful. Maybe I’m wrong and that a collapse can be slowed but not stopped, but shouldn’t all of us, and not just those with fixed ideologies get involved with trying to stop it. If we start dealing with the problem of surviving the future we will more likely do so.

www.phillyimc.org/en/can-armageddon-be-stopped

By RichardKane
PA.blogspot.com
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