America the JINXED !?

IS AMERICA JINXED ?

Is America jinxed ?  (1)>>Certainly something is going on . From the wild fires , wild weather , the crazy politics , mass shootings . It's been a puzzle that no where in the world is a country with such problems that am about to say that the United States is hexed up .Even the blindest man in the street must be wondering if something is fundamentally wrong inside the U.S.As the country reeled under the impact of curses in its fields and forests, (1.2)>>America’s economy strained under what emerged as a massive basket of woes resulting from huge fraud, malfeasance and plain deceit in the ranks of some of its greatest business enterprises.The dollar slumped. The euro gained. Both the European Union and Japan came to the dollar’s rescue. Wall Street took a dive deep into bear territory. Capital commenced its flight from greenback to euro, in particular; business investment in the U.S. was cut by half.Is this all mere coincidence?Yet the rest of the world seems to have been comparatively spared.  (2)>>United States experienced one of its worst years on record for natural disasters. Fires ravaged the West, and hurricanes Irma, Maria and Harvey devastated Americans living around the Gulf of Mexico in one of the worst hurricane seasons ever recorded 2017. There has been a upward trend to strange and bizarre occurrences that seem to targeted to America alone.What is even the evidence of this though? People have been talking about (3)>>the decline of American primacy forever. The fact remains that no other power can even hold a candle to American power. Certainly militarily, but even economically.. for all the talk of China's economic weight, it lacks the ability to translate nominal economic performance numbers into actual geopolitical power (despite trying very hard to). For the last two decades since September 11th , 2001 the nation has gone pretty much on the wrong path . National debt going through the ceiling with no control spending.  The first day the federal government was legally able to borrow more money, U.S. debt jumped by $328 billion in a single day. The previous single day increase record of $238 billion was set two years ago. Total federal debt now exceeds $17 trillion, according to Treasury Department figures. (4)>>Already, the U.S. is paying China almost $27 billion a year in interest payments. This amount of money represents almost a quarter of China’s total military expenditures. So it can be reasoned that Chinese officials are working to push American influence out of the South China Sea using warships built with the money America is paying them in interest.

A Divided States of America ?

On May 25 2020 , that world order suffered a severe blow. The entire world watched as riots brought death, injury and fire to America’s cities. In the eyes of many, these events have greatly diminished America’s privileged position as the world’s top diplomatic power.The Financial Times addressed this in a  article: (5)>>“The dividedness of the U.S.—racial, material, political—is aired thoroughly enough as a domestic blight. It is the effect on its foreign policy that can get lost in the anguish. … And nowhere will it suffer more than in the superpower duel.”  (6)>>Now 2 years later the U.S. is a barrel full of gunpowder , it takes one more thing to drive it over the edge with (6.1)>>a NEW CRISIS ! President Joe Biden’s falling poll numbers. She pointed to predictable factors like the emergence of the Delta- Omicronic  variant of the coronavirus—slowing down our return from the pandemic—and the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan. But she also argued that many Americans were disappointed by the continuing vitriol of the political discourse and the intense partisan divide. Had you read the wsws website,  (7)>>Jan 6 was most definitely a coup. But because the democrats are also on the take from the very same donors as the republicans, they didn't want to let the cat out of the bag. So no witnesses were called to testify.Having suppressed the truth in favour of not undermining the system, now comes cold sober reality. (8)>>Biden isn't improving his voters lot. That's overlooking the way his tech buddies buried the story of  (9)>>his tainted brand allegedly benefiting from corruption in Ukraine. Those who learnt of the scandal post victory, regretted voting for him. As for Biden's VP, she's not popular.Biden is an establishment guy. He was never going to shake things up. He is also ancient. Normally he’d be a poor choice, but Trump is such a cunt that anyone would do.Now imagine an older, stupider, even more unstable version of Trump in three years time. It’s frightening. I don’t say this about many people, but the world would be a better place if he died.The 2020 presidential election further highlighted these deep-seated divides. Supporters of Biden and Donald Trump believe the differences between them are about more than just politics and policies. A month before the election, roughly eight-in-ten registered voters in both camps said their differences with the other side were about core American values, and roughly nine-in-ten – again in both camps – worried that a victory by the other would lead to “lasting harm” to the United States. Though Biden ran on the platform of reunifying a divided America — claiming that he would be a “president for all Americans” and making the theme of his inauguration “America United” — division over the election lingers. As of May 2021, six months after the 2020 election, 53% of Republicans and a quarter of all Americans felt that Trump was the “true president.” 

American Leadership Creates World Conflicts .

After the second world war . America has been at war in the middle east  in endless wars , it has created serious conflicts that has escalated  since September 11th , 2001 . (10)>>The biggest problem of U.S. foreign policy during the Cold War was national security. It was necessary, at all times, to protect itself from the USSR’s penetration and influence and to strive to improve its military strength in view of ensuring world leadership. This entailed large-scale war production and huge profits for military industries.After the Cold War, the United States used multiple means such as foreign policy, economic policy and armed intervention as a deterrent (see the Balkan War of 1999) to coerce and attract the attention of China and Russia (its traditional competitors) and later intervene in Afghanistan and Iraq. RIGHT NOW ,  (11)>>America has been losing its recognition as a "democracy ". Failure to recognize and speak the truth is leading the nation to a disastrous conflicts with Russia and China , even under the label of diplomacy speak flattering and peaceful words among themselves. Decline of U.S. Primacy in the world is escalating .

Jinxed and Jingoism !?

We don't want to fight but by Jingo if we do
We've got the ships, we've got the men, we've got the money too
We've fought the Bear before, and while we're Britons true
The Russians shall not have Constantinople!

Teddy Roosevelt stated, (12)>>"There is much talk about 'jingoism'. If by 'jingoism' they mean a policy in pursuance of which Americans will with resolution and common sense insist upon our rights being respected by foreign powers, then we are 'jingoes'.". (13)>>HOW THE U.S GOT JINXED ? (14)>>MAYBE IT WAS BY  Jingoism is by definition excessive, unjustified and aggressive so-called patriotism, really nationalism. A small amount of jingoism is like being a little bit pregnant, or a little bit poisoned. But apart from the semantics, the fundamental issue is the measure of how “successful” the United States is. Economically, success in the US is reserved for an exceedngly small sector of the population, and steadily diminishing. In terms of health, the US has some of the worst health outcomes of any advanced industrial nation, as evidenced by the worst impact of the coronavirus here compared to other countries. Intellectually, the US functions mainly by a “brain drain” from other countries, while its own students mainly score lower on math and science tests and are particularly ignorant of even their own history and geography. The US is one the largest consumers of drugs and alcohol and always has had an enormous percent of its economy devoted to such substances, including rum and tobacco. The fabled Johnny Appleseed planted apple orchards an an invasive species to create the basis for commerce in hard cider —alcohol. (15)>>The US leads the world in weapons manufacture and sale and ownership and in police killings and incarceration. Life expectancy is dropping. Obesity is epidemic. Infant mortality rates in “inner cities” in the US are worse than in many so-called “Third World” countries. Two of the three presidents in the 21st century have been installed in office after losing the popular vote. One might say, paraphrasing, with successes like these, who needs failure? US jingoism is best understood as a conscious denial of reality and a projection or reaction in response to that litany of actual failures, a superiority complex based on actual inferiority--(16)>>-yeas America is Jinxed .

NOTES AND COMMENTS:  (1)>>Certainly something is going on .  America's Decline began in September 11th , 2001 . The Endless wars seems to have reached it's peak after the First gulf War which saw the greatest deployment of American troops in all parts of the world . With American troops stretched , mired in a 20 year war , the U.S. has already burned up its military capacity . Now America sits on Nukes as it's only means of defense . Beyond military exhaustion , America's problems seem to be escalating , as if the nation is being plagued. Weird weather phenomenon is another example  of called " global warming" , the North American continent has had the worst weather conditions of any part of the Earth in the recent decade.  (1.2)>>America’s economy strained .  Economic growth in 2022 will almost certainly be slower. Most analysts forecast an expansion of roughly 4%. And momentum will steadily ebb as the months roll on,The economy is running into additional negative surprises, which are driving uncertainty and fear: Consumer confidence has dipped markedly in recent weeks, while firms’ outlook has dimmed too, as seen in falling PMIs. Inflation, though moderating recently, has not yet fallen back to comfortable levels, while firms are facing bottlenecks in labor and product markets. This is all occurring against the backdrop of the Delta variant, which brings the prospect of waning of vaccine effectiveness, more breakthrough infections, booster shots, and potentially new rounds of restrictions.In the meantime, many Americans say their ability to save money has been curtailed by the recent economic upheaval.(2)>>United States experienced one of its worst years on record for natural disasters. In 2012, NCEI -- then known as National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) -- reviewed its methodology on how it develops Billion-dollar Disasters. NCEI held a workshop with economic experts (May, 2012) and worked with a consulting partner to examine possible inaccuracy and biases in the data sources and methodology used in developing the loss assessments (mid-2013). This ensures more consistency with the numbers NCEI provides on a yearly basis and give more confidence in the year-to-year comparison of information. Another outcome is a published peer-reviewed article "U.S. Billion-dollar Weather and Climate Disasters: Data Sources, Trends, Accuracy and Biases" (Smith and Katz, 2013). This research found the net effect of all biases appears to be an underestimation of average loss. In particular, it is shown that the factor approach can result in an underestimation of average loss of approximately 10–15%. This bias was corrected during a reanalysis of the loss data to reflect new loss totals.(3)>>the decline of American primacy forever. The arguments for US decline are not new but before they harden into an unchallenged orthodoxy it would be good to carefully examine many of the key assumptions that undergird the emerging conventional wisdom. Will the undeniable relative decline of the United States, According to Christopher Layne, the United States is now in inexorable decline and that this process of decline has been hastened by the pursuit of global primacy in the post-Cold War era. He also contends that primacy engenders balancing by other great powers as well as eroding America’s ‘soft power’ global consensual leadership.The final change working against the United States internationally is the increasing dysfunction of America’s own political institutions.(4)>>Already, the U.S. is paying China almost $27 billion a year in interest payments. China holds more than $1 trillion of the U.S. national debt. That's a large portion of the $7.6 trillion in Treasury bills, notes, and bonds held by foreign countries. The rest of the $29 trillion national debt is owned by either people in the U.S. or by the U.S. government itself.China has the second-greatest amount of U.S. debt held by a foreign country. Japan consistently tops the list, owning about $1.3 trillion as of October 2021.The U.S. still gives billions in foreign aid every year, and the funding touches all facets of life in other countries including public health, military training, sanitation, and women’s rights.  (5)>>“The dividedness of the U.S."America has been steadily dividing since decades before Trump's presidency. I saw some statistical data that went back to, I think Nixon or Kennedy and displayed the division between republican and democrat voters for every election since and each election the margin became greater and greater. I think the chaos that was trump's presidency was inevitable from a division standpoint, but the nasty rhetoric we saw from the politicians definitely amplified it more than it would have progressed otherwise America is divided because of the media (mostly - this includes the politicians and stories they pick and choose to show us). Where I do agree that media and social media is used for good and has connected people in many ways unimaginable. I also believe a lot of manipulation, evil and dividedness (especially this year) has come from the media pinning “republicans” and “democrats” against each other. When in all reality people are judged based upon how they treat people and how they act. You don’t meet someone and say hi I’m Jane Doe and I’m a republican, what’s your name? All people have opinions on what they believe is right and how they want to go about implementing it. You can’t single handily say well oh if you’re a Republicans then you must believe this, well actually, no just because I am Republicans doesn’t mean I automatically agree with everything and same for the other side and I know a lot of people feel that way. And it’s the media that instigates these ill feelings people have, meanwhile it’s not true. Also side note - do you know that all of the media companies (Fox, CNN, MSNBC..etc.) are owned by only 6 corporations, which I think is so wild.  (6)>>Now 2 years later the U.S. is a barrel full of gunpowder .That is, almost half of the voting population believes that the United States is no longer politically legitimate, democracy has surrendered to an elaborate swindle, and the White House has been burglarized by the current administration. Surely this would be worse than any riot, if it were true. If anything, if people believed this, it would be a reason for one. Go figure.Here is another proposal: whatever “unity” means, if the planet melting isn’t enough for a national cease-fire, then we don’t have it. The inference is simple, if bleak: If unity were an empirical possibility, the death and ruin of everyone we know and love would be a rallying point; if it turns out that it is not, then, in all frankness, unity must be impossible. What could be a greater call to unity than that?(6.1)>>a NEW CRISIS ! Since September 11th , 2001 the US has been caught off guard , with crisis after crisis . Yet with no explanation our Homeland Security , CIA , FBI agencies always FAIL to intercept any attack on American soil , domestic terrorism , mass shootings . But worried about what, exactly? This is the biggest question in American politics: Where does our deeply fractured country go from here? Again I say  We should be diligent , always be ready for some  NEW disaster , if the JINX is real .(7)>>Jan 6 was most definitely a coup.  Here is a idea , to think about . Is it possible that the election was stolen from Donald Trump  ? Is Trump just a madman with followers ? WELL LETS DIG DEEP . I suspect the election was stolen from him , because who ever was rigging American elections was doing for some time before Trump won in 2016 . But who is to say that Hillary Clinton was behind a coup to get rid of Trump for the first year of his term ? As President Trump refused to concede, the response was not mass action but crickets. When media organizations called the race for Joe Biden on Nov. 7 before ALL THE BALLOTS were counted. Should make anyone suspicious a bit .What if. It’s about keeping the 70 million people who voted for him , YES people did vote for Trump . The possibility Trump was ousted in a coup during the election , rather than Trump trying to start a coup on Jan 6th . It could be the other way around !!! So think about it carefully . WE REALLY don't know who is REALLY RUNNING THE COUNTRY NOW . Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky overturn one of the dominant myths in our political culture - the notion that mainstream media have a liberal bias. Drawing on extensive empirical research, they reveal that in actuality the news media have become so subordinated to corporate interests that they are far to the right of the American people.(8)>>Biden isn't improving his voters lot. Biden won by a lucky shot , it's possible Biden was set up to win regardless if any of the ballots were EVERY  counted to get rid of Trump as explained above .Democrat Joe Biden won Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and their 79 Electoral College votes by a combined 311,257 votes out of 25.5 million ballots cast for president. The disputed ballots represent just 0.15% of his victory margin in those states.The cases could not throw the outcome into question even if all the potentially fraudulent votes were for Biden, which they were not, and even if those ballots were actually counted, which in most cases they were not.Biden tried to strike that balance again with press as always , as he took questions from reporters during a marathon solo press conference at the White House to reflect on his first year in office. While discussing voting rights legislation—which went on to fail in the Senate that evening, as expected—Biden was asked to take his warnings about the GOP attacks on voting and elections to their logical conclusion: “If this isn’t passed, do you still believe the upcoming election will be fairly conducted and its results will be legitimate?”Biden was equivocal. “Well, it all depends on whether or not we’re able to make the case to the American people that some of this is being set up to try to alter the outcome of the election,” he said, expressing hope that voters of color and others who could be most impacted by the laws will “defy” obstacles to the ballot, as they did in 2020, which saw record turnout in the midst of a pandemic. “But it’s going to be difficult,” he acknowledged. “I make no bones about that. It’s going to be difficult. But we’re not there yet.”Pressed to clarify later, Biden was more direct. “Oh, yeah, I think it easily could be illegitimate,” he said, invoking Trump’s efforts to get his vice president, Mike Pence, to toss state electors in 2020 and the prospect of bogus “recounts” like the one Arizona ran on behalf of Trump after his loss. “I’m not going to say it’s going to be legit,” Biden said. “The increase and the prospect of being illegitimate is in direct proportion to us not being able to get these reforms passed.”(9)>>his tainted brand allegedly benefiting from corruption in Ukraine.U.S. President Joe Biden's son, Hunter, says in a forthcoming book that his service on the board of a Ukrainian gas firm at the center of the scandal that prompted ex-President Donald Trump's first impeachment wasn't unethical and didn't represent a lack of judgment on his part.But the 51-year-old presidential son writes in his memoirs, titled Beautiful Things, set to be released next week, that if given a chance, he wouldn't take the job again.Ukrainian gas company Burisma Holdings hired Hunter Biden to serve on its board in 2014, while his father was vice president and helping steer and implement President Barack Obama’s foreign policy in Eastern Europe.During his unsuccessful reelection campaign against Biden, Trump's Republican allies last year repeatedly raised the issue of Hunter Biden's work for the Ukrainian company. BUT BIDEN'S UKRAINE problem is another JINX , for many longtime watchers of U.S.-Ukraine policy, it was a depressing reminder of how little has changed in a country that has become ground zero for a renewed power struggle between Washington and Moscow.For its part, Russia has made clear that it will go to war rather than allow Ukraine to become either a formal NATO member or an “unsinkable U.S. aircraft carrier” deployed along Russia’s periphery. Some 100,000 well-armed Russian troops now arrayed near Ukraine’s borders are putting an exclamation point on Moscow’s concern that U.S.-Ukrainian military partnership may grow to alarming levels if Russia does not act soon.  (10)>>The biggest problem of U.S. foreign policy during the Cold War was national security. Regarding US -Russia relations they are back to "cold war" levels but worse than ever before [ the jinx at work here] “Do I think he’ll test the West, test the United States and NATO, as significantly as he can? Yes, I think he will,” Mr. Biden told reporters during a nearly two-hour news conference in the East Room of the White House. He added, almost with an air of fatalism: “But I think he will pay a serious and dear price for it that he doesn’t think now will cost him what it’s going to cost him. And I think he will regret having done it.”Asked to clarify whether he was accepting that an invasion was coming, Mr. Biden said: “My guess is he will move in. He has to do something.”Still, Mr. Biden’s comment went well beyond the current intelligence assessments described by White House officials, which conclude that Mr. Putin has not made a decision about whether to invade. The comment is also likely to provoke concern in Ukraine and among NATO allies, because Mr. Biden acknowledged that if Mr. Putin conducted only a partial invasion, NATO nations could be split on how strongly to react.(11)>>America has been losing its recognition as a "democracy ". The worse part of the JINX is America has lost international recognition as a leader of democracy.  One year after the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, Americans are deeply pessimistic about the future of democracy.A new NPR/Ipsos poll finds that 64% of Americans believe U.S. democracy is "in crisis and at risk of failing." That sentiment is felt most acutely by Republicans: Two-thirds of GOP respondents agree with the verifiably false claim that "voter fraud helped Joe Biden win the 2020 election" — At this moment, our country is in great need of lessons on what it takes to restore crumbling political systems. This week, the United States was added to a list of “backsliding” democracies in an annual report on the global state of democracy, marking a serious decline in international observers’ assessments of our political stability.In naming the U.S. to the list for the first time, the report’s authors — Sweden’s International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) — pointed to the “visible deterioration of democracy” in the United States on several criteria, including unwillingness to accept credible election results, voter participation suppression efforts, increasing polarization, and declines in civil liberties.After 200 years, the global growth of what we have come to know as liberal democracy has stalled.  (12)>>"There is much talk about 'jingoism'.  A form of nationalism characterized by aggressive foreign policy. It refers to a country’s advocacy for the use of threats or actual force as opposed to peaceful relations to safeguard what it perceives as its national interests.For 2 decades , or more the US has fallen into 'jingoism' pretty much as a trap . EVEN from demagogic policies in the US , the pride of the country is sinking . Everyone acts like a nation state being proud of itself is in any way new, when it isn't. When the Brits were 'the' world power, they had the same strut, and remember those days are (barely) within living memory.When the Spaniards ran the world, they made sure everyone knew it, ditto Rome and China in their day.It's how it works. When the US is surpassed, as history show it eventually will be, then it will the the citizens of the US who look with disdain on the 'unearned arrogance' of the new kids.(13)>>HOW THE U.S GOT JINXED ? I think the US picked up bad vibes through the military industrial complex via endless wars . The United States, it would seem, is suffering its own kind of island gigantism. Bigness is the prejudice of American life, our cultural albatross, the axiom being that when something is big it is automatically better. Republican and Democratic administrations alike for the last thirty years, spellbound by so-called laissez-faire ideology.(14)>>MAYBE IT WAS BY .When did we, as a society, stop differentiating between “famous” and “infamous”? Also, did you hear the rumor The Curse of Tippecanoe ??? In February 1960, journalist Ed Koterba noted that "The next President of the United States will face an eerie curse that for more than a century has hung over every chief executive elected in a year ending with zero". Both of their hints at the elected president's death came true. Now we have a US President nearing 80 years old , he's right on the Tippecanoe jinx list of having a serious illness . (15)>>The US leads the world in weapons manufacture and sale and ownership and in police killings and incarceration. America is the largest exporter of weapons to the world . Who gets American made weapons ? Of course America's enemies , right now the US is sending Ukraine weapons to just start a conflict with Russia . Remember all the guns and weapons that Sleepy Joe Biden left in Afghanistan ? There's a lot of cultural influence. Gang mentality, race mentality, etc. etc. drive up the number of shootings in general. Media fame and desperation drive up mass shootings.Well it's easy to not be afraid when there's not millions of illegal guns floating around.Here, criminals are armed. And there's almost nothing the police can do about those illegal guns. The guns we do find are the ones used in crimes or found on premises of crime scenes. We can't raid citizens' homes. We would need an amendment to the constitution or the government would be behaving illegally.So with the context of armed criminals being outside your door, it's easier to justify self or family or home defense/protection.There is a NATO fund where many countries contributed, but overall from 2001 the majority came from the US and their total contribution is over $83b! I edited the OP, ty for the correction.(16)>>-yeas America is Jinxed . The problem is that America jinxed itself in 2016. We had 60 million people going "Trump will never win. No way." AND NONE OF US KNOCKED ON WOOD. America needs a new root doctor , new conjour , and new MOJO bag . The government are generally even worse in this way, but I didn't expect them to look at America's "ah whatever" pandemic response and say let's do that.The curse of a promised land.