“Our planet was once a powerful empire, peaceful and just.” – Transformers
One of the brothers fell down the stairs at the Empire State Building. I guess that’s Wong on so many levels.
The United States sits at the center of the largest empire the world has ever seen. Certainly, that empire is now slipping. But let’s review my first assertion.
Is the United States an empire? I mean, I was expecting more trumpets and purple robes.
Yes, it is. The definition of an empire is that it cuts across most fields of human life for vast groups of diverse people, having authority over them, economic control, and cultural influence.
Yes, we’ve got that. The United States is the inheritor of the mantle of the leading partner in Western Civilization. Before us was Great Britain, paving the way and making it easier for us.
How can we be sure that we’re still in an empire?
English is spoken everywhere. Sure, thank the Brits, but the reason they kept speaking it is because it is, by far, the most widely used language in the world. If I got off a plane in Lanzhou or Lillehammer, I could get by without knowing any local languages and rely entirely on English to get me by. Sadly, English is no longer spoken in London or Los Angeles, and my Arabic and Spanish could use some work, so I’d be out of luck there.
So, language.
Sign language can be very handy.
What about centralized authority and governance? Trump is certainly showing that, although the United States pretended to not be the big cheese because France hates that, it really was the big cheese all along. There’s nothing that Europe can do alone to remotely influence the United States. Nor can Japan. In fact, all those hundreds of United States military bases around the world? Yeah, if a country has one of those, it’s an American client. At one point we had more than 850 bases in 90 countries.
That’s an empire.
Also, economically. In Rome you could use the denarius (not Daenerys, who was a hot chick with dragons and not a coin, according to Google©) to buy almost anything you wanted anywhere in the empire. In the world today, you can use a dollar anywhere they take money and not shrunken heads, and also in some places you can trade dollars for shrunken heads.
I was really effective when I worked for the suicide hotline. 100% of my callers never needed to call back.
Finally, cultural and ideological leadership. Why did they have a “no kings” protest in Canada, where they have a king? Why did they have BLM® marches in places in Europe where there are no blacks? Why did Botswana legalize gayness in 2019? Why is every little tinpot dictator called a “President” instead of a “Prime Minister”? I mean, if I were a tinpot dictator I’d call myself, “Sovereign Lord and King John Wilder the First, Flayer of Men, Defender of the Faith, Scourge of India, and Former Costco™ Member”.
You always have to throw in something silly. I mean, I’ve never even been to Costco®.
Rome proved at the Teutoberg Forest that you don’t need to win every battle to remain an empire. You can suffer astonishing defeats and go, “Well, that stung,” and keep on with the empire. I mean, Rome never really went after the Germans with the intent to subjugate them after that battle. The Germans, however . . .
I once won a large rock, paper, scissors bet. I made money hand over fist.
But, of course, Rome didn’t face the technological evolution of warfare to the extent we’ve seen in the last 20 years, which greatly levels the playing field between the United States and other countries. The great advantage the Romans had was their empire to draw men from, and their mastery of transport engineering and logistics which could quickly, as measured in 100A.D., put 10,000 men where their enemy wanted them least.
Spain, however, did experience technical obsolescence in its final humiliation of empire. In 1898, the United States was a rising power. The United States wasn’t quite ready to challenge Great Britain in 1898, but it did see Spain. What did Spain have? Oh, overseas colonies, colonies that could help the United States grow in the natural direction of the country: the Pacific. Sure, it came with a short-term rental of Cuba and a long-term lease on Puerto Rico, but the real prize for the United States was Guam and the Philippines, which still looks like it has one too many of the letter “p” in it.
This addition got the United States a leg up in the last part of aligning non-Western nations and established a firm gateway to Asia and military base for projection of force throughout the Pacific. We were, in fact, willing to fight an 11-year war against the Filipinos and develop the M1911 in .45ACP to kill drugged out Filipino guerrillas, because a .38 just wasn’t enough.
I digress.
The reason the United States utterly defeated Spain in less than four months was it had an intense technological and logistical lead in every facet of warfare. The numbers speak for themselves: 4,119 American casualties versus somewhere near 56,500 dead Spanish. Oh, and the Spanish ships were still sporting cannon over a century old.
My friend’s dad was in a union. Every story began, “Once upon a time and a half . . . “
Spain was dead as an empire, only waiting for someone to knock it over, take its stuff, and buy something nice for themselves. That was the United States. By the time of the Spanish-American War, the United States fighting Spain was the geopolitical version of a velociraptor taking on a kitten. The only way the kitten survives is if the velociraptor gets all the kibble.
Where are we now?
Are we Rome? Are we Spain?
Both analogies are suspect, since I don’t trust either Italians or Spaniards. Too much wine in both countries, and I know how I am after one too many bottles of pinot: I’m in a lot of economic trouble, personal danger, and I can’t remember my past.
Is the United States, like Rome, just taking another L that won’t matter because we’re still the empire? No, I think we’re not. I think we’re beyond the peak of American hegemony, which probably happened on August 15, 1987 while I was throwing a kegger. Woo!
I had a French duck, but you can’ardly tell.
Is the United States, like Spain, passing? Again, no, I don’t think so. We are seeing that some of our main weapons date to designs of nearly 70 years of age. I’m looking at you, B-52. The reason is that the bomber is dead to anyone who isn’t living in mud huts, and we realize that. The B-52 would have been awesome in 1945 but now is just a target.
And we realize that. I think we’ve realized that with our aircraft carriers as well, and now understand that wars in a time where satellites can provide real-time targeting make big ships filled with thousands of sailors liabilities rather than assets.
Remember this: no matter what happens, we still irritate the hell out of France. We’ll always have that.
> I mean, if I were a tinpot dictator I’d call myself, “Sovereign Lord and King John Wilder the First, Flayer of Men, Defender of the Faith, Scourge of India, and Former Costco™ Member”.
How are you going to fit all of that onto a business card???
Business card? Like they’d dare forget!
Letting in hook nosed rats sealed the doom.
The final chapter of the Josh & Argos story “Repairs” is up today, “To the victor”: https://zaklog.substack.com/p/to-the-victor?r=2nmhek
Congrats!
Those Filipinnos were muslims, and the caliphate is the new new gang. They are our nemesis and will prevail until the “friend” of the world shows up with Greer’s bros.
They were also stoned.
All muslims are stoned one way or another
I do not see who is queuing up to take over as Big Boss. The last takeover was peaceful and quick, the end of the Roman empire took several centuries and involved a time of chaos with no leading actor. The only one capable of taking over at the moment is probably China, but whether that will happen or we will descend into anarchy is still unclear.
I also don’t really see China ever being the big boss (at least not in the traditional sense). Neither they nor India have opted to follow the traditional path of territorial expansion and colonialism as performed in the West. Instead, they offload excess population via emigration to other countries and then slowly subvert the host cultures over time.
Consequently, I don’t see a future where China (or anyone else) is head of an empire. Instead I see a dysfunctional multicultural nightmare as depicted in the movie Blade Runner where no one is really in charge. Technology is just moving too quickly for anyone to maintain an edge and so society has to make due with the mess that mass immigraiton has created.
They seem to be in the “If the Chinese people are fine, we don’t care” mode.
Many recent events herald the passing of the American Empire. Treasury paper holdings by foreign countries are declining, particularly by China and especially Japan. Treasury Sec Bessent gave Japan a currency swap line so they would stop/slow their offloading of their US holdings. Then he announced that the US would sell short term US notes to buy long term US bonds to prop up their yield and make them more attractive to foreign buyers. The world laughed in his face and demand continues to drop anyway. The he took the humiliating spotlight of the Iran War off of Trump and onto himself to announce an “Economic D-Day” of new Iran sanctions, which for the first time in history included a new sanction against anyone trading with Iran using gold in the transaction. Next up will be China laughing in our face as the use their new Hong Kong/Shanghai gold nexus to buy vital oil from Iran.
The American Empire has relied on the 1944 Bretton Woods agreement, followed by the 1970s Arab petrodollar agreement after abandoning gold backing in 1971, to control the world with the dollar rather than troops. That strategy is now splintering. Just like Rome reduced silver content in their coins in a failing attempt to keep their empire going, America is running out of economic hat tricks to keep our own Empire afloat. Got gold?
Bessant is going to find that he’s been playing checkers against a mortar platoon.
Thinking about Spain, Franco cleaned up their commie crap in the 1930s. Trump promised to clean out The Swamp, but you can’t do that unless you toe the line with Franco’s measures, which included public executions.
Unless the Muzz and the 2Gs are banished back to their homelands, the US is “white” bread waiting for insertion into the toaster. Marty Armstrong’s computer says the whole world breaks down in 2032 with increasing violence over the next two years. Especially if the commies win both houses this November.
“2G’s”! Funny! In practice, I’d go with TooJeez.
Paging Mr. Sido: it’s catching on.
Wonder about his program. It seems to align with my date range.
The Biblical narrative says deception will be the primary red flag. Folks we are in judgement. A man with all the answers the world wants to hear is coming on the scene and make most people happy for a while.
Yup. Probably on Netflix, too.
RE: “Why did they have a “no kings” protest in Canada, where they have a king? Why did they have BLM® marches in places in Europe where there are no blacks?”
They have covert kings in Canada, the US, and virtually every other developed nation…
The “No Kings movement” is — like the “MAGA movement” or the “Black Lives Movement” and other phony grassroot “movements” — a US regime-controlled operation to either control the opposition via such hope porn movements or divert them into safe outlets IN ORDER TO PREVENT A MASS REVOLUTION AGAINST the totally criminal ENTIRE US REGIME which is, AND ALWAYS HAS BEEN, run by PSYCHOPATHIC KINGS (not just Trump)!
The bogus ‘no kings’ movement wants you to think once Trump is gone everything’s alright AS IF IT’S ONLY A TRUMP ISSUE. It’s the same child-like mentality and stupidity of millions of people who “think” and hang on to the fake hope or fantasy that once their democrat/republican candidate is in office things will be fundamentally better again!
ANY criminal beta psychopath who has ALWAYS ended up and ends up in high office is merely always a lower-ranked willfully participating puppet or agent serving the true pack of alpha psychopaths behind the scenes. Removing the public-facing immoral criminals has never solved anything vital at all, and never will.
By FAR the most vital urgent and DEEP understanding everyone needs to gain is that a mafia network of manipulating PSYCHOPATHS (psychopathic KINGS) is, and always has been, governing big businesses and institutions (eg official medicine, big academia, big tech, big banks, big religions), governments and the world — the evidence is very solid in front of everyone’s “awake” nose: see “The 2 Married Pink Elephants In The Historical Room”… https://www.rolf-hefti.com/covid-19-coronavirus.html
“We’ll sit on the edge of our seats watching made-up tales about psychopathic killers while psychopathic killers rule the world.” — Caitlin Johnstone, Independent Journalist
“America is the greatest exporter of violence the world has ever known. So wear your patriotism on your sleeve and be proud. You are a depraved citizen of the world’s worst killer nation.” — Paul Craig Roberts, Ph.D., American economist & former US empire official, in 2015 [https://archive.ph/liVj5]
““No Kings” isn’t anti-war, it’s just anti-Trump.” — Unknown
Yet…
“I’ve come to realize that the biggest problem anywhere in the world is that people’s perceptions of reality are compulsively filtered through the screening mesh of WHAT THEY WANT, AND DO NOT WANT, TO BE TRUE.” — Travis Walton, Author
And psychopaths are typically NOT how Hollywood propaganda movies (or the Wikipedia/WebMD propaganda outlets) have showcased them. And therefore one better RE-learns what a psychopath REALLY is. One’ll then know why they exploit/harm everyone, why they want to control everyone and have been creating a new world order/global dictatorship, and many other formerly puzzling things will become very clear.
But global rulership by psychopaths is only ONE part of the equation that makes up the destructive human condition as the cited article above explains.
Without a proper understanding, and full acknowledgment, of the true WHOLE problem and reality, no real constructive LASTING change is possible for humanity.
And if anyone does NOT acknowledge, recognize, and face (either wittingly or unwittingly) the WHOLE truth THEY are helping to prevent this from happening. And so they are “part of the problem” and not part of the solution.
“If we have learned anything in the past six years, it is that vaccinologists, doctors, and the government in general do not have good intentions and never did. The clear intention of everyone concerned was and is to make as much dirty money as possible, letting any amount of collateral damage slide, including a genocide and mass poisoning [with Covid-19 jabs]. The fact [is] that Big Pharma just murdered millions of people, with the full support of government, media, and “science”. With Covid, everyone is part of the fraud, many of them paid off, so no one has any reason to expose it, and big reasons to bury it. Don’t believe anything these people tell you, ABOUT ANYTHING. It isn’t time for a civil war against your neighbors, it is time for a revolution against these hoaxers and thieves.” — Miles Mathis, American author, in 2025
“Ignorance is the root cause of all Evil. Since only Knowledge eradicates ignorance, it is our duty and moral obligation to educate ourselves, as well as the masses around us.” — Anonymous
Speaking of ignorance is evil, how can the masses get out of this whole mess (and create justice, freedom and peace for all)? First, EVERYONE needs to learn, and teach others, what TRUE morality is —99% of people don’t know what it is because (1) it’s NOT taught in the official indoctrination system, better know as the “education system,” and (2) it’s NOT the same as religious morality: https://odysee.com/@woeih:e/Mark-Passio-Government-Is-Slavery:a
Because if you don’t know what TRUE morality is you will not stop doing, unwittingly or wittingly, evil things…
“The solution is NOT to create something new (eg, new systems of organization, new technologies, etc). The solution is to STOP being complicit with evil. To STOP doing things that are not moral for a reward. To STOP being complicit with anything the control system tells us we must do.” — Mark Passio, Spiritual Teacher
“As financial access, employment, and administration become conditional on algorithmic systems, freedom does not disappear through overt coercion, but through participation that is scored, filtered, and managed.” — Mark Keenan, Dec 2025 [https://www.globalresearch.ca/ai-operating-system-digital-totalitarianism/5909796]
Agreed.
There are only two ways forward:
1) Wait for God to clean the mess up
2) Real local war
Red white and jew? F’ you.
I think that we (speaking of the U.S.) reached our apogee in the late ’60s. And then the communist radicals infiltrated the Democrat party, wages started to stagnate, the degradation of the culture began in earnest, and the flood of immigration began. We’ve coasted on for a long while and had some ups and downs, but the marginal return on increased complexity (to borrow from Joseph Tainter) was rapidly shrinking. As for who will be the next “big boss” it is probably too early to tell, because I think we are looking at a situation like the Bronze Age Collapse where all the major powers will go down or be permanently weakened.
It could be, because the complexity will rapidly unwind.
It’s all always a crapshoot in history, how a nation despoils or renews itself. If it lacks a moral center, it fades away.
That is the concern.