by Disinvestment Supporter

Created on: August 29, 2007

The American mission in the world today, as evidenced by our actions on the international scene, is banal, hedonistic, and otherwise unremarkable. The primary goal of our erstwhile republic turned empire is to control a larger share than anyone else of the remaining oil wealth available to the nations. This goal includes a number of projects, including jockeying with Russia and China over access to oil, keeping the American Dollar as the basis of the oil trade (versus the Euro), and making sure that oil profits in countries like Saudi Arabia and Egypt continue to be spent on American military hardware. Domestically, the mission of America is to keep the goal a secret from the American people, instead rallying their support for the goal with ideas like spreading democracy, humanitarian missions, good versus evil, and 'winning the hearts and minds'.

This mission has no future for the vast majority of the American people who have no control over the resources of the American empire. Saudi Arabia has either peaked in oil production or will shortly, meaning that the oil production of the globe has peaked or will shortly. After this point oil will become increasingly expensive and scarce leading to a breakdown in trade, distribution networks for food and other goods, the rule of law and economic arrangements, and the distinctly resource-driven American 'way of life'.

Knowing the goal, and the hollow reality behind it, Americans are now charged with a smaller and more localized mission that has nothing to do with the American empire. We, the people, have little option but to recreate the old ideas of thrift and community that once made this country a great place to live. Our mission is to build economic and social networks that can survive the collapse of the dollar. This means learning the tenets of soil sustainability, so we can grow our own food without the fertilizer and pesticide inputs to which we have grown accustomed. This means conserving and producing our own electricity to protect against centralized power-grid failures. It means the reinvigoration of local processing and manufacturing, so we can turn the raw goods of a region into the valuable products we need to survive.

This mission isn't an easy one. Right up until they collapse, international traders like Wal-mart and other big box stores will continue to undermine the idea of local production for local profit. Agribusiness giants like ConAgra and Archer Daniels Midland will continue to dominate the market with trucked in food, in turn destroying our topsoil and small farmers who they consistently underbid. Millions of Americans who now receive their paychecks from multinational corporations, and those domestic corporations that rely on them, likely won't see the need for our mission until their paychecks stop coming.

Still, the mission is dire and one of survival. It is nothing less than the recreation of an older, and much more American, 'way of life'. But it isn't a huge task, if we can remember to keep it local. The few of us who take on this mission are working for the greater good, for survival, to thrive even in the wake of an empire that will pass us by surely as every empire ever has.

Respond, HuAAaaaahhh! http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/362924/the_ american_mission.html

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