Thanks for the excellent article Steven. It will take some digesting before I could comment, but I appreciate the effort that must have gone into gathering the information.

Have you ever thought of taking over our ABC?

Never mind that the very best of the "hate-America" writing etc is written by Americans who are passionately committed to the project of seeing that the founding ideals upon which the American experiment was supposedly based are actually put into practice, especially by the rich and powerful.
The kind of people who are featured on Truthdig, Truthout, Alternet, Reader Support News Service, Democracy Now and Common Dreams - to name a few.
Another of my favorite "hate - America" sites is Orion Magazine.

I have two points that I disagree with you on to start with.
First for some reason it is quite often assumed that the US is too big to fail. It seems to be beyond the comprehension of some that the mighty US could become a failed state or empire.
Surely the previous run of empires that have self destructed, would destroy that argument?
Second is the comparison between China and the US with the differences if any between their manufacturing output. There is room for argument here mainly because China is rapidly increasing their manufacturing capacity and the US is fairly static in this area.
The main difference and the one that is the most telling is that the US has an unpayable debt and China is awash with cash.
I know that the US has been printing money to keep themselves afloat but that will inevitably have to cease when inflation wipes out the purchasing power of the US$.
A minor point is that despite the hype about the US and it's technology overcoming the energy crisis it is going to smash into quite soon, China has been living on a much lower amount of energy till recently and will be able to continue, whereas the US is totally committed to a supply of cheap oil.

plantagenet

'Enjoy your fellow traveller David and remember the witch burnings of Salem (USA) and don't mention The Spanish Inquisition :)'

as horrific as these events were they are insignificant compared to the bloodbath of the atheist including the ongoing slaughter of millions of those who can't defend themselves. An inconvinient truth for the god deniers.

good piece, very informative

Hi David

Aside from your standard anti-imperialist titbits and sundry China lovin(?) rhetoric, yes you did actually bring up a historical matter:

"The 'stuff' always includes mention of the action of the U.S. in fighting Japan in WW2. The fact that the U.S. joined the war TWO YEARS AFTER IT BEGAN is never mentioned."

The US provided huge assistance to Britain before Pearl Harbour (December 1941) including 50 sorely needed destroyers in September 1940 (a force larger than Australia's navy at the time) . The US Lend-Lease program began in March 1941, which probably saved Britain and benefitted the large number of Australians fighting for Britain (especially food and other essentials) before Pearl Harbour.

I invite you to do more research outside of your usual anti-American sources.

And whats wrong with imperialists if they have hearts of gold?

And though runner be a tub thumper he might save your soul if you just let him pray for you.

I'm an Agro-nostic so I'm saved :)

Planta Pete