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Half A Century of Empire: A Progress Report

  

by: BruceMcF

Sun Nov 21, 2010 at 09:49:25 PST


( - promoted by buhdydharma )

Burning the Midnight Oil for the Arc of the Sun

We are sabotaging our main labor resource with mindless rote learning to pass "achievement" tests to avoid being punished for not being full of kids of upper middle class households, we are allowing our equipment resource to collapse through lack of demand and we are sabotaging our natural resource through treating nonrenewable resources as an excuse to destroy renewable resources and treating renewable resources as non-renewable resources, which is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

In fifty years we have gone from technological leadership on all fronts to technological leadership only in some of those areas under the umbrella of War Department Industrial Policy, and from massive trade surpluses that demanded recycling via overseas investment and imports to maintain international liquidity, to massive trade deficits to allow the Chinese to export their unemployment to us.

In forty years we have gone from energy independence to importing twice as much oil as we produce.

And thirty years, we have shifted our record on land wars in Asia from 0-1 with one draw, to at best 0-2 with two draws, and at worst 0-3 with one draw.

If this damn Empire collapses soon enough, we might have a chance to start rebuilding from the catastrophe it represents, but an equally plausible outcome is falling apart into a squabbling series of small and mid-sized nation states, many harboring revanchiste dreams of re-establishing the Empire.
BruceMcF :: Half A Century of Empire: A Progress Report
We built this Empire out of immediate and temporary needs, some of them in service of public interests, some of them in service of vested private interests. For the good of the Republic, it is long past time to tear it down.

Burning the Midnight Oil ~ Forgotten Years

Edit: NB. On Saturday, Chalmers Johnson canceled his membership in the Council on Foreign Relations
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Half A Century of Empire: A Progress Report | 16 comments
Crosspost index at ... (4.00 / 5)
Burning the Midnight Oil

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r.i.p., Chalmers Johnson. (4.00 / 1)


Reality is the brick crashing through the Overton Window.
Or as Steve Clemons relates it, (4.00 / 3)
Chalmers Johnson cancels his membership in the Council on Foreign Relations.


Reality is the brick crashing through the Overton Window.
[ Parent ]
This quote (above)... (0.00 / 0)
...was included in the whole Clemons article, but it was sort of lost at the end. I wanted it up front and center, because it is such a typical Chalmers classic.

Breathe in emptiness and luminosity.  Breathe out compassion.
[ Parent ]
Correct terminology (4.00 / 3)
Council of Fucked up Relations

Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what your country can do to you.
[ Parent ]
And as James Fallows,... (4.00 / 3)
...National Correspondent for "The Atlantic" relates:

When I got the news in the middle of last night that Chalmers Johnson had died, I put up a very brief commemoration, intending to do more later.

It turns out that that will not be necessary. My friend Steve Clemons, who knew Chal very well and both agreed and (occasionally) disagreed with him, has done a wonderful and thorough appreciation on The Washington Note. A sample:
>>In one of my fondest memories of Chalmers and Sheila Johnson at their home with their then Russian blue cats, MITI and MOF, named after the two engines of Japan's political economy -- Chal railed against the journal, Foreign Affairs, which he saw as a clap trap of statist conventionalism. He decided he had had enough of the journal and of the organization that published it, the Council on Foreign Relations. So, Chalmers called the CFR and told the young lady on the phone to cancel his membership.

The lady said, "Professor Johnson, I'm sorry sir. No one cancels their membership in the Council in Foreign Relations. Membership is for life. People are canceled when they die."

Chalmers Johnson, not missing a beat, said "Consider me dead."

I never will.<<

more here

Breathe in emptiness and luminosity.  Breathe out compassion.

[ Parent ]
Thanks, syd! (4.00 / 1)
James Fallow had one of the very best articles ever concerning Iraq, our "wars" etc. long ago (I have it archived somewhere).  Good on Chalmers for cancelling his membership with the Council on Foreign Relations. (Sorry, in the midst of all, I simply have not chosen to go into the merits of Chalmers Johnson, etc. I remember long ago, I thought it (CFR) was something really good and meritorious, only to be dismayed in the end.) (There are so many of these type agencies as you would not imagine -- Center for American this or that, etc. -- all "plotting and planning" type efforts, if you will!)



"At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst."--Aristotle

[ Parent ]
I'm sorry, but I just can't (0.00 / 0)
go along with this very mild-mannered statement of yours:

We built this Empire out of immediate and temporary needs, some of them in service of public interests, some of them in service of vested private interests. For the good of the Republic, it is long past time to tear it down.

All of what has happened was/has been well preconceived, beginning with Reagan, but really, really sealed with the Project for the New American Century's "REBUILDING
AMERICA'S DEFENSES" Strategy, Forces and Resources
For a New Century -- A Report.  Even Social Security and Medicare is contemplated therein -- see page 70.

There has been and is an ongoing effort to DESTROY the so-called "middle class" period!  Afterall, the "jacksters who took their corporate business abroad and got a taste of child labor and lax taxation think it's great and just, maybe, that's what they'd like to see here in the good ole' US of A.  People are working 2 and 3 jobs, some probably not at minimum wage.

No, "immediate and temporary needs" were contrived, at best, to serve the rich!  

For the good of the Republic, it is long past time to tear it down

Thank you, McF!  How benevolent!

While I have no wish to diminish your excellent contributions on train travel/transporation, I cannot go along with the seeming nonchalance of the last sentence in your diary!



"At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst."--Aristotle

There seems to be a time slip here ... (4.00 / 1)
... there was a very real and pressing need in the late 1940's and early 1950's to recycle America's massive trade surpluses to avoid a serious global financial structural imbalance.

A half century of American Empire is, of course, picking up the story when it was a teenager and looking at it now that its old enough to start collecting Social Security.

You are talking about the 1980's, when the Empire is already in its 30's, IOW, much later than the establishment of the American Empire. By the 1980's, those bits and pieces that were originally serving public needs (and not all of them ever did, only some of them) were already mostly obsolete, but those vested interests of the system pushed to keep it going to keep riding the gravy train.

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[ Parent ]
And on the last ... (4.00 / 2)
... tearing it down will involve at the very least many people making very real sacrifices, and quite possible involve many people sacrificing their lives, so I don't see how the last remark can be seen as nonchalant.

Chalmers Johnson has not lived to see the end of it, I doubt I will live to see the end of it, but if our grandchildren are to have a world we would consider worth living in, it must be torn down.

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[ Parent ]
I'm sorry, B McF! (4.00 / 1)
But the way this sounds is as though YOU have made the decision:

For the good of the Republic, it is long past time to tear it down.

When, in reality, I think there are a good many of us here who have and are thinking the same thing, in essence.  A "revolution" -- hopefully, not a bloody one!

"At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst."--Aristotle

[ Parent ]
I have indeed made a decision. (4.00 / 2)
I have decided not to take for granted that There Is No Alternative (TINA) to the American Empire, and after making that decision, reached the position that for the good of the Republic, it is long past time to tear it down.

I hope a growing number of people make the same decision over the decade ahead, not to accept TINA regarding the American Empire.

As I read it, you are disagreeing with my argument based on the fact that ... a good many other people here agree with it?

I'm not following you. Is your objection as opposed to, say, Celebrating the Fall of the American Empire last September that I stated the position in plain statements rather than in the form of a fictitious future history?

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[ Parent ]
I will attempt to answer this tomorrow, BMcF! (0.00 / 0)
Briefly, I have my concerns with anyone at all who assumes a "godlike" position.  We are none of us gods period!  

Perhaps, you didn't mean to come across in the manner you did, but that is how it struck me.  Sorry!

WE, collectively, are ALL involved in our circumstances and you, in all deference, with all your knowledges, are not the "gawd" of all.

On the other side of the coin, you are correct, we need to tear it all down -- and commence rebuilding a so-called democracy, which, frankly, never existed in the first place!
~~~~

No offenses meant, just clarification of attitudes! :)



"At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst."--Aristotle

[ Parent ]
Its an argument, not a group theraphy meeting. (0.00 / 0)
Scenario One: I have a piss-poor attitude, but I am right, and this old Republic is royally screwed unless we abandon the American Empire project established after WWII.

Scenario Two: I have a brilliant, warm, engaging attitude, but I am wrong, and indeed the American Empire project is the only thing holding the globe back from the brink of disaster.

I would venture to argue that the merit of the argument is a higher priority than whether or not I have a piss poor attitude.

And, indeed, since the majority of the tone of voice of text on the screen is imputed by the reader, I have far less control over the tone of voice that you have in your head when you read the text than I do over the content of the argument, so I have far less control over the "attitude" that different readers can find in the essay than over the arguments that they can find in the essay.

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[ Parent ]
Scenario One will do! (0.00 / 0)
Nice job!  You're a good "wiggler," too!


"At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst."--Aristotle
[ Parent ]
I'm not the Pied Piper in any of this ... (4.00 / 1)
... someone else is going to have to be the advocate for whatever consensus progressives might reach on how to stop the relentless assault by the US against the Arc of the Sun. I'm just an obscure development economist trying to think through some of the issues.

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[ Parent ]
Half A Century of Empire: A Progress Report | 16 comments
 

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