Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic.”

She's present in our country right now, just waiting to make her - to carry out her divine mission




http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/02/27/1454229

CHALMERS JOHNSON: Nemesis was the ancient Greek goddess of revenge, the punisher of hubris and arrogance in human beings. You may recall she is the one that led Narcissus to the pond and showed him his reflection, and he dove in and drowned. I chose the title, because it seems to me that she's present in our country right now, just waiting to make her -- to carry out her divine mission.

By the subtitle, I really do mean it. This is not just hype to sell books -- “The Last Days of the American Republic.” I’m here concerned with a very real, concrete problem in political analysis, namely that the political system of the United States today, history tells us, is one of the most unstable combinations there is -- that is, domestic democracy and foreign empire -- that the choices are stark. A nation can be one or the other, a democracy or an imperialist, but it can't be both. If it sticks to imperialism, it will, like the old Roman Republic, on which so much of our system was modeled, like the old Roman Republic, it will lose its democracy to a domestic dictatorship.

I’ve spent some time in the book talking about an alternative, namely that of the British Empire after World War II, in which it made the decision, not perfectly executed by any manner of means, but nonetheless made the decision to give up its empire in order to keep its democracy. It became apparent to the British quite late in the game that they could keep the jewel in their crown, India, only at the expense of administrative massacres, of which they had carried them out often in India. In the wake of the war against Nazism, which had just ended, it became, I think, obvious to the British that in order to retain their empire, they would have to become a tyranny, and they, therefore, I believe, properly chose, admirably chose to give up their empire.

As I say, they didn't do it perfectly. There were tremendous atavistic fallbacks in the 1950s in the Anglo, French, Israeli attack on Egypt; in the repression of the Kikuyu -- savage repression, really -- in Kenya; and then, of course, the most obvious and weird atavism of them all, Tony Blair and his enthusiasm for renewed British imperialism in Iraq. But nonetheless, it seems to me that the history of Britain is clear that it gave up its empire in order to remain a democracy. I believe this is something we should be discussing very hard in the United States.

......




Over the ashes of blood marched the civilized soldiers,

Over the ruins of the french fortress of a failure

Over the silent screams of the dead and the dying

Saying please be reassured, we seek no wider war.



The treaties were signed, the country was split into sections

But growing numbers of prisons were built for protection

Rapidly filling with people who called for elections

But please be reassured, we seek no wider war.



Ngo dinh diem was the puppet who danced for the power

The hero of hate who gambled on hell for his hour

Father of his country was stamped on the medals we showered

But please be reassured, we seek no wider war.



Machine gun bullets became the bloody baptizers

And the falcon copters dont care if someones the wiser

But the boy in the swamp didnt know he was killed by advisers

So please be reassured, we seek no wider war.



And fires were spitting at forests in defoliation

While the people were pressed into camps not called concentration

And the greater the victory the greater the shame of the nation

But please be reassured, we seek no wider war.



While we were watching the prisoners were tested by torture

And vicious and violent gasses maintained the order

As the finest washington minds found slogans for slaughter

But please be reassured, we seek no wider war.



Then over the border came the bay of pigs planes of persuasion

All remaining honor went up in flames of invasion

But the shattered schools never learned that its not escalation

But please be reassured, we seek no wider war.



Were teaching freedom for which they are yearning

While were dragging them down to the path of never returning

But, well condescend to talk while the cities are burning

But please be reassured, we seek no wider war.



And the evil is done in hopes that evil surrenders

But the deeds of the devil are burned too deep in the embers

And a world of hunger in vengeance will always remember

So please be reassured, we seek no wider war,

We seek no wider war.



phil ochs

I do hope we give up empire. I think that may be why I am yearning to move to Canada, not to escape from here but to be from a place that doesn't care to be an empire. I think if my country of birth would give up her empiric aspirations, I could come to love her again.

We know from history they're mutually exclusive.

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We'll finally become again what our very visionary founders intended -- a government of laws, not men.

NY Times: A Power That May Not Stay So Super
Posted by marmar on Sun Oct-12-08 02:26 PM

A Power That May Not Stay So Super

By DAVID LEONHARDT
Published: October 11, 2008



AT the turn of the 20th century, toward the end of a brutal and surprisingly difficult victory in the Second Boer War, the people of Britain began to contemplate the possibility that theirs was a nation in decline. They worried that London’s big financial sector was draining resources from the industrial economy and wondered whether Britain’s schools were inadequate. In 1905, a new book — a fictional history, set in the year 2005 — appeared under the title, “The Decline and Fall of the British Empire.”

The crisis of confidence led to a sharp political reaction. In the 1906 election, the Liberals ousted the Conservatives in a landslide and ushered in an era of reform. But it did not stave off a slide from economic or political prominence. Within four decades, a much larger country, across an ocean to the west, would clearly supplant Britain as the world’s dominant power.

The United States of today and Britain of 1905 are certainly more different than they are similar. Yet the financial shocks of the past several weeks — coming on top of an already weak economy and an unpopular war — have created their own crisis of national confidence.

On Friday, as the stock market finished one of its worst weeks by falling yet again, to roughly half of its level just one year ago, the Gallup Poll reported that Americans were substantially more pessimistic about the economy than they have been in more than two decades of polling. Nearly 60 percent say the economy is in poor shape, and 90 percent say it’s still getting worse.

“One thing seems probable to me,” Peer Steinbrück, the German finance minister, said recently. “The U.S. will lose its status as the superpower of the global financial system.” At another time, that remark might have sounded like mere nationalist bluster. Right now, it doesn’t seem so ridiculous to ask whether 2008 will come to be seen as the first year of a distinctly non-American century. ..........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/weekinreview/12leonhardt.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

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thank you for posting the link. I may buy the book also.

Someone here can't figure it out :shrug:

to be honest, the thread title actually did put me off, but then after seeing the reactions, I decided to click the link and read for myself. I'm glad I did, and in a backhanded way, I'm grateful for the skeptics who bumped the thread enough for me to finally decide to take more than a passing glance at it. ;)

I notice that the book is the last of a trilogy, which means I will probably want to check out all three. thanks again for the heads up :)

:eyes:



Professor emeritus of the University of California, San Diego. And you?


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chalmers_Johnson

Evidently, he can't.

dead fish swims

I've heard several interviews with Chalmers Johnson and I believe his analysis has evolved a bit from his original blowback theory, and although he hasn't come right out and admitted that 911 was a military-intel op, I believe that's the inevitable conclusion his argument points to. In any case, it was.