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THE RUNG below 'TOTAL REALITY': The title is the name of Chalmers Johnson's 2000 publication about the consequences of AMERICAN EMPIRE....I will define the expression 'blowback' below, summarize the last chapter, and give some examples of why this is an IMPORTANT BOOK to know about. All reference pages will be based on the hardcover METROPOLITAN BOOKS, Henry Holt & Co....
The term "blowback" refers to the unintended consequences of policies that were kept secret from the American people.(p.8)...On page 17, it describes it in practical terms as a NATION REAPING WHAT IT SOWS! |
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THE CONSEQUENCES OF EMPIRE: [A brief summary of the author's thought (from Chapter 10) ~ showing the importance of REDUCING OR ELIMINATING a certain hegemony BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE.]
Are we a 'rogue superpower'?, the author asks. He immediately quotes a former State Department official protested that "Madeleine Albright is the first sectretary of state in American history whose diplomatic specialty, if one can call it that, is lecturing other governments, using threatening language and tastelessly bragging of the power and virtue of her country." (p.216) In February 1998, Albright reflects this hubris by saying,(in defense of using cruise missles against Iraq), "If we have to use force, it is because we are America. We are the indispensible nation. We stand tall. We see farther into the future." [Chalmers book is about suggesting just the opposite.](p.217) On the same page, he suggests that there is evidence that the decade following the Cold War, The United States largely abandoned a reliance on diplomacy, ecomomic aid, international law,and multilateral institutions in carrying out its foreign policies and resorted much of the time to bluster, military force, and financial manipulation.
Chalmers Johnson, who is a professor emeritus at the University of California, in San Diego, states the case very bluntly: the hubris of the United States will be the very seed of its undoing. (p.221) [[AS IN 'PRIDE COMETH BEFORE THE FALL' ?]] On the same page, he is convinced that "it becomes psychologically impossible" not to insist on involvement everywhere, which , "...is of course, a definition of imperial overextension. [[In the text, he gives a good example of this happening to the U.S.S.R., which inevitably will be our fate also.]]
The author ends this grim assessment by noting that we will NOT be able to contain CHINA(who are on the economic upswing), and since we have become a military of PENTAGON MERCENARY FORCE, this will create its own 'built-in' BLOWBACK!!! [[In the year 2000, Chalmers is predicting things ~ like ~ the WORLD TRADE CENTER tragedy, even though it was not specilically mentioned. (pgs. 222-223)]]
In one of the key observations in the book (p.224), the author states:
"Marx & Lenin were mistaken about the nature of imperialism. It is not the contradiction of capitalism that lead to imperialism, but imperialism that breeds some of the most importnt contradictions of capitalism. When these contradictions ripen, as they must, they create devastating economic crises."
SEEDS OF DISCONTENT: The author documents that countries like Thailand & Indonesia who have been on the receiving end of "U.S pressure to deregulate" whose fruit was DESTITUTION, will soon be looking for anti-American coalition. (227) [THIS SHOULD BE A WORD TO THE WISE, BUT USUALLY THOSE FULL OF HUBRIS ARE LACKING IN THIS KIND OF WISDOM!]
ENDING UPBEAT REMARK BY AUTHOR AT THE END OF CHAPTER TEN:
"...the United States should seek to lead through diplomacy and example rather than through military force and economic bullying. Such an agenda is neither unrealistic nor revolutionaryl It is appropriate for the post Cold War world and for a United States that puts the welfare ofitscitizens ahead ofthepretensionsofits imperialists...."(p.229)
IN SUMMATION~ IF THE UNITED STATES DOES NOT CHANGE ITS WAYS, IT WILL NOT WIND UP AS HAVING WON ANYTHING - COLD WAR OR OTHERWISE!!! [lebeau reporting] |
