Comments on: The Empire is Failing – A Good Thing for America and the World http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2007/05/the-american-empire-is-failing-%e2%80%93-a-good-thing-for-america-and-the-world/ a radical newsletter in the struggle for peace and social justice Tue, 06 Jan 2009 05:17:15 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.1 By: Craig Wilson http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2007/05/the-american-empire-is-failing-%e2%80%93-a-good-thing-for-america-and-the-world/#comment-7388 Craig Wilson Mon, 15 Oct 2007 22:54:05 +0000 http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2007/05/the-american-empire-is-failing-%e2%80%93-a-good-thing-for-america-and-the-world/#comment-7388 Several months ago I watched Chalmers Johnson on Amy Goodman, and what he said was so disturbing that even Amy, toward the end of the interview, asked: "Is there any hope? His entire discourse dealt with what he called, "Military Keynesinism," and how powerful and all pervasive it had become following WW2, with some 740 military bases established throughout the world. President Eisenhower in his farewell adress to the nation almost fifty years ago, warned America about the rise of the "Military Industrial Complex." Chalmers Johnson said Americans liked military bases. It created jobs, good paying jobs, California amassing more than any other state, with senator Diane Feinstein acting as a full-back in defense of them. So, a bill to close bases wasn't likely to be brought before the senate, with practically no mention of the subject from network television. He went on to discuss Star Wars, the looting of the treasury to finance a missle defense program that NASA and the defense department have know for years will never work. What I found most intriguing about his interview was his explanation concerning the incongruity of Democracy and Empire. As with your explanation, he stated that you can't have empire and democracy too. Empire authorizes central control in the executive branch, restricting the checks and balances among the legislative and judicial bodies of government, which are constitutionally imperative for the maintenance of a functional democracy. And, of course, he went on to say that it's bankrupting our nation, and stressed that wide-spread-opposition may not invoke change, but bankruptcy will. The other issue pertains to pg 306 from author, Kevin Phillips latest book, "American Theocracy, the Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century." It parralles what you have said about Free Trade, NAFTA, CAFTA, The IMF, World Bank, and the WTO. But I had no idea where or how these agreements, loans and foreign policy had originated in the first place. According to Phillips, back in the early eighties, Allen Greenspan, then a private economist, talked about reducing the Federal budget deficit to help make U.S. Manufacturing competitive again. He had noticed a serious decline in U.S. Manufacturing and was extremely concerned. By July 2003, as chirman of the Federal Reserve Board, he voiced a completely different analysis: "Is it important for an economy to have manufacturing? There is a big dispute on this issue. What is important is that economies create value, and whether value is created by taking raw materials and fabricating them into something consumers want, or value is created by various services which consumers want, presumably should not make any difference so far as standards of living are concerned. " But another significant element to which we now turn, is the influence that can entrench around a large rentier class or, as in America, now, around a "debt and creditor" complex. The word "rentier"--meaning a person living off unearned income comes from the French, as do so many other words connected with money and plunder: finacier, profiteer, buccaneer. Over the last four centuries, however, it was first Spain, then Holland and Great Britain, and now the United States that created the most notable rentier clutures. Each ultimately became vulnerable. So is this the mechanism by which the power elite has systematically uprooted Middle Class America, with the transformation of a manufacturing center to a services driven economy, a rentier culture in charge of outsourcing jobs for cheap labor under the pretext of remaining competive. How can a nation remain competitive when, save for bombs, rockets and guns, it produces nothing and imports everything else? I see the middle class in a state of rapid decline. The privitization of services, prisons, schools, insurance, health care, utilities, subprime lending and the credit card industry, owing to this decline in the standard of living both home and abroad. Economists may have reclassified the struggle between labor and capital as the debt creditor complex, but the clarion call of the IWWs is as timely as capitalism itself. "You have nothing to lose, but your chains." Several months ago I watched Chalmers Johnson on Amy Goodman, and what he said was so disturbing that even Amy, toward the end of the interview, asked: “Is there any hope? His entire discourse dealt with what he called, “Military Keynesinism,” and how powerful and all pervasive it had become following WW2, with some 740 military bases established throughout the world. President Eisenhower in his farewell adress to the nation almost fifty years ago, warned America about the rise of the “Military Industrial Complex.” Chalmers Johnson said Americans liked military bases. It created jobs, good paying jobs, California amassing more than any other state, with senator Diane Feinstein acting as a full-back in defense of them. So, a bill to close bases wasn’t likely to be brought before the senate, with practically no mention of the subject from network television. He went on to discuss Star Wars, the looting of the treasury to finance a missle defense program that NASA and the defense department have know for years will never work. What I found most intriguing about his interview was his explanation concerning the incongruity of Democracy and Empire. As with your explanation, he stated that you can’t have empire and democracy too. Empire authorizes central control in the executive branch, restricting the checks and balances among the legislative and judicial bodies of government, which are constitutionally imperative for the maintenance of a functional democracy. And, of course, he went on to say that it’s bankrupting our nation, and stressed that wide-spread-opposition may not invoke change, but bankruptcy will. The other issue pertains to pg 306 from author, Kevin Phillips latest book, “American Theocracy, the Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century.” It parralles what you have said about Free Trade, NAFTA, CAFTA, The IMF, World Bank, and the WTO. But I had no idea where or how these agreements, loans and foreign policy had originated in the first place. According to Phillips, back in the early eighties, Allen Greenspan, then a private economist, talked about reducing the Federal budget deficit to help make U.S. Manufacturing competitive again. He had noticed a serious decline in U.S. Manufacturing and was extremely concerned. By July 2003, as chirman of the Federal Reserve Board, he voiced a completely different analysis: “Is it important for an economy to have manufacturing? There is a big dispute on this issue. What is important is that economies create value, and whether value is created by taking raw materials and fabricating them into something consumers want, or value is created by various services which consumers want, presumably should not make any difference so far as standards of living are concerned. ” But another significant element to which we now turn, is the influence that can entrench around a large rentier class or, as in America, now, around a “debt and creditor” complex. The word “rentier”–meaning a person living off unearned income comes from the French, as do so many other words connected with money and plunder: finacier, profiteer, buccaneer. Over the last four centuries, however, it was first Spain, then Holland and Great Britain, and now the United States that created the most notable rentier clutures. Each ultimately became vulnerable.

So is this the mechanism by which the power elite has systematically uprooted Middle Class America, with the transformation of a manufacturing center to a services driven economy, a rentier culture in charge of outsourcing jobs for cheap labor under the pretext of remaining competive. How can a nation remain competitive when, save for bombs, rockets and guns, it produces nothing and imports everything else? I see the middle class in a state of rapid decline. The privitization of services, prisons, schools, insurance, health care, utilities, subprime lending and the credit card industry, owing to this decline in the standard of living both home and abroad. Economists may have reclassified the struggle between labor and capital as the debt creditor complex, but the clarion call of the IWWs is as timely as capitalism itself. “You have nothing to lose, but your chains.”

]]> By: Max Shields http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2007/05/the-american-empire-is-failing-%e2%80%93-a-good-thing-for-america-and-the-world/#comment-431 Max Shields Mon, 21 May 2007 14:45:34 +0000 http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2007/05/the-american-empire-is-failing-%e2%80%93-a-good-thing-for-america-and-the-world/#comment-431 Mr. Paupp, Sounds like you've done your research. Particularly like your mentioning Paul Kennedy. I think scholars like Kennedy are very important since their world view seems relatively strained of ideology and yet his texts are full of valuable information that provides support for the kind of work you have done. It appears Chamlers Johnson may have pre-empted you with his trilogy (particularly his latest, Nemesis). But this only reinforces your thesis. It almost appears as if you hold some hope in the system - I may be overstating, certainly your connection with Bobby Kennedy (someone I admired as he left the stage for his authenticity) and than you point that the Dems are looking to correct the waywardness of the current regime. The institutionalization of what we have both domestically and foreign policies wise have been etched in the DNA over the past 100 years, and thus seems to have molded the system - certainly if Americans were feeling the depth of the pain this system causes, we have the Declaration of Independence as a statement (justification) for a total transformation; read: revolt. Nevertheless, I do concur with your sense of a global convergence. I think the most important thing is the continued development of communities of practice - that is the socialization of transformation through dialogue on blogs such as Dissident Voices, and books and, shows like Democracy Now. The change will become inevitable through these communities of practice - these are the same communities that revolutionize science and bring about collective movements. While I find the need to keep spirituality integral to such change I hesitate to go so far as to call it religion. Mr. Paupp,

Sounds like you’ve done your research. Particularly like your mentioning Paul Kennedy. I think scholars like Kennedy are very important since their world view seems relatively strained of ideology and yet his texts are full of valuable information that provides support for the kind of work you have done. It appears Chamlers Johnson may have pre-empted you with his trilogy (particularly his latest, Nemesis). But this only reinforces your thesis.

It almost appears as if you hold some hope in the system - I may be overstating, certainly your connection with Bobby Kennedy (someone I admired as he left the stage for his authenticity) and than you point that the Dems are looking to correct the waywardness of the current regime. The institutionalization of what we have both domestically and foreign policies wise have been etched in the DNA over the past 100 years, and thus seems to have molded the system - certainly if Americans were feeling the depth of the pain this system causes, we have the Declaration of Independence as a statement (justification) for a total transformation; read: revolt.

Nevertheless, I do concur with your sense of a global convergence. I think the most important thing is the continued development of communities of practice - that is the socialization of transformation through dialogue on blogs such as Dissident Voices, and books and, shows like Democracy Now. The change will become inevitable through these communities of practice - these are the same communities that revolutionize science and bring about collective movements.

While I find the need to keep spirituality integral to such change I hesitate to go so far as to call it religion.

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