Can we talk? Of Course Obama Supports Empire….

[Junkdrawer]

Pinning the abuses of the Military Financial Complex (aka Empire) on Obama misses the point.

The vast majority of the House and the Senate supports Empire.

Every President since Harry Truman supported Empire.

Empire was always the most profitable game in town. And by now, Empire is becoming just about the ONLY game in town.

The big problem with Empire (assuming you turn a blind eye to the suffering of its foreign victims) is that is slowly drains the life out its host nation. It does this by sucking up the capital that would go to infrastructure and industrial modernization. You see, industry (you remember, that activity that provides high wages to the lower and middle classes) only returns 5% to 10% on investment. Empire returns 20%, 30%, 40% or more on investment.

But they never say “Empire”. They said “Ensuring World Peace and Prosperity”. They said “Fighting Communism”. And now they say “Fighting Terror” and "Free Trade". Start talking about "Empire" and you will quickly find yourself labeled as a Fringe Left Conspiracy Theorist.

It is LONG past time that we, as a nation, have an open, adult discussion of Empire. If we are ever going to “turn the ship of State around” (Obama’s words) we need an honest discussion of how the world works. We need to acknowledge that we are dependent on Empire at the same time we take concrete steps to rein it in. Perhaps we could begin by making imperial investment less attractive and industrial investment more attractive. Maybe we can buck history and become the first Empire to reform rather than fall.

[closeupready]

1. This will happen right after we switch to non-fossil fuel energy sources.

:rofl:

[Junkdrawer]

2. Yep. Control of Oil is one of the cornerstones of American Empire...

It's probably the biggest reason that the political will to convert to renewable energy is not there.

[closeupready]

4. Unfortunately, yes. The dark joke I was making was that just as we are on an irreversible path

to destruction of the environment, so Americans will never talk about the costs of empire and the wisdom of continuing to maintain it. People are just not that smart.

[BeFree]

3. Empire

Is predicated on growth, and we've heard Obama talk about that growth.

Just like any good ponzi scheme, the growth of empire depends upon newbie lands being ripped off to enrich those at the top of the empire.

Our empire either reforms in its own controlled way or collapses onto itself. The best way to control the deflation is to start reducing the MIC complex by halving its budget.

[Junkdrawer]

5. Next stop, Africa. n/t

[BeFree]

6. Well

Africa is the most vulnerable continent. South America woke up quickly and Antarctica is too cold... for now.

Empire works best when the newbies to the empire are in turmoil, like Somalia.
Expect to see more turmoil in Africa as empire expands into its final frontier.

[BeFree]

7. And

It is why empire had to expand into Afghanistan and Iraq.

First cause turmoil there by injecting troops and keep it going with more bombs and bullets making those at the top of the empire - the gun and ammo companies - richer and richer.

[femrap]

34. I always said that the

PowersThatBe wanted BO as Prez so they could take every last metal, diamond, oil, etc. from Africa. Will they start w/ Kenya? It's so obvious. And now BO will not participate in Durban II!!! And uses Samantha Powers to tell the this. W went to Durban I, but walked out. BO won't even go...this is a meeting on ending Racism! Samantha was telling Jewish leaders not to worry...US would not attend.

Of course this isn't on MSM.

[BeFree]

37. Wow

I never thot of that. The PTB have their ways and they are always several steps ahead of us. No doubt they have their hands in African politics....

What exactly is this Durban of which you speak?

The big O would be a perfect candidate to make Africa be calm. Gawd...

[femrap]

47. Durban was the first int'l

meeting held back in 2001, I think, to confront and discuss racism. W walked out.

[stillcool]

43. The writing is on the wall ..

for that one, isn't it? Reminds me of something Steve Kangas wrote way back when..when I was actually surprised by this stuff.

A Timeline of CIA Atrocities

By Steve Kangas
http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/CIAtimeline.html

The following timeline describes just a few of the hundreds of atrocities and crimes committed by the CIA. (1)

CIA operations follow the same recurring script. First, American business interests abroad are threatened by a popular or democratically elected leader. The people support their leader because he intends to conduct land reform, strengthen unions, redistribute wealth, nationalize foreign-owned industry, and regulate business to protect workers, consumers and the environment. So, on behalf of American business, and often with their help, the CIA mobilizes the opposition. First it identifies right-wing groups within the country (usually the military), and offers them a deal: "We'll put you in power if you maintain a favorable business climate for us." The Agency then hires, trains and works with them to overthrow the existing government (usually a democracy). It uses every trick in the book: propaganda, stuffed ballot boxes, purchased elections, extortion, blackmail, sexual intrigue, false stories about opponents in the local media, infiltration and disruption of opposing political parties, kidnapping, beating, torture, intimidation, economic sabotage, death squads and even assassination. These efforts culminate in a military coup, which installs a right-wing dictator. The CIA trains the dictator’s security apparatus to crack down on the traditional enemies of big business, using interrogation, torture and murder. The victims are said to be "communists," but almost always they are just peasants, liberals, moderates, labor union leaders, political opponents and advocates of free speech and democracy. Widespread human rights abuses follow.

This scenario has been repeated so many times that the CIA actually teaches it in a special school, the notorious "School of the Americas." (It opened in Panama but later moved to Fort Benning, Georgia.) Critics have nicknamed it the "School of the Dictators" and "School of the Assassins." Here, the CIA trains Latin American military officers how to conduct coups, including the use of interrogation, torture and murder.

The Association for Responsible Dissent estimates that by 1987, 6 million people had died as a result of CIA covert operations. (2) Former State Department official William Blum correctly calls this an "American Holocaust."

Who killed Steve Kangas?
Case overview
http://www.psnw.com/~bashford/kang-ev0.html

[The2ndWheel]

8. America has been an expanding center of power from day one

Which was just the continuation of other expanding centers of power rising, falling, going to war, etc. That process isn't going to stop voluntarily.

[KoKo]

9. Our Defense Industry supplies so many jobs and so much money

to Fat Cat Generals and the Halliburton's, XE's, etc. and other entities we aren't even aware of that it will take some time to wind it down. Plus all the jobs and good salaries the contractors and our own military provide won't be easy to replace by building and repairing roads and bridges here at home. We would have to pay them too much and it's easier to bring in cheap labor from outside to work in the hot sun pouring asphalt and welding beams. :-(

Still...we have to hope that our bankrupt economy means that Defense spending will have to be cut in ways that wind down purchasing more toys to satisfy the Military egos and waste that's throughout the system in contracts that are just scams and the rest. The people we need to employ in the military and even the contractors might be better put to use in peaceful operations around the world.



And, I still hope for Kucinich's idea of a "Department of Peace," to one day be a counterbalance to Empire. But, then...that's just wishful thinking.

[Junkdrawer]

12. All those MiC jobs are a drop in the bucket compared to the jobs...

in Steel, Auto, Textiles, etc. etc. we lost to Globalization.

Rebuilding infrastructure is a necessary first step to rebuilding industry. And then we may need (bite my tongue) tariffs to protect the new fledgling industries. Tariffs were necessary when America I was industrialized. America II will need tariffs too.

[KoKo]

13. oh...I agree..but the MIC right now is employing many of those who could have had those

good jobs. It's keeping some folks from being homeless by employing them all over the world until we can get some of the programs Obama/Dems want in place. So far we have some Dems in Congress joining with Repugs to stop all that. So, for now, we keep them employed killing or patrolling...is what I was saying. Not a good option ...and agree that something needs to be done about tarriffs...even thought I have to bite my tongue when saying that word, too.

Will Congress not screw it up though given the Repugs still seem to have so much power than many of our Dems still scurry away when they threaten.

[Vidar]

10. Just as Britain was getting out of the empire business as

no longer profitable, full off arrogance & hubris we blundered into it.

[Occam Bandage]

16. When did Britain get out of "the empire business?"

They're also dependent on multinational corporations and free trade secured by a powerful standing military capable of global interventionism. I think that's the case for the entire G20, with perhaps a few exceptions (such as Japan, who mostly uses our military's power projection to keep its trade lanes open).

[Vidar]

41. They have gone from ruling 1/4 of the world to a few islands beyond

their borders in the last 80 years, because it was costing them too much.

[Echo In Light]

11. Good post. K&R

[Occam Bandage]

14. How about we define "Empire" first?

"Military-industrial complex" is not adequate. Every nation with a military and an industrial base has such a pressure.

[Junkdrawer]

20. It's a long story. We took our industrial and financial hegemony after WWII...

and augmented it with an expanding military presence. Soon we discovered that industry was optional.

John Perkins does a good job of describing it from the inside....

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/4112l1RxQuL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg

http://www.amazon.com/Secret-History-American-Empire-Economic/dp/0452289572/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_b

[Occam Bandage]

21. I didn't ask for a history, I asked if we could settle on a definition.

It seems your definition of "Empire" is "a large transnational financial base combined with a military capable of projecting power overseas," in which case your definition of "Empire" is the same as my definition of "first-world nation."

[Junkdrawer]

22. I've always found that studying history sheds more light than the artificial exercise...

of "defining terms". Ever read Wittgenstein....

[Occam Bandage]

25. Yes, I think Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus flew off the rails in the first few pages,

and while the rest was certainly interesting and often innovative, it didn't leave much of a lasting impression beyond my enjoyment of the clever format with which he presents his ideas.

As for history? It's certainly necessary to use past events and trends in any discussion of politics, but you can hardly expect to form any sort of argument revolving around a concept (in this case, "Empire") without bothering to explain what your concept is. You might as well be decrying America's Zorkian politics, and when asked for a definition of "Zorkian" saying "American history is a history of Zork."

[Junkdrawer]

30. I'm talking the later Wittgenstein...

Wittgenstein himself recanted the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus....

"The Blue and Brown Books" are good and "Philosophical Investigations" is better, but more advanced.

My favorite phrase from the later Wittgenstein:

"We must eliminate Explanation and substitute Description in it's place"...

So, I'm using the word "Empire" as shorthand for all the secret death-dealing, profit driven adventures of American Foreign Policy over the last 50-60 years. Guilty as charged.

[Occam Bandage]

33. Explain, describe, whichever you prefer.

So by Empire you mean foreign policy in which violence is used to secure trade. Reasonable enough, but I don't think that's necessarily a terrible thing. For instance, suppression of piracy in international waters is the most archetypal example of Empire I can imagine: violence is used to secure trade routes to protect economic activity and encourage national profitability. Few find that to be problematic.

[Terry in Austin]

27. Defining "empire"

How about we define "Empire" first?

Okay - you first, then.

(Meanwhile, Wikipedia's not a bad place to start: "Empire defined")

[Gregorian]

15. I'd recommend this post a hundred times, if I could.

So succinct. So true. This is one of the most important posts. It encompasses the suffering, the death, the debt, the ecological disaster that the military industry creates.

Thank you. I appreciate hearing good thinking.

[cali]

17. I suppose that depends on your definition of Empire, doesn't it?

and really, your language is every bit as vague and Orwellian as the language you're complaining about.

[Occam Bandage]

19. Any time vague terms are both capitalized and undefined,

you know you're dealing with sensible analysis.

[cali]

23. you meant pretentious dogma

posing as knowledge and wisdom. Or maybe you didn't. I do.

[Junkdrawer]

24. More pretentious dogma: "The American Empire Project"....

Americans have long believed that the very notion of empire is an offense against our democratic heritage, yet in recent months, these two words -- American empire -- have been on everyone's lips. At this moment of unprecedented economic and military strength, the leaders of the United States have embraced imperial ambitions openly. How did we get to this point? And what lies down the road?

To address these questions, Metropolitan Books offers the American Empire Project. In these short, argument-driven books, our leading writers and thinkers will mount an immodest challenge to the fateful exercise of empire-building and to explore every facet of the developing American imperium, while suggesting alternate ways of thinking about, confronting, and acting in a new American century.

The project has been developed by Tom Engelhardt (www.tomdispatch.com) and Steve Fraser, two editors with long and distinguished careers in publishing -- at Pantheon and Basic Books -- who are themselves historians and writers. In future seasons, Chalmers Johnson, who made "blowback" a household word, will take on the far reach of American militarism and what it means to garrison the planet in The Sorrows of Empire. Michael Klare will ask, in Blood and Oil, how American dependency on petroleum drives our strategic planning. And in How to Succeed at Globalization: A Primer for the Roadside Vendor, Mexican cartoonist Rafeal Barajas will depict the world economy from the perspective of the very small businessman.


http://www.americanempireproject.com/americanempireproject.htm

[cali]

29. Maybe, but it doesn't appear that way at first glance.

I'm referring to your vague rhetoric.

[stillcool]

44. thanks for that..nice list of books..

[Occam Bandage]

26. Certainly.

The number of undefined words with unorthodox capitalization is always inversely proportional to the degree to which the author has clearly thought through his ideas. A capitalized, undefined word is almost always shorthand for "there's a concept here and I think it's important but I don't really know what it means."

[Terry in Austin]

38. So you know what the word "Empire" means?

Pray, tell us, then...

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

18. The "Global War on Terror" is now passe. It's new name is "Overseas Contingency Operations".

Orwell speak is a necessary tool for empires.

\http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/KD17Ak01.html

Requiem for the 'war on terror'
By Ira Chernus

This is the way the "global war on terror" (also known, in George W Bush-era jargon, as GWOT) ends, not with a bang, not with parades and speeches, but with an obscure memo, a few news reports, vague denials, and a seemingly off-handed comment (or was it a carefully calculated declaration?) from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton: "The administration has stopped using the phrase <'war on terror'> and I think that speaks for itself. Obviously."

This is often the way presidents and their administrations operate when it comes to national security and foreign policy - not with bold, clear statements but through leaks, trial balloons, small gestures, and innuendo.

In this case, though, are we seeing the cleverly orchestrated plan of a shrewd administration, every move plotted with astonishing cunning? Or are the operators actually a bunch of newbies bumbling along from day to day, as a literal reading of press reports on the end of GWOT might suggest? Unless some historian finds a "smoking gun" document in the archives years from now, we may never know for sure.

If the motives remain obscure, some effects of this major shift in language are already evident, though whether the result is a glass half empty or half full may lie in the eye of the beholder. In some cases, the new administration's policies still look amazingly like those of the "global war on terror", sans the name - most notably in Afghanistan
, where President Obama is pursuing many of the same old goals with renewed force, and in Pakistan, where he is steadily widening Bush's war. Sounding a lot like Bush, in fact, Obama played the September 11, 2001 attack card repeatedly in his announcement justifying his program of stepped up action in the Afghanistan-Pakistan theater of operations.

[chill_wind]

28. Africom. The Final Frontier. Rolled out last October...

Feb 11, 2009
Is Africom a U.S. military maneuver or real help?

NEW YORK (FinalCall.com) - From the halls of academia to the streets of America, has come a call to confront the Obama administration and Congress over Africom, the military’s U.S. African Command that became operational last October.


(..)

http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/article_5631.shtml

The DOD's shiny new toy. Check it out.

Africom

http://www.africom.mil/



From the first link:

“The U.S. gets 24 percent of its oil from Africa; 80 percent of the coltan used for cell phones comes out of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and it goes on-and-on.”

[arcadian]

31. Time to wreck the World Bank and the IMF.

Smash the buildings up and build a monument to the oppressed on their ruins.

[Junkdrawer]

32. I'd love to have the sledge hammer concession for that ceremony...

I'd be rich...

:evilgrin:

[dem mba]

45. and isn't it ironic, don't ya think?

:-)

[Spike89]

35. Empire and industrialization are in lockstep

It has always been so. We simply can't end "empire" and expand domestic industry...that ignores the reality that resources for industry are not universally distributed. The obvious and currently dominate resource forcing empire is energy. Without resorting to empire (as I believe it is being used in this discussion) the U.S. can't ensure access to the oil resources necessary to sustain, much less expand, the domestic industry we do have.

An abundant energy source available in the U.S. wouldn't probably solve all the problems, but it would lessen the need and burdens of maintaining empire. Of course, we'd still need access to other materials (ore, water, markets, etc.) and as any resource became scarce, critical, or otherwise "unstable" on the world marketplace, we'd need to expand our influence to protect our interests in that resource.

As long as there are independant states/entities competing in a world economy, there will be empire by this definition. It isn't necessarily an evil, but it does have great potential for evil.

[Junkdrawer]

36. The needs of Industry are the seeds of Empire....

The desire to assure access (at an advantaged price) to raw materials definitely starts the Imperious urge.

But then, as I say, the profitability of Empire dries up capital. I was born and raised in Johnstown, PA. By the time Bethlehem Steel closed shop in the late 70s, much of the plant and equipment was WW I vintage (some dating to the Civil War). It was doomed.

[Terry in Austin]

39. "Empire" definitions don't matter. It's US "top-dogitude."

By any definition or descriptive term, America is the center of accumulation for a disproportionate share of the world's resources and industrial output. With 5% of the world's population, the US consumes about 25% of the world's energy -- just to mention one example.

The fact is, for whatever reasons good or bad, the US is top dog, king of the hill, the dominant power, the core in relation to the world's periphery.

In the past, other states have become top dog, with various means of establishing their own peripheries. In some cases, the means were along pretty conventional "empire" lines, like Rome's military empire; in other cases, not so much.

In every case, though, whether the means were military or economic or a mix, the outcome is the same: the lion's share of the goodies flow to the dominant power from everybody else.

So, we're top dog. Condemn it or praise it, the situation still means this: "getting to the top of the heap simply makes you target number one for an endless series of fresh challengers, one of whom will eventually win."

Investment in empire/hegemony/top-dogitude does indeed make for huge returns on investment, particularly in the earlier stages. Later on, as challenges for the top spot mount, the returns start diminishing. At some point, the question becomes whether it's still worth it.

[Spike89]

40. Great points, but the pop. vs. resources figures are skewed

I'm not going to try and say we don't over consume in the U.S., but the figures aren't as simple as they appear. Despite the conventional wisdom that the U.S., doesn't manufacture anything, we do. We are a huge exporter of a wide variety of things from cars, to medicine, even equipment for generating/harnessing the world's power.

Again, we overconsume, but part of that is simply because we are an industrialized nation. For instance, creating, packaging, and distributing medicine to the 3rd world countries accounts for a certain ammount of that "energy imbalance" but certainly isn't unfair. Another example is food--the U.S. is a huge exporter of grain, but it requires energy to produce that grain. It is almost impossible to really look at those figures with an eye toward what is ethical. As with most things, it is extremely complicated.

[Junkdrawer]

42. Balance of trade....

[TBF]

46. K&R n/t

Error: you can only recommend threads which were started in the past 24 hours

OK, kick then. :kick: