Chris Hedges "Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle"

punditman says...This is an interesting interview with Pullitzer prize-winning author Chris Hedges. The signs of inverted totalitarianism (where politics is subordinate to economics) are everywhere. Toss in the modern obsessions with celebrity and consumerism, and you can see why democracy has been subverted. As for the American empire, Hedges observes that a culture that cannot distinguish between reality and illusion dies.

Obamageddon

punditman says...Many of you may have noticed the absence of Peacenik. You would be right; he is off in the wilderness once again training for the collapse of everything—and vacationing at the same time until the 20th. In the meantime, Punditman will try to fill Peacenik's shoes. Punditman has trouble finding a pair of tennis shoes to fit Punditman's quirky feet, so filling two people's shoes simultaneously should prove challenging.

I'll give it a shot.

The article below is a good place place to start, because it deals with several crises all at once: President Obama's escalating war in Afghanistan, the threat of war with Iran, the collapse of the "bailout bubble" and finally, the mother of all bubble burstings, the collapse of the American hyper-power empire. That outta keep your neurons firing for awhile.

The Celente thesis: war as the "solution" to economic depression
by Justin Raimondo
www.antiwar.com

An American president is launching the most ambitious, the most expensive, and certainly the most dangerous military campaign since the Vietnam War – and the antiwar movement, such as it is, is missing in action. After a long and bloody campaign in Iraq and the election of a U.S. president pledged to get us out, our government is once again revving up its war machine and taking aim at yet another "terrorist" stronghold, this time in Afghanistan. Yet the antiwar movement’s motor seems stuck in the wrong gear, making no motions toward mounting anything like an effective protest. What gives?

We shouldn’t doubt the scope of the present war effort. Make no mistake: the Obama administration is radically ramping up the stakes in the "war on terrorism," which, though renamed, has not been revised downward, as the Washington Post reports:

"As the Obama administration expands U.S. involvement in Afghanistan, military experts are warning that the United States is taking on security and political commitments that will last at least a decade and a cost that will probably eclipse that of the Iraq war."

There are always "warnings" in the beginning, aren’t there? For some reason, however, they are never heeded. Instead, we just barrel ahead, undaunted, into the tall grass where ambush awaits us. War opponents predicted the Iraq invasion would prove unsustainable – and we were right. We said that, far from greeting us with cheers and showers of roses, the Iraqis would soon be shooting at us and demanding our ouster – and we were right. We said the rationale for war was based on a series of carefully manufactured and marketed lies – and that was the truth, now wasn’t it? Yet it seems we are caught in an endlessly repetitive nightmare, where the same prophetic voices are being drowned out by a chorus of "responsible" voices – to be followed by an all-too-familiar disaster.

The problem, however, is that the scale of these disasters seems to be increasing exponentially. As Gerald Celente, one of the few economic forecasters who predicted the ‘08 crash, put it the other day, "Governments seem to be emboldened by their failures." What the late Gen. William E. Odom trenchantly described as "the worst strategic disaster in American military history" – the invasion of Iraq – is being followed up by a far larger military operation, one that will burden us for many years to come. This certainly seems like evidence in support of the Celente thesis, and the man who predicted the 1987 stock market crash, the fall of the Soviet Union, the dot-com bust, the gold bull market, the 2001 recession, the real estate bubble, the “Panic of ‘08,” and now is talking about the inevitable popping of the "bailout bubble," has more bad news:

"Given the pattern of governments to parlay egregious failures into mega-failures, the classic trend they follow, when all else fails, is to take their nation to war."

As the economic crisis escalates and the debt-based central banking system shows it can no longer re-inflate the bubble by creating assets out of thin air, an economic and political rationale for war is easy to come by; for if the Keynesian doctrine that government spending is the only way to lift us out of an economic depression is true, then surely military expenditures are the quickest way to inject "life" into a failing system. This doesn’t work, economically, since the crisis is only masked by the wartime atmosphere of emergency and "temporary" privation. Politically, however, it is a lifesaver for our ruling elite, which is at pains to deflect blame away from itself and on to some "foreign" target.

Keep Reading...

Three Good Reasons To Liquidate Our Empire

The rationality of this article resonates with Peacenik. It seems so obvious. It makes sense. But Canada's and America's foreign policy isn't driven by rationality. Canada is going to help pacify the Pashtuns? Then Canada is going to rebuild their infrastructure? (While Canada's infrastructure falls apart). Then Canada is going to insure civil liberties for women, and education for everyone? (While Canada's education system implodes). Is Canada going to insure that everyone in Afghanistan gets a swine flu vaccination? Probaby. Are Canada's, and America's, priorities all screwed up? Of course. Read Chalmers Johnson's historical summary of Afghanistan. What the fuck is Canada doing there? And why? Bring the troops home now.


Afghanistan

by Chalmers Johnson

However ambitious President Barack Obama's domestic plans, one unacknowledged issue has the potential to destroy any reform efforts he might launch. Think of it as the 800-pound gorilla in the American living room: our longstanding reliance on imperialism and militarism in our relations with other countries and the vast, potentially ruinous global empire of bases that goes with it. The failure to begin to deal with our bloated military establishment and the profligate use of it in missions for which it is hopelessly inappropriate will, sooner rather than later, condemn the United States to a devastating trio of consequences: imperial overstretch, perpetual war, and insolvency, leading to a likely collapse similar to that of the former Soviet Union.

According to the 2008 official Pentagon inventory of our military bases around the world, our empire consists of 865 facilities in more than 40 countries and overseas U.S. territories. We deploy over 190,000 troops in 46 countries and territories. In just one such country, Japan, at the end of March 2008, we still had 99,295 people connected to U.S. military forces living and working there -- 49,364 members of our armed services, 45,753 dependent family members, and 4,178 civilian employees. Some 13,975 of these were crowded into the small island of Okinawa, the largest concentration of foreign troops anywhere in Japan.

Read on...

Do You Really Think Arabs in the Middle East Clapped for Obama's Speech?

Right wing pundits and politicians hated Obama's Cairo speech. That may be the only reason to recommend it. Peacenik thought Obama would wind down the Iraqi occupation. Peacenik thought Obama would wind down the Afghanistan occupation. Peacenik thought Obama would close Guantanamo. Peacenik thought Obama would stop torture by U.S. soldiers and agents. Was Peacenik naive. Did Peacenik forget a question mark there? Peacenik thinks Peacenik was optimistic. Overly optimistic. Now, Peacenik thinks Obama is going to change very little. The US is stuck in the Middle East. Inertia. Imperialism. Pride. Oil. Foolishness.

Just like the US couldn't imagine the consequences of not being in Vietnam, the U.S. is incapable of imagining not being in the Middle East. But the day will come. The empire is collapsing. The empire has collaspsed. You know it. Peacenik knows it. Obama will know it.

By Chris Hedges, Truthdig. Posted June 9, 2009.

What do words of peace and cooperation mean from us when we torture -- yes, we still torture -- Muslims?

Did they play Barack Obama’s speech to the Muslim world in the prison corridors of Abu Ghraib, Bagram air base, Guantanamo or the dozens of secret sites where we hold thousands of Muslims around the world? Did it echo off the walls of the crowded morgues filled with the mutilated bodies of the Muslim dead in Baghdad or Kabul? Was it broadcast from the tops of minarets in the villages and towns decimated by U.S. iron fragmentation bombs? Was it heard in the squalid refugee camps of Gaza, where 1.5 million Palestinians live in the world’s largest ghetto?

What do words of peace and cooperation mean from us when we torture—yes, we still torture—only Muslims? What do these words mean when we sanction Israel’s brutal air assaults on Lebanon and Gaza, assaults that demolished thousands of homes and left hundreds dead and injured? How does it look for Obama to call for democracy and human rights from Egypt, where we lavishly fund and support the despotic regime of Hosni Mubarak, one of the longest-reigning dictators in the Middle East?

Read on...

The Secret History of the American Empire

Punditman says...

A good outline of the "secret" empire built by economic hitmen in support of the Corporatocracy -- as described by insider John Perkins.

Yet it is "secret" only to the ignorant, the brainwashed, and the incurious.