Does President Obama dare to DISMANTLE THE EMPIRE??

polichick

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Sat Dec-04-10 02:45 PM
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Does President Obama dare to DISMANTLE THE EMPIRE??

Edited on Sat Dec-04-10 02:46 PM by polichick

That's what Chalmers Johnson (Author of The Blowback Trilogy and president of the Japan Policy Research Institute) is calling on the president to do in his new book, DISMANTLING THE EMPIRE: AMERICA'S LAST BEST HOPE.

Johnson asks what is being done about our military bases - "now close to eight hundred of them dotted across the globe in other people's countries."

Excerpt:

"There are three broad aspects to our debt crisis. First, we are spending insane amounts of money on 'defense' projects that bear no relationship to the national security of the United States. Simultaneously, we are keeping the income tax burdens on the richest segments of the American population at strikingly low levels.

"Second, we continue to believe that we can compensate for the accelerating erosion of our manufacturing base and our loss of jobs to foreign countries through massive military expenditures - so-called military Keynesianism. By 'military Keynesianism,' I mean the mistaken belief that public policies focused on frequent wars, huge expenditures on weapons and munitions, and large standing armies can indefinitely sustain a wealthy capitalist economy. The opposite is actually true.

"Third, in our devotion to militarism (despite our limited resources), we are failing to invest in our social infrastructure and other requirements for the long-term helath of our country. These are what economists call opportunity costs, things not done because we spent our money on something else. Our public education system has deteriorated alarmingly. We have failed to provide health care to all our citizens and neglected our responsibilities as the world's number one polluter. Most important, we have lost our competitiveness as a manufacturer for civilian needs - an infinitely more efficient use of scarce resources than arms manufacturing.

<snip>

"Spending hundreds of billions of dollars on present and future wars that have nothing to do with our national security is simply obscene. And yet Congress has been corrupted by the military-industrial complex into believing that by voting for more defense spending, they are supplying 'jobs' for the economy. In fact, they are only diverting scarce resources from the desperately needed rebuilding of the American infrastructure and other crucial spending necessities into utterly wasteful munitions. If we cannot cut back our long-standing, ever increasing military spending in a major way, then the bankrupcy of the United States is inevitable."

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Dismantling-the-Empire/Chalmers-Johnson/e/9780805093032

I highly recommend this book to anyone who can handle the realities of U.S. empire building - not pretty stuff to sift through.

What are the chances that President Obama will begin to dismantle the empire?