"It is a dark day in our nation when high-level authorities will seek to use every method to silence dissent."
Martin Luther King, A Dark Day In Our Nation, Riverside Church, 30 April 1967
"A nation can be one or the other, a democracy or an imperialist, but it can't be both. If it sticks to imperialism, it will, like the old Roman Republic, on which so much of our system was modeled, lose its democracy to a domestic dictatorship."
Chalmers Johnson, Interview on Democracy Now, February 27, 2007
"Many analysts, myself included, would conclude that Wolin has made a close to airtight case that the American republic’s days are numbered, but Wolin himself does not agree. Toward the end of his study he produces a wish list of things that should be done to ward off the disaster of inverted totalitarianism: 'rolling back the empire, rolling back the practices of managed democracy; returning to the idea and practices of international cooperation rather than the dogmas of globalization and preemptive strikes; restoring and strengthening environmental protections; reinvigorating populist politics; undoing the damage to our system of individual rights; restoring the institutions of an independent judiciary, separation of powers, and checks and balances; reinstating the integrity of the independent regulatory agencies and of scientific advisory processes; reviving representative systems responsive to popular needs for health care, education, guaranteed pensions, and an honorable minimum wage; restoring governmental regulatory authority over the economy; and rolling back the distortions of a tax code that toadies to the wealthy and corporate power.'
Unfortunately, this is more a guide to what has gone wrong than a statement of how to fix it, particularly since Wolin believes that our political system is 'shot through with corruption and awash in contributions primarily from wealthy and corporate donors.' It is extremely unlikely that our party apparatus will work to bring the military-industrial complex and the 16 secret intelligence agencies under democratic control. Nonetheless, once the United States has followed the classical totalitarianisms into the dustbin of history, Wolin’s analysis will stand as one of the best discourses on where we went wrong."
Chalmers Johnson, Our Managed Democracy, CounterPunch, May 16, 2008
“In a sense, blowback is simply another way of saying that a nation reaps what it sows. Although people usually know what they have sown, our national experience of blowback is seldom imagined in such terms because so much of what the managers of the American empire have sown has been kept secret. It is time to realize, however, that the real dangers to America today come not from the newly rich people of East Asia but from our own ideological rigidity, our deep-seated belief in our own propaganda.”
Chalmers Johnson, Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire, 2002
Stocks enjoyed a bit of a risk-on rally today, for no particular reason.
Gold and the Dollar were under pressure, as risk safe havens.
Bitcoin and silver rallied higher with the stock bubble.
VIX fell again to its longer moving average.
Deception is abounding.
It is hard to be optimistic about the future, given our leadership and their reckless, selfish policies, and utter willingness to use force and fraud to accomplish their schemes.
But as always, we are in God's hands.
The swine are certainly stampeding headlong in a frenzy of hubris and greed towards the cliff.
Perhaps we may learn something as we watch them pitching into their demise.
Have a pleasant evening.
