Historian Chalmers Johnson has recently published the third book in a series that looks at American foreign policy and its consequences going back to the end of the Civil War and extending through the current set of disastrous actions take by the Bush Administration. He is almost singlehandedly responsible for the term “blowback” entering the vernacular in the context of political and military consequences of our generally short-sighted and ill-advised dealings with the rest of the world.
In the newest book, Johnson speculates on the issues raised by our imperial aspirations. This blog features a long excerpt from the book, which is getting a lot of attention on the web today. He not only takes the Bushies to task, he also is 100% correct to point out that the Democrats circling around the dying carcass of the current administration have no interest in rolling back Bush’s abuses of power, merely assuming them for their own purposes…which, he suggests, won’t be really very much different than the uses Bush, Rove, Gonzales, et. al. have found for them.
Johnson doesn’t mince words. He points to the failure of almost every institutional check-and-balance system over the last year, reserving particular disappointment for the media and their complete willingness to abandon their role as advocate for the public. He end the piece wondering if there is any possible way for the public to reverse the direction in which we’re headed (he uses the metaphor of liquidating the assets of evil), offering some very specific changes that might be beneficial.
This cynical pessimist sees little chance.
Comments:
Solutions? You want solutions? How about this:
Roving bands of mobs, armed with pitchforks and torches. Summary executions. And I’m just talking about what should be done with the mainstream media. You don’t even want to know what I’d want to do with the freepers in the Bush Administration…. ;O)
Cynical enough for you?? ;O)
Posted by Jack Cluth [URL] on 05/18/07
Dude, why do you think I keep a tar-soaked broom and a rusty scythe in my garage?
Posted by Brian [URL] on 05/18/07
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