Chalmers Johnston - American Empire

[oddlots]

As a Canadian I have always found Canadian liberals holier-than-thou attitude towards the states more than a little annoying. Its easy to critcise from a position of relative irrelevance - and it would appear oh so (self) satisfying. Nevertheless the Chalmers Johnston piece below matches the pitch of my own alarm at over-hearing America rationalising torture (as just one example.) Worth a read.

http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?emx=x&pid=194902

A great, great country is being betrayed and destroyed here.

[Tet]

Re: Chalmers Johnston - American Empire

[quote=oddlots;10393]As a Canadian I have always found Canadian liberals holier-than-thou attitude towards the states more than a little annoying. Its easy to critcise from a position of relative irrelevance - and it would appear oh so (self) satisfying. Nevertheless the Chalmers Johnston piece below matches the pitch of my own alarm at over-hearing America rationalising torture (as just one example.) Worth a read.

http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?emx=x&pid=194902

A great, great country is being betrayed and destroyed here.[/quote]
The US was destroyed a long time ago, any hopes for a Republic were officially put to rest well over 140-years ago and were officially killed by Lincoln, who garners just about all of the executive power that Bush is utilizing today. Democracy in the US has always meant Plutocracy. Not that we ever were much of a Republic to begin with, Washington commands more troops to intimidate fellow citizens than he ever commands during the entire Revolutionary War during the Whiskey Rebellion when Whiskey becomes money and Free Trade means the abilities to accept whatever currency you believe to be in your own best interest. What was the Whiskey Rebellion except the granting of control to the First Bank of the US. Now who owns the First Bank of the US and we discover the US never really gained any independence from Britain in the first place. The power to tax the colonies just shifted from the King to the Bank of England. All one needs to do is read the Treaty of Paris and you realize that Franklin sold the Republic out right from the start.

The Empire that is finally being killed certainly isn't a US Empire but still a Brit Empire and in fact still represents the monarchies of Europe Queen B and King V included and Canada is a very large part of of the Anglo Empire.

[oddlots]

Re: Chalmers Johnston - American Empire

Tet: fact checking that will require another bout of University, but I wince at the naivetete of my words so general point taken. But regarding the question of the Brits still in any way calling the shots, I'm working my way through Michael Hudson's "Super Imperialism" and "Global Fracture" and am perplexed by the disonnance between your views and his. In rough form, Super Imperialism seems to document how the US used war debt as a way to unseat British financial supremacy after world war I (while favoring lesser European competitors) and repeated the treatment after WWII to the extent that Britain in both situations was put in the impossible position of not being allowed to generate the revenue required to pay war debts via its balance of trade while still being forced to maintain a high-valued currency. (Apologies to Professor Hudson.) I just cannot square the story you are telling with the rise of the US and their very effective suffocation of their main occidental rival, Britain and its empire, at least through the periods of the world wars and to the present.

[Tet]

Re: Chalmers Johnston - American Empire

I just cannot square the story you are telling with the rise of the US and their very effective suffocation of their main occidental rival, Britain and its empire, at least through the periods of the world wars and to the present.

I noticed her majesty was just in town to thank US troops for their service to her, not the other way around. After it's all said and done we still use her money and who she let's spend it and what it's spent on is certainly still her business. After WWI and after WWII I also notice that the monarchy still exists in Britain, maybe just maybe someone else in Britain needed to be put in their place after the wars because their power was rivaling that of the queen herself. Both Parliment and industry had some very strong personalities after the wars. The current iraq fiasco is being fought with old imperial brit strategy not US strategy, that's a given. Afghanistan the same, Kipling was certainly right about that. Containment of Russia and trying to break-up Asia is an old imperial brit strategy not a US strategy. US still serves brit interests not our own.

[Spartacus]

Re: Chalmers Johnston - American Empire

IMHO the old Brit strategy would have been to partner with the Baathists after outsing Saddam. The old British empire almost never removed a useful apparatus if it could be twisted to British ends.

So the current US strategy is the old Brit strategy, sans the guile, the wisdom and the cynicism, and with a lot of un-earned hubris.

I noticed her majesty was just in town to thank US troops for their service to her, not the other way around. After it's all said and done we still use her money and who she let's spend it and what it's spent on is certainly still her business. After WWI and after WWII I also notice that the monarchy still exists in Britain, maybe just maybe someone else in Britain needed to be put in their place after the wars because their power was rivaling that of the queen herself. Both Parliment and industry had some very strong personalities after the wars. The current iraq fiasco is being fought with old imperial brit strategy not US strategy, that's a given. Afghanistan the same, Kipling was certainly right about that. Containment of Russia and trying to break-up Asia is an old imperial brit strategy not a US strategy. US still serves brit interests not our own.

[Spartacus]

Re: Chalmers Johnston - American Empire

Hudson's likely to be correct.

And

US and British "interests" are huge and complex.

Even without sycophantic toadies like Blair the interests are likely to intersect in many large areas. Until they don't, whereupon the US takes what it wants ("whichever consituency manages to wrest control of the right levers in the US will take what it wants" would be a more nuanced way to say it, but not quite so pithy).

Lots of parties to "free trade" agreements are coming to realize it's not "free trade", it's "What the US lobbyists want".

Tet: fact checking that will require another bout of University, but I wince at the naivetete of my words so general point taken. But regarding the question of the Brits still in any way calling the shots, I'm working my way through Michael Hudson's "Super Imperialism" and "Global Fracture" and am perplexed by the disonnance between your views and his. In rough form, Super Imperialism seems to document how the US used war debt as a way to unseat British financial supremacy after world war I (while favoring lesser European competitors) and repeated the treatment after WWII to the extent that Britain in both situations was put in the impossible position of not being allowed to generate the revenue required to pay war debts via its balance of trade while still being forced to maintain a high-valued currency. (Apologies to Professor Hudson.) I just cannot square the story you are telling with the rise of the US and their very effective suffocation of their main occidental rival, Britain and its empire, at least through the periods of the world wars and to the present.

[Spartacus]

Re: Chalmers Johnston - American Empire

I've read far worse criticism of the US and US policies from US patriots than from any Canadian.

As a Canadian I have always found Canadian liberals holier-than-thou attitude towards the states more than a little annoying. Its easy to critcise from a position of relative irrelevance - and it would appear oh so (self) satisfying. Nevertheless the Chalmers Johnston piece below matches the pitch of my own alarm at over-hearing America rationalising torture (as just one example.) Worth a read.

http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?emx=x&pid=194902

A great, great country is being betrayed and destroyed here.

[Tet]

Re: Chalmers Johnston - American Empire

I just cannot square the story you are telling with the rise of the US and their very effective suffocation of their main occidental rival, Britain and its empire, at least through the periods of the world wars and to the present.

I think this is rather interesting. Now the World Bank truly is a US institution, but it would seem the brits don't think that's the case.

Blair could run for World Bank chief, Nobel laureate says
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070518...r_070518142122

If we truly lived in a US Empire, we'd be installing the president of the IMF, instead it looks like her queenest is telling us to install blair. Note that the senate confirmed Wolfie by a vote a 98 to zero, money is something both Federal parties agree on.