Just finished Chalmers Johnson's The Sorrows of Empire, he concludes with this:

[izzybeans]

6th to last paragraph

"Empires do not last, and their ends are usually unpleasant. Americans like me, born before World War II, have personal knowledge--in some cases, personal experience--of the collapse of at least six empires: those of Nazi Germany, imperial Japan, Great Britain, France, the Netherlands, and the Soviet Union. If one includes all of the twentieth century, three major empires came tumbling down--the Chinese, Austro-Hungarian, and Ottoman. A combination of Imperial overstretch, rigid economic institutions, and an inability to reform weakened all these empires, leaving them fatally vulnerable in the face of disastrous wars, many of which the empires themselves invited. There is no reason to think that an American empire will not go the same way--and for the same reasons. If efforts at globalization delayed the beginnings of that collapse for a while, the shift to militarism and imperialism settles the issue." (pg. 310).http://www.amazon.com/Sorrows-Empire-Militarism-Republic-American/dp/0805070044

When any politician tells you, writes to you, or in some other manner indicates we can not afford to reform our healthcare or education systems, our market system or our transportation technologies ask them why they write blank checks for military conquest...why they find it reasonable to out-pace domestic spending 2 to 1, 3 to 1, 100 to 1 (however the case maybe) with military spending.,,what are they afraid of...why can we afford to pay for golf courses on Okinawa, military resorts in the Persian Gulf, when we can't do all of these other things that cost so much less.

Have we gone completely mad?

[Echo In Light]

1. I've not read it cover to cover, but have heard Chalmers speak several times

Always an eye opener.

[immoderate]

5. Agree. Chalmers Johnson is one of the smartest people around.

His books, Blowback, Sorrows of Empire, and Nemesis, known as the "Blowback Trilogy" though they were written separately, are like an advanced degree in empires.

--imm

[pnorman]

15. I have all three in Audible.com format.

Compared to text, audio isn't anywhere near as "retentive" for such non-fiction, so they really need to be listened to twice (or more!). I don't recall that passage, so I'll load that book into my media player and give it another listen.

pnorman

[leveymg]

18. If you like Johnson, also read the Tillys, Gurr, Goldstone, and Skocpol on the sources of revolution

See, Revolution: critical concepts in political science - Google Books Resultby Rosemary H. T. O'Kane - 2000 - History - 528 pages
Pioneering and once-dominant work by Chalmers Johnson, Ted Robert Gurr, Samuel Huntington, and Charles Tilly was improved upon by Theda Skocpol and SN ...
books.google.com/books?isbn=0415201365...

Also, Jared Diamonds's work on the recurring pattern of societal collapses is very informative:

Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed - Wikipedia, the ...The "output" variables that I examine are collapse or survival, and form of the collapse if collapse does occur. By relating output variables to input ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/index.html?curid=1378709 - Cached - Similar

[Fumesucker]

2. " Have we gone completely mad? "

Yes.

SATSQ

[villager]

3. That did seem like a rhetorical question....

n/t

[izzybeans]

4. Apparently it was stupid of me.

:)

[Fumesucker]

9. Short Answer to Simple Question..

Not stupid..

:)

[izzybeans]

24. In that case google wasn't my friend.

:)

[indepat]

22. Completely and unalterably imo

:P

[InternalDialogue]

6. His trilogy should be required reading.

He doesn't stray far from foreign policy in those three books, but it's easy to infer that he can imagine much better uses for our money, resources and manpower than those to which we are currently putting them. Granted, I'm not well-read in other military-policy theorists, but his worldview has become for me the most reasoned and sensible.

[Bigmack]

8. Yup! nt

[elocs]

7. Yes, a blank check for wars, but 1 trillion $ over 10 years for healthcare is too much.

I don't hold out much hope for this nation.

[phaseolus]

10. Quick question:

How is the United States in 2009 an empire comparable to the ones listed in the quoted passage?

We're an economic power, but we don't have this huge collection of foreign territories and fiefdoms scattered across the globe, or even our region. I don't get it...

[InternalDialogue]

12. We don't occupy territories like empires of old

but Chalmers Johnson's contention is that our network of more than 750 military posts and economic occupations accomplishes the same thing in a modern-day, politically safe way. Essentially, each of those posts requires a SOFA with the host country, in which we demand sovereignty and financial accommodations. We don't occupy in the way the British Empire, for example, occupied India, Pakistan, et al., but our presence serves the same purpose and elicits the same reactions from inhabitants.

[PA Democrat]

14. Research the numbers of military bases we maintain on foreign soil,

and then the expense associated with those. If I recall correctly, there are more then 700 bases outside of the US. Look at some of our recent military adventures and ask whether they really were necessary to keep America safe, or whether they were more about maintaining the US's position as the economic super power in the world. PNAC's philosophy was that the US military SHOULD be used for the purpose of maintaining economic power. That's why they were keen on going into Iraq and privatizing the oil industry there.

[PufPuf23]

16. We have over 750 foreign military bases and have

military policy that divides the entire world, space and cyberspace into separate commands.

We occupy nations and mess with their politics.

Our foreign bases are strategically located along shipping lanes, energy pipeline, and zones of political instability.

What we have left of economic power and moral authority is now backed by force.

This did not need to occur and does not bode well for the future.

[izzybeans]

19. it's the bases.

We occupy plenty of countries.

[PA Democrat]

11. Kevin Phillips also writes about the fall of empires in Wealth and Democracy..

Among the factors he cites as causes for their fall, are an overextended military, debt, and an over-reliance on financial services as opposed to manufacturing as the basis for the country's economy.

I concluded long ago that Americans have gone mad. Every time I think about the 700(?) plus military bases we maintain outside of the US, the obscene spending on weapons and other military hardware, especially in comparison to the rest of the world, and then hear "WE CAN'T AFFORD UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE,' I think my head is going to explode.

[followthemoney]

17. Excellent Book. A must read. nt

[ColbertWatcher]

13. "Have we gone completely mad?" Not completely, no. k+r, n/t

[Orwellian_Ghost]

20. K&R

The 44th president of the United States was elected amid hopes that he would roll back his country’s global dominance. Today, he is commander-in-chief of an unprecedented network of military bases that is still expanding.

http://www.newstatesman.com/asia/2009/07/military-bases-world-war-iraq#reader-comments

[The2ndWheel]

21. Didn't that paragraph answer why?

"A combination of Imperial overstretch, rigid economic institutions, and an inability to reform"

How many centers of power just choose to stop for no reason other than they just want to get along with everyone? Not many. They're either lose a war to a larger center of power, or the foundation just isn't big enough to keep everything going. Since the US is the last military power left after the 20th century, no country is going to stop the US Government from doing whatever it is that it wants to do. If the US Government wants to bomb something or someone, it will. The US Government doesn't have to go through the UN. The US Government doesn't get economically sanctioned.

The path left would be the internal collapse. If that happens, then it's a much different world. Better in some ways, worse in others. Different, but with the same basic problems. Pretty much like today compared with 20 years ago, 50 years ago, etc. Very different realities, yet the same 5-10 problems that have always been there, are still there.

[sabrina 1]

28. Other empires were also believed to be so

powerful in their time, that no one could stop them. As history shows, that proved not to be so. Look at Iraq, what it did was to show that the US was not as all-powerful as it was thought to be. It was thought it would take just a few months to 'win' that war but nearly eight years later, we have still not won.

True, they could drop nukes, but that might involve other nuclear armed powers. But they have dropped 500 ton bombs which still didn't stop the Iraqis from fighting back. The probem with Empires and their citizens is they have not experienced being occupied so they cannot comprehend the intense motivation inspired by such injustice. They should have learned from Vietnam. The soldiers of the Empire for the most part, are fighting for a pay check, their victims are fighting for their lives and country.

No Empire has ever been too powerful to fall. This one will too unless someone takes over the reins and follows the advice of the FFs about not getting involved in Foreign Wars except for the purpose of self defense. Seeing photos of tent cities, of free medical clinics set up in animal stalls, of the homeless and the jailed, all appear to be signs of a decaying Empire which like others before it, is draining its own citizens of basic needs to try to hold on to its conquests abroad.

[Octafish]

23. It's the War Party.

Money for war.
No money for jobs.
Money for war.
No money for healthcare.
Money for war.
No money for schools.
Money for war.
No money for cities.
Money for war.
No money for a clean environment.

Always money for war.
Certainly no money for peace (except Wall Street -- and they're the ones making money off war).

Chalmers Johnson is a national treasure: We Have the Money -- If Only We Didn’t Waste It on the Defense Budget.

[azul]

25. connect the breakdown of constitutional government with militarism

AMY GOODMAN: Chalmers Johnson, you connect the breakdown of constitutional government with militarism.

CHALMERS JOHNSON: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the signs of the breakdown of constitutional government and how it links?

CHALMERS JOHNSON: Well, yes. Militarism is the—what the social side has called the “intervening variable,” the causative connection. That is to say, to maintain an empire requires a very large standing army, huge expenditures on arms that leads to a military-industrial complex, and generally speaking, a vicious cycle sets up of interests that lead to perpetual series of wars.

It goes back to probably the earliest warning ever delivered to us by our first president, George Washington, in his famous farewell address. It’s read at the opening of every new session of Congress. Washington said that the great enemy of the republic is standing armies; it is a particular enemy of republican liberty. What he meant by it is that it breaks down the separation of powers into an executive, legislative, and judicial branches that are intended to check each other—this is our most fundamental bulwark against dictatorship and tyranny—it causes it to break down, because standing armies, militarism, military establishment, military-industrial complex all draw power away from the rest of the country to Washington, including taxes, that within Washington they draw it to the presidency, and they begin to create an imperial presidency, who then implements the military’s desire for secrecy, making oversight of the government almost impossible for a member of Congress, even, much less for a citizen.

http://www.democracynow.org/2007/2/27/chalmers_johnson_nemesis_the_last_days

[Odin2005]

26. There are different kinds of Empires, with very different lifespans

The closest historical equivalent of the modern US is the late Roman Republic, the emerging "universal empire" of an aging civilization. Future historians will label all other Western counties post-WW2 to be American satellite states. The parallels are frightening.

[azul]

27. And Johnson compares the British and Roman Empires to the US

situation and tries to make the point that the British realized the empire was defunct and gave it up to save the country, but the Romans tried to hold on to the territories and ran the whole thing into the ground.

If the American public were not being duped by the media-military false narrative they might get the real picture and realize that there is still somewhat of a choice left to make.

[bobthedrummer]

29. I've read the trilogy-"Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic" is my favorate