Like the illusion of Wall Street, with its vast and powerful investment banks, now shuttered, China too is an illusion perpetuated by the Globalists that gave us the 15,000 mile Caesar salad, poisoned cat food and lead based paint on babies' pacifiers. Like the illusion that money would come from thin air to always push housing prices higher, China has spent a generation pursuing its illusion. Pursuing an unattainable dream to be like the West, while 6000 years of its carefully shepherded top soil blows into the sea.
Joined: Oct 11, 2005 Posts: 258 Location: Southern USA
Posted: Thu Apr 05, 2007 1:53 pm Post subject: Is the United States an Empire?
Does the U.S. qualify as an Empire?
I am trying to do some research on this question and am having difficulty finding a conclusive answer.
I suspect we are an Empire (at least abroad) but the precise mechanisms of control are beyond me. My gut feeling is that in order for an Empire to flourish other peoples must be impoverished but I am not certain exactly how that is accomplished.
Am I corrrect in this assumption and can someone provide some facts one way or the other or point me in the right direction?
Posted: Thu Apr 05, 2007 2:12 pm Post subject: Re: Is the United States an Empire?
Jellric wrote:
Does the U.S. qualify as an Empire?
I am trying to do some research on this question and am having difficulty finding a conclusive answer.
I suspect we are an Empire (at least abroad) but the precise mechanisms of control are beyond me. My gut feeling is that in order for an Empire to flourish other peoples must be impoverished but I am not certain exactly how that is accomplished.
Am I corrrect in this assumption and can someone provide some facts one way or the other or point me in the right direction?
The mechanism of control is economic through the banking system and the currency provided from it. The US dollar at this time is the dominant currency worldwide (most of the world's commodities are valued in USD providing a constant demand for USD loans). However, just because the USD is the dominant currency only makes for an illusion the US is running the show.
Posted: Thu Apr 05, 2007 2:20 pm Post subject: Re: Is the United States an Empire?
If you have any lingering doubts as to whether the US is an empire, please read these two books by Chalmers Johnson at your local library. (You could also start with his first book, Blowback). You will immediately see that todays imperialism is not based on the number of colonists in a foreign land, but rather, the number of military bases. As Chalmer Johnson notes, no empire in history has contructed anything like our "Empire of bases."
The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic
Quote:
Amazon.com
Since September 2001, the United States has "undergone a transformation from republic to empire that may well prove irreversible," writes Chalmers Johnson. Unlike past global powers, however, America has built an empire of bases rather than colonies, creating in the process a government that is obsessed with maintaining absolute military dominance over the world, Johnson claims. The Department of Defense currently lists 725 official U.S. military bases outside of the country and 969 within the 50 states (not to mention numerous secret bases). According to the author, these bases are proof that the "United States prefers to deal with other nations through the use or threat of force rather than negotiations, commerce, or cultural interaction." This rise of American militarism, along with the corresponding layers of bureaucracy and secrecy that are created to circumvent scrutiny, signals a shift in power from the populace to the Pentagon: "A revolution would be required to bring the Pentagon back under democratic control," he writes.
In Sorrows of Empire, Johnson discusses the roots of American militarism, the rise and extent of the military-industrial complex, and the close ties between arms industry executives and high-level politicians. He also looks closely at how the military has extended the boundaries of what constitutes national security in order to centralize intelligence agencies under their control and how statesmen have been replaced by career soldiers on the front lines of foreign policy--a shift that naturally increases the frequency with which we go to war.
Though his conclusions are sure to be controversial, Johnson is a skilled and experienced historian who backs up his claims with copious research and persuasive arguments. His important book adds much to a debate about the realities and direction of U.S. influence in the world. --Shawn Carkonen
...and here's his recent follow-up, the third and final trilogy:
Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic (American Empire Project)
Quote:
From Publishers Weekly
Like ancient Rome, America is saddled with an empire that is fatally undermining its republican government, argues Johnson (The Sorrows of Empire), in this bleak jeremiad. He surveys the trappings of empire: the brutal war of choice in Iraq and other foreign interventions going back decades; the militarization of space; the hundreds of overseas U.S. military bases full of "swaggering soldiers who brawl and sometimes rape." At home, the growth of an "imperial presidency," with the CIA as its "private army," has culminated in the Bush administration's resort to warrantless wiretaps, torture, a "gulag" of secret CIA prisons and an unconstitutional arrogation of "dictatorial" powers, while a corrupt Congress bows like the Roman Senate to Caesar.
Retribution looms, the author warns, as the American economy, dependent on a bloated military-industrial complex and foreign borrowing, staggers toward bankruptcy, maybe a military coup. Johnson's is a biting, often effective indictment of some ugly and troubling features of America's foreign policy and domestic politics. But his doom-laden trope of empire ("the capacity for things to get worse is limitless.... the American republic may be coming to its end") seems overstated. With Bush a lame duck, not a Caesar, and his military adventures repudiated by the electorate, the Republic seems more robust than Johnson allows. (Feb.)
...and here's an interesting essay that succinctly discusses how this massive global military superstrucuture is funded - not by US citizens who enjoy by far the lowest taxiation level of the weathy G7 nations - but rather the exporting of inflation, an indirect form of taxiation, to the rest of the globe...
The Proposed Iranian Oil Bourse
by Krassimir Petrov
I. Economics of Empires
A nation-state taxes its own citizens, while an empire taxes other nation-states. The history of empires, from Greek and Roman, to Ottoman and British, teaches that the economic foundation of every single empire is the taxation of other nations. The imperial ability to tax has always rested on a better and stronger economy, and as a consequence, a better and stronger military. One part of the subject taxes went to improve the living standards of the empire; the other part went to strengthen the military dominance necessary to enforce the collection of those taxes.
Historically, taxing the subject state has been in various forms—usually gold and silver, where those were considered money, but also slaves, soldiers, crops, cattle, or other agricultural and natural resources, whatever economic goods the empire demanded and the subject-state could deliver. Historically, imperial taxation has always been direct: the subject state handed over the economic goods directly to the empire.
For the first time in history, in the twentieth century, America was able to tax the world indirectly, through inflation. It did not enforce the direct payment of taxes like all of its predecessor empires did, but distributed instead its own fiat currency, the U.S. Dollar, to other nations in exchange for goods with the intended consequence of inflating and devaluing those dollars and paying back later each dollar with less economic goods—the difference capturing the U.S. imperial tax. Here is how this happened...
...I hope these 3 sources help.
Last edited by Petrodollar on Thu Apr 05, 2007 2:26 pm; edited 1 time in total
Joined: Mar 26, 2005 Posts: 3904 Location: over here
Posted: Thu Apr 05, 2007 2:21 pm Post subject: Re: Is the United States an Empire?
There is a pretty interesting wiki article on this very question _________________ "The best thing about the future is that it comes only one day at a time."
Posted: Thu Apr 05, 2007 2:56 pm Post subject: Re: Is the United States an Empire?
Jellrik - your question implies that you watch too much TV. The more you watch the less you know! Second the Chalmers recommended read and www.globalresearch.ca too. Wake up!
Posted: Thu Apr 05, 2007 3:14 pm Post subject: Re: Is the United States an Empire?
don't forget to add a section about how the US extracts tribute from its territories through the use of inflation
ie: where the US exchanges goods for paper money and then degrades the value of the paper (which it is now charging a 20% duty on to import from China ) _________________ Angry yet?
Posted: Thu Apr 05, 2007 3:50 pm Post subject: Re: Is the United States an Empire?
Another perspective that's worth checking out is Niall Ferguson's work on empire. He's pro-empire and clearly believes the US is an empire, but he argues we aren't vigorous enough in our imperialism.
The reality is that the United States has -- whether it admits it or not -- taken up some kind of global burden. It considers itself responsible not just for waging a war against terrorism and rogue states, but also for spreading the benefits of capitalism and democracy overseas. And just like the British empire before it, the American empire unfailingly acts in the name of liberty, even when its own self-interest is manifestly uppermost.
Yet the empire that rules the world today is both more and less than its British begetter. It has a much bigger economy, many more people, a much larger arsenal. But it is an empire that lacks the drive to export its capital, its people, and its culture to those backward regions that need them most urgently and that, if they are neglected, will breed the greatest threats to its security. It is an empire, in short, that dare not speak its name. It is an empire in denial.
Posted: Thu Apr 05, 2007 4:58 pm Post subject: Re: Is the United States an Empire?
What's more, I was just reading this series of essays about America as a "revolutionary" empire - the kind the USSR would have always wanted to be (qua modus operandi, that is).
The essay is about the American neocons, many of who are former Troskyists who have preached "permanent international revolution" and "avant-gardism" before. The U.S. today applies revolutionary marxist-leninist-stalinist strategies (but then to promote ultra-capitalism) in Iraq, Afghanistan and of course at Home.
Neocons with real Trotskyist roots and credentials are: Irving Kristol, Christopher Hitchens, Willmoore Kindall and Stephen Schwartz, who all have been members of maoist, leninist, marxist, stalinist or troskyist political formations.
Some of their creeds, based on deeply marxist and leninist ideas: (1) the idea that that liberal democracy merely is an epiphenomenon of capitalism, (2) that "capitalism is Marxism with entrepreneurs substituted for proletarians as the heroic subjects of history" (3) that "the United States and similar societies are dominated by a decadent, postbourgeois 'new class'" (literal stalinist quote).
In short, yes, the US is an empire, that much is obvious, but it is also a truly revolutionary empire, in the sense of classic marxist-leninist orthodoxy.
Joined: Oct 18, 2004 Posts: 2129 Location: kiwibush
Posted: Thu Apr 05, 2007 7:40 pm Post subject: Re: Is the United States an Empire?
Jellric wrote:
Ok thanks, everyone. This gives me something to chew on for a while.
And teacher I am already wide awake - what little tv I do watch is the History channel and some nature programs.
The teacher is more astute than you realise.
The fact that you attribute economic hegemoney to an artificial construct of essentially disempowered and pavlovianised workers (non owners of capital) speaks volumes for the mountain of clear thinking you have yet to traverse _________________ Bugger me, I hear oil's runnin out mate!
Joined: Oct 18, 2004 Posts: 2129 Location: kiwibush
Posted: Thu Apr 05, 2007 7:45 pm Post subject: Re: Is the United States an Empire?
Bioman wrote:
(3) that "the United States and similar societies are dominated by a decadent, postbourgeois 'new class'" (literal stalinist quote).........
In short, yes, the US is an empire, that much is obvious, but it is also a truly revolutionary empire, in the sense of classic marxist-leninist orthodoxy.
Could you elaborate on the above two points please, especially the juxtaposition of "decadent" and "revolutionary". _________________ Bugger me, I hear oil's runnin out mate!
Joined: Oct 11, 2005 Posts: 258 Location: Southern USA
Posted: Thu Apr 05, 2007 8:46 pm Post subject: Re: Is the United States an Empire?
americandream wrote:
Jellric wrote:
Ok thanks, everyone. This gives me something to chew on for a while.
And teacher I am already wide awake - what little tv I do watch is the History channel and some nature programs.
The teacher is more astute than you realise.
The fact that you attribute economic hegemoney to an artificial construct of essentially disempowered and pavlovianised workers (non owners of capital) speaks volumes for the mountain of clear thinking you have yet to traverse
Reading comprehension alert!
I made no such attributions or statements. Only questions. I am just seeking information and have now been lectured twice for merely asking questions. Sheesh!
If you have nothing constructive to add to my thread please take your noise elsewhere. Thanks.
Posted: Thu Apr 05, 2007 9:01 pm Post subject: Re: Is the United States an Empire?
It is interesting to note that the United States is never officially referred to as an empire, although our country has assumed many imperial characteristics.
Bush and his neocon henchmen have seized nearly complete control of this nation and seem determined both to extend its global influence militarily, and to undermine its democratic institutions, just as surely as his ancient counterpart did.
So, I would say the US is a “Pax Americana” with George W. Bush as the first emperor idiot. _________________ A Saudi saying, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel."
Live in Arizona? Check out: http://sustainablearizona.org and read my blog.
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