"make the economy scream" richard nixon on the cia's approach to salavdor allende's presidency in chile___________________________chalmers johnson says we will debase our society with empire and the societies of all those we try to police...certainly the will to empire remains but as the means to empire ( and the philosophical double-think involved )become more complex and costly the hegemonic culture will debase both the national currency and what little remains of the national ethos to pay for it...and to what end one wonders? to deny that we all benefit form empire would be self deceit..to deny the stain it leaves is equally a function of denial...being an anthropogenic structure it will fail at some point and the old saw about bumping into the people you met on the way up while you're on the way back down is particularly appropriate for empire and its assorted "unfortunate" actions and their collateral damage...the allende coup is a case in point...the apparent "losers" never completely disappear no matter how hard the seeming "winners" wish it or try to implement it ( wolfgang shivelbush's book " the culture of defeat" is instructive in this and you can see the mechanics of it in action in the southern tier of states in this seat of empire )...the current president of chile, michelle bachelet, is the daughter of an air force general who remained loyal to allende and was killed by pinochet and his generals...she does not appear to believe in "an eye for an eye", but there are doubtlessly millions who do...joseph stalin was a tsar who said, " one death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic", relying on humans' difficulty in processing large numbers as a vehicle to avoid being cast as the mass murderer he surely was...what old joe failed to realize is that statistic that equaled a million deaths also equaled a million tragedies that, once responsibility was established, human nature wasn't going to let go of ...imperial behavior is not without responsibility or harm to others and you may not always be able to divine or control their response...i would suggest a fundamental rethinking of who we are and where we would want to go is in order...but no one will listen...jihaddi is the new commie...a useful tool in leveraging fear and acquiescence in the imperium.
