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Utopian Turtletop. Monsieur Croche's Bête Noire. Contact: turtletop [at] hotmail [dot] com
Thursday, June 14, 2007
Reading the New York Review of Books, I learn that in his new book, Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic, political scientist Chalmers Johnson compares the U.S. to the Roman and British Empires. He
More than 2/3rds of the member states of the UN host American military bases -- that’s mind-boggling.
* * *
My cousin's wife died of cancer at age 50 last week. I liked her a lot, but we weren't close, and I'm not particularly close with my cousin, but I cried when I heard of how he sat in vigil by his wife's side, talking to her and petting her as she lay unconscious and dying. My cousin is fairly taciturn, but he cried and cried at my dad's funeral.
* * *
Also last week the daughter-in-law of my wife's cousin lost a baby days before she was due to deliver.
* * *
The suffering of family weighed on me last week, and still we went about our business, joking with the kid, going on lovely outings after work some times. The incongruity jars. And we live with the incongruity every day, if not always in regards to family, then in regards to politics.
* * *
"Official figures speak of 737 US military bases in foreign countries" -- that doesn't count unofficially acknowledged bases, probably another couple-few hundred, all over the world.
* * *
The kid tried to write something, without requesting assistance with the spelling, for the first time a couple of days ago.
He told me what it said: "Recipe cookies donuts ice cream water."
* * *
In the Presidential campaign of the year briefly known as Y2K (and I miss that nickname -- the current year is Y2K7 as far as I'm concerned), I went round and round with various lefty friends, acquaintances, and strangers, trying to talk them out of voting for Nader. Yes, yes, I would agree, the Democrats are an infuriatingly moderate-conservative pro-plutocrat, pro-military party, mediocre-to-compromised on a host of causes dear to progressives. BUT, I would continue, Bush would be so much worse on just about everything! And I vastly underestimated how bad Bush would be.
But -- everyday that the Democratic Congress does not act to impeach the Kakistocrats, I angrily remember all my lefty friends' scornful remarks about a one-party system. It's not a one-party system: We have a mostly moderate-conservative party that likes to play by the rules and with civility, and an extremist-reactionary party that cheats like crazy and lies with gross vituperation about the other party. It's not an inspiring choice, I know, but it remains a clear one, even when the nominal opposition party forgoes its responsibility to oppose. When one party is busy tearing the Constitution to shreds, if the other party has power to stop them and refuses to act, they aren't "just as guilty," but they're guilty.
* * *
The moderate-conservative party, of course, is just as pro-empire as the extremist-reactionary party; in fact, the moderates are much more competent at maintaining the empire. Welcome to human nature -- the top dog likes its bones. Always has, at least in recorded history.
* * *
We can, theoretically, do better. The practice, the praxis -- it's a long road, you know?
* * *
Time for bed. And I haven't written my cousin. Need to do that. Tomorrow.
* * *
One difference between the American empire and the British and Roman: By and large, people didn't hate the American. Note: past tense: didn't. Until, after the atrocity of September 11, the President beat his breast in front of the whole world and demanded obedience. What a prick.
What a fool.
What a colossal ignoramus.
But -- his blustery blundering does offer hope for a path out of the labyrinth of hate: Bring back diplomacy. Bring back respect. Bring back competence.
And -- even better -- dismantle the empire.
* * *
Time for bed.
swats aside the conventional objection that, in contrast with both Romans and Britons, Americans have never constructed colonies abroad. Oh, but they have, he says; it's just that Americans are blind to them. America is an "empire of bases," he writes, with a network of vast, hardened military encampments across the earth, each one a match for any Roman or Raj outpost. Official figures speak of 737 US military bases in foreign countries, adding up to an armed American presence, whether large or small, in 132 of the 190 member states of the United Nations.
More than 2/3rds of the member states of the UN host American military bases -- that’s mind-boggling.
* * *
My cousin's wife died of cancer at age 50 last week. I liked her a lot, but we weren't close, and I'm not particularly close with my cousin, but I cried when I heard of how he sat in vigil by his wife's side, talking to her and petting her as she lay unconscious and dying. My cousin is fairly taciturn, but he cried and cried at my dad's funeral.
* * *
Also last week the daughter-in-law of my wife's cousin lost a baby days before she was due to deliver.
* * *
The suffering of family weighed on me last week, and still we went about our business, joking with the kid, going on lovely outings after work some times. The incongruity jars. And we live with the incongruity every day, if not always in regards to family, then in regards to politics.
* * *
"Official figures speak of 737 US military bases in foreign countries" -- that doesn't count unofficially acknowledged bases, probably another couple-few hundred, all over the world.
* * *
The kid tried to write something, without requesting assistance with the spelling, for the first time a couple of days ago.
RSPPEE*COK
ES*DONES*
IISCEEM*
WOTR
He told me what it said: "Recipe cookies donuts ice cream water."
* * *
In the Presidential campaign of the year briefly known as Y2K (and I miss that nickname -- the current year is Y2K7 as far as I'm concerned), I went round and round with various lefty friends, acquaintances, and strangers, trying to talk them out of voting for Nader. Yes, yes, I would agree, the Democrats are an infuriatingly moderate-conservative pro-plutocrat, pro-military party, mediocre-to-compromised on a host of causes dear to progressives. BUT, I would continue, Bush would be so much worse on just about everything! And I vastly underestimated how bad Bush would be.
But -- everyday that the Democratic Congress does not act to impeach the Kakistocrats, I angrily remember all my lefty friends' scornful remarks about a one-party system. It's not a one-party system: We have a mostly moderate-conservative party that likes to play by the rules and with civility, and an extremist-reactionary party that cheats like crazy and lies with gross vituperation about the other party. It's not an inspiring choice, I know, but it remains a clear one, even when the nominal opposition party forgoes its responsibility to oppose. When one party is busy tearing the Constitution to shreds, if the other party has power to stop them and refuses to act, they aren't "just as guilty," but they're guilty.
* * *
The moderate-conservative party, of course, is just as pro-empire as the extremist-reactionary party; in fact, the moderates are much more competent at maintaining the empire. Welcome to human nature -- the top dog likes its bones. Always has, at least in recorded history.
* * *
We can, theoretically, do better. The practice, the praxis -- it's a long road, you know?
* * *
Time for bed. And I haven't written my cousin. Need to do that. Tomorrow.
* * *
One difference between the American empire and the British and Roman: By and large, people didn't hate the American. Note: past tense: didn't. Until, after the atrocity of September 11, the President beat his breast in front of the whole world and demanded obedience. What a prick.
What a fool.
What a colossal ignoramus.
But -- his blustery blundering does offer hope for a path out of the labyrinth of hate: Bring back diplomacy. Bring back respect. Bring back competence.
And -- even better -- dismantle the empire.
* * *
Time for bed.
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