November 23, 2010

Chalmers Johnson 1931-2010

Posted by gaijinass under Life, Politics, Report | Tags: Blowback, Chalmers Johnson, Dismantling the Empire, Gore Vidal, JApan Politics, MCAS Futenma, MITI, Nemesis, Noam Chomsky, Politics, Sorrows of Empire |
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Chalmers Johnson 1931-2010

“It is the responsibility of intellectuals to speak the truth and expose lies.”
— Noam Chomsky

Chalmers Johnson, author of Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire, Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy and the End of the Republic, and Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic passed away Saturday.

A bio on Johnson via Wikipedia reads as follows:

Chalmers Ashby Johnson (August 6, 1931 – November 20, 2010)was an American author and professor emeritus of the University of California, San Diego. He served in the Korean war, was a consultant for the CIA from 1967–1973, and chaired the Center for Chinese Studies at the University of California, Berkeley from 1967 to 1972. He was also president and co-founder of the Japan Policy Research Institute (now based at the University of San Francisco), an organization promoting public education about Japan and Asia.

The rape of a 12 year-old girl by three American servicemen in Okinawa, Japan in September 1995 and the statement by an US military commander that they should have just “picked up a prostitute” became the pivot moving Johnson who had once been a supporter of the Vietnam War and railed against UC Berkeley’s anti-Vietnam protesters into a powerful critic of US foreign policy and US empire.

Johnson argued that there was no logic that existed any longer for the US to maintain a global network of bases and to continue the occupation of other countries like Japan. Johnson noted that there were over 39 US military installations on Okinawa alone. The military industrial complex that Eisenhower had warned against had become a fixed reality in Johnson’s mind and essays after the Cold War ended.

Before 9/11, Johnson wrote the book Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire
After the terrorist attacks in 2001 in New York and Washington, Blowback became the hottest book in the market. The publishers could not keep up with demand and it became the most difficult to get, most wanted book among those in national security circles.

I found a copy of Blowback at The University of California Irvine Bookstore in October of 2001 and reading it was like a revelation for me. This single book completely altered the course of my political sensibilities and spoke to me on a genuinely personal level. I had been in Okinawa at Camp Schwab(now a place under much scrutiny) just a year earlier. The accuracy and the resonance with which Johnson described the situation on the island was astounding to me.

With follow-up works such as The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic ,Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic, and most recently Dismantling the Empire: America’s Last Best Hope . This former net assessments adviser to the CIA’s Allen Dulles, had become such a critic of Washington and the national security establishment that Johnson, a hard-right conservative, had been adopted as one of the political left’s greatest icons.

Johnson is often compared to other great leftist intellectuals such as Noam Chomsky and Gore Vidal yet, Chalmers Johnson brought something into his writings that both Chomsky and Vidal are missing: First hand knowledge of the other side and the pain and sadness one carries after realizing your once closest ally is now your most bitter enemy. Johnson’s writings ooze a kind of regret and anger that is unique to his tomes.

To me, saying “Chalmers Johnson is dead” just feels ridiculous. People like this do not die they just move on to whatever comes after death however diffuse and beyond comprehension that might be for us. His books, essays and powerful political and ethical theories will keep him very much alive in my life forever.

Condolences to his family and friends.

Chalmers Johnson; gone but never forgotten.

November 1, 2010

Hopes and Prospects 2010

Posted by gaijinass under Books, Reviews | Tags: Adolf Hitler, Bolivia, Chille, Hopes and Prospects, Iraq war, jihadism, Neo-con, Noam Chomsky, USA |
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Hopes and Prospects

All over the place, from the popular culture to the propaganda system, there is constant pressure to make people feel that they are helpless, that the only role they can have is to ratify decisions and to consume.
Noam Chomsky

If you are the type of person that tries to think critically and wants to know the facts regarding any issue then it seems like the two of us have a lot in common. As I have gotten older I have come to enjoy talking to people who have the increasingly rare ability to put their egos aside and simply discuss facts. Seemingly, this should be a fairly simple thing to accomplish however, give it a try and you will find that the last thing most people really want to discuss are facts. Everything we are bombarded with day in and day out are opinions from “experts” that start off their critique weak and end even weaker. Nothing is sourced and even less is explained. The disgust and arrogance that the mainstream media and the political machine must have for the average person locked into this system must be enormous. Why else would they treat us with such contempt? Again, buried under these mounds of misinformation and allegation we often succumb to the almost inescapable feeling of helplessness and lacking. Our emotions take over and inevitably we begin to shut down and instead of taking in fresh new concepts and thinking critically we allow the wave of malaise and numbness induced by continuous daily injections of media opiates and consumer sedatives to perform their function. Watch this, Read this, Buy this, Buy This, Buy This. We are drugged down and switched off by a system purposefully designed to nullify and sideline us in life.

Enter Noam Chomsky and his laser like direction of logical thought and actual long last facts.

This book is incredibly timely and incredibly thorough, reserving safe haven for no-one and exploring the challenges and problems facing us in today’s rapidly evolving/devolving world.
Hopes and Prospects is essentially a collection of essays that Chomsky has adapted and/or expanded to discuss the current situation. As the title might suggest, Chomsky is intent on providing a dividing line between the “hope” offered by traditional politicians like Barack Obama and George W. Bush and the actual “prospects” for that process of hope. With copious examples from U.S. and Western foreign policy, the author proves once again that there’s a lot of space between stated intentions and realized facts.

The book begins with three essays taken from a series of lectures in Chile in 2006. The essays have been “updated to 2010 and considerably expanded” to include a great deal of new information and perspective. Chomsky thoroughly outlines how American foreign policy interacts with and obstructs Latin American policy, for instance, and inserts examples from history to back his points clearly and with the matter of fact-ness he exudes so profusely.

“The strong do as they wish, while the poor suffer as they must.”

This seems to be the world we are living in, this sort of Amazon jungle in which it is OK if we do it but not if they do it. But Chomsky says it doesn’t have to be this way. This is a book woven through with hope and awe at all the people who slip beyond imperial control and establish real democracy. Chomsky’s strongest model – and the world’s – is Bolivia’s experiment with radical democracy. After 30 years of having neoliberalism forced on them by the West, including the cost of water pushed beyond their grasp, the Bolivian people elected the first indigenous leader since the European conquests. Since then, it has had the fastest fall in poverty and the most rapid growth in Latin America. Informed and concerned people should read this book.

In his cool blizzard of facts and sources, the hot air of Chomsky’s critics seems to melt away. To pluck one example, the leftist-turned-neocon supporter Nick Cohen has accused Chomsky of being soft on jihadism (as well as of “not being bothered” by “the crimes of Adolf Hitler”). Yet Chomsky points out that an analysis of official data for the government-supported RAND corporation found that the invasion of Iraq caused a “seven-fold increase in jihadism.” If you really hate jihadism, you have to figure out what reduces it, rather than engage in bluster. Chomsky supported the path that produces fewer jihadis, while Cohen supports the path that produces more.

As always Chomsky lays down the FACTS smoothly and clearly. He dispels the idea that these are simply the opinions of a self hating holocaust denier but in reality are the cold, hard facts being put forth by a patriot that is attempting to hold his nation up to a much higher standard than the people destroying it in office.

If you find yourself drowning in the black ocean of 24/7 pop culture based media then get this book. It is much-needed ray of refreshing and informative light that cuts through the heavy shadows eclipsing reason and gives anyone who is interested some intellectual weapons to defend themselves.

Are you looking for answers? Being a real patriot and really loving your country means being well informed. Changes are coming, in fact they are happening as we speak. Arm yourself with knowledge and protect yourself, your family and the country you love. Read “Hopes and Prospects”.

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Get “Hopes and Prospects” at a drastically discounted price here.

September 14, 2010

The Joe Stack Manifesto

Posted by gaijinass under Politics, Rants/Raves, Report | Tags: Art Acevedo, Dooms Day Cycle, Eric C. Barnes, Free Trade, George Bush Election fraud, Globalization, Jeb Bush, Joseph Andrew Stack, Noam Chomsky, Obama |
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The Joe Stack Manifesto

The Insane Manifesto Of Austin Texas Crash Pilot Joseph Andrew Stack- bussinessinsider.com

…a hate-filled note found on the Internet-abcnews.go.com

I call it a cowardly, criminal act and there was no excuse for it – Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo

February 18th 2010 Joseph Stack crashed his single engine air craft into an IRS office building in Austin Texas. Stack died and subsequently killed one IRS employee, Vernon Hunter, and wounded several others.

Although it is obviously, impossible to consult with Stack himself regarding his motivations on February 18th, he did post a fairly lengthy Manifesto on his website the morning of his attack.
The Manifesto and its contents have been widely ridiculed and largely disregarded as ” the ramblings of a man who was clearly, mentally unfit” however, perhaps there is something more constructive and highly more pertinent to be salvaged not only from this tragic situation but also from the national attitude regarding it as a whole.

Although, I find the events tragic, because they are just that: Tragic and for many reasons, I cannot bring myself to totally condemn the man as a “coward”. It takes a very large amount of personal resolve and will power to crash a plane into a building and knowingly end your own life. In the West, we easily dismiss suicide as the cowards way out, and the concept of suicide attacks or bombings are labeled as cowardly and unfair. Conversely, we have no problem singing the praises of a military man who jumps on a grenade in order to protect his comrades, or of a secret service agent that “takes a bullet” for our president, and rightly so. The question to ask here first is: What’s the difference between these two paradigms?
The answer is Perspective. The difference is an individuals perspective. From Joe Stacks point of you, this was the only way that people were going to listen to him and take his grievances seriously. From the perspective of the men that hijacked planes and crashed them into the towers and the Pentagon on September 11th 2001 that was the most viable means of perpetrating what they and parts of the Muslim world have seen as a counter attack against the USA. To simplify this another degree: If we (the people in control, currently not the majority) do it, it is Heroic. If they (whoever the enemy is at any given moment) does it, it’s cowardly terrorism.

What were Joe Stacks grievances?
According to his Manifesto, there were many. However, I will only address in this post, the points that have resonated with me personally. If you want to read the entire piece, you can find it here.

These days anyone who really stands up for that principle is promptly labeled a “crackpot”, traitor and worse.

This is sadly, too accurate. Disagreeing with anyone of the mainstream concepts regarding US foreign policy or domestic actions here at home is often met with nothing short of genuine anger, and is often soon after followed by some sort of assault on ones personal character. The issue that was proposed for discussion is conveniently avoided and your faults as an individual are widely expounded upon. This makes any sort of meaningful discourse tremendously difficult even amongst so-called “Intellectuals” and “The Elite” who are often even more child-like and ridiculous in their attitudes than formally uneducated “normal people”.

I can say with a great degree of certainty that there has never been a politician cast a vote on any matter with the likes of me or my interests in mind.

Adam Smith once said “Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice: all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things.“

If this is true, we are seeing very little of it at this time indeed. Peace is a concept so far removed from the American Governments lexicon that it is almost a platitude. Taxes are necessarily high to support a failed Health care system and the monstrous military industrial complex hell-bent it would appear, on world domination and growth simply for growths sake. Finally, the defunct criminal justice system, based on a Gallup poll done in 2008, only 16% of the population has any confidence in the current system to dispense “tolerable administration of justice”.

Why is it that a handful of thugs and plunderers can commit unthinkable atrocities (and in the case of the GM executives, for scores of years) and when it’s time for their gravy train to crash under the weight of their gluttony and overwhelming stupidity, the force of the full federal government has no difficulty coming to their aid within days if not hours? Yet at the same time, the joke we call the American medical system, including the drug and insurance companies, are murdering tens of thousands of people a year and stealing from the corpses and victims they cripple, and this country’s leaders don’t see this as important as bailing out a few of their vile, rich cronies.

Recently there has been a fair amount of talk about the “Dooms day cycle” that has infiltrated the US economic system. The media makes it sound new and ominous, like some virus we recently caught. This however is incorrect. Economists and Lenders and Banks and CEO’s have known about this for quite sometime, the sad fact is, they do not care. How the proposed “Dooms Day Cycle” works is simple enough and to any layman sounds appropriately absurd.
Essentially “banks use borrowed money to take massive risks in an attempt to pay big dividends to shareholders and big bonuses to management – and when the risks go wrong, the banks receive taxpayer bailouts from the government.”
I have a strong inclination to ask my 83-year-old Grandmother what she thinks about this. I am certain she would shake her head in that accusing way she does and say something to the effect of “Shame on those Banks and CEO’s“.

Yes, shame on them indeed. Joe Stacks anger and frustration at this point requires no more elaboration. I suspect his views are shared by the majority of the American public.

His angst directed toward the world-renowned American Health care system, world-renowned for all the wrong reasons, is easily understandable. A combination of doctors in collusion with massive pharmaceutical companies have designed and implemented a culture of chemical dependency. If you don’t feel well, you need to be medicated. Having bad days at work? Try this pill. The use of Anti-depressant drugs in America has risen to over 12% of the population. This is NOT to help people or cure them, in fact suicides among the middle class have risen. The proliferation of these drugs is all about profit. The list of what is wrong with the American health care system is so vast and abyss-like that I simply do not have the time to address it here today, however, it is intensive. The problems are very real and internationally well-known, even lamented by people who have the compassion in their hearts to feel bad for the state most Americans find themselves in.

…..at the age of 18 or 19 when I was living on my own as student in an apartment in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. My neighbor was an elderly retired woman who was the widowed wife of a retired steel worker. Her husband had worked all his life in the steel mills of central Pennsylvania with promises from big business and the union that, for his 30 years of service, he would have a pension and medical care to look forward to in his retirement. Instead he was one of the thousands who got nothing because the incompetent mill management and corrupt union (not to mention the government) raided their pension funds and stole their retirement. All she had was social security to live on.

For the last 30 years wages have stagnated for the middle class in America. Industry is failing widely due to the absurd policies implemented by those in power to further enrich themselves and their constituency. Policies such as “Globalization”; which essentially has shifted lower middle class labor jobs such as factory workers on assembly lines to developing countries abroad in order to save money and make a profit to pay shareholders have helped along, with the governments other irresponsible financial policies, to drive employment up to 10%. That is double the level it was in 2007.
The deterioration has been consistent and it has been in the open, Americans simply have not responded yet. The average “Joe” in the USA is doing nothing more than treading water at the deep end of the pool, just trying to stay a float. Something Joe Stack apparently became fed up with. When we are all raised to believe that we’ll be famous sports stars or Movie icons or leaders of government and industry but come to find out that the truth is less like the ever promised sparkling golden chalice but something more akin to an old Dixie cup, anger and discontent seem reasonable.

During 1987, I spent close to $5000 of my ‘pocket change’, and at least 1000 hours of my time writing, printing, and mailing to any senator, congressman, governor, or slug that might listen; none did, and they universally treated me as if I was wasting their time.

Elections in The USA are largely a dog and pony show and this is reflected in the average Americans vast apathy and lack of activity at polling booths on election days. The sad fact of the matter is that even when people try to utilize their voice, it often has no effect at all. In 2000 George W. Bush clearly,with help from his Brother Jeb in Florida and Jeb’s cronies, stole the election through illegal activity. They cheated. Al Gore won the clear majority of the popular vote, but was robbed by trickery, criminal acts and nonsense.
So for one, it is commonly known that the average citizens voting rights amount to to very little legitimate power. Our current economic and foreign policies contrast painfully with what the vast majority of Americans want to see happen. Most Americans support aggressive Health care reform and Government sponsored Health insurance. However, these reforms are not occurring. The public at large are angry, and rightly so, regarding the massive bail outs being given to irresponsible lenders and paying for swollen executive bonuses. What has occurred? Nothing. It’s business as usual on Wall Street.

I know I’m hardly the first one to decide I have had all I can stand. It has always been a myth that people have stopped dying for their freedom in this country, and it isn’t limited to the blacks, and poor immigrants. I know there have been countless before me and there are sure to be as many after. But I also know that by not adding my body to the count, I insure nothing will change. I choose to not keep looking over my shoulder at “big brother” while he strips my carcass, I choose not to ignore what is going on all around me, I choose not to pretend that business as usual won’t continue; I have just had enough.

I saw it written once that the definition of insanity is repeating the same process over and over and expecting the outcome to suddenly be different. I am finally ready to stop this insanity. Well, Mr. Big Brother IRS man, let’s try something different; take my pound of flesh and sleep well.

Joe Stack (1956-2010)

02/18/2010

Professor of Linguistics and Philosophy Noam Chomsky made a comment in a lecture he gave that I found terrifyingly appropriate for the times, and this situation in particular: “I can remember that during the GREAT Depression, although it was very bad, there was always a sense of hope, a belief that things were going to get better, that we could find a way. I don’t see that (in the American people) now at all.”

If the actions of Joe Stack are any indication, neither does anyone else. One of Joes close personal friends said “I never heard him talk politics, or take a stand left or right. As far as I know he didn’t have a party affiliation.” In actuality, it is more likely that he never bothered to listen. It has become somehow unfashionable to engage in constructive discourse regarding politics, the economy and the worlds situation at large. People seem much more interested in talking about their new iPhone, celebrity gossip or the latest Hollywood twisted misunderstanding of an abortion they label as “Film”. Intellectual conversation seems to come in bouts that are less and less regular. The silence is worrisome. Pressure always finds a way to vent and be released. Cut off from other alternatives and nurturing a festering secret angst, without any one to confide in or any way to find logical, peaceful forms of civil disobedience with which to express your concerns, we can all expect to see more people using the only weapon they feel they have at their disposal: Terror.

I referenced the following websites while writing this, as well as the linked websites above.

-http://www.businessinsider.com/joseph-andrew-stacks-insane-manifesto-2010-2#ixzz0zSbjSvl0
-http://abcnews.go.com/WN/texas-plane-crash-austin-office-complex-hit-single/story?id=9874966
-http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/02/18/pilot-crashes-texas-building-apparent-anti-irs-suicide/

Gaijinass