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February 4, 2007
In a trilogy of books---Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire (2000), The Sorrows of Empire, (2003) and Nemesis: the Last Days of the American Republic (2007) ---Chalmers Johnson has been exploring the way that the United States today tries to be a domestic democracy and a foreign imperialist. He sees this tension in terms of a strak contradiction as he says 'a country can be democratic or it can be imperialistic, but it cannot be both.' The reason is that imperialism does not seek or require the consent of the governed. It is a pure form of tyranny.
In this article at TomDispatch Johnson gives a quick overview of this trilogy.It forms a part of what is called The American Empire Project, and Johnson argues that the US is on the 'brink of losing our democracy for the sake of keeping our empire.' He says:
By the time I came to write Nemesis, I no longer doubted that maintaining our empire abroad required resources and commitments that would inevitably undercut, or simply skirt, what was left of our domestic democracy and that might, in the end, produce a military dictatorship or -- far more likely -- its civilian equivalent. The combination of huge standing armies, almost continuous wars, an ever growing economic dependence on the military-industrial complex and the making of weaponry, and ruinous military expenses as well as a vast, bloated "defense" budget, not to speak of the creation of a whole second Defense Department (known as the Department of Homeland Security) has been destroying our republican structure of governing in favor of an imperial presidency. By republican structure, of course, I mean the separation of powers and the elaborate checks and balances that the founders of our country wrote into the Constitution as the main bulwarks against dictatorship and tyranny, which they greatly feared.
He says that the evidence strongly suggests that the legislative and judicial branches of the American government have become so servile in the presence of the imperial Presidency that they have largely lost the ability to respond in a principled and independent manner.
Congress had almost completely abdicated its responsibilities to balance the power of the executive branch. He adds that, despite the Democratic sweep in the 2006 election, it remains to be seen whether these tendencies can, in the long run, be controlled, let alone reversed. He comments that even in the present moment of congressional stirring, there seems to be a deep sense of helplessness. Various members of Congress have already attempted to explain how the one clear power they retain -- to cut off funds for a disastrous program -- is not one they are currently prepared to use.
Johnson says that his best guess is that the U.S. will continue to maintain a façade of Constitutional government and drift along until financial bankruptcy overtakes it. He adds:
Of course, bankruptcy will not mean the literal end of the U.S ..... such a bankruptcy would mean a drastic lowering of our standard of living, a further loss of control over international affairs, a sudden need to adjust to the rise of other powers, including China and India, and a further discrediting of the notion that the United States is somehow exceptional compared to other nations. We will have to learn what it means to be a far poorer country -- and the attitudes and manners that go with it.....So my own hope is that -- if the American people do not find a way to choose democracy over empire -- at least our imperial venture will end not with a nuclear bang but a financial whimper.
Maybe he's right on this.The Pentagon's budget out of control (over 5% of the gross domestic product) and it is spending that the Chinese government is financing by buying US debt.
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Am I right that the author here is appealing for a return to something along the lines of Montesquieu-Madisonian liberal republicanism--and further that this is something you repudiate as at best unworkable? Or, to phrase my question a little differently: how would you respond in further depth to CJ's analysis, from a perspective you would favor?