The heavy-hand of a dying empire, and its "exploitive hegemony."

Death by cognitive dissonance and exploitive hegemony. Chalmers Johnson speaks to us.

The difference between the Afghan fighters in the picture above and myself is that they grew up fighting wars, I have been a spectator to war all my life. They live in a targeted society. I grew up in a dominant society. They know the suffering and torture of war. For me It is a vicarious experience where I write about their plight with a full dose of survivor guilt, anger and empathy.

These are truly alarming times when so many folks don’t have an elementary understanding of what is going on: A rogue superpower is waging war on the world without regard for life, limb or consequences. Its the Alpha dog gone rabid.

In earlier times it wouldn’t be so crucial as wars used to be between nation states and local empire’s (now in full retirement, most as puppet states to the incumbent American empire). Now, thanks to failed globalization wars are truly global and the consequences are global. The sociopathic mad dog empire is desperate to escape the edicts of history with no regard for consequences—those future generations are going to have to deal with.

The Western world is suffering cognitive dissonance. Wars destroy our societies… we do it anyways. We mistakenly think the NOW we live in is invincible. We are all living under the volcano.

In the year 2024 the world is so highly integrated and interdependent wars, especially global warfare, are no longer affordable. Global warfare now becomes a universal death wish, under the auspices of zombie Western war mongers.

“Slipping[from} preeminence into an exploitative hegemony,”(1)

We would like to think the present global crisis just popped up out of nowhere. In fact it is a volcano building up heat and pressure for the last hundred years. When NATO provoked its war against Russia using Ukraine as its proxy, it was one war too many, and the volcano blew.

Where Russia tried to avoid war; NATO revealed its true intentions, a war to weaken and destroy Russia, as stated publicly by Loose Lips Genocide Joe Biden. Washington’s hegemonic ambitions were revealed once and for all. The Gazan genocide is just the latest chapter in a sordid tale with more calamity to come.

From 1980-1988 the USA used Saddam Hussein’s Iraq as its proxy for war against Iran. Iraq’s reward was to be obliterated by the USA based on false pretenses in 2003.

The Empire is running an open-ended horror show with no end in sight.

Nothing I write is new or original. I am just the squawking parrot transcribing what so many others have said and written more thoroughly and eloquently. In spite of what we are led to believe we have a very well recorded history. It is there for all to see. We have been betrayed by our elites, economic, political, and media as they have effectively slandered history out of existence and exploited our societies to their advantage. Their legitimate right to govern is in foreclosure as they spew out propaganda, war, anarchy and chaos to cover their bloody tracks in a desperate bid to cling to power.

It is very disturbing to read books thirty years old and more, full of deadly accurate analysis and prophecy foreshadowing what is to come. Chalmers Johnson’s, Blowback, like so many other texts, is pivotal to understanding our times. He was an oracle of his time, for our time— but oracles are suffocated in the monkey house.

We see now just how historically illiterate politicians are. They are slaves to the vested interests that yank their strings, when they should be consulting the sages like Johnson and so many others, so readily available. When societies bury their brain trust, they bury themselves. The inmates are left running the institution drugged on Money, Power and Greed (MPG). MPG is their new Magna Carta where they can own a fleet of yachts, do what they want and damn the consequences.

Chalmers Johnson was a heroic patriot trying to save his country, the Republic, from the savagery of the Empire.

American Political Scientist, Chalmers Johnson (1931-2010)

The final chapter of Blowback is entitled The Consequences of Empire. Below is a quote where exploitative hegemony is eloquently defined.

“David Calleo, a professor of international politics, has observed, “The international system breaks down not only because unbalanced and aggressive new powers seek to dominate their neighbors, but also because declining powers, rather than adjusting and accommodating, try to cement their slipping preeminence into an exploitative hegemony.” I believe that the United States at the end of the twentieth century fits this description. The signs of such an exploitative hegemony are already with us: increasing estrangement between populations and their governments; a determination of elites to hang on to power despite a loss of moral authority; the appearance of militarism and the separation of the military from the society it is supposed to serve; fierce repression (the huge and still growing American prison population and rising enthusiasm for the death penalty may be symptomatic of this); and an economic crisis that is global in nature. History offers few examples of declining hegemons reversing their decline or giving up power peacefully, although Gorbachev’s policies at the end of the Cold War may constitute one”—

—Johnson, Chalmers. Blowback, Second Edition: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire (American Empire Project) (p. 224). Henry Holt and Co.. Kindle Edition. +(1)

Calleo’s quote paints a very clear picture of what is happening now …exploitative hegemony is what we are living… hegemony in its most menacing form and on steroids.

Elsewhere in the book Johnson outlines for us the decline and fall of the USSR, pointing out the USA is in decline for the very same reasons.

When the USSR collapsed in 1991 the Cold War was over and there was a huge peace dividend to be harvested. Instead the US saw it as a victory for them and window of opportunity to pursue global hegemony unchallenged. They made this declaration through such doctrines as the juvenile Bush ll Doctrine ”you are either for us or against us.” Documents like the PNAC, FSD and Wolfowitz Doctrine all of which declared the Empire was the preemptive ruler of the world and all others need not apply.

Being familiar with any one of these documents explains why the world is in its present shit storm. When a conceited arrogant power decides it has the right to rule the world there is big trouble brewing. Incidentally, Americans should consider themselves fortunate Hillary Clinton never won the presidency.

America could have easily repudiated war and its hegemonic ambitions and pursued a new era of peace and progress, but it was hooked on war and the profiteering from war. It became the global “policeman” enforcing its bullying expansionism and extortion, much in the tradition of the Mafia. Government became the pimp and bag persons for predatory global corporate capitalism.

Before pursuing empire the war mongers should have checked with historians like Chalmers Johnson on the pedigree of empires and their numerous genetic deficiencies. They set out to build the new Roman Empire that would span the globe without visiting the ruins of Rome. They forgot that in the 20th Century alone three empires collapsed.

In Ancient times Alexander the Great conquered the known world by the age of 32 and suffered death by poison at 34. Empires always suffer pathetic deaths at great costs to all concerned.