by Stephen Lendman

|

Note: This is the first of a six-part series analyzing Chalmers Johnson's Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic.

Chalmers Johnson is professor emeritus of the University of California, San Diego where he taught for 30 years as well as at UC, Berkeley (where he was educated). At Berkeley, he was chairman of the Center for Chinese Studies and its Department of Political Studies. He's currently president of the Japan Policy Research Institute (JPRI), a not-for-profit research and public affairs organization involved in public education relating to Japan and international relations in the Pacific region. Johnson is also a prolific writer and author of 17 books, numerous articles and various other publications.

From 1967 through 1973, he served as well as a consultant to the Office of National Estimates (ONE) within the CIA, and during the Cold War years was, by his own characterization, a former "spear-carrier for the empire." At least since the age of George Bush, however, Johnson radically transformed himself into one of the nation's sharpest and most important intellectual critics of the current administration having now completed the third and last volume of his "inadvertent trilogy" in his newest book Nemesis that's the subject of this review.

The previous two he refers to are Blowback based on 1953 CIA terminology in the aftermath of the spy agency's first ever engineered overthrow of a foreign leader - democratically elected Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadeq ushering in the 26 year tryannical rule of Shah Reza Pahlavi who was himself forcibly ousted in the 1979 Iranian Revolution. Volume two was The Sorrows of Empire - Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic.

Volume three is Nemesis - The Last Days of the American Republic - and subject of this review that hopefully will encourage readers to get the book and read the others in Johnson's trilogy to get the full picture of his powerfully vital message.

Combined, the three volumes show how imperial hubris and overreach have undermined the republic. Johnson characterizes it as dealing "with the way arrogant and misguided American policies have headed us for a series of catastrophes comparable to our disgrace and defeat in Vietnam or even to the sort of extinction that befell....the Soviet Union (that he believes is) now unavoidable." In his view, the present state of the nation is dire, and it's "too late for mere scattered reforms of our government or bloated military to make much difference."

Our democracy and way of life are now threatened because of our single-minded pursuit of empire with a well-entrenched militarism driving it that's become so powerful and pervasive it's now an uncontrollable state within the state. History is clear on this teaching we can choose as could all empires before us. We can keep ours and lose our democracy, but we can't have both. Rome made the wrong choice and perished. Britain chose more wisely and survived. We must now choose, and so far the signs are ominous. Our current behavior under all administrations post-WW II requires resources and commitments abroad that in the end, Johnson believes, "will inevitably undercut our domestic democracy and....produce a military dictatorship or its civilian equivalent." We're perilously close already because a hyper-reactionary statist administration hijacked the government and is driving the nation to tyranny and ruin.

(Article Continues Below)

The evidence post-9/11 shows it:

-- A nation facing no outside threats permanently at war.

-- Secret torture-prisons around the world with no accountability to which anyone, anywhere for any reason can be sent never to return or receive justice.

-- The most secretive, intrusive and repressive government in our history and a president who's a congenital, serial liar.

-- Social decay at home.

-- An unprecedented wealth disparity and extent of corporate power. Former US Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis warned years ago: "We can either have democracy in this country or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both."

-- A de facto one party state with two wings and a president claiming "unitary executive" powers ignoring the rule of law and doing as he pleases in the name of national security on his say alone.

-- The absence of checks and balances and separation of powers with no restraint on a reckless "boy-emperor" Executive on a "messianic mission."

-- A secret intelligence establishment with near-limitless funding operating without oversight.

-- A dominant corporate-controlled media serving as a national thought-control police and collective quasi-state ministry of information and propaganda glorifying imperial wars to "spread democracy" without letting on they're for conquest, domination and repression.

-- An omnipotent military-industrial complex Dwight Eisenhower couldn't have imagined when he warned us nor could George Washington, to no avail. In his Farewell Address in September, 1796, Washington said: "Overgrown military establishments are under any form of government inauspicious to liberty, and are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty." He meant large standing armies leading to an imperial presidency. They destroy our system of checks and balances and separation of powers and in the end our freedom.

-- A weak, servile Congress acceding to a dominant president under a system of authoritarian rule keeping a restive population in line it fears one day no longer will tolerate being denied essential services so the nation's wealth can go for imperial wars and handouts to the rich.

-- A cesspool of corruption stemming from incestuous ties between government and business mocking any notions of government of, for or by the people.

Johnson points out America is plagued with the same dynamic that doomed other past empires unwilling to change - "isolation, overstretch, the uniting of local and global forces opposed to imperialism, and in the end bankruptcy" combined with authoritarian rule and loss of personal freedom. Hence, the title of the book - Nemesis, the goddess of vengeance and punisher of hubris and arrogance in Greek mythology.

She's already here among us, unseen and patiently stalking our way of life as a free nation awaiting the moment she chooses to make her presence known that won't be pleasant when she does. Johnson compares her to Wagner's Brunnhilde in his opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen. Unlike Nemesis, she collects heros, not fools and hypocrites. But she and Nemesis both announce themselves the same way - "Only the doomed see me," even though we'll all feel her presence and suffer her sting.

Our present crisis isn't just from our military adventurism in Iraq and Afghanistan. It's from growing international anger and revulsion that America is no longer trusted with a president showing contempt for the law including our treaty obligations Article 6 of the Constitution says are the "supreme Law of the Land." They include the Third Geneva Convention (GCIII) of 1949 covering the treatment of prisoners in time of war and Fourth Geneva Convention (GCIV) the same year on protection of civilians in wartime in enemy hands or under occupation by a foreign power.

No authority gives presidents, governments or militaries the right to ignore them, but this president and government flaunt them openly, almost gleefully They practically boast about it, enraging people everywhere including allies and the entire Muslim world this country collectively demonizes as terrorists, militants and Islamofascists in its concocted "war on terror" the Pentagon now calls the "Long War" that won't end in our lifetime.

In early 2003, Johnson warned us about "the sorrows already invading our lives....to be our fate for years to come: perpetual war, a collapse of constitutional government, endemic official lying and disinformation, and finally bankruptcy." Then and now, he still hopes Americans will see the threat and act before it's too late, but time, he believes, is short, and overall, he's not hopeful. His newest book explains how we got here, and what we must do to avoid our appointment with Nemesis who's very patient, but even hers has limits and we're approaching it.

It's my intention, in the coming parts of this review, to cover the essence and flavor of the case Johnson makes in seven powerful chapters. They're not recommended at bedtime.

If you enjoyed this post, please consider the following:

1. Make a donation of $1 or more to help keep this website active.


   click here

2. Click Here to Subscribe to the Free Populist Party Newsletter