I've just finished the book and recommend it highly. Don't be dismayed by the academic nature of Chapter One, it requires close attention, but is worth it.
The book many personal connections and scandalous tidbits add just the right amount of seasoning.
Thank you for the endorsement! The book is a major re-write of the dissertation which had more turgid academic prose. I tried to make it as accessible as possible--without getting rid of the critique and refinement of social science theories and historiography.
And this will sound a little to say, but when I relistened to the audiobook for the first time, I too enjoyed hearing a lot of the things I dug up. There was a lot that I had half forgotten because there is just so much material in this criminal realm of imperialist US policies.
Your book arrived towards what I hope is the end of a 2-year dive into American politics, beginning with Washington's investment in trans-Allegheny land and consequent decision to overthrow British rule and thereby abrogate its treaties with its Native American allies. 'The Founders' Plot came next, then a rush downhill to the thuggish Truman through the psychopathically murderous LBJ (JFK was his 4th or 5th political assassination) and the useful idiot Reagan, who let the dogs out.
I now see the US as an engineer did after inspecting a rickety rural wooden hotel built in the 1920s, 'once they're up, buildings tend to stay up, regardless of how unsound they appear'.
Scott Ritter’s FAMOUS tweet below (April 6, 2022). He was immediately banned from Tweeter – than reinstated and soon again permanently banned without explanation.
Remember, Scott courageously fought US bipartisan War party’s WMD fraud in Iraq from the very start.
“ The Ukrainian National Police committed numerous crimes against humanity in Bucha. Biden, in seeking to shift blame for the Bucha murders to Russia, is guilty of aiding and abetting these crimes. Congratulations America…. We’ve created yet another Presidential war criminal !! ”
https://scottritter.substack.com/ Bucha, Revisited - "60 Minutes" regurgitates disinformation about who committed war crimes (Oct. 21, 2022)
"War is a racket" Gen Smedley Butler, winner of not one but two Congressional medals of honor.
I loved the quotation from Zbig. "in a world scarred by memories of colonial or imperial domination." Ya gotta lotta damn gall, Zbig, sayin' stuff like that when you did your dead level best to allow colonial structures to continue in the world and supported American imperial pretensions with everything you had. You might have turned your considerable intelligence to healing those scars, but no, that was a bridge too far.
This was an interesting, if dystopian, look at things in the US today. Everybody constantly quotes Locke, Hobbs, Hume, and the other great 18th century political thinkers or their 20th century heirs but they are irrelevant. The world they lived in was struggling to emerge from feudalism but we are not. In the feudal world, the centers of power were the nobility and The Church. The job of these philosophers was to shoehorn the hoi polloi into the political world's centers of power. So, like, that happened and for a while we had less interference from the religious nuts but now they are back. The big difference is that in the 18th century we didn't have huge, transnational corporations. They are a center of power and need to be brought into the government. Doing that formalizes their power and also limits it, presuming that one puts the kibosh on the fabled backroom deals which tend to exceed the power that they would be openly granted. Finally, there is the deep state. It exists in all rich and powerful nations (the most serene republic of Venice had the most feared secret service back in the day) and always to the detriment of said nations. If you need help here, look up the history of the Praetorian guard in Rome. Those organs in government need to be liquidated in the best Russian style.
You'd think that, by now, we'd figure out that we need a new design for the structure of our government 'cause this one sure as hell ain't workin'.
But not republics. The thing to note here is the difference between myth and reality. Venice started aa a republic in ~800 AD but by 1300 AD had become an oligarchy. Venice lasted essentially for 1,000 years from 800 to, I think 1798.
But the US was an empire from the beginning. VA Co., MA Bay Co., genocide of American Indians, slave trade, Western expansion...and once the frontier is closed you get Hawaiian overthrow/annexation and then the Span-Am War...Banana Wars...WW1... With WW2 they seized the Holy Grail of capitalist hegemony.
Well sorta. I don't buy the empire from the beginning. One of the characteristics of an empire is that it is stitched together via settlements, roads, infrastructure. What is now the US simply didn't have any of that. Settlements were small, "roads" were footpaths (remember that the horse didn't reappear in the new world until the Spanish got here and brought them back). I also have a problem with the genocide of the autochthons. There was some genocidal behavior (See Andrew Jackson and the Spanish conquistadors) but the real genocide of the autochthons came thanx to the arrival of European diseases. That was neither intentional nor understood at the time. I think for most of the 19th century on the US was trying very hard for a capitalist hegemony. In the US that worked - think the Vanderbilts, Carnegie, Rockefeller, etc and they used all the tricks of the trade. But it didn't go outside the US until the Spanish American war and then in a big way after WWII. As we are discovering now, capitalist empires have to be backed up by military superiority....
Interesting theory. In my view the reality is as such. All men are born unequal. The innate nature of man to transform, change and modify his environment to his desired state is immutable, for one that is granted sentience will seek to impute order into chaos. As one whom possesses the most power, the means to redistribute wealth, the means and access to all information, the means and access to energy, food and resources, this impetus is the prerequisite to civilization— and as such war, antagonistic relations and the cycling of push-forward and push-back dynamics of changing elite demographics and characteristics is an evolutionarily driven dynamic that cannot be stopped. Siphon and pillage too much and there is no fruit to harvest (aka Africa) — also having low intelligence low capability citizens and slaves don’t help either. Let them grow too strong and you lose your “power” it’s a fine delicate balance of moderating all interests amongst all powerful individuals. The consolidation of force, the state, and collective elite is all but guaranteed in the context of the formation of a Supra-individual entity just as tribes make villages whom make towns whom make cities whom make states whom make globalists whom make interplanetary states.. this infinite recursion of order represents and examplifies the embedded nature of the teleological substrate of existence.
I've just finished the book and recommend it highly. Don't be dismayed by the academic nature of Chapter One, it requires close attention, but is worth it.
The book many personal connections and scandalous tidbits add just the right amount of seasoning.
Thank you for the endorsement! The book is a major re-write of the dissertation which had more turgid academic prose. I tried to make it as accessible as possible--without getting rid of the critique and refinement of social science theories and historiography.
And this will sound a little to say, but when I relistened to the audiobook for the first time, I too enjoyed hearing a lot of the things I dug up. There was a lot that I had half forgotten because there is just so much material in this criminal realm of imperialist US policies.
Your book arrived towards what I hope is the end of a 2-year dive into American politics, beginning with Washington's investment in trans-Allegheny land and consequent decision to overthrow British rule and thereby abrogate its treaties with its Native American allies. 'The Founders' Plot came next, then a rush downhill to the thuggish Truman through the psychopathically murderous LBJ (JFK was his 4th or 5th political assassination) and the useful idiot Reagan, who let the dogs out.
I now see the US as an engineer did after inspecting a rickety rural wooden hotel built in the 1920s, 'once they're up, buildings tend to stay up, regardless of how unsound they appear'.
The Kennedy assassinations came from higher up than LBJ. He covered it up but suspected the CIA (et al).
And yes, when institutions are backed by the pinnacle of of power, they can long persist in spite of being terrible and illegitimate.
Thank you !!! Keep in mind that utterly corrupt Biden and GOP RINOs are also MAJOR US war criminals !!
Interview w/Scott Ritter, April 6, 2022, By Don DeBar -- Bucha
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfHohl6gCJY
Scott Ritter’s FAMOUS tweet below (April 6, 2022). He was immediately banned from Tweeter – than reinstated and soon again permanently banned without explanation.
Remember, Scott courageously fought US bipartisan War party’s WMD fraud in Iraq from the very start.
“ The Ukrainian National Police committed numerous crimes against humanity in Bucha. Biden, in seeking to shift blame for the Bucha murders to Russia, is guilty of aiding and abetting these crimes. Congratulations America…. We’ve created yet another Presidential war criminal !! ”
https://scottritter.substack.com/ Bucha, Revisited - "60 Minutes" regurgitates disinformation about who committed war crimes (Oct. 21, 2022)
Woof!
"War is a racket" Gen Smedley Butler, winner of not one but two Congressional medals of honor.
I loved the quotation from Zbig. "in a world scarred by memories of colonial or imperial domination." Ya gotta lotta damn gall, Zbig, sayin' stuff like that when you did your dead level best to allow colonial structures to continue in the world and supported American imperial pretensions with everything you had. You might have turned your considerable intelligence to healing those scars, but no, that was a bridge too far.
This was an interesting, if dystopian, look at things in the US today. Everybody constantly quotes Locke, Hobbs, Hume, and the other great 18th century political thinkers or their 20th century heirs but they are irrelevant. The world they lived in was struggling to emerge from feudalism but we are not. In the feudal world, the centers of power were the nobility and The Church. The job of these philosophers was to shoehorn the hoi polloi into the political world's centers of power. So, like, that happened and for a while we had less interference from the religious nuts but now they are back. The big difference is that in the 18th century we didn't have huge, transnational corporations. They are a center of power and need to be brought into the government. Doing that formalizes their power and also limits it, presuming that one puts the kibosh on the fabled backroom deals which tend to exceed the power that they would be openly granted. Finally, there is the deep state. It exists in all rich and powerful nations (the most serene republic of Venice had the most feared secret service back in the day) and always to the detriment of said nations. If you need help here, look up the history of the Praetorian guard in Rome. Those organs in government need to be liquidated in the best Russian style.
You'd think that, by now, we'd figure out that we need a new design for the structure of our government 'cause this one sure as hell ain't workin'.
China figured it out 2500 years ago. It's working better today than ever.
This is outstanding. A copy already purchased. Thanks!
"Why has American democracy—most specifically the rule of law—declined inversely with the rise of U.S. global dominance?"
Republics rarely make it as empires, because an empire cannot be restrained by any law or moral force, lest soon it cease to be an empire.
Some empires last hundreds of years!
But not republics. The thing to note here is the difference between myth and reality. Venice started aa a republic in ~800 AD but by 1300 AD had become an oligarchy. Venice lasted essentially for 1,000 years from 800 to, I think 1798.
But the US was an empire from the beginning. VA Co., MA Bay Co., genocide of American Indians, slave trade, Western expansion...and once the frontier is closed you get Hawaiian overthrow/annexation and then the Span-Am War...Banana Wars...WW1... With WW2 they seized the Holy Grail of capitalist hegemony.
Well sorta. I don't buy the empire from the beginning. One of the characteristics of an empire is that it is stitched together via settlements, roads, infrastructure. What is now the US simply didn't have any of that. Settlements were small, "roads" were footpaths (remember that the horse didn't reappear in the new world until the Spanish got here and brought them back). I also have a problem with the genocide of the autochthons. There was some genocidal behavior (See Andrew Jackson and the Spanish conquistadors) but the real genocide of the autochthons came thanx to the arrival of European diseases. That was neither intentional nor understood at the time. I think for most of the 19th century on the US was trying very hard for a capitalist hegemony. In the US that worked - think the Vanderbilts, Carnegie, Rockefeller, etc and they used all the tricks of the trade. But it didn't go outside the US until the Spanish American war and then in a big way after WWII. As we are discovering now, capitalist empires have to be backed up by military superiority....
Interesting theory. In my view the reality is as such. All men are born unequal. The innate nature of man to transform, change and modify his environment to his desired state is immutable, for one that is granted sentience will seek to impute order into chaos. As one whom possesses the most power, the means to redistribute wealth, the means and access to all information, the means and access to energy, food and resources, this impetus is the prerequisite to civilization— and as such war, antagonistic relations and the cycling of push-forward and push-back dynamics of changing elite demographics and characteristics is an evolutionarily driven dynamic that cannot be stopped. Siphon and pillage too much and there is no fruit to harvest (aka Africa) — also having low intelligence low capability citizens and slaves don’t help either. Let them grow too strong and you lose your “power” it’s a fine delicate balance of moderating all interests amongst all powerful individuals. The consolidation of force, the state, and collective elite is all but guaranteed in the context of the formation of a Supra-individual entity just as tribes make villages whom make towns whom make cities whom make states whom make globalists whom make interplanetary states.. this infinite recursion of order represents and examplifies the embedded nature of the teleological substrate of existence.