I think one aspect of the mainstream media problem is that in the case of local news, and I will use the example of local television news, although I am sure there is some / much truth to this in local print news as well, even in large newspapers, the on-air reporters have been hired based on their appeal to the average (non "intellectual elite" which you find on blogs like this one) American. In other words, they are average Americans themselves.

There are some horrible morning news programs in the Los Angeles and surrounding counties area for instance. Since I am self employed at the moment with an internet business, I usually turn the KTLA one on as the channel 11 (Fox) show is several magnitudes worse - rock bottom. Just to see if I might get a piece of real local news in the midst of the gossip and chitter chatter. As background noise. Other times I might have C-SPAN or CNN on.

Today one newsperson covered a story about George Clooney's recent statement that "europeans hate America." The newspersons went on to comment how George had "over-reacted," etc. etc. Ignorance or stupidity? Some of each to be sure but I think primarily ignorance. (If G. W. Bush has a 32% approval rating, then even a lot of Americans hate America. Therefore it is entirely believable that "europe hates america.")

But the average americans being enlightened by other average americans is the problem. It isn't as bad in national television news and certainly not as bad on C-SPAN. But still has some truth to it on those mediums since many of our national newspersons and many of their guests, as well as many of our senators and congresspeople are either average americans themselves or they think / discuss / report based on what average america wants to hear. Not all of them. There is probably a lack of courage by even some more intellectual CNN reporters to cover the cutting edge stuff such as "empire or democracy - our choice."

That is why I hope we see more intellectual elite news shows, and documentaries - even if pay per view - on television. I hope it isn't an impossible wish.

Yes the Internet is promising and has already proven to have made a difference I think with the results of the last election possibly in part due to moveon.org and blogs. People can email their friends a good web site or email alert subscription list. That is why I hope tpmcafe and dailykos start using an email subscription list highlighting the week's or day's (option can be chosen by the user) heavy hitting articles. As such emails can be easily forwarded.

I'm going to check out antiwar.com now.

Posted at February 5, 2007 10:48 AM in response to A Final Thought on Nemesis

And not getting the reward is a form of punishment. At least for homo sapiens who are aware of the reward.

I forgot to add to the NATO club idea, if a country is not a member of the NATO club, they *would not* get any protection from NATO if they were attacked. (one form of punishment by lack of reward.)

It makes simple sense to me that it would work. I guess I'm outside the box of foreign policy thought though, and it may be that those inside the box think it wouldn't work.

Posted at February 5, 2007 10:08 AM in response to Iran Options

Bruce, have there ever been any incentives rather than disincentives regarding keeping countries out of the nuclear club?

Sanctions against saddam only fanned the flames of resentment towards the West. North Korea threated sanctions would be an act of war.

Why hasn't anyone tried incentives instead of disincentives?

My vision of this would be to invite all UN approved nations to be members of NATO. Once a member of NATO, their country becomes essentially as strong in military defensive power as the US and as all of NATO combined. Since there would be an agreeement that any attack of a NATO member nation would be equal to an attack on all NATO member nations.

To be a member of NATO, the member nation must not possess any WMDs nor engage in R&D of WMDs.

This would mean of course that for some member nations to retain their NATO status they'd have to destroy/disarm their WMDs. Possibly. Unless it made more sense to keep the existing nuclear club NATO members as original nuke nations. I like the more idealistic solution that only the US be the only NATO WMD nation.

If Pakistan or India wanted to be a member of NATO (I don't know if they are now or not) they'd have to relinquish their nukes.

Having low cost military power and protection by being a NATO member is only one incentive. The other incentive would be lowered trade barriers among NATO members. With optional increased trade barriers to non-NATO members (which is a disincentive but perhaps is also needed.)

Regarding the NATO "security clearance" issue - I don't believe it would be an issue since being a member would not guarantee provision of secret information possessed by other NATO members. In other words, if Iran signs up, drops their nuke R&D, then asks NATO to be privy to NATOs target map, they would be denied the information. But if North Korea attacked Iran, NATO would declare war on North Korea. In addition Iran would agree to allow NATO to use Iran's air fields and military bases in the event of training or war, as would all NATO member countries.

It seems we'd be a lot safer if we approached WMD control in a positive way like this rather than in a negative way. Negative methods seem to only ignite egos and tempers, making the security of WMDs even less certain. While positive methods could build friends (alliances) and I would think reduce the number of WMD club members.

?

Posted at February 4, 2007 11:29 PM in response to Iran Options

I'm glad to hear an optimistic take on Chalmers Johnson's Empire vs. Democracy Ernest.

We are starting to see documentaries that "question authority" now - some that can be rented at Blockbuster and those plus others available as pay per view movies on demand. This is better than nothing - it's a start. Let's face it, most Americans don't read, they watch TV.

The Net is another positive development, and probably more positive than documentaries on demand since there are so many choices and since it is interactive / collaborative / participative.

Let's hope sites like this plus the aforementioned documentaries are cracks in the status quoe that will open the flood gates.

As I posted in another thread just now, and it is accentuating the obvious but that is necessary sometimes, I posted "there is a difference between being dumb and being ignorant."

I myself fall into the 2nd category so I'm speaking from experience.

And I realize it's my fault for being ignorant, but on the other hand you can hardly blame me (and all the others like me) for forgetting that CNN isn't covering the whole story nor the big picture. Plus I live in the boonies and the closest large bookseller is one hour away.

Perhaps I should have subscribed to a newspaper. Which I don't remember the last time I did. On the Net I just grab news quickly from google or yahoo and I get emailed breaking news announcements.

I became more abreadst of political thought different from the status quo from being an environmentalist. I voted Democrat just on the single issue of environment since I was old enough to vote. (I'm 44.) Both from volunteering as a webmaster within the environmental organization and from getting email action alerts about environmental politics, I became more involved. But I still believed in a "strong military" minus the need for huge numbers of foot soldiers, post cold war, and I was ignorant of such analyses as the Imperial nature of the US, although I believed wars should be limited to defensive wars not pre-emptive wars. Of course we were all hood-winked into the necessity of the pre-emptive Iraq war. What salesmen we have in this administration. I was not entirely ignorant -- I knew of some of the adverse affects and "imperial" quality of multi-national corporations. Environmental, cultural, and human rights affects. But I didn't have a grasp of the big picture.

Both documentaries on demand and blogs are grass roots. It is possible the cable companies could be strong armed into not airing question the status quo documentaries. But I don't think it could happen with blogs. Not unless we really go the Big Brother route.

It's hard to swallow such "breaking news" of the big picture sort as Mr. Johnson's. And even if it isn't entirely true, or even if it is only half true, if we aren't exposed to it we won't be able to see the signs if it becomes half or more than half or all the way true soon enough.

I get the feeling blogs like this are where many journalists are starting their day for the same reason as my previous paragraph. It seems obvious to me that the news starts in many cases on blogs like this nowadays. Although there aren't that many participants, and I consider 90% of the participants to be in an intellectual elite class, it seems to me journalists are taking advantage of the "push the envelope" nature and "multi brain processing" to make their jobs easier and work more cutting edge. (Although they still don't have the courage to cover the big picture like political blogs do.)

I don't consider myself part of the 90% intellectual elite, but if I pay enough attention to these grass roots information sources, and the books they reference, I could become a self educated part of the 90%. I hope I am speaking for a lot of people. And that is the $10,000 question that Ernest asks in this thread.

How about email breaking news of the big picture variety. Blogs like this could have email subscription lists which would email the day's or week's big stories. For those who are not addicts visiting the site regularly. The Huffington Post email subscription list is an example of breaking news email alert "of a different variety." A lot of articles in the Huffington Post are too far to the political left for my opinions. But I gather my opinions will in some if not many cases morph as I become more familiar with the big picture.

Posted at February 1, 2007 9:58 PM in response to Empire vs. Democracy: Who's in Favor of Democracy?

There's a difference between being dumb and being ignorant though.

The ignorance is what needs to change.

Posted at February 1, 2007 8:35 PM in response to Empire v. Democracy

Speaking from personal experience, there isn't much of this sort of plato's cave ilumination taking place on american television. And we are TV addicts. If we go to Barnes / Noble to buy a book, we don't think of spending too much time reading politics. If we do read a political book it is one of the many that is just as un-enlightened as the average joes we speak of.

Thank goodness for the Net. I'm just not sure how many average joes are reading blogs like this. I think an intellectual elite are and that is better than nothing.

In order to get a documentary that is critical of America you have to get it as a movie on demand. This is another positive though and is better than nothing.

I'm not saying I'm buying Mr. Johnson's crystal ball 100 percent. But obviously there is much truth to it.

I'm an optimist and I think we'll get it straightened out and soon. Bush has been a nightmare, but we can give him credit for shocking many average joe voters into questioning authority just as the vietnam war and watergate did. The last election has proven this to be so.

I must say I am at least looking / leaning more towards the left of the political spectrum myself when being enlightened in this stuff.

Running an internet business, spending time with my two children and wife, excercising, and studying to change careers to become a teacher, is a full plate and part of it is the full plate that the commentor above used the terms "making ends meet."

And yes if you are an evangelical (which I'm not) you assume everything's as God intended since Dubya is also an evangelical, at least he is rumored to be. So why bother reading politics?

I think the truth will be heard - that the "system" is in meltdown.

One thing's for sure, it'll be interesting to see what happens.

Posted at February 1, 2007 8:32 PM in response to Empire v. Democracy

I seem to fit in opinion close to JPF311. I agree with Mr. Johnson's overall concepts but not his details.

Like JPF, I am optimistic, because of the last election, that the pendulum will take a large correction. The great thing about our system is it seems to follow the law of every action produces an equal reaction. Regarding the political pendulum.

Of course blowback also follows this law and that is why I agreee with Mr. Johnson's overall concepts and prescriptions.

The Dubya nightmare will be over in two years.(By the way - sure it's a wild *ss claim, but I think I might be the inventor of the nickname "Dubya" - from my C-SPAN web site political users forum days, long before blogs came into play.) It is imperative we keep our eyes on the ball of winning house, senate, and white house. Sorry to expound on the obvious. Amateurs such as myself are good at that. But a house and senate, with Guiliani at the helm and with veto power, would not be enough I don't think to take corrective actions in restoring our nation's sanity. We need the swing voters to stay with us. To me that means we shouldn't spend so much energy slamming winning politicians in our Party such as Senator Shumer who was slammed on TPM yesterday. I think we need to excercise some restraint the next 2 years until we have achieved monopoly in Washington.

Regarding the standard of living, one thing I think we can count on is expatriotism. Retirees moving to other countries where housing is cheap. Perhaps some telecommuting worker bees, pre-retirement, as well, who can't afford American home ownership so opt for becoming expatriate. As well as medical patients flying to othter countries where surgeries are cheap. I think we are now seeing the real beginning of the "global economy" where the world will indeed become smaller and smaller. This I believe will be a good thing as face to face relations beat propaganda any day. Expatriate means a change in citizenship right? So perhaps I need to find another word as I believe many of the snowbirds have retained their US citizenship and are not interested in gaining any new citizenships, just interested in living overseas.

My amateur behind intuits that our economy has followed a bell curve though. But a bell curve with a permanent plateau at the top. I believe we are at the plateau, and that we have been since the last gasp dot com bubble. I don't think our "empire will fall" at the other end of the bell curve. We have reached a point where everyone in America is nickling and diming each other, "Walmarting" each other as I like to say. And I believe this is the signal that we have reached the bell curve's plateau. The stock market making some gains may well be because of it's being propped up by some of the things talked about in this thread. Or it may be that the stock market's continuing rise doesn't equate to any tangible benefits for those Americans who are not sizable stock holders. We equate that if the stock market has a run, that the "economy is up." Which economy? The economy of the super wealthy, the 5%? As there are different classes, so too are there different economies, different realities. That makes me a member of the "
middle economy." How about you? (Even though I only have a 20 year old B.S. in Business, did I just invent "the lower, middle, and upper economies"?) Sorry Ronald, I'm not buying your trickle down economics. If you had only lived to see the extent of the damming of your cash flows perhaps you'd have become a Democrat yourself. I propose that the mean (average) state of all three economies is a plateau. That the cheers and bells of the stock exchange only apply to the "upper economy." This plateau I speak of is in harmony with Mr. Johnson's stating that we will need to get used to our lower standard of living and prominance. And if China and India are on the rise, they are just in the growth phase of their own bell curves.

Since our enemies are rogue guerrilla forces now, I think our entire military budget and strategy should adjust. I would imagine that would imply smaller military bases, both domestic and abroad. The fact that this hasn't happened already is testimony to the overall concepts Johnson and others shed light on in this thread that the military snowball is quite large and has a lot of momentum.

I wonder if the proposed 20,000 troup increase is a setup. If Republican strategists realized with the 2006 elections that that the Iraq war and Dubya have shred their Party's reputation to pieces. That they expected all along for the Democrats to pull the purse strings on the buildup. Which then becomes their scapegoat regarding losing the Iraq war. Therefore, contrary to 99.99 percent of my Democrat colleagues, I advocate allowing the buildup. Allowing 2 more years of the Republican Party digging it's own grave. Which will help to ensure our 2008 hat trick. (I don't play or watch hockey, but I think a hat trick is when one hockie player scores 5 points? House and Senate in 2006 being goal 1 and 2, House, Senate and White House in 2008 being goals 3, 4 and 5.)

I agree we should engage in blowback prevention. But I am also a realist in that I think the religious nuts who have declared war on us need to be squashed. Not with conventional wars. Fighting fire with fire - guerrilla vs. guerrilla tactics.

Posted at January 31, 2007 10:44 PM in response to Empire v. Democracy

Thanks Howard.

Regarding if I mean CIA or special operators to fight the war on terror, well I'm no expert as you know. It just seems to me we would need to pay cashola to a lot of overseas tipsters and spies to find out where the bad guys are located. As to what happens next I have no clue although I would guess the delta force is called upon to capture or kill the bad guys.

I have no clue as to the CIAs budget - whether it needs to be increased or not, in actuality. Common sense would imply that we should shift funds from battleships to intelligence gathering is all. Since we are fighting a guerrilla force.

I havn't read Johnson's post yet, I will next as I see he posted a thread, nor have I read his book (although I would like to.) But I was shooting from the hip regarding responding to this thread author's mention of eliminating the CIA to avoid blowback. Rather than eliminate it how about just eliminating the problem policies? As obviously we'd have even more blowback if we eliminated it (that would never happen anyways of course.)

Posted at January 31, 2007 7:44 PM in response to President George W. Nemesis

* We need the CIA to fight the real war on terror IMO.

* We should cut the military budget again, and we can always claim it is a temporary measure to pay off the deficit.

* When conservatives complain about our cutting the military budget, we can at least throw the the voters a bone regarding our increasing the CIA's and Special Forces budgets since terrorists were our priority now. (But there would be more slashed from the military budget than increased including CIA's budget.) How many battleships do we need to fight guerrilla terrorist militaries?

* As far as nefarious CIA activity - and I assume you have linked that with ineffectiveness in fighting terrorist organiziations, I would think if the CIA puts terrorism on the front burner then it would be necessary activity where blowback would be moot since doing nothing to thwart al queda etc. would have another form of blowback - making us an easy target.

* The difference between a capitalist government spending tons on it's military budget and a communist government spending tons on it's military budget is in capitalism the money trickles down. This doesn't mean I agree with Reagan's voodoo economics where all the money the super rich accumulate will trickle down. It's a different trickle down when working Americans trickle their money down - and in the soviet union I would guess there was no similar trickle down at all due to the nature of communism.

That said, I would like to read Johnson's book of course and I am sure I will be educated / enlightened and that I will agree with a lot of it (perhaps differing more in details than overall concepts.)

Posted at January 31, 2007 7:15 PM in response to President George W. Nemesis

I think the most important goal is for the Democratic Party to sweep the house, senate, and presidency in 2008. At that time I am sure the goals will self-formulate as best a representation of the Party's voters combined with the independent swing voters as they possibly could, whatever the goals may turn out to be for 2009 - 2012 (hopefully 2009 -- 2016).

I give the Senator credit for promoting his ideas rather than living up to the reputation our Party has for not having any clear stance. His ideas combined with the other Democrats should forge into real change that at best we will all be happy with and at worst will be 150% better than the Republican alternative.

I hope Senator Shumer is a part of the 2008 Democratic Party hat trick.

Posted at January 30, 2007 10:32 PM in response to Discussion Post: Positively American