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Messages 1 - 13 of total 13 in this topic |
rockermike
Trad climber
Berkeley
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Topic Author's Original Post - Nov 16, 2012 - 11:15pm PT
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Chalmers Johnson - on American Hegemony. one of the best discussions I've heard on this all too important topic, the new American Empire, and its consequesnces. 52 minutes, but the first 10 will give you a pretty good idea where we're going.....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPr_T7btVgA
edit:(I might add in here - Chalmers is an ex right wing oriented CIA analyst , UC Berkeley political science prof and now converted critic of American corporatism and the growing Industrial Military (Congressional) complex.
This guy is more likely to show up on 'Talk of the Nation' than on 'Alex Jones'. No wacko influence to be seen)
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rockermike
Trad climber
Berkeley
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 17, 2012 - 12:17am PT
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by the way (I note no one is commenting on this - ha) Chalmers is the author of Blowback and Nemesis amongst other best seller books (not that "best seller" says anything in itself.....
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rockermike
Trad climber
Berkeley
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 19, 2012 - 11:51pm PT
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my best post to date, and apparently only one person has taken a look? what's up with that.
as to OT, well, as has been pointed out before, this is a Climber's forum (as opposed to a "climbing forum".) I'm a climber of sorts, and I'm sitting here around the electronic firepit, and what's on my mind today, isn't my last ballsy solo, but the end of democracy. So I want to talk about it. ha anybody game?
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mrtropy
Trad climber
Nor Cal
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Nov 19, 2012 - 11:54pm PT
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I really like the way he puts in the last pro and and runs it out on the manky rock.
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Nohea
Trad climber
Living Outside the Statist Quo
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Nov 20, 2012 - 01:45am PT
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I cannot comment on the vid, I did set a bm to watch it later, but as a teacher of Hawaiian history, this place should have never been annexed. The overthrow guys should have been shot but then again history is a bunch of shouldas.
We have military bases in how many countries? And we re loved for that?
Read GWashington's five hour retirement speech. Damn!
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mountainlion
Trad climber
California
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Nov 20, 2012 - 04:37am PT
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Rockermike I haven't had time to watch the video. I do realize the corporations have stolen our democracy from us. I also realize that they are stealing the natural resources from the 3rd world countries and sending jobs that americans used to do to these countries where the people are willing to work like slaves all day for a less than an american/westerner would earn in an hour doing the same work.
The question is what do we do about it? The people who are in charge of the system are a miniscule proportion of the world's population and they have tricked the whole world into living this rat race!
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survival
Big Wall climber
Terrapin Station
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Nov 20, 2012 - 04:48am PT
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I hope to watch this, in about a week, if I can find it.
Thanks for putting this up.
Empires rise, empires fall, same as it ever was.
My goal is to enjoy every day and prepare the way for my children as best I can. I don't want to get wrapped around the axle worrying about sh#t I can't change.
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rockermike
Trad climber
Berkeley
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 20, 2012 - 11:06am PT
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As to what can we do. I don't know, and I'm certainly not saying anyone else should do anything. But for myself, as I become more aware of the situation (political, but also environmental, social etc), I find myself depressed and tempted to just go off into the mountains to climb dangerous routes. But my better self knows that "there's nothing we can do" mentality helped Hitler rise to power. Yes, there is something we can do, it just takes extreme self sacrifice and a radical change in direction within our lives. I suppose something would include self-education, spreading information, and organizing. The "reverse Citizens United" campaign seems like a particularly good place to start. But one thing I am becoming increasingly aware of within my own psyche, is that I can no longer live the earn and burn (a la (in my case) new climbing and surfing and cycling gear. New cars and nicer houses..., whatever your poison is) lifestyle of middle America. Its sinful nature is becoming just too obvious to me and the sense of guilt outweighs the pleasures. But that's just me. Meanwhile, I'm off to Bolivia on my new bicycle to get away from the stress. ha ------- hypocrisy even more than hope springs eternal......
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sempervirens
climber
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Nov 20, 2012 - 11:38am PT
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Thanks for posting this. This is a worthy thread, IMO. Can't watch the youtube discussion yet but I'll try to get to it this evening and comment then.
This is important enough to be discussed here, IMO again. If we remain objective in discussion there is hope of change. It's foolishness to accept the ridiculous false dichotomy of liberal vs. conservative America. We need these threads to help transcend that naive thinking. More later...
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Nov 20, 2012 - 12:02pm PT
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Empires, schmempires - Thomas Malthus will have the last laugh.
There's also a virus growing in a monkey's bunghole in Rwanda and another
in a chicken's cloaca in China that will vie for the last laugh.
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couchmaster
climber
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Jan 20, 2015 - 02:09pm PT
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Chalmers posits: "A nation can be one or the other, a democracy or an imperialist, but it can’t be both. If it sticks to imperialism, it will, like the old Roman Republic, on which so much of our system was modeled, lose its democracy to a domestic dictatorship."
I see this and agree. Chalmers is on the money. We need to pull back internationally, draw our horns in, spend less on the military and work on more defensive military strategy, not offensive strategy. Our current President has ordered the deaths of innocent unarmed American children with no trial or recourse. It shocks me that few Americans seem to give a damn about it either. Democrats who would be howling if Geo Bush was President and did this kind of thing defend him on it. Wonder if their silence will continue when the next President is elected who may be from the other party. President Obama has said that weekly he gives a thumbs up or a thumbs down on drone attacks. Many innocents have died so far due to his thumbs down. That's just one of many changes that have increased Presidential power to a point that I suspect if any of the founders arrived and looked at the current political system they would be screaming in horror within moments and most likely advocating revolution.
Much like boiling frogs as a slow process. The frog only learns too late that's he's getting boiled and cannot effect change at that stage of the game.
reading reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_al-Awlaki
..."al-Awlaki's 16-year-old son, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, a US citizen who was born in Denver, was killed by a CIA-led drone strike in Yemen... as was the kids friend simultaneously. Both unarmed underage American citizens killed with no due process. 2 weeks after they had taken out Al-awlaki. When asked about the kids execution, Robert Gibbs a senior Obama campaign adviser and former press secretary says this: "I would suggest that you should have a far more responsible father if they are truly concerned about the well being of their children. I don't think becoming an al Qaeda jihadist terrorist is the best way to go about doing your business," Gibbs, the former White House press secretary, told the interviewer from We Are Change, when asked to justify "an American citizen that is being targeted without due process, without trial -- and, he's underage, he's a minor."
It's all fun and games till they start coming for you. That's usually the next thing to show up if you look around the world at places that get all authoritarian like we are currently.
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Mungeclimber
Trad climber
Nothing creative to say
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Jan 20, 2015 - 02:51pm PT
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Couch,
Thx for posting that example.
Should a 16 year old son of a Nazi SS officer running an active military campaign killing innocent civilians in say, Northern Africa, in the early 40s be accorded deferential treatment if he happened to be born in Denver when the officers wife was visiting the United States 16 years prior?
Does the bare fact of birth on U.S. soil confer special protection when that child will be used as a human shield defending murderers?
We take some risks in all violent confrontations. Whether it is a swat team taking out a kidnapper, or if it's preventing Nazi military attacks, or terrorist strikes that almost always impact innocent civilians themselves... and when those are hard targets to get access to for other surreptitious means of neutralizing the enemy.
No easy answer here. Just exploring the principle appealed to.
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two-shoes
Trad climber
Auberry, CA
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Jan 20, 2015 - 02:55pm PT
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I've heard this guy talk a bunch of times. He definitely new what was up, and what was going down. Unfortunately he died in 2010. This video is a little dated. Still relevant though.
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