01 31 2011 Speaking Freely Paper 1 page on a report of the movie Chalmers Johnson on American Hegemony Studies military bases overseas Cold war cover for imperialism The American military empire is more like the soviet empire not Britain We put a lot of money so that we can be on every continent Mobilizes Americans to realize what they can loose like the Rome republic We are toying with a dictatorship military system Advice give up the empire because foreign imperialism and your own democracy do not mix Terms Military Keynesianism Hegemony o The use of money to of the military budget so supply jobs Blowback o Book that he wrote Military Industrial Complex o the private property of the president o a concept commonly used to refer to policy and monetary relationships between legislators national armed forces and the industrial sector that supports them These relationships include political contributions political approval for defense spending lobbying to support bureaucracies and beneficial legislation and oversight of the industry It is a type of iron triangle Has written 3 books Blow Back o Cia term o Overthrown of the Iranian government o Retaliation from things that our government has done that the American public has no idea about o Secret to the American people but not secret to the people on the other end Nemesis the last days of the American republic o Ancient Greek goddess of revenge o Causes by arrogance and indifference to others needs o After the cold war we said we won but both sides lost o We believe that we were the new Rome after this and thought that we could take over the world o The use of the military budget to supply jobs The lone superpower Overthrown of o Iran o Saudi Arabia After expelling Bin Laden we placed American troops here and the people were pissed because they were around Meca etc Bill Clinton the market made me do it Empires are starting to fall Japanese Nazi Italian German French Dutch Portugal Chinese Ottoman all fallen Things that cant go on forever don t 40 of the military budget is black no one knows where it is spent Military Keynesianism the more money you spend on your country the more you get back when the economy goes down money needs to be released to encourage spending when government is in surplus then it goes back down brings good demand to poorer countries thinks there is a lot of economic motive but not all o the imperial mindsets o its not just about money o civilizing mission o we can do and bring things that are better to countries criticism o when we are done with one country we go to another one o we are constantly involved o aggregate demand Blowback give resources to another country because they think they are your allies and they use them against you Film converts government actions Example o in the 70 s we gave weapons helicopters etc to Afghanistan so they could win the war against Russia and now they are using these against us o the united fruit company the government does things over and over again Military Industrial Complex created by Eisenhower so that everyone used to think that industrial would end all wars has billions of dollars invested into it arguments o kills people o you cannot fight a quick war against social problems o poverty terrorism fear of standing armies o would lead in strong executive power and lead to a dictatorship o what destroyed England way of thinking temporary yet always present triangle of president and people in the government industry keeps recreating itself because it seems to keep working Main Points America has many military bases around the world which has made America into an empire Operation Homecoming Paper due monday Think about how war used to be compared to now Even though the soldiers do not want to fight when they are over fighting a war they are ready to and depend on it in a way Traveling they are shot at and decide to nip it in the butt they shoot at them even though the enemy is hiding in the woods so they release bombs later that night they shell Baghdad more innocent people dead die mother fucker die Soldiers tend to write to clear their mind sort things out pushed their writing because they had such a limited time wrote about the fear of guns being pointed at them The people that they are meeting are getting paid to kill and attack them wear bombs on a vest and see it as an act of god Bombs are everywhere cars dead animals boxes soaked in clothes graffiti that says we will kill you When people write about the war it has a romantic twist Colby Buzzel wrote about his experience to show how horrible it was because he just wanted it to stop they were shot at while driving down a road he had a gun pointed right at his head after they got out they had 5 minutes to regroup and go back they were shot at and he had to crawl outside to get ammunition later that night he talked to his sergeant who said to put his emotions in a box and put a lid on it they never reopen these memories You hate the people who make you scared because you are ashamed of being scared Lewis major said they needed a combat lifesaver heard a whaling and when they got over to the car they saw a father screaming about his son who was dead in the passenger seat the son was taking his father back home from shopping he was a student and engineer in honors the type of person we want to be in Afghanistan s future the father said to kill him he sat with the father and realized that he was just a man who lost his son not a terrorist he related to him because he had lost his daughter he s not different from me Seen war as being very boring most of the time you were doing nothing played games wrote to their family with jokes and told them that they were okay desert life they laugh and joke about what they are scared about kill or be killed killing has nothing to do with what you believe in the story that is told frequently is a man in a white robe running from them the sergeant told him to stop running and he wouldn t after giving him warning shots he shot the man because innocent people don t run he was 200 yards away from his house with his wife and family they took him to try To what extent are we humans if we don t feel emotions People are trying to come up with medicine so we don t feel remorse and save his life PTSD Shelter Basic needs Food Clean water Clothing Access to medical care Relativity of poverty Spatially Temporally Ghosts of Rwanda 800 000 people were slaughtered for being Tutsis Mass genocide