… or listening, if you prefer. CIA consultant Chalmers Johnson is interviewed on Democracy Now:
Nemesis was the ancient Greek goddess of revenge, the punisher of hubris and arrogance in human beings. You may recall she is the one that led Narcissus to the pond and showed him his reflection, and he dove in and drowned. I chose the title, because it seems to me that she’s present in our country right now, just waiting to make her — to carry out her divine mission.
By the subtitle, I really do mean it. This is not just hype to sell books — “The Last Days of the American Republic.” I’m here concerned with a very real, concrete problem in political analysis, namely that the political system of the United States today, history tells us, is one of the most unstable combinations there is — that is, domestic democracy and foreign empire — that the choices are stark. 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, like the old Roman Republic, it will lose its democracy to a domestic dictatorship.
Incidentally, the CIA is also sixty years old this year. Spooky, get it? Ha ha ha bleh.
Amazon book link: Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic
Wikipedia: Chalmers Johnson
Image of Nemesis coin from Ancient Greek & Roman Coins.
Thee, Nemesis, I call, almighty queen, by whom the deeds of mortal life are seen: eternal, much revered, of boundless sight, alone rejoicing in the just and right: changing the counsels of the human breast for ever various, rolling without rest.