Retaliation
The imagery of tooth for tooth violence defines this book. The truth is that no nation is going to sit back and allow another nation to bomb them or assassinate an official or tamper with an election, etc. The imagery of retaliation is a problematic imagery in the book, because it threatens to continually refresh violence with violence, like a fire that grows as it burns. Johnson suggests that Blowback, or retaliation, is an echo chamber that will one day grow to overcome the stability of the government.
Downfall
The imagery of the fall of the US government is invoked in this book to show that there are potentially apocalyptic consequences to uncontrolled spirals of conflict. Wars can bankrupt nations very quickly which only make that country more likely to be targeted by foreign powers, so the imagery is naturally similar to retaliation imagery, because the problem only grows with time as nations begin to imagine America as a corrupt power. The imagery is drastic and paranoid, and obviously this book is extreme in its approach.
Corruption
The portrait of corruption offered by the theorist here is one where economy rules. Because of opportunities to make a lot of money by participating in conspiracies with correctly placed investments, politicians are chronically tempted to help big businesses to accomplish their interests abroad. If this happens, it happens under the guise of top secret clearances which means that government corruption is extremely secretive. The methods for discovering corruption are very difficult to find.
Public opinion
The zeitgeist appears in this book as the imagery of public opinion. As people experience the news, they automatically accept a certain point of view which is liable to inflame nationalistic emotions. Then, people support government retaliations against attacks which were themselves government retaliations, responses to esoteric attacks and interferences abroad. The public is basically tricked into complicitness by a certain slant in media coverage. This is the imagery offered in the book, although these issues seem to merit a critical response to Johnson's somewhat paranoid theories.
