“All the world thinks of the United States today as an empire, except the people of the United States. We shrink from the word ‘empire’… We feel that there ought to be some other word for the civilizing work we do so reluctantly in these backwards countries.” – Walter Lippmann, 1927


I believe that the above quote by one the most astute American journalists of the 20th Century is right on target and applies even more today than it did in 1927. It sums up what is most wrong with our country: A toxic combination imperialism, arrogance, hypocrisy, and ignorance.

Our imperialistic war in Iraq says it all. Even after the original excuse for the war was proven to have been fabricated, after we killed more than a million civilians, created more than four million refugees and utterly destroyed their country, our leaders still find more excuses to continue the war. Our national news media, while sometimes bemoaning the deaths of American soldiers, rarely says a word about the deaths of more than two hundred times as many Iraqi civilians, or what the Iraqi people think of our occupation of their country – as if their deaths and their opinions simply do not matter. Hannah Arendt was right when she said:


Any U.S. citizen who doesn’t understand how U.S. imperialism has operated since 1973 should read Naomi Klein’s “Shock Doctrine – The Rise of Disaster Capitalism”. It’s one of the most informative books I’ve ever read, and so easy to read for such a complex subject.

The United States has used two primary tools to advance its imperialistic ambitions: Covert activities and military support to install or maintain in power repressive regimes that are responsive to the needs of U.S. corporations, to the great detriment of the vast majority of a nation’s population, and; influence over international financial institutions (International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank) to loan money to desperately impoverished nations while imposing conditions on those nations which are highly favorable to U.S. corporations, while keeping the great majority of its inhabitants impoverished indefinitely – a process something akin to loan sharking or indentured servitude.

The game plan has been to put into practice Milton Friedman’s economic theories, developed at the University of Chicago. These theories, when used in several countries over more than three decades, have served primarily to increase the wealth and power of the wealthy (U.S. and multi-national corporations and the local elite) at the expense of everyone else. The use of these economic policies in association with violent and repressive dictatorships is no accident. Since these policies are so painful to the vast majority of a country’s inhabitants, such measures as kidnappings, executions, disappearances and torture are often needed to keep the country’s inhabitants in line. But often, financial pressures and threats alone are enough to do the job. Taken as a whole, Klein terms these methods “shock therapy” – a therapy that is brutal enough to make a person or a population docile enough to go along with what they’re told to do.


Examples of U.S. imperialism

I’ve discussed this process in several previous posts, using mostly examples from Klein’s book. In “Connection between State Sponsored Terror, Corporate Greed, and Economic Shock Therapy” I describe our imperialistic activities in South America. Klein’s book begins with Chile in the early 1970s, where our CIA conspired to overthrow the democratically elected president of Chile, Salvador Allende, and installed the dictator, terrorist torturer, Augusto Pinochet in his place. I also discuss in that post our imperialist interventions in Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Ecuador, and other South American countries, and our use of School of the Americas and Operation Condor to achieve our ends. Klein summarizes our imperialist interventions in South America:


In this post I describe how the IMF was used to plunder Russia following the break-up of the Soviet Union. Klein describes the effect on the Russian people:


In “The Ruling Financial Class” I describe how the IMF did the same thing to several Asian countries whose economies were failing in the late 1990s. Klein describes the effects on the Asian people:


And Klein describes how similar processes with similar results were used in Poland, South Africa, Sri Lanka, and Iraq.


THE CENTURY AND A HALF WAR AGAINST SOCIALISM IN THE UNITED STATES

I discuss the century and a half war against socialism in the United States in detail in this post. One way in which this subject is relevant to the issue of U.S. imperialism is that that, during the Cold War at least, the United States often used the fear of Communism as an excuse to overthrow the governments of other countries (as the Reagan administration did] in Latin America, for example) or to go to war against them (as we did in Vietnam, for example).

Two major problems with that excuse were that in most of the cases where we exercised our imperialism over third world countries: 1) they had no direct link with the USSR, which was the only Communist country that posed a potential military threat to us, and 2) the country was not Communist, but rather socialist. Notwithstanding those facts, the U.S. government utilized a “slippery slope” type of reasoning, where any degree of socialism in a country could represent the first step towards Communism and hence an alliance with the USSR. And then there was the “domino theory”, where any country that turned Communist or socialist could result in other countries doing the same. So, in the name of “freedom and democracy” we repeatedly intervened in the affairs of other countries to overthrow democratically elected governments or prop up ruthless dictators with our military or economic powers.


Reasons for the US war against socialism

Since the purported reasons for our century and a half war against socialism clearly make no sense, it behooves us to consider the real reasons for it. In order to understand those reasons it is first necessary to understand that much of the history of the United States, beginning with the industrial revolution that picked up steam after the Civil War (1861-1865), has involved a type of class warfare, whereby the wealthy have sought to increase their wealth and power by suppressing any movement that sought to bring power to the lower classes.

Policies which tend to benefit the less wealthy and powerful include such things as: protections against environmental degradation; protection for consumers against the risks of dangerous products; protection against dangerous working conditions; anti-trust laws to ensure competition; anti-discrimination laws; progressive tax laws; minimum wage laws; provision of government health care, education, and child care assistance; promotion or assurance of full employment for those able and willing to work; and labor laws that strengthen the bargaining capabilities of workers. These kinds of policies provide needed protections to the most vulnerable of our people and benefit the good majority of the remainder of our people.

The wealthy conservative elite of our society tag the “Socialism” label on all those laws and policies, listed above, that benefit less wealthy and powerful 98% of our population, and especially those that benefit the poor. They accuse anyone who advocates those policies of being “Socialists” and of engaging in “class warfare”. They do that, very simply, because those laws and policies reduce their own wealth and power.

That is what the century and a half war against socialism in the United States has been mostly about. Those conservative elites are right about one thing. The policies that they rail against are indeed socialistic. When added to a primarily capitalistic system, such as operates in our country, they produce a mixed capitalism/socialism system which can maintain the production incentives of capitalism while at the same time guarding against the harmful excesses of capitalism which tend to drive people into poverty and reduce the quality of life of millions of our citizens.

To the extent that successful socialist policies (such as national health care) operate in other countries, they have the potential of providing an example for Americans. If Americans see that the citizens of countries with socialist governments thrive and continue to re-elect those governments, they may consider whether or not it would be beneficial to have such policies instituted in their own country. Thus the need to intervene in those countries when feasible, to make sure that examples of successful socialist governments remain as few as possible. Naomi Klein expands on this idea:



A brief history of the war against socialism in the United States on the domestic front

Our war against Socialism did not start with the Cold War. Suppression of the labor movement in the United States constitutes a major part of our war against socialism. For example, by attributing the Haymarket Square bombing of 1886 to labor leader “terrorists” and imprisoning or executing the alleged perpetrators (with extremely little evidence of their guilt – See “Death in the Haymarket – A Story of Chicago, the First Labor Movement and the Bombing that Divided Gilded Age America” for an excellent discussion of this), our elite national news media probably set back the cause of the labor movement by several years or decades. Eugene Debs, perennial Socialist candidate for President of the United States, was repeatedly imprisoned for speaking out about his beliefs. And Richard Hofstadter, writing in 1970, concluded that the United States had experienced at least 160 instances in which state or federal troops had intervened in strikes, and at least 700 labor disputes in which deaths were recorded, with clearly most of the violence being perpetrated by state or federal authorities, rather than by the workers.

The FDR Presidency (1933-1945) represents the first successful effort in our country to introduce socialist policies that produced major benefits for our people. Cass Sunstein, in his book, “The Second Bill of Rights – FDR’s Unfinished Revolution and Why We Need it More than Ever”, describes the philosophy that motivated Roosevelt to fight for his radical (at the time) programs to benefit the American people:


As I discuss in this post, FDR’s policies were wildly successful and resulted in the creation of a financially healthy middle class in our country for the first time in its history. Between 1947 (when accurate statistics on this issue first became available) and 1980, median family income rose steadily (in constant 2005 dollars) from $22,499 to more than double that, $47,173.

But then, starting with the rise of the conservative movement in our country, and the election of Ronald Reagan to the U.S. Presidency, FDR’s New Deal began to be progressively dismantled, with consequent stagnation of median income and progressive widening of the income gap in our country. And that’s where we are now.


A LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL

When I posted on DU my four articles dealing with the imperialistic adventures of our nation as described by Naomi Klein in “The Shock Doctrine”, several posters commented on how terribly depressing this whole thing is. Indeed, this is a very depressing subject. But in the last chapter of her book, titled “Shock Wears off – The Rise of Peoples’ Reconstruction”, Klein describes a developing trend, especially in Latin America, that appears to be very hopeful.


The stripping away of the aura of respectability surrounding Friedman’s economic movement

Klein cites the pinnacle of the Neocon movement in the U.S. as being 1994, the year that Republicans took control of Congress. Almost certainly by mere coincidence, but still worth noting, is the fact that the day that the Democrats regained control of Congress in 2006 was just nine days before the death of Milton Friedman. By that time, a UN study found that the richest 2% of adults in the world owned more than half of the wealth in the world. Klein writes of that fact:


In support of that statement, Klein cites several instances to show how former victims have been striving to bring the perpetrators of crimes against them to justice: Augusto Pinochet was under house arrest; in Argentina, the former junta leaders were stripped of immunity, with some of those leaders being imprisoned; the former President of Bolivia was wanted on murder charges; in Russia, many of the oligarch billionaires were either in jail or in exile; Ken Lay died in prison; Grover Norquist was accused of influence-peddling; and then there were the whole series of scandals involving Jack Abramoff. Klein notes the significance of all this:



The wholesale rejection of U.S. imperialism in Latin America

Klein describes the rejection of U.S. imperialist policies in Latin America:



How Latin America gets away with defying U.S. power

Klein provides three related reasons for how Latin America has been able to get away with defying U.S. power in recent years.

First is the fact of massive amounts of grassroots popular backing for throwing off the yolk of U.S. imperialism and moving on with projects to benefit the whole population. When power is decentralized it is much more difficult to overthrow it. Removing a single leader from power is then not so easy or effective, as the U.S. found out when massive uprisings in Venezuela thwarted its attempted coup against Chavez.

Secondly, Latin American countries have decided that they have had enough of loans from the IMF, with its restrictive conditions that force millions into poverty. The rejection of IMF loans in Latin America has been so complete that their percent of the total IMF lending portfolio has shrunk from 80% in 2005 to 1% in 2007. And it’s not just Latin America. During the same time period the IMF’s worldwide lending portfolio shrunk from $81 billion to $11.8 billion. Klein sums up the future of the IMF:


And finally, there is the fact that the region has become much more integrated in its effort to throw off U.S. imperialism. Many Latin American nations stand ready to share resources with neighbor nations who lack those resources. For example, Chavez has offered heavily subsidized oil to the poorer nations of the region.

Klein also notes several other examples throughout the world where nations are turning away from U.S. favored Neoliberal economic policies. But Latin America in the prime example, and Klein explains why:



CONCLUDING REMARKS – TO RIGHT WING FOOLS WHO DON’T LIKE WHAT I HAVE TO SAY ABOUT THIS

I know what the reaction will be of right wing fools who read this post. They’ll be SHOCKED that an American citizen could “hate America” so much. They’ll hate me for failing to take pride in our military might, and they’ll consider me a traitor for my happiness at the thought of our military power being attenuated by third world nations that don’t have the sense or gratitude to do what we want them to do. They’ll say that I want us to “lose” our war in Iraq, that I want to “weaken” our country, and that I don’t deserve to live in this country. Before answering charges such as these, I’d like to preface my remarks by briefly summarizing the balance sheet in Latin America, as described by James Petras in his book “Ruling and Ruled”:


My answer to those who would castigate me for being outraged over a situation like this is that I cannot take pride in a system that creates billionaires at the cost of throwing millions of people into poverty, misery and fear. I cannot take pride in a country that the rest of the world accurately sees as the world’s biggest bully. And I cannot take pride in bombing the hell out of a country that poses no threat to us, killing hundreds of thousands of its people, and destroying its infrastructure.

None of these things do anything at all to improve my life. Nor do they do anything to improve the lives of the vast majority of my fellow Americans. Instead, they create anti-American hatred, thereby fueling the recruitment of anti-American terrorists, while destroying the lives of millions upon millions of people throughout the world. Only an arrogant idiot could take pride in all that.

Yes, I hate it when my government does those things. Yes, I hope that we “lose” the Iraq war, if “losing” means stopping the death and destruction and taking WW III off the table. Yes, I hope that the rest of the world counters and defeats our imperial ambitions – or rather the imperial ambitions of our wealthy elite and war profiteers who profit from US imperialism.

A government should be judged by how it benefits or harms its citizens and how it benefits or harms the rest of humanity. No nation has the right to destroy the lives of other peoples just to enhance the wealth and power of a wealthy elite minority.

I believe that most Americans and their country will benefit enormously by having their country’s military might and imperial ambitions humbled by the rest of humanity. Then we will be able to live in peace and work with the other nations of the world to make a better life for all of us. If wanting that means “hating America”, then so be it.