The Empire Stumbles on…

I think the 1990s signaled the start of this new militarism we’ve been speaking of. To be sure, the US has always been an Empire, or maybe at least since the Louisiana Purchase. In any event, the 90s saw a shift, and part of this shift was triggered by the collapse of the Soviet Union. The World Trade Organization was initiated to help the World Bank, and other International Financial Institutions, to exercise economic hegemony over the world. One can trace much of this back to Nixon (and the decisions made after the Bretton Woods quasi collapse) and then to Reagan. The US Federal Reserve dictates interest rates, and all regulatory mechanisms were abolished, and finally the new terms of US banking (and its control over the WB and IMF) to function more aggressively internationally, with less risk. Think back to the Latin American economic crisis at the start of the 1980s…where a simple formula was found … have poor countries pay off their own debt, and *ours* (this was true here in Eastern Europe as well). If an American bank gets into trouble, well, just have the borrower nation bear the greatest burden for bailing it out (this is the role of the IMF, actually). There is, since its beginnings, a need for a periphery for Capitalism, for poor countries and regions to be exploited. And so neo-liberal gangsterism, er, globalization, took over and removed all obstacles to its total capability to exploit. What has taken place, I think, is that the periphery was disapearing, and as it became more developed (developing nations {sic}) its usefulness as a *periphery* was lessened …so how to solve this? Well, we could blow it up, and send it back to pre-developed status. To do this one needs lots of bombs. From Reagan on (through Clinton) and to Bush 1 & 2 we see a decisive growth in military spending. The idea evolved in the inner corridors of power, that total global hegemony was the real answer. A global Empire run out of Washington and Wall Street. There are of course contradictions in all this, and the contradictions can be seen domestically, now. They can also be seen in the environmental meltdown we see happening. The invention of a *war on terror* is a product of the need for more military spending, and the US needs military spending to keep the economy afloat. US workers are so without class consciousness that they do not notice they are being used to help prop up an ever shakier Imperialist economy. Reagan helped destroy unions, and today that word has simply disapeared. The empire of propaganda has expanded too, and all opposition has been neutralized. Since 9/11 the free press, limited as it already was, has totally disappeared. The financial domination of the planet has required increased military domination. The result of all this is the escalation of militarism worldwide, and domestically, an ever more sonambulent and narcotized population. A population conditioned to accept the trinkets handed it, while slaving away for longer and longer hours for less and less pay. The mirage of prosperity was evaporating and so we see firms like Blackwater on the streets of US cities. If propaganda won’t work, well, mercenaries will. The destruction of education has meant that the average American now knows less, far less, than his or her grandfather. The knee jerk jingoism of the political class (and its media sock puppets) is hard to swallow, even for the average prole, hence the need for increased distraction and increased anti depresants. There is a moment of pyschic critical mass approaching, and I think that’s what we, who are not totally asleep, are sensing.

It does not matter in the least if Hillary or Rudy or Mitt or Barack is elected. Nothing will change. The perception of the world, for almost all Americans, is shaped by PR firms. Their job is to create a picture where corporate domination is a *good* thing, and they traffic in the language of abstraction. And if anyone tries to resist, they will be targeted for demonization (think, Chavez and Fidel). Still, as the waters rise, people may start to wonder. And when security firms drive their SUVs around the old neighborhood, with guys in swat team attire standing on the bumpers, they may start to wonder, too.

I end with several links to interesting pieces, more or less related to our discussion.

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/09/21/3999/

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=6837

on journalism (not).

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/09/22/4019/

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=11&ItemID=13848

John Steppling