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The Age of Hyper-Imperialism
The Age of Hyper-Imperialism
A new report redraws the terrifying lines of global power.
Global events sometimes seem like a lethal chaos — violent, intermittently explosive, but without pattern or shape. Western forces seem more like terrified tank crews in the nighttime jungle, high on hallucinogens and firing blindly at anything that moves.
Even to their own citizens, the actions of Western governments seem to lack clear goals. Why invade Iraq? Why back Israel’s murderous violations of international law — even if, as is the case with Joe Biden, it may turn out to be political suicide? The list of seemingly incomprehensible actions goes on and on.
Campaigns like Manifest Destiny or the Cold War were tragic and murderous, but at least it was clear what they were after. What’s driving Western powers today?
The Tricontinental Institute for Social Research recently published a report on what it calls “Hyper-Imperialism.” While the report raises as many or more questions as it answers — it couldn’t do otherwise — I consider it an important step toward understand the current stage of global power.
The authors define “hyper-imperialism” as “imperialism conducted in an exaggerated and kinetic way.” The authors comment that:
“The spasmodic quality of its exertion is felt by the millions of Congolese, Palestinians, Somalis, Syrians, and Yemeni living under US militarism whose heads instinctively jerk for cover at sudden sounds.”
They say a dying animal is the most dangerous creature of them all. The same may be true of empires.
Here are some excerpts from the report:
“Hegemony is historically lost in three stages: production, finance, and military.”
“The United States has lost hegemony in production, though it still has some remaining areas of technological hegemony, including those related to the military. It is seeing its financial hegemony challenged, though still in the very early stages …”
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Professional Managers Are Driving Us Off the Cliff
“The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters.”
― Antonio Gramsci
We live through transitional times. Transition from an era of growth to economic contraction. From a stable climate to something utterly different and chaotic. From a global hegemony to a multi-polar world. These are interesting times indeed, loaded with peril and doubt. Why are so many of us — especially those who should know better — are still in deep denial as to what is really going on? Why can’t our leaders change course when it is needed the most?
With every end to a civilizational cycle, there is a caste which has a lot to lose, yet remain unable to influence the course of events. These people are usually located just below the top tier of the ruling elite. They are the well payed, salaried individuals who serve the system loyally and receive tremendous privileges in return: getting all the access to the best of what this world has to offer.
In our current round of the popular game called civilization, replayed time after time with the same predictable results, this layer is happened to be called the “professional-managerial class” (or PMC for short). They are your high ranking academics, engineers, doctors, lawyers, economists, political scientists, project leaders and managers of multinational companies who run and oversee the system for the wealthy elite. I should know, I’m one of them.
This class has gathered immense power over the past few decades, and has managed to turn democracy into a technocracy (the government of society or industry by an elite of technical experts) — leaving little to none for the public to decide…
…click on the above link to read the rest…
How the US Spent Billions to Change the Outcome of Elections Around the World: A Review
How the US Spent Billions to Change the Outcome of Elections Around the World: A Review
The U.S. military state overthrows democratically-elected governments that it deems to be a threat to corporate interests.
“There is plenty of evidence that the United States is the most depraved and dangerous “meddler” in the affairs of other nations that history has ever known.”
Dan Kovalik is a labor and human rights lawyer, but most of all he is an anti-imperialist and an author of three books. Kovalik’s first two books tackled the specific US war drives against Russia and Iran. His third installment, The Plot to Control the World: How the US Spent Billions to Change the Outcome of Elections Around the World, addresses the broad scope of US election meddling abroad. The book provides much needed political and ideological life support to an anti-war movement in the U.S that has been rendered nearly invisible to the naked eye.
The Plot to Control the World is as detailed in its critique of U.S. imperialism as it is concise. In just over 160 pages, Kovalik manages to analyze the various ways that the U.S. political and military apparatus interferes in the affairs of nations abroad to achieve global hegemony. He wastes no time in exposing the devastating lie that is American exceptionalism, beginning appropriately with the U.S. imperialist occupations of Haiti and the Philippines at the end of the 19thcentury and beginning of the 20th. The U.S. would murder millions of Filipinos and send both nations into a spiral of violence, instability, and poverty that continues to this day.
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The Geopolitical Strategy Of The US’ Global Hegemony By A Notorious Russophobe Zbigniew Brzezinski
The Geopolitical Strategy Of The US’ Global Hegemony By A Notorious Russophobe Zbigniew Brzezinski
If we have to use force, it is because we are America.
We are the indispensable nation.
(Madeleine K. Albright, February 1998)[1]
Madam Secretary
As a matter of very fact, regardless to the reality in global politics that the Cold War was over in 1989, Washington continued to drive toward the getting the status of a global hyperpower at any expense for the rest of the world. The Balkans undoubtedly became the first victim in Europe of the old but esthetically repacked American global imperialism. The US’ administration is a key player during the last 25 years of the Balkan crisis caused by the bloody destruction of ex-Yugoslavia[2] in which Washington played a crucial role in three particular historical cases:
- Only due to the US’ administration (more precisely due to the last US’ ambassador to Yugoslavia, Warren Zimmermann), a Bosnian-Herzegovinian President Alija Izetbegović (the author of the 1970 Islamic Declaration) rejected already agreed Lisbon Agreement about peaceful resolution of the Bosnian crises which was signed by the official representatives of the Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks in February 1992. Alija Izetbegović was one of those three signatories. The agreement was reached under the auspices of the European Community (the EC, later the European Union) that was represented by the British diplomat Lord Carrington and the Portuguese ambassador José Cutileiro. However, under the US’ protection, a Bosnian-Herzegovinian Bosniak-Croat Government declared independence on March 3rd, 1992 which local Serbs decisively opposed. Therefore, two warmongers, Warren Zimmermann and Alija Izetbegović pushed Bosnia-Herzegovina into the civil war which stopped only in November 21st, 1995 by signing the Dayton Accords in Ohio (Slobodan Milošević, Bill Clinton, Alija Izetbegović and Franjo Tuđman).[3]
- It was exactly the US’ administration which crucially blessed the ethnic cleansing of the Serbs from the Republic of Serbian Krayina committed by Croatia’s police and army forces (including and neo-Nazi Ustashi formations) on August 4−5th, 1995.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The Superhero Complex: Are We Incapable of Saving Ourselves?
The Superhero Complex: Are We Incapable of Saving Ourselves?
If we felt empowered in daily life, would we be so enamored of superheroes constantly saving our world from destruction?
It’s been widely noted that the U.S. film industry ably functions as a pro-global hegemony propaganda machine: even when the plot features evil rogue elements at work in a global-hegemony agency (Pentagon, CIA, NSA, etc.), the competence of the agency is never in doubt, nor is the agency’s ability to rid itself of the evil rogue element.
Evil conspiracies are revealed and the Good Guys/Gals win.
This depiction of official competence and the moral righteousness of patriotic employees is not surprising; these agencies have long “cooperated” with Hollywood on many levels.
More troubling is the recent film-industry depiction of our dependence on superheroes and their superpowers to set things right. The benign view is that Hollywood is always seeking new billion-dollar source materials for multi-film franchises, and comic book heroes are tailor-made for franchises: not only can multiple films be made about individual superheroes, but the potential for mix-and-match combinations of superheroes is practically endless.
The less benign view is that the popularity of superhero movies reflects a deep insecurity and worrisome desire for fantasy saviors, as if mere mortals can no longer save themselves with their pitiful real-world powers.
Psychoanalyzing the zeitgeist of films has long been a popular parlor game: much has been written about the popularity of monster films (often featuring nuclear radiation as the trigger of the mayhem) in 1950s Japan, and the meaning of the American Noir films in the 1950s.
Correspondent C.D. recently submitted an interpretation of Hollywood’s superhero movies: is our collective fascination with superheroes reflecting a sense that we no longer have the power to save ourselves?
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The United States and The Race for Global Hegemony
The United States and The Race for Global Hegemony
The previous article focused on the definition of an international order, globalization, geopolitical theories and how this has changed the notion with which a nation exercises control over a foreign country. In this second part I intend to examine the various geopolitical theories, their translations into modern concepts, and practical actions that the United States have undertaken in recent decades to aspire to global dominance.
The Strategy Of Rimland
Keeping in mind the geopolitical theories discussed in my previous article, we understand that in order to achieve control over the so called-Heartland, Washington has often resorted to the Spykman theory (Rimland). This is because the US has repeatedly found it extremely difficult to directly control the powers that occupy the geographical space described in the Heartland theory of Mackinder, namely Iran, Russia and China.
The US has repeatedly tried to ensure that nations composing the Inner Circle (Rimland) remained under their control so as to indirectly control the Heartland and encircle it.
In this sense, Europe was conquered thanks to the Second World War and the American intervention against Nazi Germany. The end of World War II saw Europe become an integral part of the US Atlantic system, an important part of surrounding the Heartland.
The expansion and conquest of other areas of the Rimland (Inner Crescent) continued during the Cold War in Asia through wars in Korea and Vietnam. But its failure left serious doubts about Washington’s ability to sustain its military power projection so far away from home, trying to occupy foreign countries with troops on the ground. There were limits to seeking to rule the world.
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Embracing The Dark Side: A Short History Of The Pathological Neocon Quest For Empire
Embracing The Dark Side: A Short History Of The Pathological Neocon Quest For Empire
When Bill Kristol watches Star Wars movies, he roots for the Galactic Empire. The leading neocon recently caused a social media disturbance in the Force when he tweeted this predilection for the Dark Side following the debut of the final trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
Kristol sees the Empire as basically a galaxy-wide extrapolation of what he has long wanted the US to have over the Earth: what he has termed “benevolent global hegemony.”
Kristol, founder and editor of neocon flagship magazine The Weekly Standard,responded to scandalized critics by linking to a 2002 essay from the Standard’s blog that justifies even the worst of Darth Vader’s atrocities. In “The Case for the Empire,” Jonathan V. Last made a Kristolian argument that you can’t make a “benevolent hegemony” omelet without breaking a few eggs.
And what if those broken eggs are civilians, like Luke Skywalker’s uncle and aunt who were gunned down by Imperial Stormtroopers in their home on the Middle Eastern-looking arid planet of Tatooine (filmed on location in Tunisia)? Well, as Last sincerely argued, Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru hid Luke and harbored the fugitive droids R2D2 and C3P0; so they were “traitors” who were aiding the rebellion and deserved to be field-executed.
A year after Kristol published Last’s essay, large numbers of civilians were killed by American Imperial Stormtroopers in their actual Middle Eastern arid homeland of Iraq, thanks largely in part to the direct influence of neocons like Kristol and Last.
That war was similarly justified in part by the false allegation that Iraq ruler Saddam Hussein was harboring and aiding terrorist enemies of the empire like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The civilian-slaughtering siege of Fallujah, one of the most brutal episodes of the war, was also specifically justified by the false allegation that the town was harboring Zarqawi.
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