I wanted the American eagle to go screaming into the Pacific ... Why not spread its wings over the Philippines, I asked myself? ... I said to myself, Here are a people who have suffered for three centuries. We can make them as free as ourselves, give them a government and country of their own, put a miniature of the American Constitution afloat in the Pacific, start a brand new republic to take its place among the free nations of the world. It seemed to me a great task to which we had addressed ourselves.
But I have thought some more, since then, and I have read carefully the treaty of Paris [which ended the Spanish–American War], and I have seen that we do not intend to free, but to subjugate the people of the Philippines. We have gone there to conquer, not to redeem.
It should, it seems to me, be our pleasure and duty to make those people free, and let them deal with their own domestic questions in their own way. And so I am an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land. Mark Twain, New York Herald 16th October 1900
United States’ politicians have demonstrated an almost fanatical zeal in a race against the clock to institute policies asserting US superiority. NWO 2016: The Final Warning, Youtube
The dream was not to be. On February 1st 1999 the Clinton administration released its new federal budget: it contained a tiny 3% increase on social programs, meanwhile, $112 billion in new funds were allocated to the military which the budget of the CIA and other intelligence agencies rose by $29 billion. The Power Principle, 2011
The US now spends as much on war as the rest of the world combined. ibid.
NSC68: ‘A policy which the United States would probably pursue even if there were no Soviet Union’. ibid.
Guatemala didn’t even have diplomatic relations with Russia … Bernays was offered huge sums of money to develop a propaganda campaign against Arbenz and the people of Guatemala. ibid.
‘Under the United Nations flag Lumumba was killed in the Congo.’ ibid. Che Guevara
Under the auspices of the UN, the Belgiums insisted on retaining a strong military presence in the country. ibid.
‘The Mafia Principle is correct: if you want to maintain order and discipline you have to make sure there is no disobedience.’ ibid. Chomsky
September 11 1973: the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende was overthrown in a violent coup-d’etat: it established a military dictatorship. ibid.
The brutality of the Contras took its toll … The Contras had raped, tortured and killed unarmed civilians including children … burnt, dismembered, blinded and beheaded. ibid.
Brace yourself. The American empire is over. And the descent is going to be horrifying. Chris Hedges, Calling All Rebels, 2010
When you spend that long on the outer reaches of empire, you understand the cruelty of empire … and the lies we tell ourselves about what is done in our name. Chris Hedges, interview Bill Moyers 22 July 2012
The reality of empire rarely reaches the American public. The few atrocities that come to light are dismissed as isolated aberrations. The public is assured what has been uncovered will be investigated and will not take place again. The goals of empire, we are told by a subservient media and our ruling elites, are virtuous and noble. And the vast killing machine grinds forward, feeding, as it has always done, the swollen bank accounts of defense contractors and corporations that exploit natural resources and cheap labor around the globe. Chris Hedges, ‘The American Empire: Murder Inc’, 2016
At the end of empire as you begin decay they engage – historians call it micro-militarism – they carry out suicidal military fiascos. Chris Hedges, lecture Seattle University 2018, ‘Corporate Totalitarianism: The End Game’ *****
The American empire is coming to an end. The American economy is being drained by wars in the Middle East and vast military expansion across the globe. It is burdened by growing deficits along with the devastating effects of de-industrialisation and global trade agreements. Our democracy has been captured and destroyed by corporations that steadily demand more tax cuts, more deregulation and impunity of prosecution for massive acts of financial fraud, all the while looting trillions from the US treasury in the form of bail-outs … A recipe for an emerging dystopia. Chris Hedges, lecture The Sanctuary For Independent Media, New York, 10 November 2017
Empires in decay embrace an almost wilful suicide. Blinded by their hubris and unable to face the reality of their diminishing power, they retreat into a fantasy world where hard and unpleasant facts no longer intrude. They replace diplomacy, multilateralism and politics with unilateralism, bombastic threats and the blunt instrument of war. Chris Hedges, lecture Sanctuary for Independent Media New York 2018, ‘American Anomie’, Youtube 2.01.07
Exposed us a state terrorist: we have replicated in the Middle East the US military’s penchant for widespread atrocities, indiscriminate violence, lies and fatal miscalculations that led to our defeat in Vietnam. The brutality abroad is matched by a growing brutality at home. ibid.
Many of our cities are in ruins, our public transportation is in shambles, our educational system is in steep decline and being privatised. ibid.
We are worldwide objects of ridicule and hatred. ibid.
The project has been for all but a handful of global elites a spectacular failure. ibid.
We are paying the price for discarding hundreds of millions of people on to the dung-heap of history. ibid.
This slow-motion march towards apocalypse is assured. ibid.
There is a inner freedom that comes from defiance … In every act of rebellion we are free. ibid.
The communal has been shattered. The concept of the common good obliterated. Greed is celebrated. The individual is a god. The celluloid image is reality. ibid.
Eugene Debbs, the famous Socialist candidate during World War I, was sentenced to ten years imprison for his opposition under the Sedition Act. Chris Hedges, interview Abby Martin, The Empire Files: War, Propaganda and the Enemy Within, Youtube 2015
The Sedition Act, the Espionage Act, and more importantly, the Committee for Public Information. ibid. Hedges
After the war the dreaded Hun becomes the dreaded Red. ibid.
Allende was overthrown in 1973 and Pinochet was put in power to protect the copper industry from being nationalised. And these elites were given tremendous resources … 1954: Arbenz who wanted to challenge United Fruits … Arbenz becomes a communist in the eyes of the press … It’s a different kind of empire. ibid.
Half of the population in El Salvador at the time was landless … people living in tremendous deprivation. ibid.
The pressure that Empire will put on those few reporters who attempt to go out and actually report is fierce and can even involve loss of life. ibid.
Sadism defines nearly every cultural, social and political experience in the United States. It is expressed in the unchecked greed of an oligarchic elite that has seen its wealth increase during the pandemic by $1.1 trillion while the country has seen the sharpest rise in its poverty rate in fifty years. Chris Hedges, lecture New York Sanctuary for Independent Media 2022, Youtube 1.59.32
The leaked pictures from Abu Ghraib are the true face of America. ibid.
Laws, institutions and bureaucratic structures are formed to serve the interests of a tiny cabal, a rapacious elite which enriches itself at the expense of everyone else. ibid.
Sadism is the chief characteristic of imperialism. ibid.
Heart of Darkness: He [Kurtz] went to Africa fired by noble ideals and virtues: he ended his life as a self-deluded tyrant who thought he was a god. ibid.
Empires in the end cannibalise themselves. The tyranny we long imposed on others we now impose on ourself. ibid.
The obscene avarice of the very rich now dwarfs the hedonism and excesses of the world’s most heinous despots and wealthiest capitalists of the past. ibid.
The grinding machinery of predatory capitalism and the sadism that defines it will poison the society as mercilessly under Biden as it did when Trump was conducting his Twitter presidency. ibid.
For the last twenty-five years people from all over the US have converged at the gates of the Fort Benning army base in Georgia. Abby Martin & The Empire Files: The US School that Trains Dictators & Death Squads, Youtube 2015
One of the school’s star graduates – notorious Panamanian dictator and cocaine smuggler Manuel Noriega. ibid.
Dozens of military interventions including coups shaped the region. ibid.
The School of the Americas became an essential force for the empire … churning out thousands of puppets and proxies. ibid.
The most heinous right-wing death-squads of our time. ibid.
US Instructed Latins on Executions, Torture. ibid. Washington Post article 21st September 1996
Throughout its history America’s leaders have echoed the mantra that it is the beacon of freedom and equality. Abby Martin & The Empire Files: The Rise of History’s Biggest Empire
The core system of empire remains … Their appetite grew bigger than the planet. ibid.
A club of empires formed in its aftermath united against a common enemy: self-determination. ibid.
Every intervention seems to follow a familiar trend. ibid.
The US rarely leaves any country it intervenes in. ibid.
America spends more on its military than the next seven countries combined. ibid.
The war machine also regularly decimates the environment. ibid.
10 years ago the US Empire honed its sights more intently in a profitable region of the world: Africa … Its unimaginable treasure of minerals and raw materials. Abby Martin & The Empire Files: Empires Feed on Congo’s Treasure, Abby Martin online 2016
Congo: 80 million people … It’s considered the richest country in the world. ibid.
Cobalt: Among Congolese who literally risk their lives working in Cobalt mines – tens of thousands are children working twelve hours a day for a dollar. ibid.
Africa has endured over five centuries of oppression and theft by European empires. ibid.