The entire geopolitical strategy of the Pentagon and the Bush-2 regime is dedicated to maintaining American hegemony at all costs. The only significant difference between the Bush-2 regime and the Pentagon is that the Pentagon admits that Global Warming and Climate Change could be an even greater threat than terrorism, while the members of the Bush-2 regime are still arguing that there is "no real science" to support the data and findings of those who have studied the phenomena we call Global Warming.
KZ: You also claim that the American empire is falling. What evidence do you have of that?
TP: I do claim that the American Empire is falling. To begin with, the U.S. Governments borrows $2-billion dollars a day from China just to keep the American economy going. China is basically borrowing worthless U.S. Treasury Bonds that are backed up by nothing more than the promise of the "full faith and credit" of the U.S. Government. Ever since the U.S. went off the gold standard during the Nixon presidency, the dollar is not backed by anything---except the military strength of the nation and its worldwide domination over most foreign currencies. However, those days might well be ending as the Euro takes its place as the dominant currency of the European Union and Europe begins to follow different policy choices and paths from the architects of the American Empire.
Additionally, the breakdown of the so-called "Washington Consensus" in the late 1990s means that the economic model of Neo-liberalism is no longer a viable model for the developing nations of the Third World and those nations – such as Cuba, Venezuela, and Ecuador that want to walk an independent path from that proclaimed by the architects of the empire and expressed through the policies of the IMF, World Bank WTO, and Free Trade Agreements (such as NAFTA and CAFTA).
The reality of globalization under the sway of the U.S. Global Empire and international capitalism has used the Neo-liberal economic model to subordinate Third World nations into debt traps and then leave their peoples vulnerable to market fluctuations and the fleeting fortunes of economic practices premised upon the promise of greater wealth through strategies of privatization and deregulation.
In 1999, the East Asian Miracle became a nightmare with an economic meltdown followed by the witches brew made up by the IMF. The World Bank's former head economist and Nobel Prize Winner, Joseph Stiglitz, wound up fired from his position at the World Bank by Bill Clinton and Larry Summers (his Treasury Secretary) when he dared to criticize the failed policies of the IMF, the failures of the Neo-liberal model and its orthodoxy, and the absurd dogmas that surrounded the "Washington Consensus."
In Chapter 6 of Exodus from Empire, I differentiate between Neo-liberal globalization on the one hand, and the path of "inclusive human rights based development on the other (pp. 287-297). I claim that the American Empire is falling because it has engendered global resistance movements throughout the entire Global Community. Further, I argue that this emerging and rising Global Community has the capacity to develop national, regional, and international alliances across the Global South – thereby beginning to undermine the sway and threat of the American Empire. I call this a "counter-hegemonic alliance."
Also, there are struggles within the Global North as well in the form of social movements that are dedicated to eliminating the Neo-liberal model and those Bush-sanctioned policies of resurgent militarism that seek to enforce it. After 2001, the entire economy of Argentina collapsed under the IMF formulas for economic "growth" – just as the East Asian economies went into meltdown and then were decimated by the IMF's structural adjustment programs in the period of 1999-2001.
In Exodus from Empire, I examine the arguments for relief from "odious debt" and examine how nations from Africa to Latin America are seeking their year of Jubilee---debt forgiveness and reparations for the injustices imposed on them by the American Empire and its cronies. The principles of this "counter-hegemonic alliance" are of a new historical magnitude – coming at a time when the American Empire is over-extended by what Paul Kennedy has termed "imperial overstretch."
The roots of these principles may be traced back to 1955 when the Bandung Conference produced its 10-basic principles---the product of the work of 29 Third World Nations that were intended to govern the relations between Third World States (p. 310). At the present time, Latin American states are beginning to effectively move toward making their region an independent regional power – increasingly immune from the dictates of the American Empire and its institutional appendages.
Further, within the U.S. itself the lawlessness of the Bush-2 regime is catching up with the realities of Constitutional law as a new Democratic Congress seeks to re-establish oversight of the federal government, bring an end to illegal wiretaps and violations the FISA law, curtail the excesses of the Patriot Act, the illegal use of torture in violation of the Geneva Conventions and U.S. law, and to restore habeas corpus. Yet, it remains to be seen if the fascist drift of the Bush-2 regime can truly be stopped and the American Republic repaired after almost eight years of lawless rule. These are the questions I address in Chapter 3 of Exodus from Empire. The challenge is what to do “when the law of the land becomes lawless.” The real problem, of course, is that the empire has developed its own law – "Empire's Law" – that is accountable only to the dictates of Empire and to the furtherance of the imperial project.
In short, all laws are not equal because the new reality declares that all activities and laws shall be subject to harmonization to fit the smooth progress of the empire's activities. Noting is supposed to stand in the way of the unrestrained movement of capital and the dictates of the architects of the American Empire. Yet, there cannot be nor has there ever been a "Superpower Democracy" and there is no "Constitution of the American Empire." It is an unbounded reality and force that – like fascism itself – is a system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme Right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership together with belligerent nationalism (See: pages 83-84, 234 of Exodus from Empire).
KZ: Should the U.S. empire end? From the perspective of Americans, is it bad for us? Don't we get cheap products, a variety of produce, and access to critical resources? What do we lose by being an empire? Do we have to choose between empire and democracy -- are they, in the end, mutually exclusive?
TP: Should the U.S. Empire end? Yes, it should end because it is not sustainable for either the average American or for the rest of the world. It is equally bad for Americans as it is for billions of people trapped in poverty throughout the Global South.
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