A People's History of American Empire

@402 Chichago-"Fact is there will always be those commanding and those obeying. Hopefully the most sane and fair commands. That's as much as we can hope for".
I just don't buy that as an absolute, either socially or psychologically. Well,...I suppose I would IF you successfully model and define the will to "Autonomy" as a will to power that is inseparable from "a will to hierarchy",....but as of this moment I don't buy that either.

I would tend to agree that nation states trend toward being pushy assholes,...much as business school graduates do.

Very great video...if only the world worked the way an Idealist hoped, then there would truly be total happiness and peace. Unfortunately, the world is full of countries who have imperialistic backbones...in fact every country has a will to power...every individual has a will to power. I figure it lucky that the United States is the world leader, the imperialistic power. Yes imperialism is evil in the sense of it all but why not have the lesser of ALL evils? If not the US, what if Iran was, a theocratic regime bent at destroying all others that do not comply. Or the Empire of Japan, whom deemed Chinese unfit and slaughtered them by the thousands. Or Hitler's Nazi Germany, fighting for the single "pure" race. There's nothing one can do but be imperialistic, for if not one rises, another one does. And whoever sits back and does not get involved must watch the weak be taken by the strong.

Fact is there will always be those commanding and those obeying. Hopefully the most sane and fair commands. That's as much as we can hope for. Until total war resets the stage to build a "humanity" we must learn to deal with empires, we must learn that we cannot destroy empires but that we can control them. We must make sure our own American Empire is just and right in all it does and we must make sure that they go to "Imperialistic Wars" for a just cause and that we fight those wars the correct way. We may have to overlook the personal wants for the greater good of the overall outcome. For example, if the United States did not care about the trade with Western Europe then we would have never gotten involved in stopping the Nazis, and once we did get involved we realized what was happening to the people the Nazi's deemed unworthy...The immediate motive was personal gain, but the overall outcome was the stopping of a horrendous event. We must learn from our mistakes such as the Indian Genocide and hope to correct them, in ways such as helping the Native American communities now. The past cannot be redone but the future can still be molded, but in order to do so we must understand what we are working with and not have false beliefs.

As of right now, there cannot be this so called "humanity", we have NOT reached that place in history. Empires are everywhere and have firm control. We must work with this and not attempt to cross a river too deep without first building a bridge.

P.S.
I thought everyone kind of knew that there was an "American Empire". No matter what the school's left out of the education.