Imperialism // Current

Why We're Winning

A curious property evident in the discussion of insurrection in the United States is that it gets more respect the further it occurs from home. Anarchists who would never dream of complaining that the Thessaloniki Food not Bombs is being neglected while its members amuse themselves burning banks, who could never conceive of suggesting that the Somali pirates stop seizing ships for ransom in order to start a bike repair collective, have no problem criticizing their own friends and comrades for shortchanging local projects to attend semi-annual mass mobilizations. This is a shame, because a look at the broader picture reveals that summit demos are taking an ongoing toll on the ruling class, even when they are tactically unsuccessful.

Just for starters, any city hosting a summit has to impose de facto martial law for the duration of the meetings. Miles-long steel security fences, bag searches on the subway, black helicopters in the sky, armor-clad riot cops on every corner, among other measures, make a mockery of the myth of "civil rights." By employing such repressive tactics just to keep a few summit delegates from being confronted by those they claim to be helping, authority reveals its true nature, undisguised by the usual lies and propaganda. People who claim that we should abandon summit protests because we can never replicate the WTO (World Trade Organization) riots in Seattle are missing this point. While it's true that the cops will never again allow themselves to be defeated on the street the way they were in Seattle, the things they have to do to win in the short term erode the perceived legitimacy of the entire ruling system in the medium term. If all they had to do was stop the protests they could just shoot the protesters. But since they must also maintain the illusion of freedom of assembly and freedom of speech, their problem is complicated immensely. They have no good options, so it's not a matter of whether we will win, only of how.

Their situation becomes all the worse when, after turning the host city into a militarized encampment for a week, the cops can't even stop a few kids in black from breaking windows. The resulting frustration often leads them to attack and arrest defenseless groups and individuals who have minimal connection to the protests, further compounding their problems when the videos hit Youtube. Then to justify their own brutality, the cops make an example of a handful of protest organizers by hitting them with ridiculously inflated charges, usually for actions that most people would consider perfectly innocuous. As an added bonus, the lawsuits generated by blatantly unconstitutional arrests and searches strain city budgets, consume prosecutors' time, and extend their PR nightmare. For authoritarians, the only thing worse than appearing brutal and repressive is appearing brutal and repressive and ineffectual. Cops, by their nature, will fall into this trap every time, as long as we show up and set it for them.
full article at link......A curious property evident in the discussion of insurrection in the United States is... more

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MAKING THE WORLD SAFE FOR HYPOCRISY: The American History You're Not Supposed To Know

A work in progress, a major and harsh lesson in history.

Vierotchka
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Rape of Iraqi Women by US Forces as Weapon of War: Photos and Data Emerge

IF YOU ARE SENSITIVE TO IMAGES OF SEXUAL ASSAULT, DO NOT CLICK THE LINK ABOVE. I DID... more

animalia_libero
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Fabulous Imperialism!: The 1893 Columbian Exposition

Pinky takes you on a field trip to Chicago, Illinois, in search of the 1893 Columbian... more

Kepano
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MENTI COLONIZZATE: LA STUPIDITA' E' LA COSA PIU' DIFFICILE DA COMBATTERE?

In quale libro di strategia militare si consiglia che per vincere una guerra bisogna... more

AlbaKan
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How the GOP Pays Off its 'Base'

When more and more have less and less to spend, what is an economy to do but shrink?... more

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7 comments

How the US Became a Vassal State of China

China owns the United States --or, at least, holds a 'mortgage'. China props up the... more

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The end of American empire -- closer than we think?

Online journalist of the year and Pulitzer prize winning author Chris Hedges spoke... more

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68 comments

MILITARIZZAZIONE IMPERIALE: CHE COS' E' IL SUMMIT DELL'UNASUR

Guardata in una prospettiva strategica e realista, il summit dell' UNASUR in... more

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Hundreds Protest Statehood Celebration

Not everyone in Hawaii is celebrating statehood. An estimated one thousand... more

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Hawaii statehood: 50th anniversary to be observed modestly

Hawaii marks 50 years as the 50th state Friday, but there will be no grand parades, no... more

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Low-key party planned for Hawaii's big 5-0

Sandra Reyes strolled across the empty grounds of Iolani Palace on Wednesday and fully... more

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Happily a State, Forever an Island

Once in the Elks Club in Honolulu, an elderly man of Chinese ancestry said in a low voice to me: “This club used to be very exclusive. And the one next door too.” He meant no Chinese were admitted — or anyone but haoles (whites) or ethnic Hawaiians — to the Elks or the Outrigger Canoe Club. This was true of nearly all of Hawaii’s posh clubs. “But all that changed,” his daughter said, “when Reverend King marched on Selma.”

So Hawaii’s statehood was not an occasion for the opening of clubs to other races or even an era of good feeling. That had to wait for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The eight main islands and many smaller islands and atolls that make up the archipelago we know as Hawaii became the 50th state 50 years ago today, but it was still old-fashioned in every sense, an island chain of pineapple and sugar plantations, with a scattering of good hotels, visited by a quarter of a million tourists — mainly from ships and, in that year of 1959, the first big jets.

Back then, as the newest star on the flag, Hawaii was a thinly populated place, with most of the people living in Honolulu and predominantly young — the state’s average age was among the youngest in the nation. Its soul was Polynesian, but its popular culture and its institutions were Small Town U.S.A., with drive-in eateries, carhops and a passion for Elvis (a frequent visitor) and for high school sports; on every island the social highlight of the year was the senior prom.

There were also pineapple harvesters, bundled up against the sharp spines of the plant, and cane cutters, coffee pickers and the local cowboys known as paniolos. Honolulu was a half-dozen small communities in search of a city. Downtown was one long street; Waikiki was two. Outside Honolulu, and on neighbor islands, the land was agricultural; people lived in villages, many in plantation housing, and shopped at the company store. The roads were narrow. Life was expensive, as it has always been in Hawaii because of the distance from the mainland, but the habit of frugality and the simplicity of life were strong and sustaining.

Long before statehood, proud of living in an American territory, people from Hawaii joined the United States military and distinguished themselves in World War II — the 442nd (mostly Hawaiian men of Japanese ancestry) was the most highly decorated regiment of its size and length of service in American history. That elderly man who was not allowed to join the Elks because of his race — my father-in-law, Ernest Mun Sung Loo — had years earlier fought at Guadalcanal.
With statehood came more financing, better schools, better hospitals, improved harbors, a jump in population, urbanization, military spending and many more tourists — lately as many as seven million annually. Three Interstate highways were built on Oahu, separated from the nearest others by 2,400 miles of ocean. That is a detail. The quickest way to infuriate someone here is to say (as many unthinking visitors do), “I’m going back to the States tomorrow.”

When I first came to live in Hawaii 20 years ago, I could determine which way to paddle or sail by assessing the speed and direction of smoke issuing from the tall chimney of the nearby Waialua Sugar Mill. The smoke stopped rising 12 years ago, when the mill closed. What remains is a rusted hulk in the middle of a bewildered town that has, tellingly, been the location for big-budget movies set in the third world; just down the road, nearer the beach, is a location for the TV drama “Lost.”

Other plantation lands have become bungaloid subdivisions or luxury housing or golf courses. Some children of the plantation workers have become doctors and lawyers, or construction workers and caddies. And an immense number have become politicians — each island has its own local government — which may account for its reputation for political buffoonery and philistinism. Public intellectuals do not exist; public debaOnce in the Elks Club in Honolulu, an elderly man of Chinese ancestry said in a low... more

Kepano
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Che Guevara, Imperialism speech 1965, translated in English

CHE'S POLITICAL METAPHORS ON BESTIALITY AND IMPERIALISM

rconcep1
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Hugo Chavez talks socialism in London (in English translation)

President of Venezuela Hugo Chavez talks revolution, imperialism, terrorism and what... more

rconcep1
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G20 Protest Restrictions: More Harm than Good?

Mask banning, protest equipment banning, permit denials, and more. Officials at... more

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Indigenous Tribes: 'We are fighting for our lives and our dignity'

Across the globe, as mining and oil firms race for dwindling resources, indigenous peoples are battling to defend their lands – often paying the ultimate price.

It has been called the world's second "oil war", but the only similarity between Iraq and events in the jungles of northern Peru over the last few weeks has been the mismatch of force. On one side have been the police armed with automatic weapons, teargas, helicopter gunships and armoured cars. On the other are several thousand Awajun and Wambis Indians, many of them in war paint and armed with bows and arrows and spears.

In some of the worst violence seen in Peru in 20 years, the Indians this week warned Latin America what could happen if companies are given free access to the Amazonian forests to exploit an estimated 6bn barrels of oil and take as much timber they like. After months of peaceful protests, the police were ordered to use force to remove a road bock near Bagua Grande.

In the fights that followed, at least 50 Indians and nine police officers were killed, with hundreds more wounded or arrested. The indigenous rights group Survival International described it as "Peru's Tiananmen Square".

"For thousands of years, we've run the Amazon forests," said Servando Puerta, one of the protest leaders. "This is genocide. They're killing us for defending our lives, our sovereignty, human dignity."

Yesterday, as riot police broke up more demonstrations in Lima and a curfew was imposed on many Peruvian Amazonian towns, President Garcia backed down in the face of condemnation of the massacre. He suspended – but only for three months – the laws that would allow the forest to be exploited. No one doubts the clashes will continue.

Peru is just one of many countries now in open conflict with its indigenous people over natural resources. Barely reported in the international press, there have been major protests around mines, oil, logging and mineral exploitation in Africa, Latin America, Asia and North America. Hydro electric dams, biofuel plantations as well as coal, copper, gold and bauxite mines are all at the centre of major land rights disputes.

A massive military force continued this week to raid communities opposed to oil companies' presence on the Niger delta. The delta, which provides 90% of Nigeria's foreign earnings, has always been volatile, but guns have flooded in and security has deteriorated. In the last month a military taskforce has been sent in and helicopter gunships have shelled villages suspected of harbouring militia. Thousands of people have fled. Activists from the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta have responded by killing 12 soldiers and this week set fire to a Chevron oil facility. Yesterday seven more civilians were shot by the military.

The escalation of violence came in the week that Shell agreed to pay £9.7m to ethnic Ogoni families – whose homeland is in the delta – who had led a peaceful uprising against it and other oil companies in the 1990s, and who had taken the company to court in New York accusing it of complicity in writer Ken Saro-Wiwa's execution in 1995.

Meanwhile in West Papua, Indonesian forces protecting some of the world's largest mines have been accused of human rights violations. Hundreds of tribesmen have been killed in the last few years in clashes between the army and people with bows and arrows.

"An aggressive drive is taking place to extract the last remaining resources from indigenous territories," says Victoria Tauli-Corpus, an indigenous Filipino and chair of the UN permanent forum on indigenous issues. "There is a crisis of human rights. There are more and more arrests, killings and abuses.

...full article at linkAcross the globe, as mining and oil firms race for dwindling resources, indigenous... more

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Spending 102 billion a year on 800 worldwide military bases is bankrupting the country

The U.S. Empire of Bases -- at $102 billion a year already the world's costliest military enterprise -- just got a good deal more expensive. As a start, on May 27th, we learned that the State Department will build a new "embassy" in Islamabad, Pakistan, which at $736 million will be the second priciest ever constructed, only $4 million less, if cost overruns don't occur, than the Vatican-City-sized one the Bush administration put up in Baghdad. The State Department was also reportedly planning to buy the five-star Pearl Continental Hotel (complete with pool) in Peshawar, near the border with Afghanistan, to use as a consulate and living quarters for its staff there.

Unfortunately for such plans, on June 9th Pakistani militants rammed a truck filled with explosives into the hotel, killing 18 occupants, wounding at least 55, and collapsing one entire wing of the structure. There has been no news since about whether the State Department is still going ahead with the purchase.

Whatever the costs turn out to be, they will not be included in our already bloated military budget, even though none of these structures is designed to be a true embassy -- a place, that is, where local people come for visas and American officials represent the commercial and diplomatic interests of their country. Instead these so-called embassies will actually be walled compounds, akin to medieval fortresses, where American spies, soldiers, intelligence officials, and diplomats try to keep an eye on hostile populations in a region at war. One can predict with certainty that they will house a large contingent of Marines and include roof-top helicopter pads for quick get-aways.

While it may be comforting for State Department employees working in dangerous places to know that they have some physical protection, it must also be obvious to them, as well as the people in the countries where they serve, that they will now be visibly part of an in-your-face American imperial presence. We shouldn't be surprised when militants attacking the U.S. find one of our base-like embassies, however heavily guarded, an easier target than a large military base.

And what is being done about those military bases anyway -- now close to 800 of them dotted across the globe in other people's countries? Even as Congress and the Obama administration wrangle over the cost of bank bailouts, a new health plan, pollution controls, and other much needed domestic expenditures, no one suggests that closing some of these unpopular, expensive imperial enclaves might be a good way to save some money.

Instead, they are evidently about to become even more expensive. On June 23rd, we learned that Kyrgyzstan, the former Central Asian Soviet Republic which, back in February 2009, announced that it was going to kick the U.S. military out of Manas Air Base (used since 2001 as a staging area for the Afghan War), has been persuaded to let us stay. But here's the catch: In return for doing us that favor, the annual rent Washington pays for use of the base will more than triple from $17.4 million to $60 million, with millions more to go into promised improvements in airport facilities and other financial sweeteners. All this because the Obama administration, having committed itself to a widening war in the region, is convinced it needs this base to store and trans-ship supplies to Afghanistan.

continued at the linkThe U.S. Empire of Bases -- at $102 billion a year already the world's costliest... more