▲ The US is a military power, but it is far behind other advanced countries in almost all areas of social welfare. And it was the Reverend Martin Luther King (in archive image) who declared in 1967 in his famous speech against the Vietnam War that he could no longer address the issue of violence against the poor in the US. without first speaking clearly about the largest purveyor of violence in the world: my own government..Afp Photo
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Four years ago, when When a presidential election is held in the United States, that very strange feeling returns for those of us who are not from here: the great majority of Americans do not take into account that their vote (or lack of vote) has consequences – sometimes of life or death – for the rest of the planet. It is as if many were not aware that they live in the center of imperial power. Was the same true of the citizens of Rome, London, Madrid or other even older countries, when they were empires?
It’s not that they are unaware that they live in the most powerful country in the world – that is repeated to them in the speeches of every national politician – but when they vote they do not take into account that they are also making a decision that will affect billions of people who have no voice or vote here.
At the conventions of both national parties this summer, phrases underscoring America’s great power were repeated: We are the indispensable nation, We are the leaders of the world, We are the force that fights for good in the world, and that it will always be so according to firm promises that it will be maintained the most powerful and lethal military force in the world (Kamala Harris) and that no one will dare to challenge us (Trump).
While the political elite and its accomplices (there are notable dissidents) claim that the United States is the democratic leader of the planet, no one has asked the planet if it agrees, and this has never been put to a global referendum to legitimize it. In fact, Washington repeatedly rejects decisions taken democratically at the global level. For example, the vast majority of countries expressed their condemnation of Israel for the war in Gaza at the UN General Assembly, and the overwhelming majority voted for the thirty-first time to condemn the US blockade against Cuba (in 2023 only the United States and Israel voted against it).
To a large extent, in national elections, nothing that has real and potential impact on the rest of the world is up for debate, let alone the imperial role of this country is present during the elections.
Much has been written about whether a democracy can be an empire, or vice versa. Historian William Appleman Williams explored this issue more than 40 years ago in his book Empire as a way of lifewhere he argued that from its very beginnings this country had an imperial project. It includes an extraordinary quote from Thomas Jefferson: I am convinced that no previous Constitution was so well calculated as ours for extensive empire and self-government.. That imperial project, he says, is what is disguised behind the official rhetoric of freedomwhich actually implies constant expansion, and any challenge to this project as a threat to freedom. We began to define security as a natural right of the empirewrote.
The domestic consequences of maintaining an empire with military strength are plain to see: the United States is number one as a military power, but far behind other advanced countries in almost every other measure of social well-being. And it was the Reverend Martin Luther King, a promoter of nonviolence in the democratizing movement he led, who declared in his famous 1967 anti-imperial speech against the Vietnam War that he could no longer deal with the violence of the poor within the United States. without first speaking clearly to the largest purveyor of violence in the world today: my own government..
Although the role of the United States as an imperial power is not an issue in this election, it is an inevitable part of the background of what is at stake. Perhaps the solution democratic is to grant the right to vote to the rest of the world that will be impacted by the results of the election on November 5.
Randy Newman. Political Science & A Few Words in Defense of our Country. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kg_LDeUEiWY; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0EAwSpTcM4
PS: Farewell to our fellow day laborer Jorge Enrique Botero (https://www.jornada.com.mx/2024/09/01/mundo/019n1mun).