Screenshot by Dandelion Salad via Flickr
Watch the video below
with Abby Martin
Empire Files on Jul 28, 2019
The global expanse of US military bases is well-known; but its actual territorial empire is largely hidden. The true map of America is not taught in our schools.
Abby Martin interviews history Professor Daniel Immerwahr about his new book, How To Hide An Empire, where he documents the story of our “Greater United States.”
from the archives:
Coups R US: American Regime Changes and Their Aftermaths
Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz: Pre-Colonial Socialism and the Effects of Genocide
Abby Martin: From 1776 to Trump: White Mobs, Racist Heroes and Hidden History
Abby Martin: Buying a Slave – The Hidden World of US-Philippines Trafficking, Part 1
Dandelion Salad 
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A little history can be a dangerous thing; this is a compelling introduction to a more nuanced narrative that provides valuable context and complexity. The timeline and focus of how we read specific events must necessarily be relatively selective, as holistic perspective is never a tabula rasa; nor, at the other extreme, seldom uncomplicated enough to be entirely recognizable or familiar. We can only ever sketch with broad strokes, counter-balanced by some special microcosmic focus to support the logic of one’s approach.
For narratives to map the shifting scope of our understanding adequately & properly select appropriate formalities, there must always be lacunae; what will be excluded. Any coherent discourse will necessarily tend to emphasize particular details at the expense of others. The art of broadening our understanding relies upon how we deploy the most salient examples that best illustrate our intentions & aspirations based on the general evidence we can muster.
It’s an old cliche that possession is nine parts of the law. However, the moral argument for legitimate global governance and its optimal structure is far more complicated. All empires have substantiated their power through myths and cosmologies of one kind or another. The current US myth that justifies it’s global hegemony is techno-superiority manifest as space expansion & righteous (even religiously dogmatic) know-how ~ ironic, amusing, even fantastical when we consider the estimated probabilities of the universal scales involved!
Context is everything however, and whatever the purported utility of planetary out-reach, the reality of life on earth is not a mere extra-terrestrial calculus based on fiscal extravagance, but about our ecosystems functioning as they could to their maximum potential, and us as the enlightened stewards of ‘local’ terrestrial diversity. The authentic (ie sane) ecological future is about this sense of responsible guardianship of our native planet, within the miniscule galactic context it occupies.
At present, those who presume to lead, lack the knowledge and insight to make genuine, sensible and rationally informed, ‘biophilic’ choices. The consequences are extremely dire though, until or unless we come to our senses swiftly. We should be dutifully empowering exceptional individuals who display adequate representative capacity, wisdom and imagination to think radically, creatively & eco-systemically. Moreover, we cannot proceed optimally, without a substantial degree of provisional international consensus about what actually constitutes reality
Forget about ‘star-wars’ ~ the real war now is the actual life struggle against profane strife, erroneous climates of thought and the devastating barbarism of unrestricted ecocidal ‘development;’ distressing trends that have been allowed to metastasize into unnatural lethal proportions, that now threaten the resilient potential of wholesome, healthy & dynamic co-existence for all species everywhere.
That is to say….real ‘victory’ can only be achieved if we invest wholeheartedly in the exquisite web of planetary biodiversity, that has such profoundly intimate, aesthetic significance and spiritual meaning for humans. These are complexities about which we, as yet, have only a fractional glimmer of understanding.
You lost me when Daniel discusses 9/11 and how it went down. If we are going to be completely honest, we need to acknowledge the absolute fact that 9/11 was perpetrated by the powerful psychopathic individuals that push the corrupt system that is capitalism. It is so obvious today, that anyone that pushed the false narrative looks to most like an absolute blind fool and will never be taken seriously even if Abby is the host interviewing.
Probably best to let Abby know via her Twitter account or her Youtube channel as she won’t be reading it here.
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