The threats to acquire Greenland, the attack on Venezuela, and the interest in Panama and Cuba are really just the Imperialist play book, re-opened by Donald Trump as the USA seeks to assert its power as the most powerful nation on earth.
Under previous administrations, the USA was either the world’s police or the protector of democracy, fighting for freedom against tyranny… and time and again we are reminded how America is the land of opportunity, the American dream is that any one can achieve their material dreams; a home, financial independence, political freedom. And maybe that was true some time ago but is it the reality today?
The building of the American Empire began at the time of the great European Empires.
Spanish, Portuguese, French, Dutch. They were all there.
The competition was on to dominate the Caribbean, and the South and North American continents to exploit the wealth that could be obtained, initially silver and gold, but cash crops, sugar, coffee, tobacco, cotton had ready markets in Europe. Labour was provided by shipping kidnapped Africans to the plantations, and for Britain particularly, the underclass, the unwanted driven to crime through poverty were sentenced to work off their time in the plantations of the Virginias.
Money and power ruled, those with the best weapons, the latest technologies in farming techniques and marketing expertise or should that be those with God on their side, sought to dominate, to take the lands which were being wasted by the indigenous people who had lived for countless generations and worshipped idol or nature or anything but the ‘real’ God.
Under the influence of Christianity, America was seen as the new promised land, which is reflected in many so settlement names as the concept of manifest destiny drove the westward push in the 1800’s. About 41 different Biblical place names are used in over 220 places. America was the promised land, and the ruthless march to possession, to settlement, saw the destruction of the indigenous population, culminating in the massacre at Wounded Knee.
Between 1800 and 1900, the immigrant population, that is Europeans, grew from about 5 million to about 75 million. The indigenous population was decimated, from about 600,000 to less than 250,000. Despite treaty after treaty written to protect indigenous rights, each treaty was cast aside virtually before the ink had dried in the relentless push to take the promised land. The remaining indigenous were corralled onto reservations, in some of the least arable lands.
The population numbers refer to the remainder of the indigenous peoples in 1800. It was estimated that before European landing in North America in 1492, that about 5 million lived north of the Rio Grand, in current USA and Canada.
The words of the Sioux Chief, Sitting Bull resonate when we consider the sense of ‘right’ the settlers assumed, and they resonate today as we conducer the growing inequity both in the USA (and here) today:
“The love of ownership of property is a disease of the White man. These people have created a system of rules, which don’t apply to the rich, but the poor mustn’t break. They have a religion that the poor follow, but the rich do not. They even collect taxes from the poor to support the rich and those who rule. They claim that this Mother Earth of ours belongs to them, that it is there for their consumption, and they lock their neighbours away behind fences.
“The White settler’s greed is insatiable, even if America were twice the size that it is, it still would not be enough for them.” (USA: The Ruthless Empire, Daniele Gasner, 2023. p60).
Remember the Alamo?
The US-Mexican war of 1846-1848 saw the annexation of Texas and through the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo forced Mexico to cede over 55% of its territory, which includes modern day California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, Wyoming for the bargain price of $15 million. So many of the cities have Spanish names, a record of their Spanish and indigenous origins.
Subsequent Imperial acquisitions include Hawaii through a Coup d’Etat deposing Queen Liliuokalani in 1893, and through the Spanish-American war of 1898, Phillipines, Guam in the Pacific and in 1893, Costa Rica and Cuba as protectorates in the Caribbean. The loss of control over Cuba in 1959 through the rise of Fidel Castro’s communist regime has seen a tense relationship which continues to this day. In part the recent attack on Venezuela and taking control of its oil exports has starved Cuba of its ability to generate electricity, putting pressure on the viability of the government… or that seems to be the intent.
Throughout the period of Manifest Destiny – the period of rapid expansion – America became an agricultural super power. The Prairies became a breadbasket of agricultural produce, both for domestic consumption and for export markets, the growth of the cattle and sheep industries ensured that more than enough was produced from the land the expansion of mining and industrial capability saw the economy grow with consumer goods to satisfy every new found need, in transport, in the development of cities with suburban growth, single family homes, new electronics with radio, music, motor cars and en endless supply of new gizmos to satisfy every conceivable desire.
America was indeed the promised land, able to fulfil every nuance of the American Dream as expounded in the Declaration of Independence, that all people were created equal, and all able to pursue their dreams of happiness, however happiness is defined.
What happened?
The American Dream has faded somewhat, the idea that happiness and financial security, home ownership, secure work, and environment where one’s children will be better off that their parents seems to have gone up in smoke.
So-called Democracy is a sham.
With a population of 348.4 million according to Worldometer’s population tracker, almost one third of Americans are described as poor, meaning they are living pay cheque to pay cheque, even when they need two jobs to meet basic requirements, and yet, there are 300,000 ‘superrich’, less than 1 in 10,000, described by Noam Chomsky as running the empire:
“They just get what they want, they basically determine what goes on.” (ibid, page 23), or as political scientist Jeffery Winters says, “It is no longer plausible (if it ever was) to argue that politics in the US is controlled by the people in a democratic way, with each citizen having an equally powerful voice. Wealth and income play a significant part.” (Ibid, page 23).
(Much the same in Australia, where we see increasingly the wealthy asserting access to politicians, making political donations to influence decision-making in their favour, be it in taxation reforms or benefits attached to investments, even the development of interests, not to mention the lucrative “jobs for the boys” [and girls] on vacating their parliamentary seats.)
The shift in the ability to achieve the American Dream has been most profound in recent years, as seen by the trade wars and tariffs being imposed by the current regime. The drift away from manufacturing in the USA, and the lack of middle class, well-paid jobs gained in the post war period as the East Asian, China, Korea, Vietnam and there ‘cheap labour’ countries take over the manufacturing capabilities America built its middle class on. But the protection of American interests remains a major militaristic goal, with over 700 military bases with more than 200,000 personel spread around the world, including 70 corralling the South China Sea, and others in the Middle East protecting the oil rich states and throughout Europe to satisfy perceived NATO needs.
The cost of this militarisation sees the US outspending the rest of the world for protecting its interests, and while the superrich are insisting on tax breaks, the budget deficit grows to such an extent that more than 50% of government revenue is spent serving that debt. And yet, the needs of asserting dominance, of increasing Imperial reach persists, as it has in one form or another since the end of WWII, fighting wars that ensure questionable regimes are kept in check, that where a leader does not do as is seen in America’s best interests, they are deposed. Chile in 1973 comes to mind, Iran in 1953, protecting access to oil for the interested oil companies, or the duplicity of the Contra arms deal where Iran, an enemy state is provided military equipment through the supported side of a civil war in Central America, or in order to rid Iraq of Saddam Hussein who dared to float the idea of trading oil in Euros or some other currency, rather than US dollars had to be deposed, and the lie of weapons of mass destruction is used to justify a war which has left Iraq in a desperate state.
The American Empire is both territorial and influential, with the CIA being used time and again to destabilise regimes, to become narcotics traders, propping up a drug economy in Columbia while ensuring the cocaine habits of Americans could be satisfied.
The list of covert activities carried out by the CIA is a long one, from manipulating elections to ensure that communist governments were not elected in post war Europe, overthrowing governments such as Iran in 1953, Guatemala in 1954, assassination of prime ministers and presidents, murdering Che Guevara, attempting to kill Fidel Castro… just a partial list.
And then there are the never ending wars against the threat of communism, Korea, the Vietnam conflict which was to ensure as France left, the incoming government would be a ‘friendly’ one. The lies to escalate using the Gulf of Tonkin incident, where nothing happened, but ‘let’s pretend something did, the fear of the ‘Domino Effect’ which was that South East Asia would become controlled by communist governments.
Other wars included on neighbouring Cambodia and Laos, the use of chemicals as weapons of war and then the ongoing interests in Central America, Panama, Nicaragua.
And then of course the war on terror when the complete details of who and why the World Trade Centre was destroyed, as well as an attack on the Pentagon, the truth which will never be told. Matters such as the collapse of a third tower, WTC7 has never been explained, and the denial by Osama bin Laden that Al-Qaeda were involved was not able to be explored since he was under death threats.
Without complete evidence, the war on terror was initiated – which was finally lost – as the US and its allies retreated after 20 years and a resurgent Taliban regained control.
The imperial goals are evident more clearly than they have been in quite a while. The current president makes no secret of his ambitions: Greenland, and yes, Iceland are on the wish list, so is Venezuela, Panama and Columbia, and dare we forget Cuba. Even Canada.
All this while the trade deficit grows exponentially as does the imbalance between government revenue and expenditure, especially on servicing debt.
Over the long view of history, empires have collapsed because of their inability to finance the defence of the empires. Rome comes to mind, as with the Ottoman Empire, the British Empire, and the USSR. It is one of the reasons China has no Imperial desires: they found out a long time ago that the cost of protecting the Empire is more than it is worth.
And will potentially cause the collapse of the American Empire.
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Bert, thanks for the Sitting Bull quote.
A wise man indeed.
@ Bert Hetebry: A wonderfully comprehensive article that exposes the long held myth of American success philosophy being just another way to screw the workers.
Certainly there have been many examples of persons who have achieved the American Dream, however, since about the Regan Presidency (1980?) the push by individuals, over-lavishly funded and having unlimited resources have pursued policies for personal benefit rather than national unity.
America has become the ”Nightmare on Main Street” by unrelentingly chasing the dollar rather than building society.
Think ….. exporting manufacturing jobs to SE Asia to benefit from lower standards of employment and lower wages. No jobs in mainland USA (United States of Apartheid) means no future for American kids.
When did the industrialists last screw the workers?? Think the democratically elected German government 1933-1945, Little Ad*lf backed by the heavy industrialists and about 30% of the German population. NOT a good look!!
NOTE – The CIA played an important role in the Dismissal of the Whitlam LABOR government in 1975 ….. and since 1945 about 80+ other political interventions in the internal politics of other countries to protect ”American interests”.
Echoing Cocky, a comprehensive take, Bert. I’d beg to differ in regard to your early statement that “the USA was either the world’s police or the protector of democracy, fighting for freedom against tyranny,”… this coinage, ‘the world’s police’… seems just too convenient, another example of language employed to hide a rat’s nest of bad behaviours, and as for ‘the protector of democracy,’ that’s such a patently false assertion when juxtaposed against the large number of democratic governments that the USA has overturned by virtue of engaging in insurrectionist behaviour and encouraging armed overthrow; Chile being the prime example, but the list (per the link) is long and no doubt extremely bloody.
‘Fighting for freedom against tyranny.’ Don’t they just love to spin that piece of bullshit? George Bush Jr. seemed to spit that out on almost a daily basis as his justification for America aggression. ‘They hate our freedom’ he’d say. No. They hate your aggression and murderousness. They hate your willingess to invade in order to steal sovereign assets. They hate your use of military forces used as a proxy to support American corporations. They hate your lying, your sense of superiority, your hubris, your lack of decent humanity.
And as for 9/11, all the current evidence, carefully considered, points at Israel as the primary protagonist in that false flag operation.
“A few weeks ago the White House hosted a conference on hunger, nutrition and health. One of the key organizers of the conference — Dariush Mozaffarian, Dean of the Tufts School of Nutrition — had just finished spending 3 years and millions of dollars designing a new food pyramid. His findings? Lucky Charms are healthier than steak. (Lucky Charms consist of multi-colored marshmallows and pieces of shaped, sugar-coated processed oats.)
Americans have a massive obesity and disease problem. Are we really not understanding why?
According to the Tufts Food Compass — which they tout as “the most comprehensive and science-based nutrient profiling system to date” — Lucky Charms are healthier than whole milk, more than twice as healthy as beef, and better for you than a baked potato or cooked green peas.”
So Bert, US imperialism may well be in its death throes from gluttony, but that would be a reflection of the entire obese nation.
@Steve Davis… /chuckling/, the empire that gorged itself into extinction. Not even ironic. The images of morbidly obese Americans waddling around, from the car park to the fast food counter and back, leaning on their Zimmer frames because their knees are shot, struggling to get in their vehicles after earlier struggling to get out, in the queue for (pick your favourite) a heart attack, type 2 diabetes, a stroke, death by heat exhaustion, colonic cancer, liver failure, functional renal failure, or at the more extreme end, alcoholic poisoning, drug overdose, suicide or murder. Kind of comforting to see that God’s got a sense of humour after all.
Yes Kanga, we have to laugh.
But what a poor intellectual state the US must be in when an idiot and liar can publish this nonsense without blushing!
It’s a sign of national decline, that must contribute to imperial decline.
Is American imperialism in its death throes?
They knew it three years ago.
Hence the unleashing of chaos.
This is from RealClearPolitics March 29, 2023.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) on Wednesday’s edition of ‘Hannity’ on FOX News warned U.S. sanctions will become impotent within the next 5 years as countries that deal with China will start using their own currency instead of the U.S. dollar.
“Just today, today, Brazil, in our hemisphere, the largest country in the Western hemisphere south of us cut a trade deal with China,” Rubio said. “They’re going to from now on do trade in their own currencies to get right around the dollar.”
“They are creating a secondary economy in the world totally independent of the United States,” Rubio continued. “We won’t have to talk about sanctions in 5 years because there will be so many countries transacting in currencies other than the dollar that we won’t have the ability to sanction them.
It’s worth watching the video, in view of the intellectual decline I mentioned above — Rubio has serious personal problems.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2023/03/29/rubio_adversaries_creating_a_secondary_economy_will_trade_in_currencies_other_than_the_dollar_to_avoid_sanctions.html
@ Steve Davis, Canguro: heheheheheheh ….. I guess my avoiding all those glossy fast food outlets down the main street has been a sensible strategy.
What makes the American situation so bizarre is that Shrubbery Bush encouraged farmers to grow more corn to increase the availability of fructose, a natural sugar that is sweeter than glucose, and preferred in the recipes of ultra-process foods that are the foundation of the American diet.
And so started the ”Obesity Plague” that is killing Americans kindly with sweetness.
From Reuters 11th Feb 2026.
WASHINGTON, Feb 10 (Reuters) – U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Tuesday that the U.S. relationship with China could be very productive and welcomed Beijing as a rival.
“The U.S.-China relationship now is in a very comfortable place. We are going to be rivals, but we want the rivalry to be fair,” Bessent said during an appearance at the BTG Pactual CEO Conference, held in Sao Paolo, Brazil. “We do not want to decouple from China, but we do need to de-risk.”
That’s the US admitting that they cannot beat China economically, and are now begging for “fairness”.
Just like they are fair with other trading partners.
It’s as though the tariff war never happened.
Maybe the US would do better if they begged for forgiveness first.
China will smile, shake hands, say nice things, and continue to keep the US begging.
As they should.
Some sectors in the US are still in denial, particularly the MSM, and will be until the US completely disintegrates.
Here’s how the NYTimes explains China’s “kill line” meme:
Why China Is Suddenly Obsessed With American Poverty
State media, embracing the gaming phrase “kill line,” is asserting China’s political superiority over the United States, deflecting focus on China’s own economic challenges.
Chinese commentators are talking a lot these days about poverty in the United States, claiming China’s superiority by appropriating an evocative phrase from video game culture.
The phrase, “kill line,” is used in gaming to mark the point where the condition of opposing players has so deteriorated that they can be killed by one shot. Now, it has become a persistent metaphor in Communist Party propaganda.
“Kill line” has been used repeatedly on social media and commentary sites, as well as news outlets linked to the state. It has gained traction in China to depict the horror of American poverty — a fatal threshold beyond which recovery to a better life becomes impossible. The phrase is used as a metaphor to encompass homelessness, debt, addiction and economic insecurity. In its official use, the “kill line” hovers over the heads of Americans but is something Chinese people don’t have to fear.
The depiction of the United States as a place where economic hardship is deep and widespread has been a go-to of official Chinese messaging for years. But the use of the “kill line” phrasing and imagery is new. The power is in the simplicity of what it describes: an abrupt threshold where misery begins and a happy life is irreversibly lost. The narrative is meant to offer China’s people emotional relief while attempting to deflect criticism of its leaders.
The worse things look across the Pacific, the logic of the propaganda goes, the more tolerable present struggles become.
It’s not a coincidence that there is a swell of these messages now. China’s economic growth is half what it once was. Youth unemployment is high. Familiar paths to security — stable jobs, rising property values, steady upward mobility — have become less predictable. For many families, the margin for error feels thinner than it once did.
You’ll notice that the NYT was unable to find any criticism of the Chinese economy that has substance.
They would have been better off to not bring attention to the matter.
Then there’s this, from elsewhere —
The U.S. military has begun accepting new F-35 Lightning II stealth fighters that are missing their most critical sensor: the radar. Since June 2025, production batches of the world’s most advanced jet have been rolling off the assembly line at Fort Worth with a simple ballast weight installed in the nose cone to keep the aircraft balanced, a stop-gap measure necessitated by chronic delays in the next-generation AN/APG-85 radar system.
https://ragex.co/defense/f35-radar-delays-ballast-weights/
This is the norm now for US weapons systems – over-complicated, over-refined, over cost, and over time. Never mind – this is the “most successful fighter plane program in the history of the world” – or something like that.
How many of these flying computer games are we buying?
Steve, you may have already seen these two stories from today’s Guardian…
We can move beyond the capitalist model and save the climate – here are the first three steps.
Economics has failed on the climate crisis. This complexity scientist has a mind-blowing plan to fix that.
Kanga, thanks for those links, great articles.
And they chime in well with this one that was linked to your second article.
Rethinking Economics, the movement changing how the subject is taught
As the fallout from the 2008 global financial crash reverberated around the world, a group of students at Harvard University in the US walked out of their introductory economics class complaining it was teaching a “specific and limited view” that perpetuated “a problematic and inefficient system of economic inequality”.
A few weeks later, on the other side of the Atlantic, economics students at Manchester University in the UK, unhappy that the rigid mathematical formulas they were being taught in the classroom bore little relation to the tumultuous economic fallout they were living through, set up a “post-crash economics society”.
These small acts of discontent found echoes in campuses around the world in the months that followed, as normally staid economics students demanded a broader and more questioning syllabus that more accurately reflected and challenged the world as it was…
The article ended with this — “It has made me realise that economics is too important to be left to economists.”
It was good to see Clara Mattei who I referred to a year or so ago, get a mention.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/feb/10/rethinking-economics-student-academic-organisation-changing-education
The evidence is slowly emerging that it will be young people who save the planet.
This is only logical when you think about it — they have the most to lose.
There’s hope for us yet.
Just found out the origin of the “kill-line” meme the Chinese use to refer to the marginalised poor in the US. (Comment at 8.58am)
The original writer of “kill line” was a Chinese doctoral student in US working in removing bodies of dead homeless people. So he wrote what he saw with his own eyes. But since that tag went viral and China started rubbing it in, pro west Chinese people dug him out and send death threats to him. He has returned to China to stay alive.
https://arnaudbertrand.substack.com/p/the-incredible-story-of-alex-forced?triedRedirect=true
Excellent and substantially accurate article, thanks Bert.
And a delightful (and informative) spread of comments.
As far as I’m concerned, America and the ‘West’ have always been corrupt, and now they are virtually beyond help, being still attached to ruinous ‘liberalism’ and a ruinous version of ‘capitalism’, which they knew – à la their militarism – oh for their joys wrought through the East India Company, the Dutch East India Company, the SS/Gestapo, and the CIA just to mention a few. All of which America clings to and excels at.
Their demise was writ large at the commencement of their colonial reach when Columbus revealed the Earth wasn’t flat – Pope Alexander VI and before him Nicholas V, not of course neglecting the adventures of Rome I, and the Greko-Roman’s quest against the Scythians and per se Gog Magog, then the Magna Carta. And to think today’s wreckers keep clinging to all that vicious bumph, all topped by the global smirch of the neo-nasty (quasi) state of Israel, and of course Holywood. It’s enough to drive one to the arms of the opiates foisted upon China by the ‘West’.
About a week or so ago, I listened to ABC RN’s ‘Minefield’ with Waleed Aly and Scott Stephens. Their session discussed the demise of the US state and its imperialism / militarism – interesting deep discussion, principally from a historical / philosophical perspective. But it really amped up when their guest Professor Brendon O’Connor joined in (see his bio at https://www.ussc.edu.au/brendon-oconnor).
A synopsis. No-one wants or can afford America to go down – all the way to hell. It’s well on its way, and is negatively effecting the entire globe. [Remember Lovelock’s proposition of the human failing in projecting time in a linear fashion, when in fact things occur in time in an exponential fashion.] – I digress.
The effect on the globe of America’s inevitable demise will be dire, but for its (scant) ability to isolate from the wicked Uncle Sam – most particularly the Trumpian now. The effects on his folk will be even worse, see the spread of the likes of ICE – their is no forgetting the Trumpian foray or turning back.
[It’s all very well for Carney’s (alternative rules-based-order) speech to the WEF achieving a standing ovation, for Macron’s manoeuvres, Starmer’s whimper, and the German foreign minister along with Rutte speaking a bravado message to the US.] To dislocate from America cannot be achieved by the wave of a wand. If nothing else, it has embedded control of the levers of the world’s institutions, and thereby, economy, and most sadly, in itself, the health of the global environment by coercion. And those levers are not easy to deactivate.
It’s not just down to the young’ns, but also the wretched and ‘dignified’ oldies. And although there may be a demonstable will, it is likely to take decades, a generation or two.
I agree entirely, and the journey will be painful. That is unless Mother Nature’s wrath does not get us all first.