The Face of Imperialism

Paradigm Publishers, 2011 http://www.michaelparenti.org/the_face_of_imperialism.html "A searing indictment of the ruthless nature of imperial capitalism. Eloquent, deeply researched, and beautifully argued, The Face of Imperialism is a truly wonderful book that is essential for understanding the world we live in. Parenti's compassionate voice is a much-needed corrective to the lies we are routinely fed." —Gregory Elich, author of  Strange Liberators: Militarism, Mayhem, and the Pursuit of Profit "Michael Parenti's study of imperialism provides a timely and incisive framework for understanding the upheavals in North Africa and the Middle East. His analysis of the links between autocrats and Washington is essential to comprehend the powerful tide of hostility that informs the popular revolutions." —James Petras, Bartle Professor Emeritus, Binghamton University "Parenti's new book, The Face of Imperialism, is by far the best and boldest of all his formidable work. It meticulously exposes the disastrous consequences of the greed of multinational (mostly U.S.) corporations, and it documents how and why they control our government, which claims to foster democracy but systematically supports the dictatorships that cater to the profit motives of those corporations." —John Gerassi, Queens College and the Graduate Center of CUNY and author ofGreat Fear in Latin America and Talking with Sartre: Conversations and Debates In the last half-century we have witnessed a dramatic expansion of American corporate power into every corner of the world, accompanied by an equally awesome growth in U.S. military power. These phenomena are often treated as independent developments. Here, Michael Parenti brings them together in a sharp critique aimed as much at errant liberals and certain Marxists as at the dominant political actors who have perpetrated the imperial lie. Parenti adds shocking new evidence to the litany of injustices visited upon victims of U.S. imperialism: expropriation of their communal wealth and natural resources, complete privatization and deregulation of their economies, loss of local markets, deterioration of their living standards, a growing debt burden, and the bloodstained suppression of their democratic movements. Just as compelling is Parenti's convincing case that the empire feeds off the republic. He shows how the richly financed corporate-military complex is matched at home by increasing poverty, the defunding of state and local governments, drastic cutbacks in human services, decaying infrastructure, and impending ecological disaster. In this brilliant new book, Michael Parenti redefines empire and imperialism to connect the current crisis in America to its own bad behavior worldwide. The Face of Imperialism makes clear that:   The purpose of the U.S. global empire is not the pursuit of power for power's sake but power to fashion the world into a corporate dominated global free-market. There is a politico-economic content behind the pursuit of imperial power. U.S. foreign policy is neither inept nor misguided. Rather, it is largely successful in serving the interests of transnational corporate America. This process of global expropriation by the superrich —often involving the use of force and violence— is what is known as imperialism. Third World poverty is not a product of  "underdevelopment"  but of overexploitation and mal-development. The drastic development of climate change is not a thing of the next generation or end of the century. Catastrophic changes are happening now. For us to survive we must roll back the empire, develop sustainable energy, and rid ourselves of the profit pathology. Table of Contents Thinking about Empire  Orthodoxy as "Objectivity"  The Myth of Innocent Empires  Not Just "Power for Powerís Sake"  Instrumental "Truths" and the Dominant Paradigm  The Omnipresent Arsenal An Expensive Parasite Cui Bono?  Global Military Dominance  After the Red Menace  Why US Rulers Seek Global Dominion  Determining Intent  Bolstering the Right-wing Autocrats  Suppressing the Leftist Rebels and Reformers  Enemies without End  Deliberate Design  The Third Worldization of Eastern Europe  Other Rollbacks  Underlying Consistencies  When the Truth Slips Out  Secrecy and "Innocent Incompetence"  Anything Except Moneyed Interests  How Moneyed Interests Create Poor Nations  "Only Themselves To Blame"  Wiping Out the Locals  Phony Aid It Works Well for Somebody  Globalization for the Few  Introducing Globalization  Privatizing Nature  Free Trade vs. Public Service  Spreading Poverty  Bending the Rules  Some Confused Marxists  Free Market Servitude  Impunity for The Oligarchs  Free Market Pauperism  The Global Sweatshop  Destroying Self Development  When Life Is Unregulatedóand Cheap  Another Free Market Disaster  Target Cuba  The Enemy Offshore  Aggressing against the "Communist Aggressors"  Nonfalsifiable Hostility  One-way Freedom  Consistent Inconsistencies  Satellites or Enemies  Yugoslavia: Privatization by Bombing  Iraq: Regime Change the Hard Way  North Korea: "Sanity" at the Brink  Iran: Evil Threat du Jour  Venezuela: The Threat of Socialistic Reformism  Rogue Imperium  A Successful Empire  Above International Law  Two-Party Imperialism  Bleeding the Republic  The Collapse of Empire?  Thinking Outside the Paradigm