Michael Parenti, The Darker Myths of Empire: Heart of Darkness Series

[Music] [Music] good evening everybody I think we'd like to get started it's great to see so many of you here especially given the the weather I know we're good Midwesterners we should be able to deal with the coal but the first coal is always the worst so thank you very much for coming my name is Jason snart I teach in the English department here at the College of DuPage and it gives me great pleasure to welcome everybody to the keynote lecture tonight part of a series of events that have been happening this fall at the college called hearts of darkness Empire into the 21st century there are a number of people I'd like to thank for making this event and the entire series possible including the office of academic affairs liberal arts the College of DuPage library Follett's College of DuPage bookstore the book across campus committee and the literature committee so the nominal focus of the series is of course Joseph Conrad's short novel heart of darkness which many of you have probably read at some point if not very recently but that is only a starting place tonight's lecture will I think bring much of what Conrad was concerned about a hundred years ago into broader contemporary focus indeed the issues of imperialism and globalization that Conrad that worried Conrad remain of pressing urgency for us today that is why we are very lucky to have one of the foremost contemporary voices on Empire and it's darker myths with us tonight Michael Parenti is an internationally known author speaker and political analyst he appears frequently on radio and television and is the author of numerous books and articles titles to his credit include his recent the culture struggle super patriotism in addition to the assassination of Julius Caesar democracy for the few and against Empire you can find these volumes at the college bookstore table set up in the back corner of the room just behind us here dr. Parenti stalk tonight will be followed by a question-and-answer session and then a book signing at the table just to my left the corner of this corner of the room but please join me in welcoming to the college of dupage dr. Michael Parenti [Music] thank you it's very nice to be here I was thinking that the title of this talk that darker myths of empire is probably a misnomer it really should be the darker truths of empire because I'm not going to talk about I am going to talk about some of the myths too and what there is is really there's an enormous disparity between what empires actually do and how they're represented in history this is what I found that empires are pretty much written about by people who live in the Imperial countries and so the the treatment of empires is rather celebratory empires are often represented at Korea as creations of peace they're even given names of peace right Pax Romana the Roman peace the Roman peace was a brutal bloody world conquest as I mentioned in more detail in a minute Pax Britannica and this even Pax Americana which was a it's been the title of at least two books one many years ago by Ronald Steele empires are often represented as bringing stability justice and prosperity to their subject people's they represented as selfish things large impersonal organizations that bring order where once there had been disorder just so you don't think I'm attacking straw men or who says that who thinks that way let me read to you from one great student of Empire he wrote a masterpiece of a multi-volume work it's called the the history of the decline in fall of Roman Empire Edward Gibbon this is what Edward Gibbon says the obedience of the Roman world was uniform voluntary and permanent the vanquished nations blended into one great people resigned they resigned the hope nay even the wish of resuming their independence the vast Roman Empire was governed by absolute power under the guidance of virtue and wisdom Yeah right that's the description he gives I mean not a word here about an empire built on shattered armies sacked towns burned crops raped women slaughtered herds enslaved prisoners of war oppressively overtaxed populations not a word about that empires are even sometimes represented as unintentional that's when it really starts to get cute the this should have been called maybe the funnier myths of empire this part of it the product of unconscious circumstance when I was when I was a youth in my salad days I used to I used to hear of I used to hear that the British Empire was put together in a fit of absent-mindedness did anybody everybody else over here that is it was an old saying used to be an old saying about the British Empire I see only some of the old-timers and nodding I'm glad that that phrase has gone out of has gone out of style Cyril Robinson a British historian he says the same thing about the Roman Empire says it about both of them his Empire and the Romans he says it was perhaps almost as true of Rome as of Great Britain that she acquired her world domination in a fit of absence of mind how how do you how do you build an empire in a fit of absence of mine how do you do that you just kind of get up and say oh let's go and let's go conquer gold today or did I say that or what the Army's doing up there no John morally English political and writer talking about the British Empire 1877 we have had imposed upon us by the unlucky prose of our ancestors the task of ruling millions of alien dependents we undertake it with a disinterestedness and execute it with a skill of administration to which history supplies no parallel yeah again I mean let's deconstruct that a minute would you I mean millions of alien dependents who made them dependents they didn't ask to be made dependents on the British they were brutally conquered by the British they were independence until the British came along you didn't inherit them you went out and got this whole thing and it wasn't undertaken with a disinterestedness and it goes on like that the u.s. to here very recently the year 2003 The Economist a a conservative British publication no author hmm empires are born in funny ways and sometimes via the law of unintended consequences by accident and so with the American Empire I mean it's really it's really interesting isn't it we hear that today also in a slightly different idiom we hear that the United States in terms of the United States we hear the United States was and that's the first one right where I found the absent-mindedness thing used again but generally there's another way of saying say the United States was was thrusted onto the world stage or after World War two we found ourselves having to take up the mantle of world leader but we just trusted into this thing they never say who did the thrust thing you know some was that the Canadians and the Mexicans kind of pushing us come on go rule the world maybe leave us alone for a while or something in fact in fact ladies and gentlemen I think a moment's reflection would tell you that empires are products of deliberate contrivance of deliberate confection planning calculation and manipulation no social order can maintain itself in the long run no social order can maintain itself without conscious human agency in fact that's why you have a state the state is the conscious human agency of coercion to maintain a particular set of interests in order which not don't necessarily always look out for our interests you know Americans have been taught have been taught I'm sorry that empires and imperialism are something that other countries do when I was in the sixth grade my teacher said to us the United States is the only advanced country that does not have colonies we do not have colonies and we look on this bit we have this big map and there'll be these of the United States and then these box inserts all around the sides they'd be Alaska Hawaii Puerto Rico Guam the Philippines I'm really dating myself these were not independent in or were they States yet in fact Puerto Rico is still gone by the US so we'd say to her miss Myers what what are these what are these blocks here what are those aren't those our colonies she said she said the United States does not have colonies it has territories or possessions so see that's the magic of words you-you-you wish away or you define a way all sorts of brutal histories and realities by just using a different word you got the administration today in Washington saying that the Geneva Convention does not apply to the people who are being held in captivity under very bad conditions at Guantanamo by the United States because they're not prisoners of war they're enemy combatants but you know enemy combatant incarcerated by your military that's the definition of a prisoner of war that's what a prisoner of war is you get the enemy's combatant and you make prisoners out of them so this use of it's interesting how terms are now just being used to wish away things in situations and this has happened with Empire as with any of these other deceptions the denial of Empire in the u.s. was made easier by the rather early innovation of what's called neo imperialism or neo colonialism imperialism is the thing that empires do so all those years when the Communists were saying the u.s. is a capitalist imperialist nation and we say oh a lot of commie rhetoric turns out it's true we are we go out and we control not we they the people who run this country go out and control other places but much of that control with the American Empire in the very early stage was neo-colonial or neo imperialist and and neo imperialism was practiced for instance with Cuba in 1905 after controlling Cuba for about seven years direct occupying their direct occupation with US troops the Americans turned around to the Cubans and said look we stole you fair and square from the span in a war which the spenders didn't even want to fight they're willing to negotiate and leave Cuba in awe but we really didn't want them to leave because then we'd have no excuse to invade you and invade the Philippines and take that from Spain and invade Porto Rico invade Guam annex the Hawaii islands all these things that we did so we stole you fair and square but it doesn't look so good we being a republic and a democracy doesn't look so good to have a colony miss miss Myers sixth grade wouldn't wouldn't wouldn't approve of it no they didn't say that but so they said we're going to give you your independence and you're going to have your own flag it's going to be red white and blue but you get only one star because you're just a little island you know and you'll have your own money you won't have to use US dollars you can use pesos or whatever you want and you and you can put your own leaders on the on your money you don't have to have George Washington where flex will flex on this you could have that you have your guar to see the Alejo will take care make sure that people stay in line and crackheads and if they can't if they can't do it that well we have a little clause here in this treaty which says the US Marines can come in any time to to clean house on you and so your own independence you can continue to speak Spanish even how's that and the only thing the only thing will or you do for us in exchange is we will continue to control your and own your tobacco industry your sugar industry and control all your imports and exports and your nickel minds and your oil refineries and all your relationships with third nations you know other nations other than us we we will have a final say and all that so you're independent enjoy go out there and enjoy so what you do is you give them the husk of independence the shell of it and you just take the substance of it that's what Neil imperialism's like now what's happened in recent years is it's become acceptable to refer to the United States as an empire when I wrote against Empire which first came out ten years ago I mean had people come up and say oh come on frente actually going over the top I mean Empire what he talked us as an empire now everything that is about twenty books out on the US Empire isn't here sorrows of empire the follies of empire the crimes of empire Empire at the crossroads Empire and crises I mean just go out everybody is using the term it's become a hot term and it's good to know I was ahead of my pack here and what's even more interesting is that the term empire has become acceptable to conservative commentators you can turn on Fox and you could hear people say things like well we're the strongest nation in the world and we have everywhere a superpower and we have every right to act like a superpower and we better act like a superpower I mean it's almost if this power gives you entitlement we're an empire and we better get used to the idea that we're an empire and and this is the kind of thing we're an empire with all the obligations and opportunities and responsibilities of Empire so what's left out again from all this history all this commentary is why empires that was another thing I found was was not is this on by the way yeah yeah I I feel I'm um there it is may have to get a little closer why do people go out and conquer other places it's usually assumed I mean you can read the whole history of the Mongol Empire you know or they you know and such an Genghis Khan came here and then they went here and they destroyed these towns and they went there and they fought that battle and they did and all these details and all through but nobody had asked well why why are they doing all this stuff is this just stuff happens again you know it's just in a fit of ferocious absent-mindedness they're at it again or what is it actually it's not conquest just for conquest sake it's not power just for powers sake it's really power just for powers sake of course individual individuals try to pursue and project their careers to get up there to get into positions of power and will sell their souls for anything but generally even they have to operate in a field of interest there are interests involved there are very real material interests at stake there's plunder and there's tribute and there are resources and markets and there's expropriating the land and the crops and the natural resources and the minerals in the wealth and the cheap labor or in the case of Rome the slave labor let me go back again and read you something else about the Roman Empire it gets wearisome to read what all the British imperialist chroniclers say about the Roman imperialist and the Roman imperialist themselves what they say so let me give you a Roman Imperial of salus writing at the time of Julius Caesar this is what he says about Rome avarice was a thing almost unknown justice and righteousness were upheld not so much by law but by natural instinct they governed by conform conferring benefits on their subjects not by intimidation that's what he said about the Roman Empire I mean it's mind boggling you know it's really rather mind is he talking about the Romans who went into Egypt and plundered and stripped that entire rich kingdom and tore up everything that ever there turned it into a granary which they plundered if you want to know why so many countries in the third world is so poor just look at the history of imperialism they weren't naturally and inevitably poor they were made poor under development was something that was imposed on them they were developing they had wealth many of them had very advanced civilizations they were forced back and plundered and impoverished going back to Rome King Mithridates when the Romans came in to his small kingdom he said the Romans have constantly had the same cause a cause for making war upon all nations peoples and kings the insatiable desire for Empire and wealth and wealth there is another word and wealth he put those together empires and wealth Caledonian chief Caledonia's area part of what we now call Scotland right Kyle Gekas Oh Calgon kiss I don't know how it's pronounced you find in the Romans and arrogance which no reasonable submission can elude brigands of the world they have exhausted the land by their indiscriminant plunder they create a desolation and call it peace our goods and money are consumed by taxation our land is stripped of its harvest to fill their greeneries now we're getting a little closer to things aren't we now we can see what it is empires are enormous ly profitable mostly for the ruling class empires are also enormous ly costly mostly for the common populace the people of Rome didn't do well on the empire's they got a grain doll and that was it they often paid the price in blood they were piled up in tenements and life and that's the truth of every Empire the Empire feeds off the resources of the Republic and that was true the Roman Empire in its days of right to the late Republic that was true the British Empire and that's true today the people pay the taxes and do without essentials so that the patricians can pursue their far-off plunder the center is bled so that the perimeter can expand Athens is the funded and starved so that Sparta can batten and grow ever more powerful we see that happening today right here in this country two hundred billion dollars being spent in Iraq we don't know we're half we're one-third the money's going the Pentagon is admitted at least one third of the money is totally unaccountable they just don't know we're talking about billions of dollars here we don't know where that money's going today I'm finally picking up the microphone oh my throat was straining there a few giant oil cartels are wreaking it in they now have control of an oil resource they don't have direct ownership they prefer to keep it in nominal ownership to the Iraqi government but they have control now of an oil reserve which at today's prices must be over five trillion dollars five trillion dollars you could say well that's an oil supply that's for US consumers we'd be without oil to heat our homes and fuel our cars he wouldn't be without oil D when the Iraqis own their own oil they were happy to to sell it to the US at market prices in fact that's what the first Gulf War was about Saddam Hussein wanted in he wanted a bigger piece of the world oil quoted and George Bush Senior was keeping him out and saying no Iraqi crude is some the best in the world is the second largest reserve in the world oil prices were very low he would glut the market prices would go down you know what happens when prices go down and oil their profits go down you know what happens when prices go up their profits go up as you can see just recently record profits by the oil companies we pay for that we pay in the taxes we paid that two hundred billion we pay every community in this country pays that I go all over this country to speaking and I pick up the papers and often looks like this I'm in the same place every time the same story every time City Council votes cuts in the budget State Legislature facing large deficit this and that school close the library's closing hospital closing lack of funding so forth so on the Empire feeds off the Republic somebody's got to pay for that they got more money than they can even count or hold accountable there in Iraq very little of it has gone to the Iraqi people the water purification plants still haven't been put into function yet after three years very few of them the electrical the electrical systems in many places neighborhoods in Baghdad would you get four hours of electricity if you're lucky so forth where is all the money going everyone's asking well for some people Empire is quite profitable don't don't ever say that George Bush's policy in Iraq isn't working it's working it's just not working for you or for me or for the Iraqis but it's working for certain interests it's working in the way that empires have always worked to say George Bush's policy isn't working is a senseless coming it's not a political coming it's not a politically defined comment so discard it because you have to say working for home whose interests cooee Bono is the Latin phrase who benefits who gets the payoff on this and just because many of our liberal commentators don't know what they're doing doesn't mean they don't know what they're doing you get it and when you think when you think those who rule you when you think those who rule the wealth and control the markets and the labor and the resources of society and set the wages and define the labor market and and control the media cultural when you think they're stupid then you're being stupid you got that okay if you learn if you learned that tonight and you learn and you don't know and if you know that and you don't know anything else you know more than if you know everything else but you don't know that so you got to really know that now empires never stand naked in their opacity they never stand naked in their violent injustice they don't turn to their people who have to pay the price of empire in taxation and the blood of our brothers and sisters and sons and daughters and fathers and mothers they don't have to pay for that but they got to tell these people something and so they give their people a host of rationales and these met this bring us to the dark of myths now I just gave you some of the darker truths here was some of them here was some of the myths that as you know are always put about in this country and elsewhere we're told that they're fighting for the security and the survival of our nation we told that were they're fighting for democracy for bringing it to others for humanitarian rescues to Phut to oppose dictators to get rid of a man like Saddam Hussein he's right there let's pause on that one a minute how many of you who have heard that that part of this was the fight to get rid of Saddam saying all of you have heard that I know how many of you have heard that it was the United States that put Saddam Hussein in power oh this is a politically literate audience but let me tell you there are millions of people out there who don't hear it and it's not their fault because you can't hear it you did not hear it on ABC NBC CBS and what's that other one I can't remember so in 1968 the Iraqis had a democratic popular revolution they overthrew the autocracy they kicked out the British and American oil companies they nationalized their oil they nationalized their economy they were developing a viable communitarian different kind of society the CIA picked out very early Saddam Hussein his first gig was an assassination when Saddam finally came to power his head of the baddest party he went out there and he exterminated every either exterminated or drove them into exile or drove them underground he exterminated every constitutionalist every Democrat every communist every progressive every reformist in Iraq and when he was doing that and he was torturing people and doing horrible things when they say this about him that's their telling the truth what they leave out is that it was the CIA that put him in there they leave out that little detail they don't tell the people that when he was doing that when he was at his worst back in the 70s and early 80s he was Washington's poster boy they couldn't get enough of him Saddam Hussein he's Pro West he's out Ally he's a pro-american they gave him aid they gave him bacteriological stuff to use against the Iranians they seeked him on the Iranians because they didn't like Iran's nationalizing their oil and all that it's when Saddam Hussein Hussein started committing economic nationalism when he got out of line on the oil prices and the oil quotas when he made it clear he wasn't going to privatize his economy when he started developing his country and committing economic nationalism as opposed to what you should do in a neo-colonial Empire in a neo-colonial Empire if you are a faithful servant of that Empire you are a comprar door leader that is you lead your people but you respond to what Washington wants you say come on in boys it's all yours take it the the natural resources the oil whatever you want how people get out of line will crack them down you just give me the egg give me the guns give me all that and I'll take care of them and you take care of me take care of my brother Jose my cousin this and that or whatever if it's Latin America of is Africa Middle East wherever it might be and there's no environmental protection laws here there's no minimum wage to worry about there's no child labor laws to worry about there's no occupational safety law you don't have any of that trouble cutting in this is capitalism working at its best this is the way the free market is meant to work none of those regulations none of those kind of things you don't have to pay your workers paid vacations you don't have to pay in pensions you don't have to worry about medical care or any of that stuff this is straight free-market all on your terms you can pay them 18 cents an hour and you'll get richer and richer it's all yours that's those are the kind of leaders who are called pro West staunch allies of the US pro-american and the ones who challenge that the ones who go against that the ones who pose an alternative way of using the land the labor the natural resources and the markets of the country those are the ones who are called anti-american anti-western anti West [Music] like Cesar Chavez or Qaddafi for a while and such what Castro it doesn't matter if they're communist or Christian socialists like the Sandinistas were in Nicaragua or or even or even right-wing militarist like Saddam Hussein in in Iraq so they tell us these things that what this is why we're there to save people to introduce them to democracy to help them teach the poor little itty-bitty apparently not very bright Iraqis self-governance teach them how to have they can govern themselves 5,000 years civilization we're going to go in and teach them some things this is the civilization that brought us writing the alphabet a lot of a lot of the early science and such very bright resourceful people but what they but they they haven't learned they haven't learned what we are going to be able to do now teach him again leaving out what leaving out the fact about the 1968 revolution and the country they were building on their own if they had been left and given an opportunity to build that country the imperialists the Empire builders also this doesn't have any projection you got you gotta stand like this with a little higher never mind blank look when it comes I know you can hear me because I'm I'm straining I'm talking without the mic I would like to be able to get the mic and this is the only this is the only are they get the saturation stuff or you get shouting to you without any amplification it's amazing you know you can some of my unfulfilled ambition is to go to a college where they've got the sound system down nobody I mean how long is how long has amplified sound been with us now about 100 years when are they going to get it so that it would be effortless or something it's working mmm you should feel what my throat is feeling now okay another thing the imperialists do is play upon our patriotic pride they you get one thing that's as often bandied about is the idea that the United States is a unique country it has a unique history you want to know something that's absolutely true it's a very unique remarkable country unique as we no other country has a history the United States has but you know that's true of almost every country they all have unique fascinating histories China Egypt Ireland France Great Britain I mean so many of them they all have all sorts of interesting histories Italy Nigeria South Africa all sorts of things all sorts of remarkable accomplishments incredible transitions horrible atrocities unusual ethnic mixes and all sorts of kinds of conflicts is fascinating the other thing we hear though when that's said about unique they say we have a unique mission and then that's introducing the idea of the Messianic nation I talk about that in my book super patriotism I think I have a chapter in that called a messianic nation and again you want to know something a lot of countries thought they were the Messianic nation you could read the the early French nationalists like Mitchell a who talked about France France being the essence France being the center of the nut not Western Europe not all of Europe but the world that an idea did not become an idea of Western culture until it got it reached Paris or something that the French had a mission to bring the Republic to other people and so forth you get it from the the early the early Slavic nationalists the Russian nationalists I just AF Sookie talking about Holy Mother Russia which had a Holy Mother Russia had a mission which was to bring all the Slavic people to unite them and bring them up elevate them to a new spiritual level away from the degeneracy and materialism that was inflicted that was infecting the West you know that kind of thing in India you had the Indian National Congress in the 19th century talking about the Aryan mission of India not just for the subcontinent but for the whole world that India was its spiritual richness would lead mankind through its troubled and and and chattered gloomy past out into a new bright vision and future and this is what India will do if we could unite and all get together and develop our national consciousness and then be an example to not only ourselves but to the whole world and a power and a force for this sort of thing you can go back um oh well the Roman Empire the British Empire go back to the old testament read about the chosen people the chosen people doing God's work on earth that's the one of the earliest messianic nations that we have actual literate script about and all that Italy the the Italian nationalists like Joubert Ian who talked about the Italians as being the new chosen people or even more so more prominently Giuseppe Mazzini Mycenae would might Seanie to talked about Italy having led the world twice before in ancient Rome and then with the Vatican it through Christendom for a thousand years and now an Italian Republic will will emerge and it will bring democracy and peace and all this stuff it was a pretty benign message he had but it still was a messianic nation what the hell is this guy talking about the average Italian peasant was was trying to keep body and soul together and was not about to lead the entire world to new enlightenment the German nationalists like troika and fifth the same kind of thing that Germany marked with power which develop its power and weld the world together and and bring order and a little harsher and but develop it and and be in finally a benign benign force so Americans are very in thinking that we are an exceptional people we're very unexceptional that thought I mean it's a very unexceptional thought there are many others who have had the same thought believe it or not now rulers do not only play upon our messianic and patriotic pride they play even more decisively on our fear that becomes a big thing I remember a very quiet but dramatic moment of it I think I was the only person who seemed to notice it back in in 1990 George Bush Senior wanted a war against Iraq Saddam Hussein it not only didn't done all these things but then went in and took over Kuwait because the Kuwait ease was slant drilling under the ramallah oil fields and siphoning off iraqi oil he kept telling him to stop stop if he was smart what he should have done was just gone and just taking that portion of the border instead he conquers the whole country giving the u.s. a tailor-made excuse for going in still as of November of 90 the polls showed that Americans supported diplomatic and negotiated withdrawal of Saddam Hussein from Kuwait they did not rather I mean I'm talking about 7080 percent preferred a negotiated settlement and in fact the French and Russians were pursuing just such a settlement with Iraq get your troops out of Kuwait avoid getting attacked the Americans are really annoyed This American leaders are the American people weren't they didn't want to start sending troops over we're Kuwait where the hell is that they couldn't even found it on the map and you want us to send our men and women over to get killed there so they said no we would rather have a negotiated settlement and withdrawal rather than sending US troops in November of 90 was taken and it said if if it's shown that Saddam Hussein has nuclear weapons the term weapons of mass destruction had not yet quite come into vogue the poll said nuclear weapons which is of one weapon of mass destruction said if he has them would you support US military action against him and then the Pope playing now not on your patriotic right not on your sense of fair play not on your sense of wanting to issue extreme cost in blood and money and wanting to pay more attention to problems at home getting around those things in fact defeating defeating that last one by playing on your fear and the polls reversed 70% of the people said they would support I was watching the polls very closely at that time and after that the bush senior administration was hitting that line that he has a nuclear weapons he is worse than Hitler he can blow up all of Europe and and Israel and us too and blah blah and so it went and so you play upon their fear let me let me I'm gonna read you just two things and then I'm going to stop because I've been talking too long yes there should be vigorous shaking of the head but no one's doing that okay so the first is by John Foster Dulles John Foster Dulles was a member of very rich and powerful New York law firm both he and his brother Alan Delos were in it Allen Dulles later became head of the CIA John Foster Dulles became Secretary of State under Dwight Eisenhower later on he wrote in his memoirs I know these guys always sound better when they come out of power than when they're in power did something happen look at Jimmy Carter they did a whole bunch of them they they have much improved when they come out of power it really is better in this case he sounds pretty terrible but I mean he's more honest this is what he wrote he gives us a moment of truth about the empires falsehood and manipulation quote in order to bring a nation to support the burdens of maintaining great military establishments it is necessary to create an emotional state akin to war psychology there must be the portrayal of external Menace listen let me repeat that sentence there must be the portrayal of external Menace you get that get the words words of very powerful instruments the words are using constantly to cloak but if you can if you look at them closely they reveal a little more than they intend it's not there must be an external Menace he says there must be the portrayal of an external Menace we must put this image in the minds of the public this involves Dulles continues the development to a high degree of the hero nation and the villain nation ideology and the arousing of the population to a sense of sacrifice once these exist we have gone a long way on the path to war goodie goodie goodie you see all nations all nations to some extent to some experiencing Spence but all nations to some extent rely on public opinion all nations need the support or at least the acquisition or acquiescence I mean and the resignation of the population so that could be a supporting population a grudgingly supporting population and intimidated population whatever else but they cannot function if that if that population begins to develop a counter consciousness and begins to mobilize and move and and go in a different direction so don't don't for a moment think they don't care what we think oh they don't care what we think they just go do oh boy do they care everything they do everything they do every trip that George Bush is making every speech he's making now is because he cares what you think every answer he's given and every justification all that they care because they know they know that their power rests on your shoulders on your taxpaying shoulders I'm gonna read you one last quote then I'm gonna stop because my voice is given given away here this is by if I can find it this is by a guy named Tom Watson Tom Watson was a governor of Georgia and then a senator u.s. senator from Georgia he wasn't a Democrat or a Republican he was a populist this was back in the late 19th century when the populist party had half they control about four or five governorships and maybe had about four or five members in the US Senate and maybe a couple of dozen in the House of Representatives they were emerging as a power especially in the south and the west and their fight was against Wall Street and the big-money interests and the industrialists and all that sort of thing watson later career took of very unfortunate turn anti-semitic racist of course Georgia at this time in life but this is 1898 now 1898 was a rather interesting time this is when the US has embarked upon this this other great humanitarian crusade called the spanish-american war where McKinley said we have to fight this war because we have to save the poor Cubans from the Spaniards and what was McKinley's first act of war does anybody know here it really stunned a lot of people he took a US Army and a u.s. fleet and he went thousands of miles across the Pacific and he invaded and conquered in what turned out to be about a six or seven year bloody war the Philippines because they were rich because that set up the Pacific Empire of the US and that had been their goal all along to get into the plunder of this to find the new markets and the new resources for that top one or two percent of the investing class and the Springfield Republican a newspaper that had supported McKinley and the war and half the American population that had supported this more than half they were all going crazy let's go in and save those poor Cubans let's whip the Spaniards the supreme field Republican wrote an editorial saying hey what's this war all about we thought it was to liberate the Cubans and where the hell are going all the way in the Philippines well it wasn't it was to build this Empire well this is what Tom Watson has to say about this shut off your eye shut off your and your cell phones please and this is what Watson has to say the Spanish war has finished us the blare of the bugle drowned the voice of the reformer when the war was still in progress yeah this who gets the benefit of the war cooee bono who benefits the bond seekers the capitalists the railroads national bankers will profit by this war the new bonds give them the basis for new banks and their power is prolonged the privileged class is all profit by this war it takes the attention of the people of economic issues and perpetuates the unjust system they have put upon us politicians profit by the war it buries issues they dare not meet what do the people get out of this war the fighting and the taxes what is the United States doing in this war with Spain in the first place true Spain is oppressing Cuba but so is England oppressing Ireland Egypt and India France is oppressing Siam and Madagascar this is 1898 turkey is oppressing Armenia should we then take up arms against the oppressors of the world we would more likely end up by becoming oppressors ourselves the Spaniards and Cubans were bushwhacking one another and killing from three to five men at a battle we have gone down there and killed more people in three months than they would have killed in 13 years if they were starving before who feeds them now what are we going to get out of this war as a nation endless trouble complications expense republics can't go into the conquering business and remain republics militarism leads to military domination military despotism imperialism smooths the way for the Emperor and as you know inside every US president there's an emperor that's trying to get out and our job is to stuff that Emperor right back down into his Gazoo thank you very much [Applause] we have to sit here even stand if you like well I think we would like to do a Q&A although we have microphones set up along the aisles that you can see we're recording tonight so if you do have a question please come to the microphone and and do it that way and I didn't bite anybody with a question to come forward if you if you have a comment or question given that the US is borrowing two billion dollars a day keep this empire going do you ever see us running out of money you mean the rulers running out of money well that's the goal the goal is to run out of a lot of money Bush is building up this massive deficit see it's not true that the Conservatives are fiscally very conservative and they don't and the Liberals are the big spendthrift and all that sort of thing it was the Democrats who balanced the budget under Clinton I'd say one thing for him that he did balance the budget for three years he produced the surplus budget surplus of 300 billion which in one year Bush turned around when Reagan came into office the national debt was 800 billion dollars when Reagan left office it was two and a half trillion dollars when Bush senior came into office it went from two and a half trillion to almost four trillion and now this guy's got the national debt up up close to seven trillion now that's very functional what he's doing is borrowing money from the people it should be taxi he's cutting the taxes of the rich and then he's borrowing from them a national debt like that is an upward redistribution of income we have to pay for that debt that seven trillion dollars belongs to us you see every year this government has been running a deficit what's a deficit a deficit is when the government spends more money than it takes in in taxes how can it do that it does that by turning around and borrowing money to make up the difference to pay the deficit but we'll just borrow from it borrows from rich bankers big rich foreign investors and others a small a portion of that small portion of that comes from the people themselves if you buy savings bonds or something you you got a little piece a tiny little piece of this enormous debt who has to pay that debt America the the national debt is the accumulation of these yearly deficits that's what the debt is so what you're getting is this enormous debt that we working people owe to the rich creditors it's an upward redistribution to them the other function of that enormous debt is that it turn it becomes an excuse for not having to have a big public sector you can cut human services he's already saying that we've got a cut we got a cut because we have such a big deficit I want to reduce the deficit he's already cutting fifty billion dollars from from luxury from stupid luxury things like infant feeding programs and disability insurance and and things like that you know frills that we don't really need certainly he and members of his class don't need those things so they don't care that that where we're going and we're spending in spending money that's one of the goals well generally the people who ask what's your solution are what can we do aren't doing very much but some people aren't doing a lot and and they still ask and when they ask it means what can we do that could be effective well I think everything we do is effective organizing educating agitating creating a new climate of opinion and then impacting that opinion on the decision-makers you see some of those changes happening right now and and opinions don't just change automatically you have to mobilize and give visibility to them and the like so that's so that's what I would say you have to also engage in direct actions making yourself visible those are the things I do I write letters I go on demonstrations I've been arrested and then of course all my writing and all my speaking too so that's what I would say those are the things you have to do yeah by me yeah I've been hoping that there would be a tax resistance movement I joined that well was a group of 200 thousand it was going to be called it with a pic 200,000 tax resisters and if we all were all refused to file on the same year there'd be too many of us for them to stop or something like that but I never heard anything more I guess it never took off tax resistance if there was a way you could do that and and stay out of jail or at least make it a mass a mass resistance movement that could change that could change an awful lot yeah or it would have it would have an impact one of the things you have to fight for is honest elections he stole the 2004 election again I mean the evidence is overwhelming forget forget 2000 Florida was nothing this past election in Ohio and Florida and New Mexico and Nevada every every single County where they had default machines were carried by Bush over Kerry Kerry lost every single County where the DeBolt machines win and the only thing it correlated with not with race or party or background or income it the only correlated with was the existence of the debulk machines and these different places they are now privatizing the vote casting and vote counting system it's the end of democracy so there's that fight going on I mean what what can we do what should we do there's no there's no limit to the kinds of issues you can get engaged in there's so many of them yeah why in your opinion is the American public not angrier about things like stolen elections but maybe even more about the upward transfer of wealth the fact that they see that their jobs are being outsourced that they're that they're not getting their fair share that there's no national health care that public services are cut I don't see enough angry if I lost my job I and I couldn't feed my family or if I had a medical emergency and I couldn't pay for medical gear I would be angry as hell why isn't the American public angrier well you know the people who are empowered do control the universe of discourse I mean the control most of the media and it's remarkable that the few little things that get out the critical things to get out now do get out and people I think what you often get is people can't connect the dots they don't they see that they may complain about it but they don't blame it on George Bush George Bush is saving us from this horrible menace in Iraq and we should be supporting him and and regardless what you think of the war whatever you think of the war our boys are there now in Iraq and and our boys and girls and because of the 2000 so who have been killed there's been about 15 women about 45 to 50 women there there we got to give them our support you know so that those are the kind of things you get and sometimes they are some of the more seen things I mean look his popularity and approval rating has dropped to 38 percent a lot of times people don't do anything because they don't know what to do that's that's why the the existence of a organized movement that's why unions are very important because unions do reach working people in a way that all the other organizations that we build on don't quite reach them and can educate them on these very issues and that's why Union members have a better voting record than non-union you know but also you know all the other reasons I can't go through the whole map of political manipulation now but the powers that be also conjure up other issues that distract people that divide them there's the problem of race you know there are portions of this population that have never accepted the civil rights movement the portions of this population that have never accepted the counterculture movement including legal abortion women's rights there's that all and stuff and those portions together are being led by a very tiny fraction of this population that has never accepted the New Deal and wants to get us back to 1900 so they're playing on the airplane on things about abortion and gay marriage and gay marriage that was like throwing me to them they they said they must have I mean when did it come when did that when did that issue break it broke in the fall of 2004 nice timing guys I mean they must have felt in their knees and say lord thank you lord you've given us red meat I mean the votes they could get on that one I hope but what's happening to happen in 2008 will will it be man-boy love with look that'll be thrown out to see how many you can divide there and win well that I don't compare that with with gay marriage which i think is legitimate right so so there are these issues which do provoke false consciousness appeals to patriotism unblinking unthinking knee-jerk patriotism which I wrote about in super patriotism and yet despite all that occasion you know people still do I remember my dad who became a disillusioned Reagan Democrat he he used to live and die by the Democratic Party and then he started voted for Ronald Reagan I said what the hell he voted for Ronald Reagan for and no death penalty and crime he retired he started watching TV and he watched all these crimes show sudden he became he became frightened about crime all the time we lived in a safer we used to live we were born I was born and raised in East Harlem in Harlem who was called very tough very tough neighborhood in New York City you probably could hear a little just a slightest touch of New York in my accent but that was a safe neighborhood though nobody messed with us I mean and they're always old ladies sitting on the windowsill and the streets could see everybody know everything and then he moved up to Clausen Point and his Archie Bunker kind of place which was really almost semi suburbia is nothing and he started getting afraid that they will hordes of urban gangs about to descend on because he's watching all this television and and and even he after about a year and a half of Regan he said this guy Reagan is only for one group he's not for the rest of us so somehow he picked it up I mean he began to pick up you know how many times can give tax cuts to the very rich without people beginning to say I don't know if you're really looking out for me here when you think of what our taxes are I mean the taxes we pay is just outrageous I mean my income isn't that high but I when I look it's probably my single biggest tax item you know I have to pay I have a little I have a little house in California well I'm so glad you can let me tell you my truth it's a two-bedroom cottage and I have to pay about four thousand dollars a year for property taxes why that hurts you know that's a lot and then a guy crossed the street with with proposition 13 he has his mansion thing with all sorts of upstairs rooms well he pays less than half of what I paid because he owned his house when proposition 13 came in it's a it's a two-tier so there is terrible tax oppressions all over the place so people do be people have those gripes and they have a semi awareness of it but the thing of putting it together and directing it toward actual issues and and and describing it and being able to detect the lies that they're telling us and how they manipulate what are called cultural issues or identity issues to get you not to look at your own straight bread-and-butter economic issues that that's a job that that that I try to do which I don't do very well cos I write books about it well who the hell in America reads books right it's ridiculous I go on radio shows and do a lot of that too yes you touched upon the corruptibility the corruption of the election system I wanted to just put in a plug for a program going on tomorrow night sponsored by two leagues of Women Voters that's going to go into that issue in depth at Lincoln Center on Maple Avenue [Music] 935 Maple Avenue in Downers Grove at 7:30 tomorrow will your vote count it's a free program and we'll go in-depth into the control that has already been exerted to put people in office who probably haven't been elected but let me turn this into a question for you could I add on that there's a very good study done by Bob for Tarkus or for trackers the trick is right Bob Bob for trackers and harvey wasserman i talked about that it's a very good study on the under 2004 election way where they show all these things the suppression suppression of votes and the miscounting and and the touch screen scandals know it so you could you could google them and you you can see some of the stuff they've got some of that up on the net I'm sorry go ahead yeah there was something else you wanted to say wasn't there something more how can we break into this there some people like me think that if we have independent double counts one of which should be by hand and so that we have the dual tabulations that we will be able to cut through manipulation which is going on now do you think that will work and what else can be done yes as long as the paper doesn't go home with the voter there are some idiots who are going around talking about yes like an ATM machine just give the voter papers to verify and then how are you ever gonna get a recount that way you're gonna call everybody come back with your pieces of paper we might put money that's ridiculous and also when the when the voter does produce that paper you see because the defaults you set up can give you a phony numbers on the machine and they give you phony paper ballots too so every the voter has to verify that what he just pressed he or she just pressed on the screen is what comes up on this piece of paper also and then that paper goes into a better way than that is just to have paper ballots go back to that yeah it's the only solution really and there's all this whole thing about recount I wish people would stop talking about the right to recount and when the paper for recount recount I just want to lease a piece about it she's been she's putting on on the internet talking about recounts I said Lisa why are you talking about recounts you never get a recount even if you do get paper trail you can't get recounts most states you there's no way you get Auriga who does recounts it cost tens of thousands of dollars and you have to lose within one or two percentage points it varies from state some one state to another in the states that do allow for recounts some don't even have it written into law so so if they're gonna if they're gonna mess with the numbers they're going to have their boy win by more than 1 1 or 2 percent so it's not recount its count it's the honest first count of it that you got system would you stand up would you stand up we just denim talk to people in and that could be done very easily by one person you don't need you don't need a team of manipulators which could get risky if you've got seven or eight guys you know one of them might get a little disillusioned and squeal with something you could just have one person do it and that certainly seems to be what's happened because it didn't correlate with anything it didn't correlate with the exit polls this is what Petraeus says I got a name right this was for trackers and wants Minh pointed out that those that stuff about early they weren't early exit polls they had exit polls all day long all day long right to the end and they showed that Kerry was winning by 53 to 48 percent or something like that 53 to 47 percent or 46 point something and and and that that carried all the way through he won that election rather substantially and in fact and an exit polls are very accurate you see there's a three to four percent margin of error on an opinion poll that's if you go do a sampling right now if you went out and rang doorbells or use the phone and all that you can get that kind of margin of error at least but with an exit poll that the closer you get to the actual act of voting the more accurate is your prediction of what the returns are going to be I learned that that was that was my PhD on I studied at Yale University under Robert professor Robert Lane we learned that stuff when when McPherson did his studies predicting elections but on the basis of socio-economic level religion and locale you got one level of prediction when berelson came along closer to the actual voting act he did he did party affiliation candidate preference and issues how they stood in issues this give you of course a better prediction because you're getting closer and you're narrowing it to the actual things well the exit poll actually brings it right to voters only who just come out a minute ago and so the margin of error is less than one I mean you'll get one and you know somebody will say none of your business I don't want to tell you so there might be a slightest distortion but but it's impossible to have gotten a seven percent error like that that never happened in exit polls now there are people who want to abolish the exit polls you see saying oh they're all there's no function what are they they interfere with they interfere with the system or they made up all sorts of funny explanations they said well the bush voters were were a little embarrassed about voting for Bush so they didn't they didn't say it they were ashamed and said or the Kerry voters came earlier and they were more outspoken and that they voted earlier that's not true by the way the Democratic vote in a lot of communities that I've worked in democratic vote really gathers strength and momentum after six o'clock seven o'clock that's when all the people come home from work and they only got about an hour left before the polls close there's all sorts of things we have to do with the electoral system like not have it on a work day have it on a weekend have it for two days you know have on-site registration they're going in the opposite direction now about requiring photo identification of course that's a way of eliminating the elderly the poor Latino minorities where our immigrant minorities and such who may be citizens and and and by now and all that but still unhappy so we're getting I'm sorry I'm going on too long about that one question can we make these three people the very last three is that of for what you what what do you what are you saying okay these let these four people yeah can you recall any historical or modern example of a successful anti-imperialist movement what do you mean by successful one that would produce some sort of significant measurable results or at least organize a large bronze well of public support well in the Vietnam movement it took years and lots of casualties and such but it did have a tremendous impact whether was successful by certain standards I know it didn't really stop the war the war was really stopped by the heroism and endurance of the Vietnamese people but they took heart at the at the resistance that was going on in the u.s. to the war and in a number of cases the aftermath of war is revolution or upheaval and change there have been a lot of anti-colonial movements in africa and asia and latin america that that have led to at least nominal independence and some some modicum of independence in the anti-slavery movement was an anti is an anti-imperialist movement you can go on like that but but everything very imperfectly I don't know if you could use the word success because you still have about twenty five million people today in indentured slavery of one kind or another I'm given that you have certain groups that feel dispirited or discredited can you identify a class or group of people that should or could sponsor the majority the bulk of the burden and make the biggest impact and if so how they could sponsor what I didn't hear what you say that could basically show to show that the burden of getting up this agenda and making an actual change you've mentioned earlier that we can educate people mobilize people and such I know I couldn't point to any one group there there are people in all sorts of groups that are doing that kind of thing that are providing me they are members of the african-american community who have brought forth any number of leaders like John Conyers and Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton and others I'm saying who are people who are mobilizing logic and situations not just civil rights or anything like that you have people in the labor union movements you have people all sorts of places oh it's very disheartening to see that kind of thing is to see France inherit the legacy of poverty of its own imperialism in Morocco and such and all that what Europe is now getting is is getting all sorts of work to see the European working-class has made certain gains so now there are all these desperately poor people from various places the Commonwealth and Britain or Africa and places like that North Africa going into your turkey going into Germany and such looking for jobs because there were markets there were certain kinds of jobs that they could do that were the worst jobs and they would take them because of course they're more oppressed and desperate and they need the jobs at the same time they run into the kind of social discrimination and this sort of thing and then that leads to violence and and the like I did not I did not go Yahoo a jihad or the revolution is starting your friends I didn't see it that way I think it's a thing it's a mess and it's it's due to discrimination and it's due to an internal colonialism that's another mode of colonialism and to talk about where you take populations and you bring them to the imperial country itself and you work them there the Spartans did that you know with the helots and brought him in and made them their slaves and such we had that year didn't we with that with the african-american population for four generations you know well I very much appreciated your talk here tonight and I agree with the stress that you laid on the fact that the imperialist policies are inimical to the vast majority of people in the United States but the question I would and that the support that those policies get is really a matter of false consciousness but the question I would like to pose is and you know some of the classic writings about imperialism there is this concept that a certain segment of the population is bought off of labor aristocracy and all that to what extent do you think that is still at work to what extent is there still some materials support for Imperial policies I think there's been classic differentiation in the african-american community for example well I guess it would the most the most I might be might be in the military industries where big military budgets suit the the career and job aspirations and salary aspirations of people who work there they those people might I don't know is there must be some voting studies that show whether or not workers who work for Boeing and hmm and General Motors and all those other military-industrial things whether or not they are more hawkish than others I don't know the people who benefit if one Zeiss I talked about which is the investing class and owning class and their you're talking about a fraction of one percent you're talking about a very small fraction they benefit in a lot of ways they benefit whenever you can suppress people abroad you also suppress your own working class if I can turn to you and say you know you're getting you're getting $15 an hour plus benefits Plus this Plus that I can I can take your job and bring it in Tunisia where I could pay fifteen cents an hour and that's what Nike has done Nike is closed every one of their factories in America and they brought them over there so so that imperialism also victimizes the working people of your own country because we can the historical gains that we have won to get our salaries up to a decent level are now being undermined by exporting those jobs to other countries or by bringing the population the desperate impoverished populations from those countries here and forcing them to work and they're illegal and they can't even unionize they can't complain they have grievances but they know if they complain they'll be deported tomorrow morning and so hmm so imperialism does I think it benefits really a very small portion of the population I really I really think it's mostly false consciousness when people support the wars it's not because they've got some vested interest that getting treated so well materially I don't think that's that's true okay thank you very much [Applause]

Channel: College of DuPage

Views: 401,777

Rating: 4.8175974 out of 5

Keywords: Yt:quality=high, Illinois, Chicago, COD, College of DuPage, Yt:Crop=16x9, 2013 COD College of DuPage Glen Ellyn Illinois Chicago Western Suburbs Yt:Crop=16x9 Yt:quality=high, Glen Ellyn, Western Suburbs

Id: OOF56wYTl1w

Length: 83min 1sec (4981 seconds)

Published: Fri May 11 2012