Alternative Visions – The U.S. Empire-Growing Stronger or Weaker – 07/26/14

 ‘Dr. Jack Rasmus welcomes guests, Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, to discuss whether the US Empire today is growing weaker or stronger (or both). Jack provides background on the dimensions of US Empire today—economically, politically, and military—explaining how the US rules globally differently today than classical empires of the past. The US Empire’s network of multinational corporations, global economic institutions (IMF, World Bank, $ as world currency, G7, central bankers, shadow banks, etc.), political institutions (UN Security council, , and military alliances (NATO, US-Japan, US-Israel, etc.) and the US’s 1000+ military bases and outposts around the world are described, as well as more recent US development of new methods of surveillance, security apparatuses, and technologies for protest and crowd control. Guests Zeese & Flowers argue the US Empire’s increasing aggressiveness and violence in recent decades are indications of its growing weakness, not strength, as challenges to it mount worldwide. Events today in the Ukraine, Middle East, and Asia are discussed as points of resistance to empire outside the US. Recent events by China and the BRICS to establish a new ‘global development bank’ and bypass the US dollar in trade, as well as events in Latin America, are also noted as examples of growing resistance to Empire. The impact of Empire on the deterioration of USA democracy and 1st amendment rights at home are also addressed by Zeese & Flowers, who identify points of resistance to Empire growing within the US.   

For more information concerning US based resistance to Empire, listeners are referred to the websites: popularresistance.org, rolllingrebellion.org, and to Zeeze & Flowers’ latest article on the Alternet.org blog, ‘Why Resistance is Growing to the US Empire’.  

Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers are hosts of ‘Clearing the Fog’ radio (ClearingtheFogRadio.org) , members of the Green Shadow Cabinet (greenshadowcabinet.org), long time Washington DC area activists in the Occupy movement, and organizers of the blogs, Resistance.Org and ItsOurEconomy.US, that report on grass roots movements of resistance and opposition to attacks on democracy and inequality trends in the USA today.