Noun:
1) An extensive group of states or countries ruled over by a single monarch, an oligarchy, or a sovereign state.
in names ‘the Roman Empire’
1.1) A mass noun: Supreme political power over several countries when exercised by a single authority.
‘he encouraged the Greeks in their dream of empire in Asia Minor’
...
1.2) An archaic mass noun: Absolute control over a person or group.
2A) A large commercial organization owned or controlled by one person, group or state.
‘her business empire grew’
2.1) An extensive sphere of activity controlled by one person, group or state.
‘each ministry, each department had its own empire, its own agenda and worked to protect its turf’
Is Modern-Day America an empire or not? I say yes. Others say adamantly no. Let's hash this out.
The definitions of empire according to the Oxford English Dictionary are:
Given those definitions and providing supporting proof can you answer the question to the satisfaction of others here?
Cheers.
Evilroddy.
'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors...and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do'.
---Karl Rove
Liberation is not imperialism.
Is Modern-Day America an empire or not? I say yes. Others say adamantly no. Let's hash this out.
.
ecofarm:
No one said it was, but is America an empire? Make a case.
Cheers.
Evilroddy.
Puerto Rico and Guam are our empire.
If Puerto Rico becomes a state, that leaves just Guam.
It's a modest empire at best.
Liberation is not imperialism.
We regularly establish military dictatorships, my dude. Maybe we've been more interested in simply installing power vacuums in the last few years, but very few of the places we intervene in militarily end up more prosperous and free. Our best success in living memory is basically South Korea, which was basically just juche with capitalist characteristics for a decent part of the late 20th century.
Our enemies in war become democracies and experience, for the first time (except Germany), self determination. That's not imperialism. Imperialism is the opposite of self determination. Empire and liberator are antonyms.
Their association is at their request. Not imperial.
Mhm. So how's that worked out for all the burgeoning democratic revolutions we've quashed in South/Central America? Are our allies like Saudi Arabia getting more democratic?
That is false. Both Puerto Rico and Guam's indigenous populations were ignored when Spain ceded PR to America and when America liberated Guam from Japanese military rule. In PR the people supported a Bolivarian liberation movement and in Guam the local assembly was so angry with US Navy rule that they walked out on mass and the assembly was dissolved by the US authorities who then absorbed Guam as an organised territory of the USA against the will of the people of Guam.
So in these two cases liberation was imperialism.
Cheers.
Evilroddy.
For most of the 20th Century, US foreign policy against violent neighbor-invading belligerents was stagnation via destabilization. That provided white noise everywhere and allowed us to develop relatively unfettered. But that didn't work out. The chaos out there started affecting the Western world and even the US. So, the US changed policy to something much better and much more ethical. Policy for some time has been nation building. Some people don't like it, but leaving behind chaos didn't work in the long run.
The US and the Western world, to include all legitimate democracies (I'm looking at you, Russia), are liberators and not empires. Self determination is not an imposition. Nations are sovereign, not regimes.
What about the nations that weren't being belligerent to their neighbors? The governments in Iran and El Salvador, for example, were democratically elected, and were not showing any hostility to their neighbors. Additionally, most of our nation building efforts have been fairly miserable failures (albeit ongoing ones) that have resulted in unpopular governments with unstable militaries, and the proliferation of radical Islamist sects. We've literally caused a net increase in terrorists.
What about the nations that weren't being belligerent to their neighbors? The governments in Iran and El Salvador, for example, were democratically elected, and were not showing any hostility to their neighbors. Additionally, most of our nation building efforts have been fairly miserable failures (albeit ongoing ones) that have resulted in unpopular governments with unstable militaries, and the proliferation of radical Islamist sects. We've literally caused a net increase in terrorists.
50 years ago... Democratically elected? The US did plenty of what I'd consider bad stuff, but let's not put everything on the democracy.
70 women elected to provincial office in Afghanistan.
You missed it. They held a vote.
Is Modern-Day America an empire or not? I say yes. Others say adamantly no. Let's hash this out.
The definitions of empire according to the Oxford English Dictionary are:
Given those definitions and providing supporting proof can you answer the question to the satisfaction of others here?
Cheers.
Evilroddy.
Not to mention Bolivia, and Chile, among many others; peaceful democratic countries whose only crime happened to be a left ward shift in governance thought incompatible with American economic interests or influence.
Oh yeah, Bolivia, where that psychotic thug Che bit it. Yeah, as it turned out they weren’t real interested in Revolution. As for Allende, the Mitrokhin Archive lets us know that he was actively working with the KGB.
The U.S. government supported the 1971 coup led by General Hugo Banzer that toppled President Juan José Torres of Bolivia.[189][190] Torres had displeased Washington by convening an "Asamblea del Pueblo" (People's Assembly or Popular Assembly), in which representatives of specific proletarian sectors of society were represented (miners, unionized teachers, students, peasants), and more generally by leading the country in what was perceived as a left wing direction. [/B]
Just to be clear as to what I'm talking about: United States involvement in regime change - Wikipedia
As to Allende working with the KGB or not, that doesn't justify a coup of a peaceful, democratically elected government; it doesn't even really rationalize it (by the way, we work with the intel agencies of horrid state actors all the time, as do most countries in the world). America's involvement with and creation of both coups were inexcusable from an ethical standpoint, predicated entirely on a desire for economic or influential gain, and from a strategic standpoint both coups didn't even ultimately secure a meaningful advantage, and certainly nothing that would warrant such an ethical breach.
American Empire is littered with the bodies of democratically elected heads of state and democracies who dared to move in a direction other than what was thought to be in America's immediate strategic and economic interests, and in many if not most cases the gains were either minimal or negative as a consequence of long term destabilization, or eventual divergence of interests with the new management.
So basically the dude took a massive gamble and it failed to pay off, which meant that the rest of the army jumped down his throat. Hardly uncommon in Cold War Latin America.
Considering that one of the main actions the KGB undertook on Allende’s behalf was bribing people not to run against him....”democratic” was on shaky legs, and “peaceful” is a joke, again, considering the kind of crap the KGB conducted. For all the shrieking about the CIA it was the KGB and it’s allies which actively aided and assisted international terrorists such as Carlos the Jackal.
Giving that he was toppled before the KGB was able to fully secure his power a lot of this is obviously hypothetical, but there’s plenty of evidence from elsewhere in the world to show what a huge problem it was. Not that Pinochet was an improvement, but he got the chance to solidify control. Allende didn’t. That’s the only reason he has been turned into this martyr figure for some on the left.
Is Modern-Day America an empire or not? I say yes. Others say adamantly no. Let's hash this out.
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