Spenser Rapone
On Contact
Tag: Imperialism
Move beyond simply opposing
Marcie Smith Parenti
https://thegrayzone.com/2021/08/17/regime-change-gene-sharp-coups/
Foreign debt is a mechanism of dominance
How Capitalism, Colonialism & Imperialism Fuel Climate Crisis
Climate strike. That’s the cry of youth climate activists today to urge world leaders to do more to confront the climate emergency. This comes as a third of Pakistan is underwater, severe drought in the Horn of Africa has brought Somalia to the brink of famine, and Puerto Rico remains largely without power after a devastating hurricane.
Today, the climate strike, especially in New York, is very significant because we’ve just had Climate Week New York, we’ve just had the U.N. General Assembly happening this week, and, as kind of usual, there hasn’t been enough happening. There have been a lot of incredible things that have happened, like, for example, President Gustavo Petro of Colombia gave an incredible address on the floor of the U.N., really calling out how much kind of Global North nations are still inflicting imperialism and control over Global South nations. And also we saw Vanuatu be first nation-state to call on the floor of the U.N. for an international fossil fuel treaty to be signed. So, that means a treaty that would
— source democracynow.org | Sep 23, 2022
For black Britons the late queen is the number one symbol of white supremacy
It is a peculiar sensation to live in a nation plunged into mourning when you cannot comprehend the feelings of loss. Whilst the news of Queen Elizabeth’s death sparked concern, sadness and even panic in many of my white colleagues at work last week, I looked on mostly bemused. I am not alone in this feeling of detachment; most of my Black family and friends here feel the same. Yes, it is sad when anyone dies. But none of us knew the Queen; she was not a family member, friend or even acquaintance. She was an image, a figment of the nation’s collective imagination that we were told we must adore.
For the children of the British empire, those of us who were born here and those of us who were born in the 15 nations of the “commonwealth,” the Queen is the number one symbol of white supremacy. She may have been seen as an institution but for us, she was the manifestation of the institutional racism that we have to encounter on a daily basis.
African American intellectual W.E.B. Du Bois best captured this feeling of disconnection when he wrote, “it dawned upon me with a certain suddenness that I was different from the others.” Being both Black and American, Du Bois noted, was to be constantly yoked to “this peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness” with conflicting perspectives on life in
— source politico.com | Kehinde Andrews | 09/13/2022
“United States” to Imperial America
Monarchs Belong in the Dustbin of History
The fawning adulation of Queen Elizabeth in the United States, which fought a revolution to get rid of the monarchy, and in Great Britain, is in direct proportion to the fear gripping a discredited, incompetent and corrupt global ruling elite.
The global oligarchs are not sure the next generation of royal sock puppets – mediocrities that include a pedophile prince and his brother, a cranky and eccentric king who accepted suitcases and bags stuffed with $3.2 million in cash from the former prime minister of Qatar Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani, and who has millions stashed in offshore accounts – are up to the job. Let’s hope they are right.
“Having a monarchy next door is a little like having a neighbour who’s really into clowns and has daubed their house with clown murals, displays clown dolls in each window and has an insatiable desire to hear about and discuss clown-related news stories,” Patrick Freyne wrote last year in The Irish Times. “More specifically, for the Irish, it’s like
— source scheerpost.com | Chris Hedges | Sep 11, 2022
Effects of Imperialism
Cambridge, Massachusetts student Cece Walsh declined to list any “positive” effects of imperialism on her homework assignment, arguing that the assignment “appeared to downplay the killing of Africans and the pillaging of their lands and resources by using phrases about how the Europeans ‘obtained land’ or merely ‘took control’ of colonies.” (Photo: Twitter/@CallaWalsh)
A Massachusetts student’s response to a homework assignment went viral Tuesday after the high schooler refused to list “positive effects of imperialism” but included a long list of its negative impacts on communities throughout history.
Cece Walsh, a 15-year-old student at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, a public high school outside Boston, thought of numerous harmful effects of governments which expanding their influence and power by force, including the “genocide of Indigenous peoples,” slavery, “destruction of cultures and traditions,” “forced religion,” and the exploitation of the planet.
— source commondreams.org | Mar 23, 2022
US legacy in Honduras
U.S. strategy plan calls for insuring no rivals develop
In a broad new policy statement that is in its final drafting stage, the Defense Department asserts that America’s political and military mission in the post-cold-war era will be to insure that no rival superpower is allowed to emerge in Western Europe, Asia or the territory of the former Soviet Union.
A 46-page document that has been circulating at the highest levels of the Pentagon for weeks, and which Defense Secretary Dick Cheney expects to release later this month, states that part of the American mission will be “convincing potential competitors that they need not aspire to a greater role or pursue a more aggressive posture to protect their legitimate interests.”
The classified document makes the case for a world dominated by one superpower whose position can be perpetuated by constructive behavior and sufficient military might to deter any nation or group of nations from challenging American primacy. Rejecting Collective Approach
To perpetuate this role, the United States “must sufficiently account for the interests of the advanced industrial nations to discourage them from challenging our leadership or
— source nytimes.com | Patrick Tyler | Mar 8, 1992