January 10
GUEST: David Vine, assistant professor of anthropology at American University and author of the newly published Base Nation: How U.S. Military Bases Abroad Harm America and the World talks about a new, bipartisan effort to inform the American people of their empire abroad and to bring military expenditures under control.U.S. Military Bases Abroad
I was pleased to have David Vine on Activist Radio again. I had seen him give a talk on his book, Base Nations at Vassar College a few years ago. David is an academic first, whose goal it is to prove to you that the American Empire exists and that is covers most of the globe. The facts and figures, at times dull in themselves, come together in the book to change one's perception of a country that always claims to be upholding human rights and international law. Whatever the death toll, there is this basic assumption of benevolence that makes all our lives within the empire possible.
We talked about the driving forces behind empire, the weapons makers and the corporations that thrive on Third World exploitation. Would the U.S. be gearing up for an invasion of Venezuela if it wasn't for oil? Yet all The New York Times can talk about is the suffering of the Venezuelan people. Really? Is it possible that our "newspaper of record" cares about such things, when it has supported every Pentagon military adventure in my lifetime?
For this interview, we went further into what an empire has been in history. Ancient Athens was an empire, as committed as any to crushing resistance wherever it appeared. The Siege of Melos saw the Athenian Army massacre all rebellious defenders of the island, claiming that it is the natural order of things for the strong to dominate the weak. At least Athens didn't have a propaganda machine at home to convince its population that slaughter was morally justified.
