November 26
GUEST: Todd Miller, independent journalist and writer whose articles have appeared in the New York Times, TomDispatch, The Nation, In These Times and Al Jazeera, talks about his most recent book, Empire of Borders: The Expansion of the US Borders Around the World.
The Majority Report with Todd Miller
We are lucky that journalists and writers like Todd Miller go out into the field with nothing more than an idea for a good story. Todd's story, however, is so much better than good. He reveals the US Empire in the countryside of Guatemala.
Todd's writing takes us on a traveler's journey of occupied nations. The troops are the same, young men from the US outfitted with the empire's most expensive weaponry. Their mission is the same as well, to set up boarders so that the poor of the world can't get in the way of the neoliberal robbery of natural resources and anything else of value. They are the empire's bag men, fighting wars in every part of the globe to make profits for giant multinational corporations.
The fact that most Americans don't even know about the empire that ends up costing them so much, is a study in the effectiveness of our national propaganda. We learn US exceptionalism in our schools and colleges. We are taught to admire the "high minded" principals behind all our many wars. We feel good about US foreign policy without understanding what it is doing to the rest of the world. And what it is doing to us.
