For at least 70 years, and especially in the last decade, the U.S. government has morphed into the largest and most extensive global power the world has ever known. Using a foreign policy based on the combination of “bombs and bribes,” the U.S. achieved its political interests abroad by spreading the wealth – stolen from American taxpayers – on obedient dictators or threatening those that didn’t comply with the most expensive and technologically advanced war machine in history.
But global American power has been built on debt, borrowing, deficit-financing, heavy taxation, and inflating away the American middle class, a combination that, like Rome’s, can not be sustained forever. As the U.S. not only continues this path, but expands upon it with ever increasing military budgets and interventionism, the world is perhaps beginning to see that America’s threats are empty.
Europe is openly defying the American empire. While in Dar es Salaam Obama defended the mass surveillance of European diplomats, arguing that is “standard practice” and would continue despite protests by European leaders. This type of arrogance and dismissiveness has led to political leaders in Germany and France to urge their countries to grant Snowden asylum.
Even the U.S. government’s domestic colonies are protesting, reaffirming their sovereignty, and ignoring blatantly unconstitutional laws.
The lapdog media, eager to distract from Snowden’s revelations, mock him for his supposed hypocrisy in hiding out in authoritarian countries. But all states, cemented in their power to initiate lethal force, are authoritarian by nature. Other than in a handful of city-states like Hong Kong, Monaco, Luxembourg, and pockets of the U.S., there is virtually nowhere where the rule of law reigns
What Snowden has done is not only reveal the details of a massive, covert surveillance program, but like a domino pushed just a bit too hard, is encouraging others to exhibit a similar type of courage.
Standing up to history’s most expansive and hegemonic power takes the guts of a libertarian whistleblower seeking justice and truth with little regard for the potentially deadly consequences, and undoubtedly others are taking notice.
The U.S. can huff-and-puff all it wants, but one can only bully others for so long before others finally start to stand up and fight back.
While Americans soak in the humanitarian rhetoric and propaganda forked off the tongues of their supposed leaders, the rest of the world sees a very different face to American power.
The Founders envisioned a republic that would lead the world by example, a model to others on what a free society looks like. Today, the only thing America reminds most of the world of are the buzz of a drone strike, sanctions, aggressive war, an archipelago of military bases, JSOC death squads, and puppet dictators.
Like the whistleblowers that have come before him, Snowden’s defiance in the face of a government that claims “the right” to kill anyone at any time around the world might just be the spark that weakens America’s imperial power by urging others around the world to emulate Snowden.
The American empire won’t collapse, but poke enough holes in something that is bureaucratic and top-heavy, and it begins to lean. Our ancestors fought for independence from a corrupt empire. Perhaps this generation can begin their independence from one as well.
You can read the Westernerd article in full at the Liberty Crier
