What to do about the American Empire

 

The term "American Empire" has appeared in many left-liberal publications to describe the political structure and the imperialist intentions of the United States. They don't say much good about the U.S. Just out of curiosity, I decided to google "American Empire" to get the names of a few of the publications:

 

  1. The Marxist American historian Howard Zinn published A People's History of the American Empire in 2008.

 

  2. A left-wing British historian A. J. Hopkins published American Empire: a Global History in 2018.

 

  3. Chris Hedges gave a lecture titled "The American Empire will collapse within a decade, two at most" in 2018.

 

Hedges explains how the Empire will collapse in another book Days of Destruction/Days of Revolt--that it will collapse because of a violent revolution. He never mentions the possibility of creating another nation that will embody his own value system. Nor do the other writers. All they do is complain about the racist, sexist, and unequal "America". A reader can only wonder how Hedges would configure a nation of his own.

Another thing, Hedges and Zinn have children. They never say anything about where they will go, if the nation collapses. They still have time to buy real estate somewhere else. In the mean-time, they hold their hands out to receive--ohh, so reluctantly--the fruits of their labors, the nice cars, second homes, sailboats, and stock portfolios that result from their hard work. Maybe they will have to figure out how to make it as attractive than America already is to the poor of the World. Zinn, Hedges, and others might also have a hard time figuring out where to go--and not get modest digs and lower-paying jobs.

I don't put much stock in left-wing terms like "American Empire", mainly because Left-wingers who propagate it do little more than thumb their noses at the Establishment. They're not really thinking creatively about their options, such as another country, their own country, or really going anywhere else.

The nose-thumbing makes Zinn and the others attractive to disaffected American college students. They imbue the students with the same weird hope that the nation will collapse soon, even though the disaffected youth have the same problem as their professors, namely what will happen to all their stuff?

There is ample evidence that Zinn flirted with the Communist Party; but he never joined. Most guys like him didn't. For one thing, to actually join the Communist Party, Zinn and the others would have to undergo a hostile interrogation by Party members. They would have to disclose what wealth they possess, and of course, they couldn't do that and still have any cred as communists.

I never could find out where Howard Zinn lived; so he obviously didn't want anyone to know, especially his communist friends. But the New York Times obituary did give out that his son Jeff lives in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, near Cape Cod. The houses are pricey and the community is 95% White. His daughter Myla lives in Lexington, Massachusetts, home to the Minutemen of the Revolutionary War. It is likewise pricey and only 1.5% Black.

These shameless America-haters have no clue how to keep desperate foreigners from flooding our country. The poor die by the dozens trying to enter. Shouldn't Zinn and the others warn them to turn back? Shouldn't someone call attention to the discrepancy in viewpoints--the desperate aliens trying to enter the U.S., versus the well-fed Americans who hate the place?

 

One last American-Empire publication caught my attention, a book titled The American Empire Should be Destroyed, published in 2014. The author Alexander Dugin also has nothing good to say about America; but Dugin, in contrast to the other authors, is a Russian nationalist. Russia-watchers describe Dugin as "Putin's Brain." He helped justify the occupation of Crimea and the invasion of Ukraine. Odd to think that his hatred of America lines up with well-to-do Americans like Hedges and Zinn. I do not know which of them poses the bigger threat--the influential but America-hating college-professors who actually live in the U.S. or the America-hating Putin-lackey 5000 miles away in Russia.