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... The USA is a "Failed
State" (?) Interview with Dr. Paul Craig Roberts Edited by Andrew Andersen |
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Global Research,
June 2, 2010
Interview with Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, former
Assistant Secretary US Treasury, Associate Editor Wall Street Journal,
Professor of Political Economy Center for Strategic and International Studies
Georgetown University Washington DC. Question: Dr. Roberts, the United
States is regarded as the most successful state in the world today. What is
responsible for American success? Dr. Roberts: Propaganda. If truth be known,
the US is a failed state. More about that later. The US owes its image
of success to: (1) the vast lands and mineral resources that the US
“liberated” with violence from the native inhabitants, (2) Europe’s,
especially Great Britain’s, self-destruction in World War I and World War II,
and (3) the economic destruction of Russia and most of Asia by communism or
socialism. After World War II, the US took the reserve currency
role from Great Britain. This made the US dollar the world money and
permitted the US to pay its import bills in its own currency. World War II’s
destruction of the other industrialized countries left the US as the only
country capable of supplying products to world markets. This historical
happenstance created among Americans the impression that they were a favored
people. Today the militarist neoconservatives speak of the United States as
“the indispensable nation.” In other words, Americans are above all
others, except, of course, Israelis. Question: You said that the US was a
failed state. How can that be? What do you mean? Roberts: The war on terror, invented by
the George W. Bush/Dick Cheney regime, destroyed the US Constitution and the
civil liberties that the Constitution embodies. The Bill of Rights has been
eviscerated. The Obama regime has institutionalized the Bush/Cheney assault
on American liberty. Today, no American has any rights if he or she is
accused of “terrorist” activity. The Obama regime has expanded the vague
definition of “terrorist activity” to include “domestic extremist,” another
undefined and vague category subject to the government’s discretion. In
short, a “terrorist” or a “domestic extremist” is anyone who dissents from a
policy or a practice that the US government regards as necessary for its
agenda of world hegemony. Unlike some countries, the US is not an ethic group.
It is a collection of diverse peoples united under the Constitution. When the
Constitution was destroyed, the US ceased to exist. What exists today are
power centers that are unaccountable. Elections mean nothing, as both parties
are dependent on the same powerful interest groups for campaign funds. The
most powerful interest groups are the military/security complex, which
includes the Pentagon, the CIA, and the corporations that service them, the
American-Israel Public Affairs Committee, the oil industry that is destroying
the Gulf of Mexico, Wall Street (investment banks and hedge funds), the
insurance companies, the pharmaceutical companies, and the agri-companies
that produce food of questionable content. These corporate powers comprise an oligarchy that
cannot be dislodged by voting. Ever since “globalism” was enacted into law,
the Democrats have been dependent on the same corporate sources of income as
the Republicans, because globalism destroyed the labor unions. Consequently,
there is no difference between the Republicans and Democrats, or no
meaningful difference. The “war on terror” completed the
constitutional/legal failure of the US. The US has also failed economically.
Under Wall Street pressure for short-term profits, US corporations have moved
offshore their production for US consumer markets. The result has been to
move US GDP and millions of well-paid US jobs to countries, such as China and
India, where labor and professional expertise are cheap. This practice has
been going on since about 1990. After 20 years of off-shoring US production, which destroyed
American jobs and federal, state and local tax base, the US unemployment
rate, as measured by US government methodology in 1980, is over 20 percent.
The ladders of upward mobility have been dismantled. Millions of young
Americans with university degrees are employed as waitresses and bartenders.
Foreign enrollment comprises a larger and larger percentage of US
universities as the American population finds that a university degree has
been negated by the off-shoring of the
jobs that the graduates expected. When US off-shored production re-enters the US as imports, the
trade balance deteriorates. Foreigners use their surplus dollars to purchase
existing US assets. Consequently, dividends, interest, capital gains,
tolls from toll roads, rents, and profits, now flow abroad to foreign owners,
thus increasing the pressure on the US dollar. The US has been able to
survive the mounting claims of foreigners against US GDP because the US
dollar is the reserve currency. However, the large US budget and trade
deficits will put pressures on the dollar that will become too extreme for
the dollar to be able to sustain this role. When the dollar fails, the US
population will be impoverished. The US is heavily indebted, both the government and
the citizens. Over the last decade there has been no growth in family income.
The US economy was kept going through the expansion of consumer debt. Now
consumers are so heavily indebted that they cannot borrow more. This means
that the main driving force of the US economy, consumer demand, cannot
increase. As consumer demand comprises 70% of the economy, when consumer
demand cannot increase, there can be no economic recovery. The US is a failed state also because there is no
accountability to the people by corporations or by government at any level,
whether state, local, or federal. British Petroleum is destroying the Gulf of
Mexico. The US government has done nothing. The Obama regime’s response to
the crisis is more irresponsible than the Bush regime’s response to Hurricane
Katrina. Wetlands and fisheries are being destroyed by unregulated capitalist
greed and by a government that treats the environment with contempt. The
tourist economy of Florida is being destroyed. The external costs of drilling
in deep waters exceeds the net worth of the oil industry. As a result of the
failure of the American state, the oil industry is destroying one of the
world’s most valuable ecological systems. Question: What can be done? Roberts: The American people are lost in
la-la land. They have no idea that their civil liberties have been forfeited.
They are only gradually learning that their economic future is compromised.
Americans are full of themselves. They have no idea of the disasters that
their ignorance and inhumanity have brought upon themselves and upon the
world. Much of the world, looking at (this) country wonders
at Americans’ fine opinion of themselves. Is America the virtuous
“indispensable nation”? |
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Disclaimer: The views expressed in this
article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily
reflect those of the Centre for Research on Globalization. The contents of
this article are of sole responsibility of the author(s). The Centre for
Research on Globalization will not be responsible or liable for any
inaccurate or incorrect statements contained in this article. |
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