The Face of Imperialism: An interview with Michael Parenti
| November 3, 2011
This fall,
Michael Parenti's timing as a writer
could not have been better. The independent scholar and lecturer has
produced 22 books on political and cultural subjects. But his latest,
The Face of Imperialism, jives completely with the current Occupy movement in cities around the world.
Parenti spoke to rabble.ca this week while on a three-city tour of
Ontario university campuses. Parenti's short Canadian tour took him to
Toronto (Tuesday), Guelph (Wednesday) and Hamilton (Thursday).
The problem of inequality and privilege, he wrote in
The Face of Imperialism,
is rooted in a U.S.-dominated global system of free untrammelled
markets and structural adjustment. He adds that any state that dares to
step outside is demonized and its government eventually overthrown
through war or economically undermined by boycotts.
In the interview took this further and described the impact:
"Once you convince the American public there are demons, you have the license to bomb their people."
An example he uses in the book is Washington's tolerance until
recently for a corrupt and brutal dictator like Egypt's Hosni Mubarak,
and a willingness to stigmatize unco-operative leaders like Hugo Chavez,
or overthrow them. This was what happened in the case of Saddam
Hussein, who, although a substantial tyrant, ran a more socially
progressive and prosperous state than what exists today in Iraq.
More recently, Berkeley-based Parenti visited Occupy encampments in
California, where he has observed signs alluding to "capitalism," and
"socialism." Both are potent words that in recent years seemed to have
disappeared from the lexicon, he says.
"What I find hopeful about them is the level of political
sophistication of their protests and signs... [Compared with the notion
that] capitalism is a sacred system and you don't criticize it [and]
socialism is a wicked word."
In person, Parenti focused on a range of weighty subjects, and
talked about his life in activism, despite being obviously exhausted
from a night of little sleep after flying the redeye to Toronto. And in a
real Toronto welcome, while staying in a guest house on Spadina, he was
kept awake by the north-south subway trains running and rumbling
underneath the street.
Parenti says he "barely makes a living" as an independent commentator working outside academics for the past 25 years.
He calls himself, "a recovering academic" after graduating with a PhD
at Yale University and teaching for a period of time at various
universities until he was forced out. "I have been kicked out of the
best universities for my political activism. Now, I devote myself
full-time to writing."
Many, if not all of his books, including
The Face of Imperialism,
are generally short and can be read quickly. Parenti says this is a
deliberate strategy with the serious reader in mind. "Most books I feel
are too long."
The major change since the days of George Bush's U.S. presidency, he
reports, is the general acceptance by the American elites and
policymakers that their country is in charge of a worldwide empire that
includes more than half a million soldiers in over 700 known bases. The
number is not exact because there are also the uncounted secret bases
in places like Columbia, Iraq, Central Asia and Kosovo.
In
The Face of Imperialism, Parenti states he has difficulty
with those liberals who suggest that U.S. imperialism is a well-meaning
force that blunders into quagmires sometimes like Afghanistan. "Rather,
it is impressively consistent and cohesive, a deadly success for the
interests it represents. Those who see the U.S. imperium as chronically
befuddled are themselves revealing their own befuddlement."
He demonstrates how the U.S. has economically and militarily
supported countries around the world, including the former Communist
nations of Eastern Europe which have instituted "free market" reforms."
The ultimate goal is the "Third Worldization of the entire world
including Europe and North America."
This means, says Parenti, capital is given free rein without labour
unions or government programs such as free medical care, environment
protection acting as barriers.
He cites for instance what happened to Indonesia after the brutal
1965 military takeover that include the killing of upwards of a million
of people by General Suharto -- the pro-American general and a former
ally of the invading Japanese fascists in the Second World War.
"One tragic consequence of Indonesia's unregulated laissez-faire
economy is that people live unprotected lives; many die prematurely, the
society's infrastructure (such as it is) is collapsing, and poverty
grows even more severe."
Is it overkill when Parenti writes in
The Face of Imperialism
that the U.S. reactionary leaders don't want "a prosperous, literate,
effectively organized working class or highly educated middle class with
rising expectations and a strong sense of entitlement," in these client
states?
In the interview, Parenti makes allusions to ancient Rome -- which he
has written about in the past -- saying that the current American
republic at the local level in cities like Oakland is experiencing
"decline," as a result of serious cuts to social and human services. But
his country's empire is still very much alive and continues to wreak
major damage. "The empire feeds off the republic. Like any parasite, the
empire could kill the host."
The danger is that the American empire has been so destructive in
terms of the environment that it might take down the entire globe if we
are not careful, he says.
Parenti says what gives him hope are countries like Cuba that
continue at a considerable cost to itself in face of the U.S. economic
boycott to resist the immense pressure to adopt the free market in the
post Cold War period.
And he says that Havana's decision to allow small scale private
businesses on the island is entirely consistent with maintaining all of
the worthwhile socialistic measures like free health care that have
substantially improved the lives of ordinary Cubans since the coming to
power in 1959 of Fidel Castro and the revolutionaries.
Parenti says the experience of the centralized bureaucratic regimes
like the old Soviet Union and Cuba shows it makes no sense for
government to control small services like plumbing, auto repair, coffee
shops and restaurants that benefit people daily and are better delivered
by individuals to their neighbours in a community.
"Do you want the national government to control plumbing? You would have to wait for days..."
Some services like hairstyling which are already administered by
local women were never taken over by the state, even after all of the
nationalization in Cuba under Fidel Castro. "The Cubans learned you
don't mess with women's hair."
In his book, Parenti has difficulty with certain academics,
especially some Marxists that globalization of capital is not a new
phenomenon (it dates back to the 19th century when Karl Marx wrote about
it in
Das Capital) and that national governments are still sovereign.
What they are missing, he says, is that the world has reached "a new
stage of expropriation," where the intent is to "undermine whatever
democratic right exists to protect the social wage and restrain the
power of transnational corporations."
In Greece and other European countries which are being pressured to
adopt austerity related pressures to maintain the euro, the European
Union and the continent's irresponsible bank lenders, this must ring a
bell.
Paul Weinberg is a Toronto-based freelance writer.
http://rabble.ca/news/2011/11/face-imperialism-interview-michael-parenti
18 Sep 2013
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