OUR world is not only threatened by cyclical economic crises that are steadily becoming more serious and frequent. Unemployment, ruin and fabulous losses of goods and wealth are the inseparable companions of the blind laws of the market that rule the world economy today. Neoliberalism proscribes any state interference as an element that disturbs the economy, as if internal order, the military, health, education, culture, science, the courts, judges and many other activities could exist without the state and its laws.
Of course, this [the state], with its rigor and coercive force, obstructed those who like Marx, Lenin and others theorists perceived in it an instrument of the exploiters in order to impose the odious capitalist system and they conceived of the idea of converting it into an instrument of the Revolution in the transition stage toward a completely new society.
Colonialists, capitalists and imperialists have created their codes of conduct and imposed their values. They speak of freedom, democracy, human rights et cetera, et cetera. In the United States, after its founding, millions of human beings continued working as slaves, to whom the creator had not conceded any rights whatsoever, as stipulated in the Philadelphia Declaration. For almost 100 years they were merchandise bought and sold in the market, and during a further 100 years after the civil war, they suffered atrocious discrimination and marginalization. Today, together with Native Americans and Latin Americans, they still constitute the poorest citizens who people U.S. jails and do the hardest and worst paid jobs.
It is not stressed that billions of people in the world are suffering from ignorance, unemployment, underdevelopment, and diseases that reduce their lives by two-thirds or half – and sometimes less – of those enjoyed by the rich countries.
Longstanding problems have been compounded by others like drug trafficking, organized crime, the brain drain and illegal emigration. They even attempt to subject the minds of human beings through the mass media and the most modern techniques of the so-called leisure industry.
On what basis is that order sustained? On wealth and force. For that they have available all the money in the world and the most sophisticated means of military force. Moreover, they are the exporters of weapons that do not imply any threat to their hegemony, but fuel national wars, the profits of the multinationals and the dependence of their allies.
They print the hard currency required for international trade in quantities that know no limits, acquire with these properties for their multinationals, natural resources and the fruits of the sweat of the peoples, in order to sustain the consumer societies of waste that they have created.
Moreover, the United States maintains a monopolist control over international credit and investment agencies.
While these concerns are buzzing around in the minds of many million people in the world who do not allow themselves to be caught up in the proclaimed lies, news of other realities is constantly arriving.
For example: in 2004, the last year confirmed by statistics, U.S. multinationals earned overseas profits amounting to $700 billion, for which they paid the U.S. Treasury just $16 billion due to discounts that afford special privileges to U.S. companies investing in another country, and which are damaging to those that do so within the United States itself, thus creating jobs there. The mere idea of the current administration to reduce this privilege provoked protests from important U.S. business organizations, whose economic and political power nobody disputes.
It could even constitute a valid source of entertainment to compile numerous items of national and international news that reflect the national privileges that that country has imposed on the world. There are politicians both inside and outside of the United States who are offended if somebody dares to describe it as an empire, as if there was another word that defined it better.
The other side of the coin is worse still. There is occasional mention of the seven fleets with which the United States imposes its military might on the world, backed up by the 800-plus military bases distributed throughout the planet. Guantánamo, whose prisons and torture impacted on international public opinion, is just one of the hundreds of bases at its disposal.
One might perhaps gain some idea of the military power with which the superpower supports the economic and social system imposed on humanity, by referring to certain details recently published in the specialized press.
The U.S. military might is based on its nuclear arsenal.
It possesses 534 Minuteman III and Peacekeeper intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM); 432 Trident C-4 and D-5 submarine launchers (SLBM) installed in 17 Ohio-type submarines; and approximately 200 long-range nuclear bombers that can be refueled in the air, among them 16 invisible B-2’s. The missiles are carriers of various warheads. The number of nuclear warheads deployed ranges between 5,000 and 10,000. Its armed forces have more than two million troops. To this can be added hundreds of satellites for military use and communications, which make up the space shield and electromagnetic warfare means.
Russia, the other major nuclear power, has been surrounded by offensive nuclear weapons.
One almost need not add another word, except perhaps to note that, thanks to its monopoly of money and natural resources, the United States announced yesterday in the voice of the Pentagon’s leading cyber warfare commander, that that country "is determined to lead the global effort to use computer technology to deter or defeat enemies, while still protecting the public's constitutional rights." That item of news was transmitted by AP, the principal U.S. news agency.
How much security can one seek in the world of today? That is a question to which there is no answer!