Public Theft and the End of Empire

[Joanne98]

by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley



If it feels like this economic roller coaster ride is stuck on down, you’re right. At the same historical moment that the public sector is put on a starvation diet, the demands of the military reach record levels. “The height of brute force brings with it the nadir of support for human needs.”

by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley

“The contradictions inherent in our system have finally finished it off and we are all caught in its death throes.”

Americans are a people living on the precipice of economic disaster, both as individuals and as a group. The continued precariousness of their situation is a direct result of government connivance in stripping them of public assets and the distribution of those assets to the corporate sector. Retired public employees are literally having money they earned stolen from them. Children are losing days in public schools and counties are eliminating public transportation because political leaders are firmly committed to expanding empire abroad, assisting rapacious individuals and corporations at home and keeping workers and people of color in their place.

All of these examples of public theft mean that America’s demise is real and becoming more and more obvious by the day. It is no longer a subject of conjecture among a small group of well informed people. When the state of Hawaii reduces the number of days students will attend public school and Utah proposes eliminating the 12th grade altogether, the destruction of our society is plain for all to see.

The American empire has reached its military apex, with troops stationed in more than 100 countries, and two wars of occupation which have lasted for more than eight years. The height of brute force brings with it the nadir of support for human needs. The two conditions go hand in hand. It is impossible to sustain military spending which exceeds that of every other country on earth combined, without also stealing from the public

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