TWILIGHT OF EMPIRE
[col.. writ. 11/11/18 (c) 2018
by Mumia Abu-Jamal
The Trump era, when it finally passes from the stage of history, will not pass either easily nor willingly.
It will have left the aura of anxiety, the pangs of paranoia, and the air of enmity. It will be bitter, nasty and mean.
And it will not end with them.
It will leave a stench of anger, of hatreds, and sourness that will long dwell in the national unconscious as well as the memory of the world.
Such will be the legacy of Trump. Such will be the unworthy inheritance of the American Empire.
For the better part of a century, the USA portrayed the role of “protector of the weak, and benefactor of the world’s oppressed.”
But that was when the world was a bipolar one. The fall of the Soviet Union made the world unipolar — the US the world’s sole Superpower.
And with that reality emerged the US without a peer — and without a mask.
We saw then, its true contemptuous face, snarling at the Third (Dark) World, hostile to its European ancestors, and dismissive of Latin America.
That’s because an Empire needs no allies, nor any friends. It needs subjects. It needs satraps.
For empires are political, economic and military machines of dominance and exploitation. Its power is its only justification for being.
It matters little whether Trump completes the full 8 years of two terms, or is there for the next 8 months. The die is cast.
The Empire has spat its utter contempt upon the world.
The damage is done.
