It took moving overseas for it to sink in that Americans owe their high standard of living to US military domination of third world resources. I have always understood the theory of “economic imperialism” – that the US maintains a monopoly on cheap third world labor and resources via military support of puppet dictators (such a Mubarek), CIA destabilization campaigns, and Wall Street and IMF/World Bank loan, debt and currency manipulation. As a progressive, I placed the entire blame for the bloated US military budget on the US military-industrial complex and the immense power defense contractors wield via their campaign contributions and ownership of US media outlets. I didn’t fully understand the financial consequences of world military domination for ordinary Americans – mainly a lower price for for most consumer goods. It took the physical reality of living in a smaller, poorer, non military nation and paying a lot more for gasoline, books, meat, fish and other products – on a much lower income.

Americans Love Cheap Gasoline, Coffee and Sugar

I think the American public, for the most part, is profoundly ambivalent about the concept of empire. In public opinion polls, Americans consistently oppose foreign wars, except where “US interests” are at stake. However policy makers and the mainstream media are deliberately vague in defining “US interests.” Prior to 1980, a threat to American interests meant a clear threat to America’s democratic system of government or the lives of individual Americans. When Ronald Reagan invaded Grenada in 1984, the official pretext was to evacuate American students at the medical school at St George University (the real reason was to oust pro-Cuban prime minister Bernard Coard).

Protecting US Interests in Grenada

With the current wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan, “US interests” have clearly expanded to include the billions of gallons of cheap foreign oil required for the health of the American economy. Americans love their cheap gasoline, coffee, sugar and chocolate. And most aren’t consciously aware that they owe these cheap luxuries to US military conquests in the third world. If pollsters actually posed the question “Would you give up cheap imported consumer goods to end foreign military aggression?” – I believe the percentage supporting war would rise significantly.

What Americans Sacrifice for Military Empire

I like to think I would be willing to make the sacrifice. In essence I have, by moving to a much smaller, poorer country where tax dollars are used to fund universal health care, subsidized child care and housing and long term unemployment benefits –  because New Zealanders don’t feel compelled to invade and occupy other countries.

Prior to 1980, the US also had fairly generous social services for low income Americans. I somehow lost sight of this, as well. Until I came to work in a country that still provides a generous safety net for unemployed, disabled and elderly Kiwis.

Prior to the Reagan presidency and the ballooning of American military expenditures, I could rely on federally funded jobs, vocational rehabilitation and subsidized housing programs to get clients recovering from major mental illness back on their feet. The systematic dismantling of the American safety net began under Reagan and Bush – as they redirected our tax dollars toward military priorities – a phenomenally expensive missile defense system (aka Star Wars) and military interventions in El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Grenada, Panama, the Philippines, Somalia and Iraq.

Instead of restoring the social safety net programs his Republican predecessors abolished, Bill Clinton continued the trend by ending the welfare entitlement for single mothers Franklyn Roosevelt enacted in 1935 – to finance a war against Serbia, as well as continued funding for Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI).

Star Wars SDI

To be continued.