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War and Complicity There used to be a time when the phrases “U.S. imperialism” and “the American empire” were uttered only by people on the far left of the political spectrum. Nowadays, someone like Michael Ignatieff of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government can write a cover story for the N.Y. Times Magazine entitled “The American Empire (Get Used to It),” or Jay Tolson in U. S. News & World Report, “The American Empire: Is the U.S. Trying to Shape the World? Should It?” Imperialism is now the duty and the burden of the last remaining superpower on the planet. How times have changed! It’s all out in the open now. There is no longer any attempt to conceal the fact that life in the US depends upon the exploitation of people around the world. Exploitation, after all, is the business of imperialism—it’s what empires do. We exploit others for their labor, their markets, and, especially, their resources. In particular, our economy has developed a voracious appetite for fossil fuels, especially oil and natural gas. However, world oil production is now at its peak. From now on, production will decline. (Natural gas production in North America has already peaked.) As our empire literally runs out of gas, it will lash out even more violently to secure control of the last remaining reserves of fossil fuels on the planet. It must do this if it is to sustain our economic dominance and high-consumption way of life. That’s what the “resource wars” of the past few decades are all about. That’s why we have so many military bases around the world. You and I are both part of the empire. We are complicit in these wars insofar as we benefit from them, insofar as our level of consumption is their raison d’etre. It’s too easy to blame everything on George W. Bush and a bunch of bad guys in Washington. Besides, the power exercised by the Bush administration and its corporate backers comes from us. We buy their products and services, we pay their taxes. The blood is thus on our hands as well: it flows into our gas tanks and splatters virtually every purchase we make. If the violence of our empire shames and depresses us, we can abate it only by addressing its root cause: our own level of consumption. We can decide to consume less...and consume wisely! We can scrutinize everything we eat, everything we wear, every consumer good we purchase that masquerades as a necessity, and ask the following questions: Who produced this? Under what circumstances? With what impact on nature? How far did it travel to get to me? Answering such questions may not be easy, but if we are serious about stemming the violence of our empire (and not just complaining about it), then this is the homework we must not shirk. We can also ask ourselves questions that do not require any research: Do I really need this? Do I really need to take the car? Do I really need to use this electrical appliance or gadget? You and I can deflate the empire through the practice of self-limitation. This may prove bad for the economy, but it’s clear that our overgrown, bloated economy is bad for everyone. We can disarm our violent empire only by disarming its predatory economy. Economic shrinkage may cause unemployment and dislocation, especially for the most vulnerable members of society, but it will happen anyway, (and with a vengeance!) as the age of fossil fuels comes to an end. The sooner we make the transition from a massive, exploitative global economy to many small, regional, limited, local economies, the less suffering there will be. The longer we wait, the more pain, suffering, war, and violence we can expect. We can also refuse to provide financial support to the military machine: i.e., war tax refusal. If we do not support the wars of our empire with our minds and our hearts, then why support them with our wallets? You and I can decide not to sponsor the “defense” of a morally indefensible way of life—a way of life that is ultimately suicidal. However, let our first priority be to take steps to disengage from this way of life ourselves. Only then can we reduce our complicity in war. Only then can we begin to distance ourselves, morally and economically, from membership in the empire. Aaron Falbel The Pioneer Valley War Tax Resisters, P.O. Box 223, Greenfle/d, Ma 01302 |