As labor organizations and popular organizations are destroyed or seriously deteriorated,

wages have declined, profits have increased, tax laws have become more favorable to transnational corporations.

The investment climate improves. It's a very rational system.

That's Michael Parenti, and this is Alternative Radio. I'm David Barsamian. This edition of

AR features Michael Parenti on the sword and the dollar.

Historian Chalmers Johnson wrote,

As distinct from other peoples on this earth,

most Americans do not recognize or do not want to recognize that the United States dominates the world through its military power.

Due to government secrecy, they are often ignorant of the fact that their government garrisons the globe. They do not realize that a vast

network of American military bases on every continent actually constitutes a new form of empire.

Johnson continues, our globe-girding military and intelligence installations bring profits

to civilian industries which design and manufacture weapons for the armed forces.

The New American Empire has been a long time in the making.

Its roots go back to the early 19th century when the United States declared all of Latin America its sphere of influence and busily enlarged its own territory at the expense of the indigenous people of North America.

Our guest today is Michael Parenti. He was a leading independent political analyst and scholar.

Cornell West called him a towering prophetic voice. He's the author of numerous books,

including Democracy for the Few, Power and the Powerless, and Against Empire. This classic from

the AR Archives was recorded at Washington State University in Vancouver, Washington in 1999.

And now Michael Parenti, the sword and the dollar.

What I'm going to suggest to you is that the history of U.S. foreign policy,

from the very first dealings with Native Americans on through, that history of U.S. foreign policy, from the very first dealings with Native Americans on through, that history

of U.S. foreign policy has been a history of bloody, repressive interventions. It has been a history

...