Todd Miller: U.S. Empire & the Global Border-Industrial-Complex
Geopolitics & Empire
Geopolitics & Empire
4.2 • 568 Ratings
🗓️ 14 May 2021
⏱️ 59 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Author Todd Miller sheds light on the Border-Security-Complex and how it relates to U.S. Empire. He reveals how the industry is in reality bipartisan in spite of how the media makes it out to be (e.g. Trump’s border wall) and that the same border policies have been going on under both the Democrat and Republican parties. He discusses how America’s borders are fortifying and extending globally and how different “border sets” from around the world are scaffolding and coming together to form a global border security state which allows transnational corporations and the wealthy to seamlessly traverse borders while keeping the poor locked down in a caste system, waging what is known as a “securocratic war”. He touches on the economic policies and environmental problems exacerbating migration and diluting the sovereignty of foreign countries such as Mexico, and looks toward some solutions.
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Show Notes
Biden’s Border: The industry, the Democrats and the 2020 elections https://www.tni.org/en/bidensborder
More Than A Wall: Corporate Profiteering and the Militarization of US borders https://www.tni.org/en/morethanawall
Websites
Todd Miller http://www.toddmillerwriter.com
Books https://www.amazon.com/Todd-Miller/e/B00HI3FHYQ/ref=dp_byline_cont_pop_book_1
Twitter https://www.twitter.com/memomiller
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/todd.miller.587
About Todd Miller
Todd Miller has researched and written about border issues for more than 15 years, the last eight as an independent journalist and writer. He resides in Tucson, Arizona, but also has spent many years living and working in Oaxaca, Mexico. His work has appeared in the New York Times, TomDispatch, The Nation, San Francisco Chronicle, In These Times, Guernica, and Al Jazeera English, among other places.
Miller has authored four books: Build Bridges, Not Walls: A Journey to a World Without Borders (City Lights, 2021) Empire of Borders: The Expansion of the U.S. Border Around the World (Verso, 2019), Storming the Wall: Climate Change, Migration, and Homeland Security (City Lights, 2017), and Border Patrol Nation: Dispatches from the Front Lines of Homeland Security (City Lights, 2014).
He’s a contributing editor on border and immigration issues for NACLA Report on the Americas and its column “Border Wars”.
*Podcast intro music is from the song “The Queens Jig” by “Musicke & Mirth” from their album “Music for Two Lyra Viols”: http://musicke-mirth.de/en/recordings.html (available on iTunes or Amazon)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Geopolitics and Empire is joined by journalist and writer Todd Miller, who has been covering border issues for over 15 years. |
| 0:07.7 | His latest books are Empire of Borders, the expansion of the U.S. border around the world and build bridges, not walls, a journey to a world without borders. |
| 0:16.7 | We'll be talking about the border security complex, something new to me. |
| 0:21.5 | How are you doing over there on the other side of the border in Arizona, Todd? |
| 0:26.0 | Very good. |
| 0:26.8 | Thanks so much for having me on. |
| 0:29.2 | Yes, it's great to have you here. |
| 0:31.8 | And I really enjoyed your book. |
| 0:34.9 | I recommend it to listeners. |
| 0:36.6 | And so that's what we're going to be getting into, |
| 0:39.6 | talking about this border industrial complex. I, and I'm sure my listeners, have been well |
| 0:45.3 | aware of the national security complex, the military industrial complex, and even the prison |
| 0:49.9 | industrial complex. But somehow I never came across this idea of the border industrial complex. |
| 0:55.8 | And let me preface the discussion with my loose idea on borders. You know, there's a part of me that |
| 1:00.3 | says having strong borders is good to maintain law and order. Everywhere I've traveled to |
| 1:05.7 | from Central Asia, Russia, Europe, and the Americas, you know, entry requirements were strictly |
| 1:10.4 | enforced. But on the other hand, I've yearned you know, entry requirements were strictly enforced. |
| 1:11.3 | But on the other hand, I've yearned for the world prior to the Great War of 1914, |
| 1:16.4 | you know, before World War I where there were no passports and I assume people were able to |
| 1:20.4 | travel more freely. |
| 1:22.4 | I like that idea. |
| 1:24.3 | And so, you know, one fascinating statistic you relate in your book is that only six percent of |
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