U.S. and Mexico: The Indecisive Empire and its Stuttering Colony

Proceso
By Sabina Berman
Translated by Stuart Taylor
Mexico Voices 

For Fey Berman, my Mexican-American sister

According to conventional measurements of power, the United States is an empire. Actually, it is the most powerful empire that has ever existed. Its ideology conquered the entire world in the 20th century. Even once reluctant China is now part of the great Free Market that the U.S. spread throughout the planet and, at times, forced upon unwilling nations.

Today, its armies and security agencies patrol the streets and sidewalks of around twenty countries in crisis, such as Mexico, where, hidden behind national security forces and later independently, they fight and capture drug lords.

Its culture dominates other cultures; its movie stars are the celebrities of the globe; its academics dictate universal discourse and American English is the lingua franca of today, just as Latin was during the Roman Empire.

Above all, and at the base of its power, the giants of U.S. capital govern the transnational economy, businesses that acquire surpluses from the four corners of the planet on a daily basis to deposit them on Wall Street, the street filled with skyscrapers in whose windows the sun turns gold. Read more.