The difference between people who supported the British Empire and people who support the US empire is that those who supported the British Empire knew they were supporting an empire.

Caitlin Johnstone

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The difference between people who supported the British Empire and people who support the US empire is that those who supported the British Empire knew they were supporting an empire.

Someone who supported the British Empire’s acts of mass military slaughter around the world did so because they supported the Crown and wanted His Majesty to civilize the godless savages and turn the whole world into his royal subjects. Someone who supports the US empire’s warmongering thinks they are doing so because Saddam is an evil dictator, because Gaddafi is an evil dictator, because Maduro is an evil dictator, because Hamas and Hezbollah and the Houthis are terrorists, etc.

Supporters of the British Empire understood that the enemies of the Empire were being killed because they refused to adequately subject themselves to the King and his demands. Supporters of the US empire think the US and its allies are always attacking Evil Bad Guys in the name of spreading Freedom and Democracy, and if this happens to advance pre-existing geostrategic agendas and/or resource interests then it is purely by coincidence.

Supporters of the British Empire understood that they were living under an actual empire: a power umbrella comprised of colonies, protectorates, dominions, mandates and territories which spanned the globe. Supporters of the US empire think it is entirely by coincidence that there is a giant cluster of nations which happens to move in near-perfect unison on all foreign policy agendas and continually wages war upon nations which are not part of that cluster.

The British Empire was entirely open about what it was. It would conquer a place, tell its inhabitants that they are now British subjects, and make them raise the Union Jack on their flag pole. The western empire which is loosely structured around Washington lets its member states keep their own flag and pretend they’re sovereign nations, while behaving in ways that are not significantly different from the subjects of the British Empire.

The British Empire was open and unapologetic about pilfering resources from the darker-skinned populations it had conquered and using them to improve the lives of people in the imperial core. In the US empire those resources are extracted in the same way, but under cover of slogans like “opening up markets” and “free trade” and “globalization”.

The British Empire was held in place by brute force and overt indoctrination. People were forcibly subjugated and then over the years educated to believe it served their interests to live under the Royal Crown, and if they tried to become independent, the redcoats would be sent in to remind them of His Majesty’s beneficence.

The US-centralized empire is held in place by plenty of brute force as well, but its primary weapon is psychological manipulation. It has the most sophisticated propaganda machine that has ever existed, which trains the minds of its subjects to support all its various agendas of capitalism, militarism, imperialism and global domination under the guise of news media, Hollywood productions, and Silicon Valley tech services. Disobedient nations find their information ecosystems awash with National Endowment for Democracy reeducation media informing them why their current government doesn’t serve their interests, and if that doesn’t work there will be a “revolution” which decades later the CIA will admit to having fomented and armed.

The US empire is a larger, stronger, sneakier, bitchier, less honest, more manipulative version of what the British Empire was. The British Empire told its subjects that they were the property of the King and must do as His Majesty commands. The US empire subjugates people by tricking them into thinking they are free.

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