IC–044 | "Empires Never Die Quietly, and We Must End The American Empire Regardless"
Transcript. Timestamps are stored-video seconds.

[0:00] Palestine are now being turned back on the domestic home front against American
[0:04] citizens.
[0:07] Mass thugs of the state, unaccountable to no one, unelected, are engaging in
[0:12] acts of
[0:13] violence against Americans with impunity, and when Americans fight back against
[0:19] ICE,
[0:19] as they did in Minneapolis, ICE shoots back.
[0:32] And the problems continue.
[0:35] The analyst Steven Semler wrote recently that Trump's budget manages to be $361
[0:42] billion
[0:44] larger than last year's, despite cutting $300 billion in social programs and
[0:50] other
[0:51] public investments.
[0:54] All of that money is going to policing, and it's going to endless war.
[1:00] It's not going to bridges, it's not going to tunnels, and it's certainly not
[1:05] going
[1:05] to healthcare.
[1:09] Every single one of you, regardless of your political affiliations or your
[1:13] ideology, should
[1:14] consider that money to be stolen from you.
[1:21] Those are dollars stolen from you to be put towards industries of death that
[1:31] have no future.
[1:34] This bargain isn't tenable anymore.
[1:37] It's over.
[1:38] It's not tenable for the employee of the California Missile Designer.
[1:42] It's not tenable for the veteran who wants free college.
[1:45] It's not tenable for the kids in crumbling Philadelphia schools.
[1:51] And it's certainly not tenable for the homeless, the working class, and of
[1:56] course for the rest
[1:57] of the world, those who happen to exist under the boot.
[2:11] They have been spoiled by an American way of life that requires so much death.
[2:18] The fruits of imperialism were always immoral.
[2:22] Now they are obviously rotten.
[2:31] I don't know how else to put it.
[2:34] The American Empire is fading fast, regardless of what we resolve here today.
[2:40] And I'm not just saying that so that I have an upper hand in this conversation.
[2:46] No matter what we say here, American Empire is going to inevitably fall.
[2:53] But, but, I think, as Mao Zedong himself said earlier, there is a power within
[3:09] the American
[3:09] people to change the nature of this decline.
[3:17] He had a lot more confidence in the American labor class than many Americans do
[3:21] today.
[3:22] I'll tell you that much.
[3:26] I believe that we are living through a strange and radicalizing time for
[3:30] millions of Americans.
[3:32] And I've seen that with my own two eyes.
[3:36] I've gone to protest all around the world.
[3:38] Tasted the tear gas of different countries.
[3:44] And I've seen Barbara's and Deborah's aged 75 and above, yelling at ICE agents
[3:57] in Minneapolis.
[4:00] The contradictions have worsened, and they are also restless.
[4:06] They also want that change.
[4:09] People intuitively understand that there is another way for the United States
[4:14] to exist
[4:14] in the world, a way in which we're not constantly exploiting people, deciding
[4:22] other countries'
[4:23] futures for them or, say, blockading their seas because they just completely
[4:28] embarrassed
[4:29] us politically, like in the case of Cuba, holding on to old grudges for no
[4:33] reason as
[4:33] we starve economically and literally an island nation that happens to be 90
[4:40] miles off of
[4:41] our coastline where 10 million people live.
[4:47] And that's happening on autopilot.
[4:49] It's happening even if you give no consent to that whatsoever.
[4:54] But we can change that.
[5:01] Once you see the cruelty of American Empire, it's quite difficult to unsee it.
[5:05] And I do think American people are seeing it for the first time ever, and they
[5:14] know.
[5:15] And they know that we are getting a raw deal.
[5:19] The super-profits that we have enjoyed are coming to an end.
[5:24] And our debt to humanity requires negotiating a new deal, a real equal world
[5:35] peace.
[5:37] Empires never die quietly, and we must end the American Empire regardless.
[5:43] But we must manage the retreat of a superpower from the world stage.
[5:48] This is a challenge for our time.
[5:51] And actually, this is the challenge for our time.
[5:59] Because if we do not do this, then the American Empire will come to an end in a
[6:03] much more
[6:04] violent way.
[6:06] A curse on future generations that we must avoid at all costs.
[6:18] And I think that's a challenge for us to be able to be able to be able to be
[6:39] able to be.
[6:43] And I think that's a challenge for us to be able to be able to be able to be
[7:07] able to be.
[7:12] So from my calculation, the way I see it, as I tried to explain in this speech
[7:20] here,
[7:20] is that it's going to happen because it will collapse on its weight no matter
[7:26] what.
[7:26] It will collapse under its weight regardless.
[7:31] And what I want to explain to every American that will listen is that we do
[7:38] have the capacity
[7:40] to change the system that we exist under in an effort to ensure that we have a
[7:46] much more
[7:47] equitable outcome where we don't diminish the potential of Americans and we don
[7:52] 't diminish
[7:52] the potential and starve out the potential of people living in the periphery.
[7:59] This is something that I saw personally when I visited Cuba recently.
[8:11] The economic terror that we've subjected this island nation to is unforgivable.
[8:17] And yet the Cuban population has still thrived in very meaningful ways.
[8:28] They found novel cures for the lung cancer vaccine that they've had since the '
[8:37] 90s.
[8:38] And I was talking to a scientist on my trip there.
[8:43] And apparently Cuba also has the only current working treatment for Alzheimer's
[8:50] and dementia.
[8:52] It's in stage three clinical trials in Canada right now as we speak.
[9:03] I think about what Cuba would look like if they weren't constantly under the
[9:09] threat
[9:10] of American sanctions because these sanctions, these sanctions have stifled
[9:20] growth.
[9:21] We've played a formative role in developing even further cures, right?
[9:27] So that's not just bad for the people of Cuba who are suffering.
[9:33] Their economy is in tatters.
[9:35] But it's also bad for people like ourselves.
[9:37] I mean, Alzheimer's and dementia is a massive problem.
[9:42] Almost all of my grandparents suffered from Alzheimer's and dementia.
[9:48] So the way I see it, it's almost a selfish argument to make sure that we can
[9:55] unlock the
[9:56] potential of all of these countries that we seek to dominate.
[10:01] And on top of that, I feel like all of the resources, all of our productive
[10:06] output is
[10:07] wasted on this unlimited endless cycle of violence that we subject other
[10:15] nations to.
[10:17] And as soon as you connect foreign policy back to all of the domestic problems
[10:24] that
[10:25] we have, not just in the concept of blowback, which I famously have spoken
[10:33] about, but also
[10:36] the reality that every dollar that is spent on a bomb that blows up a school is
[10:43] the dollar
[10:43] that could be spent building schools here.
[10:46] Americans are, Americans at least in my experience are much more responsive to
[10:54] that kind of message.
[10:57] Because at the end of the day, you don't have to use academic language or talk
[11:02] about the
[11:03] international, proletarian cause.
[11:05] You can just tell regular folks, ordinary folks, that random person living in
[11:11] Tehran
[11:12] has the exact same.