Over the past half-century, I have been engaged in research, lectured and worked with social movements and leftist governments in Latin America. I interviewed US officials and think tanks in Washington and New York. I have written scores of books, hundreds of professional articles and presented numerous papers at professional meetings.

In recent years US imperial strategy has sought to lessen the cost of defeating and overthrowing independent countries.

President Trump cancelled his attendance at the Summit of the Americas meeting of all the 35 presidents of the region designed to debate and formulate a common policy. Trump delegated Vice President Pence in his place. VP Pence a known nonentity with zero experience and even less knowledge of Latin America – US relations indicates the Trump regime’s disdain and low opinion of the eighth meeting of the tri-annual Summit.

Introduction: Political leaders and the mass media deluge the public with a constant stream of frightening incidents caused by the enemy-of-the-week: nerve gas killing dozens of little babies in Syria, Russian-directed poison assassination attempts in England and terror incidents throughout Europe, requiring an increase in domestic police state surveillance and spying. Extensively monitored bank records, intrusive workplace controls, and all personal and, especially, political communications, are in the hands of state security officials or corporate security contractors.

Introduction: As of April 7, nearly three thousand unarmed Christian, Muslim and secular Palestinians have been wounded, over three dozen are in critical condition and at least twenty-five unarmed protestors, including children have been assassinated by hundreds of Israeli snipers and heavily armed troops shooting tank shells into crowds of civilians protesting their decades of incarceration by the racist Israeli state.

US Presidents, European leaders and their academic spokespeople have attributed China’s growing market shares, trade surpluses and technological power to its “theft” of western technology, “unfair” or non-reciprocal trade and restrictive investment practices.