When we break rules, we are right, because we are Americans. (Malcolm Fraser- 22nd Prime Minister of Australia)

Here in Australia we joke about being America’s 51st state, but, like Syria, we never will be.

Since the end of the second World War it has been increasingly taboo for a government to overtly invade a country and add it to that government’s official territory, and many international laws were locked into place to reflect that. And yet world power has arguably never been more consolidated than it is right now. The US, the UK, the EU, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Canada, Australia and many other nations tend to march more or less in lockstep with one another on a vast array of subjects ranging from neoliberalism to surveillance to which “regime” is in need of more crushing sanctions on a given day. The alignment isn’t perfect, but it’s too close to perfect to deny.

Which begs the question. As the US today consistently seems to wear the title of The Empire, just who really sits on the throne?

Corporations and banks are not limited by national borders, and neither are the oligarchs who own them. Corruption is now legal in America.

[medium.com]