Richard Balzano

Consider the Source: Expats, Protest, and Imperial Optics

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by Richard Balzano Americans are perhaps the planet’s most propagandized population. Exceptionalism, innocence, and decades of propaganda have diluted the general public’s ability to critically process international affairs and U.S. foreign policy. The media is complicit, for when Washington sets its crosshairs on another government and primes the public for intervention, the empire’s ambitions are strategically branded in uplifting good-guy savior rhetoric and cheered by flag-waving mainstream media consumers insisting that this time we’ll be greeted as liberators. (Hint: we won’t… .) Protesters recently took to the streets in Iran and Venezuela, but not for the reasons we’re given by the mainstream media. Many of …

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Violence By Another Name

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by Richard Balzano Economic coercion has become a routine instrument of U.S. foreign policy, using sanctions to pressure smaller states to yield to American hegemony. Often hailed as a peaceful alternative to conventional warfare, sanctions are inherently violent by design, undercutting any claims of humanitarian intent. Sanctions are designed to inflict deprivation inside target states. Sanction-induced deprivation (SID) is intended to create unrest and trigger anti-government mobilization, to in turn bring about desired political change. Reasonable observers may identify popular mobilization as evidence of civil society, but with no sense of irony or self-reflection, Washington capitalizes on protests to label target governments as illegitimate authoritarian …

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