By Ryan Sparrow

Leading an empire is a lot of work. President Obama won a second term as President over a slightly nastier person, Mitt Romney. In their course for the White House, the main headquarters to direct the empire, billions upon billions of dollars were spent. Billions were spent saying the right-wing Democratic Party is better than the right-wing Republican Party and vice versa.

The US is a massive empire; it has near hegemony over the entirety of the world.

This is why in the Presidential debates there was no mention of tackling climate change or curbing military spending.

The US has 50% of the world’s defense budget not because it is defending itself or freedom, but to maintain an Empire. Liberal commenters will have us believe that the Empire building is simply mistakes, simply invasions based on wrong information or stupid ideas.

It is not by mistake or stupid decisions that Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam or many others were invaded. It’s not by mistake that Yemen, Pakistan, and many other countries are being drone strike on a regular basis. It’s not by mistake that democratically elected governments were overthrown like Haiti, Honduras and Paraguay.

It is, however, big business. Millions die across the globe in order for profits to be made. There is a lot of money involved in attacking other countries via defense contracts, there is a lot of money involved in stealing their resources, and there is a lot of money in rebuilding contracts afterwards.

Empire is not about military conquest; empire is imperialism which is resource extraction and profits. For example in 2008 when the government of Honduras was overthrown, they overthrew the government without any initial bloodshed, though death squads do round up and routinely kill supporters of many of the democratic organization, peasant associations and trade unions. The new dictatorship in Honduras has now opened themselves to the dictates of mining corporations, many of which are based in Canada.

It is not necessary to have a country be a colony by use of military invasion, simply the threat of force when a country engages in economic nationalism.  Economic nationalism refers to economic policies that are directed towards the betterment of the colonial people at the expense of the interest of the imperial country.

As President, Obama has overseen the expansion of the US Empire to include more colonies, like Libya. Libya’s crime to the empire was not abuses towards the population which no doubt existed, nor that Gaddafi was a undemocratic, it was that Libya did implement policies that were in the economic interests of the Libyan people. Policies like a public oil corporation whose profits went to fund healthcare, infrastructure and education.  The crime to the empire was the lack of markets for foreign multinationals to profit where profits could be made.

Obama’s new colony is very unstable, the life expectancy and purchasing power of Libya has plummeted since the NATO bombardment and overthrow. But this is not a concern of the US Empire. Libya, once the richest country in Africa now has much of the country’s major infrastructure in ruins. Soon after the overthrow Libya had its oilfields privatized and are now in the hands of big oil multinationals.

The empire however is not free; someone has to pay for the costs involved in maintaining an empire. When the United States government goes to wars, maintains military bases or attacks other countries it uses its defense budget and public treasury to pay for it. The spoils of war are not going back into the government’s coffers, the revenues brought in from imperialism are privatized, and the profits of war are provided to corporations and their boards of directors. The CEO of banks and hedge funds, Oil companies, construction firms, defense firms, and so on all benefit from imperialism.

Imperialism allows that the coffers of defense contractors’ overflow, with their rampart “unexpected” cost overruns much like the F35 Fighter Jets that Canada is planning on purchasing, where the costs more than doubled.

So much profit is made, but the people have to pay for this empire, they do this through taxes, which are increasingly flat taxation. What is meant by flat taxation is working people are paying a larger share of it, while the rich and the corporations pay less or sometimes nothing. Debt is used to finance the imperial ambitions, which in turn provide massive returns to those issuing the debts. Cuts to the social wages are made, cuts to social security, public sector wages, and so on in order so that these vultures can profit ever more for war.

In order to maintain an empire, there is a need to suppress alternative political voices that are opposed to it, most notably in this most recent election was the arrest of the Green party candidates and their exclusion from the debates. Most notably under Obama was the repression of the Occupy Movements, this continues policies that attack organized and peaceful protests and the routine arrests of the poor and racialized people.

The monopoly media cartel and the public education system also help reinforce the dominant imperial ideology by not just promoting and framing the discourse but also limiting the realm of acceptable opinions. For example discussions on reducing the US defense budget or even municipal policing budgets are deemed subversive and outside the realm of acceptable opinion.

Obama is not in opposition to empire building, he is engaged in it. If he was opposed to it, he could not be president.

Amid all the big talk about the economy during this presidential election, a mini-drama played out earlier this week over the use of a song by The National in a pro-Mitt Romney video. The decision to soundtrack a Romney video with The National is a confusing one – the band played two concerts in support of Obama not even a month ago. And even more confusingly, the song used in the Romney video, “Fake Empire,” is the same song Obama used in a video about his “signs of hope and change” that came out shortly before the 2008 election.

The National posted a scathing response to the Romney video on Youtube, saying that “every single person involved in the creation of the music you’re using is voting for President Obama.” The video, made by a group called “Ohio University Students for Romney,” was taken down the next day.

You might see this as a win for artists looking to control how their work is used and to prevent it from being used without permission. Though it’s easier than ever to take and use music without permission, it’s also easier to get caught. When I watched the Romney video, The National’s comment had around 1,500 up votes, easily making it the top comment. It worked pretty well to undermine the message of the video. The band had real power; they were able to do something about the misuse of their work, which hasn’t always been the case for artists.

In the early 1990’s, members of “riot grrrl,” a feminist punk rock movement, notoriously avoided all contact with the media to prevent the misrepresentation of their message. If anything about the riot grrrl movement was expressed, it was on their own terms.

But avoiding the media completely isn’t a great solution, and The National have shown that artists today can still control how they are being presented while still reaching many people.

A question remains, though: Why did the Ohio University Students for Romney choose “Fake Empire”? Surely there are plenty of other songs that could have been used in the video that didn’t have such a clear association with Obama. Either the Students for Romney didn’t do their homework about the history of the song they decided to use, or they are actually much smarter than they seem.

News about the Romney video didn’t start to spread until The National commented on the video, and maybe the Ohio University students chose to use “Fake Empire” precisely because it was the worst choice they could have made. Publicity about a bad decision is still publicity. They were able to take advantage of The National’s ability to point out how ridiculous it was to use their music to also draw attention to the video it was in. It seems that artists will never be able to control the use of their work, even when it appears that they do.

And maybe, if we want to really take it to the next conspiracy theory level, the whole thing was cleverly planned so that the statement of apology made by the Ohio students would reach the largest number of people. The students used the opportunity to write, “unfortunately we’ve learned that partisan divide exists on Youtube and in music as much as it does in Washington.” The apology spins the whole thing to claim that Romney is really about bringing different people together, and though he is running on the idea that he represents a change from Obama, it’s a change that can appeal to everyone.

Is a partisan divide really such a bad thing?

Nolan Matthews, Senior ANDY Editor

From Obama’s numerous campaign endorsements by pop icons to Romney’s laughably out-of-pitch rendition of “America the Beautiful,” music has played a star role in this presidential election. Unfortunately for politics, (but fortunately for everyone else), some efforts have failed quite humorously.

Obama's administration seems to value music as a way to make money, while Romney’s campaign instead seems to use music for an emotional connection with the American people. However, luckily for Obama, he seems to have racked up the grand majority of artists’ votes anyway - specifically the ones with the most dispensable cash.

Jay Z and Beyoncé, who have a collective worth of 775 million, are not only avid supporters of the President, but also have campaigned quite rigorously to gain him donations through their $40,000 a plate New York fundraiser back in September. Obama has also managed to gain the support of other big names in music, including Madonna, Bruce Springsteen and Lady Gaga.

Mitt Romney’s campaign has instead focused on proving that his platform will represent a change for the nation. A notorious example was when Romney’s running mate Paul Ryan tried to convince voters that he believed in smaller government because he had Rage Against the Machine on his iPod. It seemed this statement didn’t distract anyone from Ryan’s true political intentions, especially the band itself. In an angry reply to Ryan, lead guitarist Tom Morello expressed in Rolling Stone magazine how Ryan’s “guiding vision of shifting revenue more radically to the one per cent is antithetical to the message of Rage.”

The contrast between each campaign’s success is perhaps most striking in the array of artists who’ve endorsed each candidate. Obama has gained the support of a wide range of artists, both young and old, from a variety of different genres. Mitt Romney has instead garnered the support of a collection of elderly white gentlemen with whom his unprogressive ideologies resonate. Any outliers in this formula unsurprisingly display a meager level of intelligence or lack an understanding of politics. For instance, Scott Strapp, the front man of the ‘90s rock band Creed, said he supports Romney because, “My heart and soul would really like someone like Reagan or FDR to come back and give us a New Deal.” Apparently Stapp is a little unfamiliar with history, being that it was only FDR who created a New Deal and not Reagan.

When it comes to getting votes, music plays less of a role than rational discussion about the economy, but its use is undeniably successful in evoking an emotional response in voters, which can prove integral to a campaign’s success.

At least the use of music during campaigning has offered a good deal of laughs, and in the election process we’ve seen in the past few months, who could want any more than that?

Spencer Semianiw

By Simon Granat

Well, for political junkies, it’s that time of year. We’re now in the midst of the US Presidential election, not to mention another Federal Leadership election.

And as I write this, Obama and Romney are in their dressing rooms, preparing to square off head to head in the first of three US Presidential debates.

If you’re a political junkie like me, this is the equivalent of the Superbowl, only with less common fanfare. And just like the Superbowl, some of us Canadians are obsessed with large scale U.S. spectacles.

Presidential debates deserve attention since in the short span of an hour and a half, this event can seriously affect who will be the commander in chief of the world’s most powerful country. So as Canadians, it’s worthwhile to pay attention and to ask, what’s in it for us?

Barack Obama, the guy everyone knows and most Canadians love, is still the favourite. His economic policies favour “Buy American” and a shift to wean the country off of foreign oil producers. These two policies could pose as problematic for Canada. By buying American, the already battered Canadian manufacturing sector could see even greater reductions.And while there are numerous other factors at play, and while the U.S. will remain Canada’s trading partner, we need to look no further than Hamilton’s U.S. Steel to see the potential effects on our economy.

Likewise, any policy that affects foreign oil will undoubtedly affect Canada. Our economy is commodity based, and oil represents a large proportion of that sector of our economy. I’m not making a value judgement here, but this election will have an effect on any pipeline decisions the Harper government will make, especially if we ship our oil down south, or out west.

Romney’s election could, I think, prove dire. At the expense of regurgitating the Obama campaign’s messaging, it will lead us back to the old G.W. Bush economic policies that got us into a recession in the first place.

It’s worth noting that Obama still heavily favours private enterprise, and his economic policies could still be considered neoliberal trickle-down economics.