SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
u.s. imperialism
Crime of the Century: An Old Soundtrack to Our Current Nightmare
How Supertramp’s 1974 prog-rock anthem foreshadowed 2025’s catastrophe.
Mar 16, 2025
Listening to Supertramp’s album Crime of the Century in 2025 is like dusting off an old diary and realizing you were right about everything.
Supertramp’s 1974 prog-rock anthem was not meant to be trapped in a decade drowning in idealism. Rather, it was a collection of elegies that resonate with me more now, in our current nightmare, than when I first listened to it. The mournful melodies and plaintive lyrics (by Richard Davies and Roger Hodgson) speak of the crises of vague spiritual thirst, self-loathing, money culture, schools churning out compliant citizens, and unabashed corruption.
It came to a head in the 2025 inauguration of an American president with the grand unveiling of a well-worn power system but with a staggering level of audacity. Near the president and out of the shadows, there stood magnates of seemingly incurable hubris who reached their bliss points, invited to take reign of sensitive policy and firing authority and gain access to the country’s secrets and public money. A new administration wasted no time unveiling a “billionaires’ row” of insatiable elites who aren’t just playing the game. They own it. Collectively worth $1.35 trillion, they have become brands in human flesh, more recognizable than the corporate empires they built.
The new administration did not emerge out of a vacuum. It is more of a political continuum than a rupture.
And somehow, it’s all there… in the album.
Four years after its release, I came across Crime of the Century in a used album store on the main strip of Carbondale, Illinois, during my undergraduate years at Southern Illinois University. Every other week or so, I’d walk to the music store that always smelled like stale cannabis and was managed by a large man with cannabis-stained teeth and a lot of opinions. He was clearheaded enough to have promised me that he’d keep an eye out for Supertramp cassettes and vinyls.
Back in the apartment, I had Crime on repeat for longer than I will confess. Somewhere in the silage of existential angst, I decrypted the pangs that augured the coming of a novel strain of corruption and indifference capable of shaking the moral foundations of anything in its path, including a nuked-up, power-bloated country, exulting in its hegemonic dominance, yet hanging on to conceits of global moral leadership.
There were plenty of suspects to point fingers at back in the 70s, but the hardest part—which the album still dares us to do—was staring down ourselves, we the self-satisfied searchers, critics, and activists with bell-bottoms, inebriated by our magical thinking of independence and convincing ourselves that we were above the detritus and contributed nothing to the collective rot. You’ll find this indictment in the concluding lines of the title track, “Crime of the Century”:
Who are these men of lust, greed, and glory?
Rip off the masks and let’s see
But that's not right, oh no, what’s the story?
Look, there’s you and there's me
I can’t say I saw today’s condition coming when I was 20. But it does seem close to a kind of Bayesian reasoning, where you have an initial, under-substantiated certitude about something and then see new evidence that confirms your most primitive claims and worries.
The new administration did not emerge out of a vacuum. It is more of a political continuum than a rupture. Former President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, and Vice President Kamala Harris have exited the stage, but their hollow-point scruples remain contagious, repurposed by their successors. What we are witnessing is not a change in direction but a seamless handoff, a continuation of the same imperial prerogatives, now dressed in different rhetoric.
The Oval Office openly covets resources and land that belong to other people. The perverse logic of supremacy and strange level of entitlement (epistemic assumptions of Empire) are rubber-stamped by compromised elected and appointed men and women of Pharaonic arrogance, who have narcissistic visions of taking Gaza’s seashore and gas fields, Greenland’s minerals, Canada’s lumber and oil, Ukraine’s massive rare earth reserves, and Panama’s canal.
So do we need more proof of active colonial appetites?
The existential dread of Crime of the Century should have shown us an imp squatting on the chest of a defeated counterculture that my generation thoughtlessly held on to. The costumes and performance of rebellion ultimately became products themselves, mass-packaged and sold back to consumers, as the edited book Commodify Your Dissent painfully argued a bit too late in 1997. To identify with grunge or goth moods, for example, subsequent generations purchased the look from fashion brands who created inventories, price points, and a market that preyed on real feelings of alienation and disillusionment in youth culture.
At the heart of Crime of the Century is a troubling accusation: We’re complicit in the corruption we claim to despise. It’s easy to cast blame on political elites, but the rot runs deeper. Media personalities, especially the high-profile journalists of broadcast celebrity and late-night comics, make their careers selectively criticizing these very figures and what they represent—only to rub shoulders with them at off-camera galas, clink wine glasses, invite them onto their shows, and turn critique into entertainment.
Each day, the celebrity reporters and broadcasters spew hundreds of thousands of words to demonstrate their erudition, apparently depleting their allotment of verbiage for the day, leaving no room for “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing.”
The oligarchs of influence thrive because, in part, we fund them. We engage the platforms, consume and share the storylines, and chase virality. We freely give away the inventories of our privacy. We do this knowing that the details of our inner sanctums are the products that social media giants are trafficking for great profit. The hard truth is, no one’s fully off the grid. We’re entangled in the wires we trip over and then curse at them like podcasters.
So, what do we do? Keep spinning the album and nervously thumb prayer beads (misbaha, in colloquial Arabic), cowering in the album’s pastel and gloomy brilliance?
With the exception of those who dared to speak truth to power (mainly through alternative presses that captured the right kind of radical), my generation watered the tillage that sprouted our current conundrum. One of the tracks of Crime exposed many for what they were: “For we dreamed a lot / And we schemed a lot / And we tried to sing of love before the stage fell apart.” That’s right, we were cantors of phantom ideals that were about to fall apart early in the 1980s, when John Lennon was murdered in New York City and Ronald Regan sired trickle down economics, which “foolishly trusted the collective greed of a people” to care for the needy and marginalized.
Songwriters like Cat Stevens, Bob Dylan, and Rick Davies, along with scholars like Christopher Lasch, sounded the alarm early, but most of us dismissed it, assuming the warning had to be for someone else. In his 1979 book The Culture of Narcissism, Lasch saw through the cracks of idiot-proof idealism and noticed the shape of social and psychological narcissism that soon enough would be given the key to the Oval Office.
My generation’s surviving tenants need to stop lecturing and stop recounting imagined glories of the past. It’s time to move out of the way, especially for the generation of young people now whom we bitterly complain about, but who actually are better positioned to succeed where we failed. They have ideals but are not idealists, and they are jaded, but not overly so, just enough. Former and current students of mine, they are not content with just listening. With hunger and the right kind of impatience, they will write new songs. Can’t wait to hear them, for if we’re still noticing the crimes of 1974 in 2025, it can only mean the crime never stopped. It just learned to dress better.
Keep ReadingShow Less
US Institutions Reward Latin American Leaders’ Crimes in the Name of Liberal Order
As long as these leaders pledge allegiance to the neoliberal order and the Washington Consensus, their authoritarian abuses are ignored, and they are embraced by elites.
Mar 15, 2025
On February 25, the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, or SAIS, one of the most prestigious educational institutions in global affairs and an intellectual vanguard of the liberal order, held an event with former Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo. The theme: “Democratic Backsliding in Latin America.”
What the event crucially withheld is that Zedillo himself is responsible for crimes against humanity and the destruction of his country’s democratic system under the Partido Revolucionario Institucional’s “Perfect Dictatorship,” a period of uninterrupted 71-year rule.
Zedillo served as president from 1994 to 2000; he was the last heir of that era, during which the PRI kept rigging elections, threatening opposition parties, buying votes, and deploying security forces against opposition to hold on to power.
If Zedillo is lecturing on democratic backsliding, can we really expect him to acknowledge his own role in it?
Failing to mention his crimes was not an accident—it epitomized a broader, deliberate pattern of whitewashing of Latin American leaders responsible for horrendous crimes by U.S.-led, liberal institutions.
Within days of assuming office, Zedillo provoked the worst economic crisis in the country’s history, better known as the Peso Crisis, when he immediately devalued the peso by 15% and converted private banking debt to public debt, causing enormous economic strife, inequality, poverty, and death.
Zedillo also targeted political opponents including in his own party, and repeatedly used the state’s power against peaceful protesters. After years of calling Indigenous protesters demanding further autonomy “terrorists,” state security forces committed the Aguas Blancas and Acteal massacres under his watch. He attempted to suppress reporting on the massacres (only acknowledged decades later) and accelerated conflict with the Zapatistas, while categorically refusing to negotiate with the group despite its popular support against legitimate grievances.
Silence means access, and access bolsters the institution’s connections, at the cost of truth and progress. Voicing any concern over Zedillo’s blacklist of abuses might lead to Zedillo refusing to give the talk, which would affect SAIS’s prestigious image, no matter how it might pervert the school’s supposed educational mandate.
There are countless examples of this corrupt system at work. Former President of Colombia Iván Duque, who is largely responsible for purposefully tanking the Peace Accords and perpetuating civil conflict, as well as repeatedly using the military to kill peaceful protesters, was given a Global Fellowship with the Wilson Center’s Latin American Program and another at Cornell, and frequently visits prestigious think tanks and universities, including Georgetown, to lecture about democracy.
Alejandro Toledo, the disgraced former president of Peru now in jail for his role in the Odebrecht corruption scandal, has held positions at Stanford and Brookings. Álvaro Uribe, the former president of Colombia who exacerbated the War on Drugs and allegedly supported the far-right paramilitary death squads (now the largest drug producers in the country), was also given a fellowship at Georgetown. These are just a few examples of a long list of criminal Latin American leaders in prominent positions in liberal circles in Washington and beyond.
Former Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso, who suspended constitutional rights to deploy the military against protesters and drug cartels, and called an election to prevent Congress from holding him accountable for his corruption, was also given a column in the Wilson Center’s magazine (while he was being impeached), prompting my own resignation from the program. He was also offered a Senior Leadership Fellowship at the Florida International University, along with Juan Guiadó, Álvaro Uribe, and others.
To cite one last ongoing example, Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa has also been parading around various universities and think tanks, particularly in Washington and Miami, allegedly earning significant cash and gifts despite Ecuadorian law preventing large foreign donations. Noboa has maintained a “state of exception” for more than 13 months, expanding state powers and suspending constitutional rights. Thousands have been arrested without trial, and the ensuing conflict has resulted in thousands more deaths, as the state feeds a worsening cycle of violence, disproportionately targeting marginalized populations, that shows little sign of letting up in the long-term. That includes four Afro-Ecuadorian boys, 15 years old and younger, who were murdered by military forces in Guayaquil late last year. Barring a major shift, it is expected that Noboa will be offered a cushy fellowship or consulting golden parachute in the United States after leaving office.
Their crimes seem to cause no pain for the American liberal intelligentsia, who are supposed to uphold an order based on “rules and norms.” Rather, they seem to be applied selectively based on naked national interest.
As long as these leaders pledge allegiance to the neoliberal order and the Washington Consensus, their authoritarian abuses are ignored, and they are embraced by elites. Attendees, organizers, and institutions enable this whitewashing to protect their geopolitical and economic interests—whether to uphold liberal order or, more cynically, to maintain U.S. control over Latin American sovereignty.
This revolving door extends beyond think tanks and universities—many of these disgraced leaders secure high-paying consulting roles with American firms, advising on the very legal and political systems they once manipulated. Zedillo, beyond his talk at SAIS (and his fellowship at Yale), is also a consultant with various American companies including Citigroup and Coca-Cola, for which he manages multi-million-dollar portfolios.
Evidently, this system has permeated through all institutions belonging to the old liberal order, whether they be think tanks, educational institutions, development organizations, or multilateral regional organizations, all of which have repeatedly provided cover, and even support, to criminal leaders from the region, in the name, supposedly, of “democracy and freedom.”
This incestuous system, consequently, rewards terrible leaders who pay lip service to liberalism, contributing to the perpetuation of institutionalized corruption, human rights abuses, and democratic backsliding in Latin America.
For those consuming these institutions' output—events, speeches, research, and courses—this corrupt cycle distorts the truth, obscuring the crucial historical and political context behind future policy decisions. If Zedillo is lecturing on democratic backsliding, can we really expect him to acknowledge his own role in it?
Having these bad actors as messengers also incentivizes the next generation to participate in the corrupt system themselves, having the leaders as mentors. The leaders, coming from a very powerful position with immense connections and social and economic capital, can provide internships, fellowships, and other opportunities, often with financial reward (and thus ownership). Mentees will then become part of the sociopolitical caste that birthed the corrupt leaders, be fed revisionist history, and perpetuate the cycle further, damaging progress for generations.
This incestuous system rewarding corruption and loyalty to the American-led liberal order should be called out at every turn. Certain heterodox analysts, scholars, journalists, and activists, have themselves been critical, incurring significant professional risks to speak truth to power. Some of these events and appointments, for instance, Uribe’s appointment to Georgetown, have been widely protested.
These critical debates are not “grey areas” or a “game,” they are part of a broader, centuries-long effort for independence, sovereignty, and popular rule, despite very well-funded colonial efforts, including by liberal elites in Washington, against self-determination.
As Eduardo Galeano wrote in his iconic The Open Veins of Latin America, “History never really says goodbye. History says, ‘See you later.’” The weaponization of democracy and freedom by liberal elite institutions to cover up pro-American regional leaders’ crimes for imperial interests is a mere repackaging of Monroe Doctrine dogma, and it won’t go away until it is gutted inside and out.
Keep ReadingShow Less
NATO Chief Rebuffs Trump's Attempt to Use Alliance to Help US Take Greenland
"Trump is causing a completely unforced recession, the markets tanking, and your 401(k)s plummeting, and he's focused on invading Greenland," said one observer.
Mar 13, 2025
North Atlantic Treaty Organization Secretary General Mark Rutte met with President Donald Trump on Thursday at the White House in Washington, D.C., where he brushed off the Republican leader's suggestion that the transatlantic alliance might get involved in his quixotic bid to annex the autonomous territory of another NATO member.
Revisiting his wish to somehow acquire Greenland from Denmark—an outcome opposed by Greenland, Denmark, and a majority of Americans—Trump told reporters during a joint press conference with Rutte and other NATO and U.S. officials including Vice President JD Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that he's bullish on the prospects of annexation.
"I think it'll happen," the president said. "And I'm just thinking, I didn't give it much thought before, but I'm sitting with a man that could be very instrumental. You know, Mark, we need that for international security, not just security, international."
At one point during the meeting, Trump turned to Hegseth and remarked, "You know, we have a couple of bases on Greenland already, and we have quite a few soldiers, and maybe you'll see more and more soldiers go there, and I don't know, what do you think about that, Pete?"
"Don't answer that, Pete," Trump said, eliciting laughter.
Maintaining the congenial vibe of the meeting, Rutte said with a laugh that "when it comes to Greenland yes or not joining the U.S., I would leave that outside, for me, this discussion, because I don't want to drag NATO into that."
The former longtime Dutch prime minister then said that Trump is "totally right" about countering Chinese and Russian regional influence, and that NATO cooperation on that matter is "very important."
While many observers focused on Rutte's diplomatic rejection of Trump's desire to acquire Greenland, Rasmus Jarlov, a member of Denmark's Parliament representing the Conservative People's Party, said on social media that "we do not appreciate the secretary general of NATO joking with Trump about Greenland like this."
"It would mean war between two NATO countries," Jarlov warned. "Greenland has just voted against immediate independence from Denmark and does not want to be American, ever."
The center-right Demokraatit Party pulled off a surprise victory Tuesday in Greenland's parliamentary election, with Jens-Frederik Nielsen, the territory's likely next prime minister, vehemently rejecting U.S. annexation.
"I hope it sends a clear message to [Trump] that we are not for sale," he said of the election results in an interview with Sky News. "We don't want to be Americans. No, we don't want to be Danes. We want to be Greenlanders, and we want our own independence in the future. And we want to build our own country by ourselves."
Trump's comments came on the same day that
NBC Newscited U.S. officials who said the president has ordered the Pentagon to prepare plans to "take back" the Panama Canal—including through the use of military force if deemed necessary.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular