Agent Orange is the Symptom, Unbridled Capitalism's the Disease! (Part I)

1898--the year when the U.S, illegally annexed Hawai'i--was a watershed moment in world history. That year, the decisive victory in the Spanish-American War signaled a transformation of the U.S. as a hemispheric overlord into a global superpower. Yes, the British Empire was still basking in its remaining decades of having no sunsets on its Union Jacks, but the die was set that the upcoming 20th century was destined to be the "American Century." It took two more genocidal World Wars to dismember the final two European colonial powers in Britain and Germany(and the regional Japanese Imperial upstart), but with the 1945 terrorist bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Uncle Sam declared himself to be the unconditional hegemonic Superpower of the world.

In the ensuing six score and a dozen more years(and despite a 4-decade-long challenge by a briefly robust but ultimately collapsed Soviet Union and its "Socialist Camp"). the American Capitalist and militaristic juggernaut ruled the Planet with callous impunity...