The "overall framework of power," as Henry Kissinger calls it, consists of the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO. The muscle that enforces the economic regime is the U.S. military. With a bloated budget of half a trillion dollars a year, the Pentagon's warriors straddle the earth. The president announces that America is "the greatest force for good in history." Somehow that view is not widely shared. The New York Times reports, Bush's policies have "generated a tsunami of anti-Americanism." In these critical times dissent is crucial. As Orwell said, "If liberty means anything at all it's the freedom to tell people what they don't want to hear."

Arundhati Roy is the celebrated author of The God of Small Things, winner of the prestigious Booker Prize. The New York Times calls her, "India's most impassioned critic of globalization and American influence." She is the winner of the Lannan Award for Cultural Freedom and the Sydney Peace Prize. Her latest books are An Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire and The Checkbook & the Cruise Missile with David Barsamian.