are you saying that racism begets racism? or are you asking if I think that? if the latter, then no. but yes, the racism of the US is important to how, and against whom, it both does and _does not_ conduct interventions, bombings, etc. this is pretty well beyond doubt for me.
but I am being provocative because I think the time for 'anti-americanism = anti-capitalism' is passing, and this war, paradoxically, is one of the key moments that. maybe I'm also wrong to bring it up on a mostly US list...
>It's likely that the primary or most visceral reaction against the US is
>against that very power they confront directly--particularly when that
power
>is unleashed militarily. But people also make the connections to the more
>subtle ways the US corrupts their culture (McDonalds). That power comes
>from the US hegemony as the world capitalist power. So, by saying the
>anti-americanism is more racist than anti-capitalist, are you saying you
>think that latter connection is not being made--capitalism as the source
of
>the hated power unleashed against them and others around the world? At
>least in not now or in so clear and an immediate way? How did you reach
>such a conclusion?
one of the reasons I would have for reaching such a conclusion is in noting that you say 'the US corrupts their culture' instead of capitalism commodifies cultures. and, in having noted my own visceral reaction to the trashing of macdonalds in Belgrade. moreover, I think the voiding of anti-americanism of its anti-capitalist connections is also a result of the collapse of geopolitical alignments which we can point to on the map and say 'there is anti-capitalism'; and, less convinced of this, but I'm still thinking it's a real factor here, is that the US is no longer as pivotal to the organisation of global capital, even though it is still militarily decisive (due, in part to post-ww2 restraints on Germany's and Japan's military force).
two further points on this: a) is the culture here that is being corrupted a product of something outside of capitalism? b) what does this defense of culture consist of today, esp when it is no longer plausible to make the distinction pure culture versus degenerated culture? (I use these words provocatively, since they connote the nazi version of anti-americanism.)
one of the largest growth industries here today is eco-tourism. it certainly 'protects cultures', but only as commodities. which is also to say that it creates cultural practices which did not exist before, even though those practices gain their 'symbolic' value by referencing some vague never-existing past.
and, I think Zizek was quite right to ask: "One must address oneself instead to the only relevant question today: How can one establish transnational political institutions, which are strong enough to carry out resistance to the absolute rule of capital and which make politically visible that the fundamentalist resistance against the new world order, from Milocevic to Le Pen to the extreme right in all Europe, is a part of this rule ?"
angela
ps. I'm having trouble getting my brain to switch gear from the war to surplus value, but perhaps the reference to 'symbolic' value is a way of shifting my thoughts back.