> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
> [mailto:owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com]On Behalf Of Doug Henwood
>
> Because the U.S. deserves to crash & burn doesn't mean it will
> happen.
> > > Do you think such a collapse in the U.S. would make this country pull
> >> back from the world, or make it even meaner?
> >
> >Does it much matter? This is a real question.
>
> Sure does. The U.S. has a fearsome military machine that could really
> fuck up the rest of the world if it wanted to. Back in 1987, the now
> largely forgotten Wall Street economist Albert Wojnilower - was he Dr
> Doom or Dr Death? I can never remember - said "Americans are and show
> every sign of remaining, in contrast with Japan, a short-term,
> mercurial, polyglot, multi-ethnic, mobile, and heavily armed people.
> Claims on such a people need to be accumulated and exercised with
> care." I don't know what the "polyglot, multi-ethnic" aspects have to
> do with it, but his general point is sound.
I'm not into wishful thinking, I hope. I don't think we should allow ourselves to be overawed by the Empire either.
I quite like John McMurtry's idea in the Cancer Stage of Capitalism; it's not armies which defend civilisations, but a deeper historic process of making the social and natural worlds consonant. Armies do not necessarily advance that process. On the contrary.
Mark Jones http://www.egroups.com/group/CrashList>