nationalism & imperialism (jim o'connor)

[Barbara Laurence]

Max, since states and elites decide what a country does and doesn't do
(unlike domestic matters, where ordinary people have more of a say), I use
"country" = "states and elites."
Whether the population actively supports or passively accepts imperialist
structures and policies, we're all still implicated in at least small ways.
The US is a screwy imperialist country in many ways, not the least of which
is that older national imperialisms and struggles in Europe and elsewhere,
pitting e.g., North Europe over South and East Europe, or North Europe
against Asia, become transformed into many class struggles between capital
and labor - once immigration from Europe and elsewhere reaches a certain
point.  Thus e.g., English imperialism in Ireland turns into English,
Northern European US capitalists vs. Irish immigrant laborers.  National
struggles become class struggles.   This means that as you imply but don't
make explicit, anti-imperialism can arise in the US faster than most any
other country.  I mean e.g., San Francisco Irish bartenders raising money
for IRA arms.  I don't think anyone has told the story of our country in
just this way.

As for individualism as an ideology, take a look at the first and last
chapter of Accumulation Crisis  (Basil Blackwell, 1983).  As for the
credibility of US imperialist ideology in the absence of communist
bogeymen:  imperialism is always built on both the external enemy and the
projection of self-defined positive qualities that people outside of the US
are expected to recognize as good, and to accept; if not, to have shoved
down their throat.  The essence of this process in my view is that US
leaders define any other people or countries as permanently inferior, if
they don't agree with the US then  they are in fact inferior.  However,
once they  agree that their way of doing things is inferior to
anglo-american capitalism, then it's possible for them to be helped, to
raise their level, so as one day to be no longer inferior.  The US's worst
nightmares are countries that only refuse to admit they're inferior but
also think  that they're  superior, Fidel being the blazing example.  I
mean with a superior social order.

Jim O'Connor