Barbara Laurence wrote:
> Carrol and James F, Tautologies shed no light on anything except perhaps
> the style of argument of those who use them. You're saying that radicals
> by definition are anti-imperialist, to which there's no reply, except to
> recall that many self-defined radicals, yesterday and today, see America as
> a God-given blessing not terrible ugly American (apologies to my favorite
> story-teller, Graham Greene).
You are quite correct. In this instance I was substituting sarcasm for argument -- affirming as a tautology what I merely thought *should* be one. But I think it might be translated into yet another rhetorical form that of prophecy: Only to the extent that "radical" comes to *mean* anti-imperialist will a sustainable left movement take root in the U.S.
You also write:
> I add that I don't find the expression US imperialism used very much at all
> by lbo-ists. Because it's so obvious? Maybe. But I find rarely any
> discussion of the nature of, contradictions of, evils of, etc., US
> imperialism.
One barrier to confronting the evils of u.s. imperialism is that they are so inter-connected with racism -- and too many (white) leftists shy away from confronting the racism of white workers in the u.s. Without confronting racism within the working class there is no confronting u.s. imperialism. That the populist movements you mention tended to support imperialism is not unconnected with their racist tendencies and their eventual degradation and defeat. And Todd Gitlin is only the most egregious of the many contemporary leftists (or self- proclaimed leftists) who believe working-class interests may be separated from the struggle against racism.
And as Malcolm discovered (and King was perhaps discovering when he died), there is ultimately no confronting racism in the u.s. without confronting u.s. imperialism in the world.
Incidentally, in the current issue of *New Politics* there are two articles (which I have only skimmed so far) which are of interest in this context. Stanford M. Lyman, "The 'Chinese Question' and American Labor Historians" and Herbert Hill, "Chinese Immigrant Workers and the Contemporary Labor Movement."
Carrol