Manjur Karim --
--- Original Message ----- From: James Farmelant <farmelantj at juno.com> To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Sent: Friday, January 21, 2000 3:26 PM Subject: Re: nationalism & imperialism (jim o'connor)
>
> On Fri, 21 Jan 2000 16:55:50 -0800 Barbara Laurence <cns at cats.ucsc.edu>
> writes:
> > Carroll 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).
>
> If you are going to talk about how many of the Populists were
> imperialists as you do below then I would also point out that
> at that time so were many European socialists. In Britain
> most of the Fabians including G.B. Shaw and H.G. Wells
> amongst others were enthusiastic imperialists as were
> probably most social democrats on the Continent at that
> time as well. And of course we know that with the outbreak
> of WW I most of the parties within the Second International
> rallied to the support of their respective governments so
> that we saw the German Social Democrats rallying to the
> Kaiser and the Fatherland while the British Labour Party
> rallied to King and Country, and most of the Russian
> Social Democrats were similarly patriotic at least in
> the beginning. And even decades later it was not
> uncommon for socialist and even communist parties
> in Europe to support the retention of their countries'
> colonial empires. Thus in France, the CP there for a
> long time supported keeping Algeria French. However,
> to the extent that all this was true then all these
> self-defined radicals reinforced the status quos
> of their respective countries. I think that Carrol's
> point is that until self-defined radicals are willing to
> break with their countries' imperialisms then they
> cannot be in any objective sense instruments for
> radical social change. And I think that history
> would bear him out on this point.
>
> >The tautology obscures the basic
> >question:
> >How is it that some people some of the time can take very radical
> >stances,
> >in fact, risk their lives and honor, for a domestic cause, still
> >believing
> >that America is not imperialist, but just makes mistakes, etc.
>
> Aren't you asking how is it possible that radical opponents of
> the system can still be blinded by bourgeois ideologies and thus
> still buy into illusions concerning the countries in which they
> live? The
> short answer to that is Marx's aphorism that the ideas of the
> ruling class are the ruling ideas. That of course still leaves
> open the question of why presumably sincere opponents
> of the system should still embrace ideological illusions
> such as the myth that the US is not an imperialist country when
> they have managed to reject other illusions that are perpetuated
> by the ruling class.
>
> >
> >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.
>
> Possibly also because this is not a Marxist list. In case you
> haven't noticed ideologies like pomo are pretty pervasive
> here so I guess it is possible that some or even many
> people on this list share in the kinds of illusions that
> you have been referring to concerning the US.
>
> >But I find rarely any
> >discussion of the nature of, contradictions of, evils of, etc., US
> >imperialism. So many Populists were imperialists, it would curl your
> >hair,
> >and that's a major radical movement. Check out William A. Williams
> >work.
> >And there were self-defined cold war radicals as well as cold war
> >liberals.
>
> Yes, the famous 'State Department socialists' like Sidney Hook,
> the later Max Shachtman and their disciples.
>
> >If radical means going to the roots of things, clearly the roots are
> >so
> >twisted, mixed-up with one another, numerous, etc., that one can have
> >arguable evaluations of the nature of the US in the world.
> >
> >Jim O'Connor
> >
> >
>
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