>Look, the point is that simple racialized analyses of imperialism
>don't work anymore. Two of the top administrators of the Empire are
>now black. Neither is a marginal figure, and one was the military
>leader of the Gulf War. More broadly, the senior staff of the IMF and
>World Bank are extremely integrated - as are many trading floors.
>Moreso than lots of left organizations, in fact.
Well, any bald analogy such as this is bound towards simplification. But a correction to the above: The analogy was meant to be quite precise in this one key respect: Both NATO and the KKK have common origins as _military_ (or paramilitary) alliances in defence of Western Civilization or, in what amounts to the same thing, the "White Race" (i.e., Europe and its settled lands). This is the hinge for the analogy.
So, including bodies such as the IMF, World Bank, etc., is ruled "out of bounds" :-) They are not military organizations.
The objection I was expecting was that Turkey (the original country of "Orientalism"!) is a NATO member. That too can be refuted (along the lines of, 'the exception that proves the rule', etc.).
But I would like to pose this analogy in the context of D&H's "Empire" (I am quoting the title). Why does NATO - arguably a holdover of the Cold War "past" - appear as the chosen vehicle for the _military_ construction of Imperial Sovereignty? Why does this construction in the Balkans case involve a formal rupture with the norms of _internatonal_ law? Note1) that the reference here is to _international_ law, not the negation of national sovereignty, a principle which is only one element of international law; 2) the difference with the Gulf War, which was conducted under the aegis of international law _and_ was precisely not a NATO operation (of course many of the same suspects were deeply involved in that war); and 3) again to emphasize, the concern is with the _military_ aspect of Empire (the construction of Imperial Sovereignty), meaning the negation, in these instances, of political, civil space, which is constructed "by other means". A state of war is by definition a violation of the bounds of sovereignty, imperial, national or otherwise - nevertheless this is governed under international law, which therefore contains within it the negation of national sovereignty. It has for some time, well before our present period of "Empire".
So, wherein lies the progress of empire? In NATO - a military alliance of _soveriegn nations_ (from whence issues said "whiteness"), or in international law, which already contains the negation of the very national sovereignty of which NATO is comprised?
It would seem that the logic of D&H's "Empire" would have to fall on the anti-NATO side.
-Brad Mayer
>Liberals were completely disarmed by the Thomas nomination - they
>just didn't know how to deal with a black reactionary. Evidently some
>Marxists don't know how to deal with the incorporation of nonwhites
>into the senior posts of the New World Order either