>are you saying that there is a tendency to oppose american action
>purely because its american action and to ignore any positive
>effects it might bring?
No, I think what Dabashi was going after, as was the WSWS piece, and what I'd agree with, is the view of the U.S. as uniformly evil (which seems to be the Carrol Coxian position) rather than a profoundly contradictory force. There's much that's bad, and there's much that's good, in U.S. society, but most people, patriot and critics, tend to focus on one side to the exclusion of the other.
>i do not think chomsky sees US imperialism as the root of all evil.
I was exaggerating a bit, and I should make it clear that I admire Chomsky tremendously. But I think he, and people like him, tend not to give enough weight to the malign interests and practices of outside forces - comprador classes in the Third World, the EU and Japanese ruling classes, despots and religious reactionaries all over the place, etc. It's a very U.S.-centric view of the world (paralleling Chomsky's very American anti-theoretical empiricism).
>please do not read my message as confrontational. being from another
>place, i have often faced accusations of being "anti-american" when
>i have critiqued the actions of the US govt or popular sentiment
>here. but when a person on the "left" such as you or dabashi use the
>term, i am curious about how you define it.
God knows the U.S. deserves massive heaps of criticism, so I don't perceive what you say as confrontational (in the bad sense). What I think is necessary is some acknowledgment that the U.S., like capitalism itself, is full of contradictions, and global condemnations are just as unearned as global admiration.
I'm curious, though. You're from someone else, and are here. Other folks on this list who are full of criticism of the U.S. were born elsewhere and are here. Why? Mainly for economic reasons? Family reasons? School reasons? Or is there something else that attracts you (plural) about U.S. society?
Doug