cultural imperialism

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Wed Nov 14 17:59:12 PST 2001


Mina Kumar wrote:


>My point wasn't that you didn't or that you don't know, it's that
>these comments don't reflect that knowledge, and this is what makes
>people react.

I've been writing for an audience that I assumed knew the things I've said here and elsewhere.

There's a sad convention in a lot of left writing that you have to invoke a whole litany of sins and crimes before you can say anything. Maybe it's just an American thing, I don't know. But it often makes the stuff clotted and unreadable. I'd thought I could dispense with it here.


>Do you realize how cliched you're being?

To quote X-Ray Spex, I am a cliche.


>You may get jollies out of other people watching Titanic and
>drinking Pepsi, but I have no such (nationalistic?) feelings.

Actually I spent a good deal of my life denouncing U.S. cultural imperialism, and attributing it purely to economic power. It's only over the last year or so that I started thinking that things were more complicated than that.

Pepsi's too sweet for me, I much prefer Coke.

Doug



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