----- Original Message ----- From: "Carrol Cox" <cbcox at ilstu.edu> To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Sent: Friday, September 07, 2001 5:19 PM Subject: Re: Bond against _Empire_
>
>
> Ian Murray wrote:
> >
> >
> > Do we really want *more* US nationalism and the accompanying
Realist
> > approach to IR? We'll see stuff that will make 1945-the present
look
> > like kid stuff. That's what we'll get if there's a new, improved,
> > neo-nationalism in the 'South', an even nastier US.
> >
>
> Sometimes you are a bit too terse Ian -- I'm not sure I follow this.
>
> Third world peoples cannot make soothing U.S. feelings a major (or
even
> a minor) consideration, and it the function of u.s. leftists, not of
> third-world movements, to fight u.s. nationalism. What you seem to
be
> saying is that no one should attempt to resist u.s. imperialism,
because
> that will make the imperialists angry and they will do nasty things.
I
> know that isn't your meaning -- but what are you saying?
>
> Carrol
==============
Don't mean to be terse by any means. I'm just concerned that neo-nationalisms, no matter how benign, indeed especially if they are benign and successful, may lead to a quick escalation of mercantilist/imperialist attitudes by US elites. Weapons sales etc. to perpetuate the destabilization game. We're all too familiar with the proclivities of US imperialists to engage in self-fulfilling cynicism towards the rest of the world. I'm just urging extreme caution.
At the same time I do think Yoshie and others on the list are totally right on the issue that the nascent anti-imperialism that's sprung up on US soil in the last 20+ months has to be very carefully nurtured. I'm not sure how to get elites to let go of their cynicism, which drives their desire to exploit and kill. It's something we have to think very critically about- skepticism of the intellect, optimism of the will and all that--and that citizens in other countries have the right to something other than kakistocracies and predatory governments which US elites have had a hand foisting on many of them. This is an important post IMF/WB protests issue, it would seem we need to use the upcoming events to get it on the publics all too fleeting radar screen, that the BW institutions have been intimately connected with the National Security State since at least 1953. Monetary terrorism has been the US' 'weapon' of choice.
Ian