On 9/4/2003 2:42 AM, "lbo-talk-request at lbo-talk.org"
>Why I should
> respect the lines of yesterday's imperialism is beyond me.
-Ok. I accept this. However, I can't quite believe that you do. If -imperialist demarcation is unacceptable, why should we think that the US -national army and its national government has the right to create new lines?
Who is talking "right"? I occasionally slip into "rights talk" out of mental laziness or occasional propaganda effect given the existing public focus on it, but I think "rights" is the wrong issue. There is no "rights" in creating such lines, only morality and realpolitick estimation of means/ends effects in the short-term and long-term.
>And why has the US spent the last fifty years undermining every effort by
>Arabs to erase those lines? Why does the US support the project of
>demarcation par excellence that is Israel?
Because supporting the rhetoric of nationalism and self-determination has served US interests since before Wilsonian projection of those values. And like any hegemonic concept, it has its progressive aspects and its reactionary aspects. But of course the US most of the time uses it for reactionary reasons serving corporate interests.
>And, more importantly, why do
>you accept the demarcation that is the US? The conclusion of your thought,
>if drawn, is that the United States government is illegitimate (or do you
>think the Iroquois just sort of vanished?), and must be destroyed, to be
>replaced with something else, though we don't know what.
You are flipping the rights talk-- now the lack of nationalist "rights" means that anything not protected by a "right" should be abolished. The question is does any particular political arrangement serve broader moral values such as freedom, equality, social justice and so on. There are aspects of the US structure that do so and others, like the US Senate -- tied to states rights-- and the Supreme Court, that historically have not served such values most of the time. I'm all for campaigning against them, but on the social values involved in their abolishment, not on their lack of legitimacy in "right."
>So... would you support a coalition of say, China, Brazil and South Africa
>taking over and erasing the demarcation that is the US, wiping out the
>Republican party, summarily executing the leadership of the country,
>destroying most of its infrastructure, then restructuring the economy to
its
>benefit?
Ridiculous question-- why should I want such aggression by them if I oppose it by the US in most cases. You are just throwing out alternative "rights free" chaos as the alternative to rights talk.
>But since you
>seemingly reject that principle in the case of scumbag countries like Iraq,
>why aren't you calling for the elimination of the US?
Democracy is also a value-- there are operative parts of it in the US. Little of it in Iraq. That does make a difference in my mind. And to note reality, I oppose the war in Iraq, just not on the basis of "national sovereignty."
-- Nathan Newman