Anderson was putting forth an analysis, not a program of action. But it was one of a rather brutal, even 'amoral', but penetrating clarity that should give the antiwar movement reason to pause and consider its tactics once the war starts, and in the neocolonial aftermath.
Nor do I buy that the Bush Junta is "exceptional" in the history of US imperialism. Nor is it 'fascist' (let's not get started on that bit of hysteria, either), even if it uses fascist methods, as US imperialism has always done. So, analogies with the 1930s' won't fly, either. Fascism has been systematically fractionally embedded within the structure of LIBERAL US imperialism since the end of WWII, typically for temporary deployment at the bloody fringes, then withdrawn when the job is done. Fascism has no independent existence today.
Dubya _is_ a fairly drastic change of policy course. But no more drastic that with the onset of the Cold War in the 1940's (albiet in a considerably different historical context), and the jury is still out on the degree of qualitiative change it entails beyond the Middle East. Even there it is still but an extension of Likud Israel's longstanding policy plans, now adopted by the US. Speaking of 'embedded fascism'.
Of course we have to 'defeat Bush first' - do we have any other choice? But guess what - that's not going to happen before this war. So, again, what do we do apres guerre?
Now, if war becomes a real prospect soon on the Korean peninsula, then you can start the panic ;-)
-Brad Mayer
Date: Fri, 28 Feb 2003 18:19:26 -0500 From: "Jeet Heer" <jeet at sturdynet.com> Subject: Re: Re:Perry Anderson
Doug and Joanna,
I don't think your being quite fair here. Anderson is not saying that the war shouldn't be opposed, but that opposition to it has to be based on broader principals that encompass inequalities in the system as a whole. I think he's right to point out the hypocrisy of those who supported "military humanitarism" in the Balkans and 10 years of sanctions against Iraq but balk at the fact that Bush is taking these wretched policies to their logical conclusion.
Also, so what if Anderson is from the landed gentry with a diplomat father? The same is true of his brother Benedict, but Imagined Communities is still a brilliant book. In fact, there is a relevant passage on this in Perry Anderson's Considerations on Western Marxism: "Lukacs was the son of a banker; Benjamin of an art-dealer; Adorno of a wine merchant; Horkheimer of a textile-manufacture; Della Volpe of a landowner; Satre of a Naval Officer; Korsch and Althusser of bank managers; Colletti of a bank clerk; Lefebvre of a bureacrat; Goldmann of a lawyer." Should we chuck all these people out? And don't get me started on the class origins of Marx and Egnels.... Jeet
> joanna bujes wrote:
>
> >At 02:07 PM 02/28/2003 -0500, Gregory wrote:
> >>Erudite, logical, dangerously wrong.
> >
> >I agree. Anderson's getting old and displaying the dangers of
> >tenured academic life. He argues like a man who believes that
> >nothing happening out there will trouble his life in the least.
>
> It's not just being an academic - Anderson is a landed aristocrat and
> the son of a diplomat.
>
> Doug