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--></style><title>Re: [lbo-talk] "Knee-Jerk Anti-Imperialism"
Re: Two Ta</title></head><body>
<div>Justin wrote:</div>
<div><br></div>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>It's sure encouraging to know that people
at Berkeley read so carefully. Every time I encounter something like
this I marvel that I didn't get tenure at a good school. The standards
are obviously not high.</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite> </blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>The quoted passage occurred as part of a
paragraph _defending_ the United States' defense against attack in the
Pacific war. I _expressly_ said (twice, since Shane also missed it!)
that the war was imperialist but justified by just war theory, and
that a victory for democratic imperialism was preferable to a victory
for quasi-fascist Japonese imperialism. I pointed out that virtually
all socialists at the time of every stripe felt the same way, and most
of military age signed up to fight.</blockquote>
<div><br>
<br>
</div>
<div>Who is it who can't read? I wrote "you're wrong that
"Pearl Harbor"</div>
<div>made WW II in the Pacific anything but an imperialist</div>
<div>slaughter on both sides. " in reply to your claim that
the imperialist</div>
<div>war was "justified by just war theory" and that you
regarded</div>
<div>US victory as "preferable." My point was that a
deliberately</div>
<div>provoked attack is no sort of justification and that the
two</div>
<div>imperialist rivals were *equally* engaged in slaughter. As
to</div>
<div>your claim that "virtually all" socialists supported
the</div>
<div>imperialist slaughter in the Pacific, I can assure you that</div>
<div>*no* socialist in the tradition of the Third International</div>
<div>(I exclude Stalinists, of course) supported the war against</div>
<div>Japan whether or not they supported defense of the</div>
<div>Stalinized "Soviet Union" against Hitler. </div>
<div><br></div>
<div>I might add that many bourgeois Asian nationalists, from
the</div>
<div>great Subhas Chandra Bose, to the Burmese Thakins, to</div>
<div>the great Aguinaldo, to many Indonesians, and even to</div>
<div>such a significant Chinese nationalist as Wang Chin-wei,</div>
<div>supported Japanese imperialism against its Anglo-French-</div>
<div>Netherlandic-American imperialist rivals.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Shane Mage<br>
<br>
"Thunderbolt steers all
things." <span
></span
> <span
></span
> <span
></span
> <span
></span
> <span
></span> <br>
</div>
<div>Herakleitos of Ephesos, fr. 64</div>
<div><br></div>
<blockquote type="cite" cite> </blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>Now we will see who is the next PhD
who can't read. jks<br>
<br>
<i><b>Brad DeLong <delong@econ.Berkeley.EDU></b></i> wrote:<br>
<blockquote>>The war against Japan was an imperialist war plain and
simple,<br>
>between two imperiali powers;<br>
<br>
<br>
China views it very differently. The near-genocide Japan
perpetrated<br>
on China during WWII approached (but did not match) what the Nazis<br>
tried to do to the Russians. The Japanese fascist state was an<br>
extremely ugly thing. I am surprised that so many people avert
their<br>
gaze from it.<br>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Brad DeLong<br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><br></blockquote>
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