Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> Carrol Cox wrote:
>
> >U.S. imperialism _must_ establish and maintain military bases in the
> >mideast.
>
> Who makes decisions for this thing, U.S. imperialism? A robot?
Consult any of the analysts of imperialism. Luxemburg. Lenin. Trotsky. Wood. Others. I'm not going to try to rewrite any of them. At an empirical level 60 years plus british/french predecessors, plus world war 1 gives a pretty good picture of _something_ is driving them. And hardly a week goes by now without someone somewhere focusing on the building of permanent more or less (temporarily) impregnable bases and steadily withdrawing from more exposed positions.
Only international and national disorder will drive them out. The disorder of the civil-rights and anti-vietnam effort created combined won't do the trick.
We have a long protracted struggle ahead of us. That should be the basis of current activity: building for that long struggle, not getting fussed over our inevitable failure in the short run. (And it won't make a damn bit of difference who controls the White House, the Congress, or the Supreme Court.)
And I think that my assumption (and it is my assumption, not a conclusion I care to argue on a maillist) will provide better predictions of future activity than any other premise.
Carrol
>
> Doug
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