On Sep 10, 2006, at 11:00 AM, Carrol Cox wrote:
> Imperialism is an abstraction, not an enemy one can oppose. All
> progress
> anywhere depends on weakening u.s. power, so the only intelligent
> anti-imperialism _in the u.s._ is unflagging opposition to u.s. power,
> everywhere, on every issue. You are as silly as a german communist in
> the 1930s protesting that his comrades were anti-german instead of
> anti-imperialist.
Imperialism is a lot more complicated than that. The ruling classes of Canada, the EU countries, Japan, and Australia are mostly happy with the present arrangement, of which they are an integral part. Sure there are family quarrels, as in the run-up to the Iraq war, but the system is pretty coherent and functional. The second-tier imperialist powers can occasionally get all high-minded and look down on the nasty practices of the US, but they're still part of the system. There's a weird narcissism among American leftists who want to see Washington in this Coxian way.
Doug