<div>On 8/4/06, Doug Henwood <<a href="mailto:dhenwood@panix.com">dhenwood@panix.com</a>> wrote:<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> On Aug 4, 2006, at 5:26 PM, Carrol Cox wrote: > We are engaged in a huge battle over the coming decades with the > nightmare of u.s. imperialism. You think? The world is complicated and polycentric. You're like Reagan with a negative sign, with this focus of evil in the modern world business. U.S. imperialism is looking less than almighty right now. It looked pretty hot in 2002, 2003, but it's not doing well in Iraq. Israel is not doing well in Lebanon. Shouldn't we choose our friends more carefully? Doug</blockquote><div> In defence of Carrol </div></div>Doug is right and wrong.  The world is complicated and polycentric and the problems in the world have many causes.  But we live in a time where the attempt to maintain U.S. political and military world dominance is also the dominant aspect of U.S. politics.  The one good thing we could do for people in the rest of the world is to limit (and someday destroy) the reach of U.S. imperialism.  It is what we must try to do here in the U.S.  in every way possible.  It is not a matter that U.S. imperialism is some metaphysical "evil" empire.  It is a question of what are the power structures that threaten the very existence of human society.  All of the major trends that threaten decent human life - proliferation of nuclear weapons, unrestrained military aggression, the promotion of super-economic exploitation, and continuing environmental degradation - find their leading promoters in U.S. institutions and U.S. dominance.  If this is what Carrol means by "the nightmare of U.S. imperialism" then I think that he is correct.  Finally, Doug says that the U.S. is not looking very strong.  True.  But it is the contradictory situation that U.S. imperialism is looking less than almighty and yet the U.S. state has with-in its control devastating power to reek destruction on the world that gives the nightmare that Carrol points to real-world force.  Jerry Monaco