Far be it from me to speculate wildly on what is responsible for it, but I've noticed for quite some time a decline in the quality of Stan's analysis and the consistency of his prescriptions. I still read him on a regular basis in part because he continues to offer groundbreaking theoretical innovations and useful practical insights, but also because it is a stimulating intellectual challenge to try and make sense of his ongoing and often quizzical evolution. That the appeal of reading him increasingly tilts toward the latter and away from the former reason, however, says something about the increasing incoherence of his thought and writing.
Anyway, my initial reaction to this piece was precisely what Doug posted:
"Wow, from reading that you'd think the imperial system has only one member... The world is full of exploitation, murderous rivalries, and aspiring (sub)imperialists."
There is something to be said for the argument that US imperialism is the most destructive force human civilization confronts _at the moment and for some time to come_, that disabling it should be the top task of the international left, and that US'ers have a _moral obgliation_ to concentrate on this task and a _strategic role_ to play in accomplishing it. Because of this I advocate some if not all of Stan's initiatives, especially his longstanding call for the closure of all US overseas military installations and expulsion of all US overseas military personnel (as if...).
(Note on the above: IMO, US imperialism may be the principal foe of the moment, but it will not be dismantled before world accumulation and hence global order are disrupted by biospheric crises, so prioritizing it as a political objective is far from a straightforward maneuver).
However, what I find more than a little dicey is the tenor of the piece, which tends to suggest that everything we find culturally, economically, ecologically, and otherwise odious about global capitalism emanates from the belly of the beast. Global capitalism is not a rationally planned and controlled concoction of lower Manhattan, Fairfax County, Hollywood, Madison Avenue, etc. Far, far from it. If applied to 1945, this conceit may have a ring of plausibility to it, since Wall Street and the State Department disproportionately built the post-war scaffolding of world accumulation -- of course not necessarily under "conditions of their own choosing"! But if anything, the desperate military adventurism of present-day US imperialism reflects 1) that the US is now far from the command and control center of world accumulation and 2) that one segment of the US ruling class is willing to resort to dubious high-risk coercive tactics to ensure that global capitalism works for and not against US primacy.
Given this context, it is rather ridiculous to paint a picture suggesting that, for example, all the depredations red-greens (among others) associate with consumer culture (phony individualism, political passivity, dumbing down, environmental despoliation, etc.) are a byproduct of US transnational penetration overseas. Stan should spend some time with the managerial-technical-professional yuppies of urban coastal China who are at one and the same time ardent opponents of hypocritical US big powerism, gluttons for the most banal and conspicuous varieties of consumer culture (ersatz "luxury" or "cosmopolitan" stuff from every corner of the planet), and indifferent to the suffering of the workers and peasants of their own country (in whose "development" they take such pseudo-nationalist pride!). Similar specimens can be found in Brazil, India, Russia, and South Africa, I'm sure. Where does this among many other emergent phenomena fit into his cardboard cutout depiction of the social system of world accumulation? However much I disdain their academic careerism and lit-crit pretentiousness, post-colonial scholars at least possess the virtue of having a clue about this stuff.
Yes, I'm sure Stan knows and acknowledges what I've written, would probably agree with much of it, and were he to bother, would counter that his list of demands was propaganda work for a defined objective of grave importance, not a serious dissertation. Ironically, though, the effect of its tone is to encourage exactly the kind of ingrown "national narcissism" that he has rightly decried elsewhere... as is proven by the sort of responses he routinely gets to his essays posted to HuffPo. They typically come in three different varieties, all flavored with "national narcissism": 1) Goddamn traitor, the US is the greatest country in the world and the beacon of hope to the world and how dare you treasonously criticize it, 2) Right on man, the US was once the greatest country in the world but now the neo-con cabal has hijacked it and sullied the noble constitution drafted by the wise fathers, 3) Right on man, greedy US executives, venal US politicians, and bloodthirsty US generals (note the classically American anthropomorphizing of institutions and structures) are puppetmasters of the world. So in the end propaganda work pitched in this manner does nothing but reinforce the generalized stupidity of US political culture.
John Gulick Akita, Japan
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