On Jul 14, 2007, at 11:10 PM, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
> The multinational empire is appealing, and social liberals of all
> nations find it irresistible -- hence its hegemony. If it weren't
> appealing, it wouldn't be so powerful, would it?
>
> Marx's diagnosis was correct, but Marx's prescription ("face with
> sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his
> kind") was based on wishful thinking.
What's wrong with wishful thinking? Bourgeois liberties and the universal franchise were wishful thinking at one time too. So was the 40 hour week. I'm all for understanding the material and political constraints of the moment, but the point isn't to accept them as immutable, is it?
I keep asking you this and you keep evading the question: are you lamenting this state of affairs, like some freshly hatched neocon who's just been "mugged by reality," or are you embracing it? Does the fight against U.S. imperialism so dominate all other concerns for you that you'll cheerlead - from the prosperous safety of Columbus, Ohio - for forces that would like to cover you from head to toe because the exposure of your mere forearm would be an intolerable provocation?
> Since intellectuals have little to no influence in American
> politics
The Iraq war was in large part a project of intellectuals.
Doug