i'm supposing that you have a good answer, so the below is just an exercise, springboarding off your comments.
I think SA's just saying that, as he said before, it's all completely subjective. Whatever the whims of those in office, shit happens. They have various purposes, such as wanting to amass great personal power, fortunes, impress their friends and family. who the fuck knows.
but i think this ignores well -- think of it: why do capitalists behave the way they behave? accumulate! accumulate! accumulate! it makes no rational sense that someone with more money than she could spend in a lifetime would be driven so: accumulate! accumulate! accumulate! what could they possibly need more money *for*?
and yet it is the one thing we can count out: capitalists will act in ways that optimize their ability to accumulate! accumulate! accumulate!
Oh, there are those who have throttled it back a notch or two, in the interests of something other than accumulation but in the end the overriding goal is accumulate.
no one would deny that these individuals -- or that the way they behave given different kinds of cultural values -- differ in how to achieve the end of accumulation. there is *plenty* of room for subjectivity there, no doubt.
yes?
well, that's how I'd explain the seeminly varied pursuits of different administrations, and even debates with an administration or political program (e.g., the neocons). there is a range of possible courses of action and no one single path for imperialist domination to travel.
but sure as shit no one who leads the u.s. nationstate is gonna say, "oh hey, we're sick of being the leader of the free world. someone else take over. we're going to go into isolationist mode since that, really, is what most u.s.ers actually want. it's been real peeps, and y'all have now, y'hear?"
shag
"let's be civil and nice, but not to the point of obeying the rules of debate as defined by liberal blackmail (in which, discomfort caused by a challenge is seen as some vague form of harassment)."
-- Dwayne Monroe, 11/19/08
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