While we are at that, here is an example of cretinous and criminal state-phobia in the US http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8274065.stm. Left-wing idiocy, please meet right-wing criminality - nice company indeed.
Wojtek
On Thu, Sep 24, 2009 at 9:41 PM, Peter Ward <nevadabob at hotmail.co.uk> wrote:
>
> What about the "iron heel" of ideology? Or of "private enterprise"? Working
> chumps know--at least the ones I meet and work with--they are subject to an
> arbitrary authority with draconian power in the form of an employer. As re:
> Third World countries, what does one think institutions like the World Bank
> or the School of Americas are for--they represent imperialism New Age style.
> As do Obama's civilian-bombing drones in Afpak.
>
> It just happens that power has gone else where than the state.
>
> To the extent the State does matter, while it is true an authoritarian
> state may provide many things we take for granted, there are many more in
> addition to those a participatory society could provide that are impossible
> in the present.
>
> And finally, the reality is there are apart from the US and maybe China not
> really any sovereign countries in the world--most if not all others are in
> some significant way dependent on a larger imperial power whether they are
> explicitly client regimes or not (some, like Israel to the US, manifestly
> are).
>
> > Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2009 10:23:32 -0700
> > From: dredmond at efn.org
> > To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> > Subject: [lbo-talk] Rethinking the State
> >
> > On Thu, September 24, 2009 6:52 am, Chris Doss wrote:
> >
> > > Those rights are only possible because of
> > > the state.
> >
> > A properly dialectical irony, no? This is one of those seemingly minor
> > points which conceal massive, planetary opportunities: the 21st century
> is
> > the first moment in human history when most people on the planet have
> > their own states -- or more bluntly, aren't being crushed under the Iron
> > Heel of imperial or neo-imperial autocracies (British, French, Iberian,
> > US, Soviet). Which is why one of the central issues of the transnational
> > era is how to build and expand developmental states, a.k.a. economic
> > democracy.
> >
> > -- DRR
> >
> > ___________________________________
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>
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