Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> On Jun 1, 2010, at 4:29 PM, socialismorbarbarism wrote:
>
> > Sure, but again, Israel is just following the US lead--doesn't the
> > occupation of Iraq fit this term to a 't'?
>
> Gaza's population is penned in and defenseless. The Iraqi population
> has proved a tougher nut to crack, don't you think?
>
I would roughly agree -- but Gaza itself hasn't 'cracked' yet. It has a higher population density than Manhattan! How would Manhattan stand up to the pressure which has been on Gaza?
My earlier posts on this were pretty clumsy, but I think the core idea should be taken s eriously: that Israel with tacit consent from the U.S. has been aiming for many decades at the "final solution" of the Palestinian 'problem' by the forced flight of the Palestinian population. What, really, is to stop this slow death of a people?
I agree with Eric that "imperialism" has ceased to be a useful explanatory category. But if one takes that position, then there are a number of large global facts that require _some_ sort of theoretical explanation. Simple empirical description of those facts (such as events of the last few years in Haiti and Honduras) does not fulfill that need, and imperialism in some form _did_.
And (contrary to DRR's daydreams) aggressively developing capitalism does _not_ seem to have done for huge masses of the people of China, India, & Brazil what it did for at least large sectors of the working class i n Europe, Japan, & the U.S. That difference (well-being of the "masses") seems still to hold (despite the recent "jobless" recoveries and the weakening of the labor movement). Ian has persuasively challenged the idea of a capitalist _center_, but it