> this dying, diseased zombified carcass of a rotting Empire,
This is so fundamentally, so almost tragically wrong. It makes Dennis blind t political reality, to the growing strength of capitalism, the terrible ineffectuality to date of resistance to neoliberalism.
You will not get to Heaven in the rocking chair of bumptious cheerfulness.
Empires don't die. Ancient Empires were sometimes ovrthrown by invading powers or by other empires, but no capitalist or proto-capitalist Empire has ever died. There are still rich Dutch families today who trace their wealth back to the 17th-c. British capitalists, German Capitalists, Mexican Capitalists, U.S. Capitalists are all sitting pretty. "Decay" is a really stupid category to use in reference to capitalist power. Individual corporations, families etc go down, but _capitalism_, a system of relations, goes happily on.Growing misery among sectors of u.s. population doesn't make the U.S. a "third-world" nation because there is no such thign as a "third-world nation." There is only an incredibly complex web of capitalist enterprisees circling the globe. The "power" or lack of it of a particular nation is simply irrelevant to the overall power of capital. Dennis's ahistorical celebration of human misery mistaken for capitalist weakness is depressing; few share his precise error, but I'm afraid that versions of it imprison many potential left activists in inaction.
Carrol