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| Fifth Column | |
| Neo-Conservative World Supremacists? Bwahahahaha!! | |
| 2005-06-25 | |
| This fella is a real live commie, formerly with the British communist party. Edited for red meat, no pun intended Only the enormous military-technological power of the US is well beyond challenge. It makes the US today the only power capable of effective military intervention at short notice in any part on the world, and it has twice demonstrated its capacity to win small wars with great rapidity. And yet, as the Iraq war shows, even this unparalleled capacity to destroy is not enough to impose effective control on a resistant country, and even less on the globe. Nevertheless, US dominance is real and the disintegration of the USSR has made it global. This genius doesn't want to address the fact that the US caused the collapse of the USSR. Doesn't fit in with this world view of his. An inconvenient fact, such as it is. The second element of continuity is the peculiar house-style of US empire, which has always preferred satellite states or protectorates to formal colonies. The expansionism implicit in the name chosen for the 13 independent colonies on the east coast of the Atlantic (United States of America) was continental, not colonial. The later expansionism of "manifest destiny" was both hemispheric and aimed towards East Asia, as well as modelled on the global trading and maritime supremacy of the British Empire. One might even say that in its assertion of total US supremacy over the western hemisphere it was too ambitious to be confined to colonial administration over bits of it. One might even say that this theory is based on the premise that every man woman and child who settled out west had in their mind colonial expansion, not a piece of ground they can call their own. Wouldn't fit in this description. The third thread of continuity links the neo-conservatives of George Bush with the Puritan colonists' certainty of being God's instrument on earth and with the American Revolution - which, like all major revolutions, developed world-missionary convictions, limited only by the wish to shield the the new society of potentially universal freedom from the corruptions of the unreconstructed old world. The most effective way of finessing this conflict between isolationism and globalism was to be systematically exploited in the 20th century and still serves Washington well in the 21st. Dja get that? Conservatives' ideas come from Puritans, folks who eventually represented a percentage of the population so small, that it beggers the imagination how in the world this guy came to the conclusion about their infleunce in the USA. Oh, I forgot: Thanksgiving Day It was to discover an alien enemy outside who posed an immediate, mortal threat to the American way of life and the lives of its citizens. Dja get that? The British the Spanish, the Germans and the Japanese making war against the USA were just excuses to exercize "imperilistic hegemony." The end of the USSR removed the obvious candidate, but by the early 90s another had been detected in a "clash" between the west and other cultures reluctant to accept it, notably Islam. Hence the enormous political potential of the al-Qaida outrages of September 11 was immediately recognised and exploited by the Washington world-dominators. Right. It is imperialism to attack an enemy. They had devised and managed a policy of imperial hegemony over the greater part of the globe for two generations, and were perfectly ready to extend it to the entire globe. They were and are critical of the Pentagon planners and neo-conservative world supremacists ... Bwahahaha ... because these patently have had no concrete ideas at all, except imposing their supremacy single-handed by military force, incidentally jettisoning all the accumulated experience of US diplomacy and military planning. No doubt the debacle of Iraq will confirm them in their scepticism. No, Iraq will effectively put the left out of business. Even those who do not share the views of the old generals and proconsuls of the US world empire (which were those of Democratic as well as Republican administrations) will agree that there can be no rational justification of current Washington policy in terms of the interests of America's imperial ambitions or, for that matter, the global interests of US capitalism Well now we know he read Fall of the Roman Empire. As for justification, how about 911? How about 12 years of breaking a truce by Saddam? It may be that it makes sense only in terms of the calculations, electoral or otherwise, of American domestic policy. It may be a symptom of a more profound crisis within US society. It may be that it represents the - one hopes short-lived - colonisation of Washington power by a group of quasi-revolutionary doctrinaires. (At least one passionate ex-Marxist supporter of Bush has told me, only half in jest: "After all, this is the only chance of supporting world revolution that looks like coming my way.") Such questions cannot yet be answered. They haven't been asked. It is reasonably certain that the project will fail. However, while it continues, it will go on making the world an intolerable place for those directly exposed to US armed occupation and an unsafer place for the rest of us Good. I hope the world is an intolerable place for terrorists and their supporters.
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| Posted by:badanov |
| #9 through adaptive franchises Is he talking about the US or AmWay? |
| Posted by: Jackal 2005-06-25 23:25 |
| #8 You can hear the rhythm, if not the melody, of such expressions as "world-destroying Jewish plutocrats" Compare these statements: "It is precisely because there exists no race which can be the master of the rest of mankind, that we Germans have taken the liberty to break the domination of Jewry and of its capital in Germany, of Jewry which believed itself to have inherited the Crown of secret world domination." Goebbels 18 March 1941 |
| Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy 2005-06-25 22:00 |
| #7 A tiresome authoritarian lecture, assuming the truth of all previous totalitarian propaganda from the time of Goebbels and Stalin to Chomsky, Zinn, and Durbin. Goebbels, you ask? Why yes, just substitute "Jewish" for "American" and you have a perfect summary of the evil doctor's worldview. |
| Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy 2005-06-25 21:24 |
| #6 Good stuff Angie. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2005-06-25 15:31 |
| #5 Previously by the same author. http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1396157,00.html |
| Posted by: Angerese Whaiter9260 2005-06-25 15:28 |
| #4 Do they have any openings? |
| Posted by: Captain America 2005-06-25 13:50 |
| #3 This is Eric Hobsbawm, who is one of Britain's most respected historians for reasons I am unable to fathom. Recovering[?] lefty Brit Harry discusses the article, and concludes that Hobsbawm hasn't really studied neo-conservative thought, or else he wouldn't have gotten it all wrong. This is far too charitable. I don't think Hobsbawm has the slightest interest in or intention of understanding Bush et al. He's simply reflexively opposed to American interests everywhere. As Harry points out, Hobsbawm seems to long for the good old days of the Cold War, when everyone knew their place in the great scheme of things, and (not incidentally) the Soviet Union was still a going concern and the Hobsbawms of the world had not sunken into utter irrelevance. Eric Hobsbawm, proud member of Revolutionaries for the Status Quo since (at least) 2003. |
| Posted by: Angie Schultz 2005-06-25 13:27 |
| #2 Darn! For a while there I was enjoying the part where we were acknowledged as the sole world power with hegemonic interests through adaptive franchises based on democracy and capitalism. Seems like a good plan for everyone concerned! Then he goes and gets doctrinare and silly...... |
| Posted by: Just About Enough! 2005-06-25 11:37 |
| #1 Do people have to go to school to learn how to be this stupid? Or do they come by it naturally? |
| Posted by: Dave D. 2005-06-25 11:07 |