Amerikaka (NP?)

[Terrance]

Gee, I mean,  what can I say? 

I haven't read Empire, it's a fat book and I think it's probably a big
waste of my time. 
I mean, yeah, a smart kid, but come on. Marxism is useful as a literary
tool, that's for sure. I'm just repeating what paul said here, but it's
worth repeating. 

Mike Weaver wrote:
> 
> I've been wanting to join in the realtime discussion for weeks, but until
> now have only managed to jot down a few comments. Here's the way I see it.
> Delete now if you are suffering from war fatigue!
> 
> America - among other aspects - a geography, a population, a culture, a
> state, an historically situated ideological configuration... The
> accusations of Anti-American are applied by supporters of the state and/or
> culture to their critics as if they, the critics, were agin the population.
> In a previous debate Terrance scorned the late sixties use of 'Amerika',
> yet this was adopted to distinguish the state/ideology from the people, and
> I find it useful here.
> 
> Quail:
> >This is not to say we should not address the causes, but to
> >think that our Middle eastern policies are the main fuel for this
> >fire is mistaken, and addressing the issues will take a long, long
> >time. Until then, we need to cripple their power to act as much as
> >possible.
> 
> Trouble is that every rocket that hits Afghanistan recruits more young
> people for the anti-American crusade. Pakistan is being rapidly and
> dangerously polarised, if not already destabilised. This is not a path to
> greater global security. There is no "Until then" which makes sense.
> 
> You Americans may have to ask yourself what you want to survive, what you
> want your future to be as a nation. The Amerikan empire (hegemony more
> accurately) is  threatened by an enemy which grows stronger the more it is
> attacked. (Sounds like Rome and the Christians - look who won).
> 
> >this was not an infraction of our laws by a citizen of our
> >own society. This was an attack by an outside network that has
> >actually, years ago, DECLARED WAR ON US. A network that has an
> >illegal government in their pocket, numerous weapons, and a land-base.
> 
> Government in their pocket? Maybe, but "illegal", what's that got to do
> with anything?
> When did the Western powers ever give a fig for legality in defining
> government. Being on our side is what matters.
> 
> It is not really a matter of the righteousness of Western morality and the
> superiority of modernity asserting itself against the barbarian hordes.
> There's a dialectic here which won't go away. Morris Berman wrote a piece
> in the Guardian drawing parallels between the decline of Rome and The
> United States current situation.
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4271398,00.html
> The American empire may not have a capital E but it obeys the logic of
> imperial development.
> 
> Expand, or be eaten: capitalism and imperialisms' most basic commandment.
> 
> When the Soviet Union died the Amerika  lost its Other and now can only eat
> itself. Or put another way, the Marxist dialectic may have failed, but the
> dialectic hasn't. The U.S. middle east policies aren't the fuel, they are
> the spark which sets the dialectic burning along its interface. It is the
> overwhelming assertion of global dominance which is the fuel.
> 
> Terrorism tends to occur when the state power is so overwhelming as to
> render popular challenge impotent. America has reached a position of global
> domination without a popular mandate. Amerika is the major component of
> globalising capitalism. That's the backbone of American dominance.
> That is what we anti-Amerikans (to greater or lesser degrees) resent and
> resist. Until a positive opposition to capitalism returns to the world
> arena, terror is likely to be a major expression of rage against the
> dominator. The only force capable of suppressing terrorism is a force on
> the same side of dialectic as the terrorists, but a constructive one.
> 
> The current attack on terrorism is an attack on a Hydra.  What can it
> achieve but more heads, smaller maybe, but more of them. Yes they declared
> war but it is not a challenge which can be fought militarily.
> There are plenty of positive ways out of here, but none of them are short
> term, and none of them are largely military, and all of them involve
> continued globalisation. Not of the corporate kind, but of the
> international co-operation kind.
> 
> The American people have to evolve new levels of reason or accept
> increasing levels of insecurity. They have to engage globally with the aim
> of social justice, or (I fear) we have a fraught future agrowing around us.
> The rest of us in the West have to do the same but America must lead in
> social (r)evolution as it has in the economic sphere.
> 
>          Islam as Ahab?
> 
> The Counterforce as satirised terrorism?
> 
> Enough.
> I'm going to send this and go back to patching my flame resistant outfit.
> 
> Bye for now
> Mike