That’s it; beat up on the spelling impaired.
This is all perfectly true - in fact, in many respects Islam and Judaism have as much or more in common than either of them do with Christianity. It seems to me, however, that this begs the question of those who contend (and there are many of them) that Arabs who hate Jews do so from some fundamental inhumanity or barbarism or age-old conflict. As Armstrong’s argument would seem to confirm, recent (in the context of the region’s history) political events have played a large part in the current situation. Israel has hardly been the shrinking violet constantly being raided by the evil hordes - it has contributed much to the situation in the region.
The problem with the deal offered by Barak is that, while you may see it as the best the Palestinians were going to get, it was still a pretty paltry offer. I agree that Arafat often neglects the interests of many Palestinians, but lately this is more due to his accommodationism than any radical demands he makes of Israel.
This is all true, but you could reverse the terms and it would be just as true. Try getting into Israel with a visa from some Arab countries on your passport. And there are also Jewish religious leaders and Israeli media who preach hatred of Arabs. Doesn’t make it right on either side, but there you go.
What, you weren’t aware that it’s a crime to be the biggest and most powerful? Everyone else wants a stab at #1, and since they can’t build themselves up high enough, they want to tear everyone else down.
This is a rather tired reply, and I am surprised someone has chosen to recycle it yet again. In the final analysis this kind of schoolyard bully reasoning probably does more harm than good to the most powerful nation in the world, and is exactly the sort of behaviour that radical opponents of the USA would like to see you engage in: irritating the world with reductionist propaganda!
There are several legitimate concerns as regards criminal actions on the part of the US. It is true that being the most powerful certainly puts one in the spotlight, but spotlights do not in any way invalidate legitimate concerns.
I conceded the substance of your foreign policy points in my first post. I still think, and you have offered no reply, your definition of “imperialism” is too elastic. A small point regarding the use of a word. But since the word is used like a sledgehammer to bash evil capitalist Americans in the metaphorical head, and you cling to it like a remora clings to a shark, I can’t help it. I don’t use the “Newspeak” dictionary, either.
For example, if a U.S. corporation (U.S. Corp.) goes to country “A” and sells a product or harvests a resource, but the sovereign power remains in the government of “A,” there is no imperialism. But, if the U.S. government intervenes militarily, with sanctions, or other strongarm tactics on behalf of “U.S. Corp.,” that is imperial behavior. Of course a complete takeover of “A” would make it settled.
In other words, how can the U.S. government be “imperial” if the “A” government can nationalize, regulate, tax, or throw out U.S. Corp. in its entirety from “A”? Moreover, in the present economic regime the citizens, business interests, or government of “A” can buy, the publicly traded shares of “U.S. Corp.” and do whatever they want with it if they hold 50%, or perhaps less. Don’t even want to get into strikes or boycotts…
I reiterate: you strain the definition of “imperialism.”
I didn’t get too far into the column before I found so many errors of fact I figured there was no point continuing. The author isn’t just biased, he even lies about stuff. I especially liked how he claims that Gerald Ford personally approved the genocide in East Timor. Uh huh. I’d like to see the memo.
The discussion on Israeli-Arab relations has been very interesting, though.
I’ll reply, if i may. To an extent, your claim here is correct. The problem is that new circumstances require new words or changing definitions of old ones. There are literally thousands of words in the English language whose meanings have shifted in the course of everyday usage. While the definition of “imperialism” offered by some on this board may seem too “elastic” to you, it is the very elasticity of English that makes it one of the world’s most nuanced languages.
If you believe that it is completely wrong to use the term “imperialism” in any case except one involving an exertion of formal political sovereignty, then there is little point arguing the issue further. You are entitled to your personal preferences regarding usage.
I would, however, point out that the Oxford English Dictionary, after giving a definition of “imperialism” something along the lines that you have advocated, also says:
The bold letters are my doing, not the OED’s, but it is just this sense of influence, exerted in a variety of different ways, that drives the use of the term in many contexts in the twentieth century. The definition i have quoted above makes a distinction, it seems to me, between what writers on the subject call formal and informal imperialism.
The OED’s final definition is also instructive, supporting your contention that the term is often used to “bash” capitalism, but also showing that it has been used in a pejorative manner by people of all political persuasions.
In his essay “Imperialism Without Colonies”, Harry Magdoff (one of the authors i recommended in my previous post)asserts that simply to identify imperialism with colonialism is to fail to grasp some of the key aspects of the nature of imperialism as it has manifested itself in the twentieth century. Magdoff concludes that imperialism shapes the less powerful country in a way that allows it to be “granted formal political independence without changing anything essential”, leaving it subject to the “dominance and exploitation” of the stronger country. Magdoff sees one of the keys to imperialism, both formal and in a post-colonial situation, as being large-scale foreign investment by corporations from the metropolitan power, and the ever-increasing consolidation of these corporations to form oligopolies which effectively control production and divide up markets. (This argument can be found in Harry Magdoff, ‘Imperialism Without Colonies’, in Studies in the Theory of Imperialism, ed. Roger Owen and Bob Sutcliffe, Longman, London, 1972, pp. 144-170.)
This is a definition of economic imperialism that goes beyond the worldwide ubiquity of McDonalds and Coca-Cola and looks at the way economic control actually structures power and exerts political influence in weaker nations. Now, you raise a valid possible counterpoint to this argument when you ask:
Well, with respect to your first point here, why don’t you just take a look at what happens when countries try this. Two of the most obvious examples of this are right here in the Western Hemisphere.
In the early 1950s, the Arbenz government in Guatemala decided that they needed to aid some of their country’s desperately poor people by ensuring that they had access to land. To this end, they decided to reclaim large amounts of land that had been bought up by American company United Fruit for the growing of bananas. Now, this reclamation wasn’t a confiscation, and nowhere near all of UF’s lands were reclaimed. What the Arbenz government did was look at the tax returns filed by UF in Guatemala, on which the company was required to list the value of the land it owned for tax purposes. The value listed on the returns was $2.99 per acre, so the Arbenz government paid UF that much for the land it took. UF, effectively admitting that it had been cheating on its tax obligations, immediately protested that the land was really worth $75 an acre, or about 25 times what it had declared on its tax forms. When the government said “Bad Luck”, UF representatives and friends in Washington, D.C., including high-powered men such as John Foster Dulles, set wheels in motion that led to the 1954 US-supported military coup in Guatemala.
(see Dunkerley, James, Power in the Isthmus: A Political History of Modern Central America, Verso, London, 1988; also Stephen Schlesinger Stephen Kinzer, Bitter Fruit: The Untold Story of the American Coup in Guatemala, Doubleday, Garden City, 1982.)
The second example involves Chile. I’m sure you’re familiar with the coup that overthrew the Allende government and brought Pinochet to power in 1975. Well, despite the fact that many people were running around calling Allende a “commie”, the only industry that he nationalized in his term was mining. The problem for him, of course, was that Anaconda, a largely American-owned concern, was one of the key copper-mining companies in the country, and it was to protect these interests that the CIA backed Pinochet, and that America sent a whole bunch of Chicago-school economists down to help him run the country.
(see, for example, Juan Gabriel Valdes, Pinochet’s Economists: The Chicago School in Chile, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1995.)
Your argument about buying shares might be reasonable if the people in any of these countries could afford them, or even had access to the trading markets. Another problem is that the market capitalization of many US firms is so large that even the governments of smaller countries would have trouble buying a controlling interest in the firms. Of course, often wealthy people in these countries do own shares in US companies. And this is where it’s worth noting that the type of “informal imperialism” i’m talking about here often works with the collusion of corrupt officials and local elites at the expense of the majority of these countries’ population. Again, you are right that in this sense it is not imperialism as narrowly defined to include only formal political control. The problem is that many such countries are frightened of exerting their economic sovereignty on their own soil because they have seen what happens elsewhere. And with the World Bank, IMF, GATT and WTO now exerting pressure on reluctant countries to open their markets, opting out is more difficult than ever.
At the end you allude to strikes and boycotts. Well, as numerous examples in Central America and Asia over the past few decades show, strikes at US-owned plants often result in extensive firings, intimidation, violence, and in some cases murder of those trying to organize workers. In some cases such actions are largely carried out by the local government forces keen to maintain foreign investment; in others, there is evidence that American companies directly hire people to intimidate and beat unionists. (see the July/August issue of the economics magazine Dollars and Sense for some examples of the way that US corporations foment violence, especially in Africa)
I want to point out at the end of all this that you’re perfectly entitled to adopt your own definition of “imperialism”. There are many people who would probably have little time for any definition of the term that would include the US, or that sees it as synonymous with global monopoly capitalism, in the way that someone like Lenin did (see Lenin’s essay Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism). But none of this semantic argument can avoid the fact of the exertion of power by the United States over other countries during the twentieth century, often to the detriment of many people in those countries. And none of these theories of informal imperialism apply only to the US; the case of Royal Dutch Shell in Nigeria is just one example of a non-US situation.
It just seems to me that the term “imperialism” is a useful one to use in many particular situations, especially if the term itself is modified by an adjective such as “cultural” or “economic” or “informal”. One could, i suppose, following Lenin and some other theorists, simply use the term “Capitalism” to refer to cases such as those i have outlined above, but it seems to me that this would be even more simplistic and less useful than “imperialism”, and would ignore the imperialism of non-capitalist countries - something i don’t want to do. If you have a better term that might provide greater explanatory power, i’d be happy to hear. Until then, i think that “imperialism” and its modifiers serve a useful heuristic purpose.
That’s fine that you disagree. However, it seems the best explanation given the other lackluster explanations. Throughout human history, envy of Number One has always played a primary role… I’m not going to believe it has vanished just because “It can insult the rest of the world!”
We’ve had anti-American feelings rumbling around the world long before Kyoto.
SPOOFE: That’s fine that you disagree. However, it seems the best explanation given the other lackluster explanations. Throughout human history, envy of Number One has always played a primary role.
Hmmm, I wouldn’t call the many detailed arguments given here by mhendo and others, about why many people have some reasonable grievances against the United States, exactly “lackluster”: quite the contrary. You’re right that “tall poppy syndrome” is also always a factor, and that there will always be people who oppose anybody stronger and more influential than they are simply out of resentment and envy. However, to say that that is the “best explanation”, or the most important factor, in creating significant anti-American feeling seems to me not only completely wrong, but positively dangerous, especially these days.
I think we should be careful to avoid confusing strength and courage with unreflecting jingoism. If these horrible attacks by terrorists have turned the spotlight of public attention on some United States actions that are causing suffering for people who are not terrorists, and are not committing horrible attacks, we ought not just to close our eyes to that and say “Oh, there’s nothing to worry about, everybody’s just jealous and resentful.” Just because we’re not a “police state or world dictator”, as gobear points out, doesn’t mean that we’re justified in complacency about everything we do. And I completely agree with mhendo that lack of complacency doesn’t mean merely tossing off the admission “Well, yeah, we have some problems.” If we really mean that, then we have to work to solve the problems, and the first step, I think, is to take them seriously.
A discussion that begins with the writings of a fanatic hater of America is bound to go nowhere. America was brutally attacked by terrorists, not vice versa.
To help explain where I’m coming from, here’s a list some other questions that would also be stupid and offensive:
What crimes did America commit that led to the Pearl Harbor attack?
What crimes did Kuwait commit that led to Iraq conquering them?
What crimes did James Byrd commit that led to his being dragged to death?
What crimes did the gay community commit that led to Matthew Shepard’s torture and murder?
What crimes did Nicole Simpson commit?
What crimes did six million European Jews commit?
Folks, let’s get real.
FYI -
While the US is under attack, we are not going to have a chance to address any complaints from the Third World. Your case is not strong enough on its face; therefore you are going to have to wait while we wipe out those who are trying to kill us.
Same for critics of US policy towards Israel. Not right now. There are too many creeps hijacking our aircraft and killing our citizens for us to bother with your whining. Our sympathies, and our attention, are too fully engaged for us to give a tin shit that your feelings are hurt. If we pretended you have any realistic complaints, it would encourage people like bin Laden and Saddam Hussein to continue his campaign of terror against civilized people.
The Palestinians and their allies keep starting and losing wars, and then complaining that the Israelis are treating them as if they presented a threat. Same with the terror movements of the Third World.
Not now, dear, the grown ups are busy.
Regards,
Shodan
Shodan: Not now, dear, the grown ups are busy.
That doesn’t really sound like a very good attitude for promoting world solidarity against terrorism, IMHO. What you seem to be saying is “If you are attacking us, we will kill you. If you are suffering from our actions but not attacking us, we will ignore you.” Doesn’t that just encourage more people to believe that terrorism is the only possible recourse?
And I don’t think it’s quite fair to characterize complaints about U.S. policies as being only “whining” because people’s “feelings are hurt”. What many people are complaining about is that civilians are being killed, their homes destroyed, their livelihoods eradicated, their rights suppressed, and their existence terrorized by regimes that the U.S. chooses to support. To the people affected, I doubt that these things seem as trivial as they do to you.
My law school schedule’s left me behind, once again. Kimstu and mhendo said pretty much everything I would have, and in a far more eloquent manner, too. But I must remark on one thing:
Oh, if that isn’t one of the most misplaced and condescending remarks I’ve seen in a while… Jesus Christ.
The intellectual vacuity of your argument (if it can be called that) is amazing to behold. The notion that you can simply lump a whole bunch of unrelated incidents together and draw an inference that relates to this particular case is asinine. Not that it’s worth anything, but the answer to your questions in order is: (a) none; (b) in the eyes of some Iraqis, sold out Arab interests to foreign concerns, but by most standards, not much; © none; (d) none; (e) none; and (f) none. Are you happy now? Can we actually discuss the issue rationally now instead of resorting to spurious connections?
You seem to assume, as do some others on this board, that anyone who criticizes US foreign policy is actually saying that America deserved what it got last Tuesday. I have heard no critic of US foreign policy say that. But in case it’s a bit hard for you to grasp, here it is again:
MY CRITICISMS OF US FOREIGN POLICY SHOULD NOT BE TAKEN TO IMPLY ANY EXCUSE OR SUPPORT WHATSOEVER FOR THE TERRORIST ACTIONS OF TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 11. I DO NOT BELIEVE THAT PEOPLE SHOULD RESORT TO VIOLENCE TO ACHIEVE THEIR GOALS, AND HAVE NO SYMPATHY FOR ANYONE WHO HARMS INNOCENT PEOPLE IN THIS WAY. STRONG MEASURES SHOULD BE TAKEN TO BRING THE PERPETRATORS TO JUSTICE, EVEN THOUGH THAT CAN NEVER REPLACE THE PEOPLE THEY KILLED NOR EASE THE PAIN OF THE FAMILIES WHOSE LIVES THEY DEVASTATED.
The OP asked three questions, which i will answer in turn.
- Does the punishment (or retaliation or attack) fit the crime?
No matter what “crimes” or dubious actions the US has engaged in over the past century, it does not justify what happened last Tuesday. Just because i am critical of US foreign policy does not mean that i condone such actions, as i said above.
- Are civilians duplicitous in their government’s policy?
Well, given the number of times that the media and politicians over the past week or so have talked about the beauty of American democracy and pluralism (Bush used this term last night in his speech), the answer has to be ‘yes’. If America really has a government by, of and for the people, surely the people must ultimately take responsibility for the actions of their elected leaders. Many Americans are quite happy to claim credit for the laudable actions of the government, armed forces etc. This being the case, these people have little right, when presented with evidence of some of the US’s less-than-laudable acts, to throw their hands hands in the air and say “I had nothing to do with it”.
I realise that a problem with my formulation here is that, in so many ways, the government of America is only “by, of and for” the people in a somewhat limited sense. As i’ve pointed out in other threads, various surveys conducted in the 1990s show that anywhere from 50 to 90 percent of poll respondents believe that government exists largely to serve the interests of the wealthy and of large corporations. If this is in fact the case, then maybe the American people should not be held accountable for the actions of their government.
As a rule, it seems to me that the more democratic and open a society is, the more responsibility the people must bear for government actions. And, as i said in a previous post, despite its problems America still provides more freedoms than virtually anywhere else in the world, so American citizens should shoulder a similar proportion of the blame for government policy.
Again, this does NOT excuse the attack. It is a general observation about the workings of power and chain of responsibility in society.
- What non-violent recourse does a economically-ravaged Middle Eastern country have if they don’t like the actions of a huge force like the U.S.?
Very little. The UN can’t even get the US to pay its dues, let alone shift America’s foreign policy in any meaningful way. And the United States has, over the past decade, shown little respect for international courts and tribunals when they rule against American interests. I’ve discussed this before on this thread, along with citations.
And once again, for any dummies out there who still don’t get what i’m saying, the lack of non-violent recourse does NOT, in my opinion, justify the type of violent action we saw last week.
Having said that no actions justify the terrorism of last week, i should add something else. It is entirely possible that US actions can help to explain the terrorism. Again, this is not an argument of justification, only an observation that it may be possible to trace much disaffection among some people throughout the world to the machinations of American foreign policy. If we are really seeking to understand what happened, such understanding is not likely to come from burying our heads in the sand and just blaming “evil”, as GWB did last night.
A full examination of US policy and reactions to it would probably find that, of those that disliked the US because of the their policies, some would be perfectly justified in their feelings, whereas others would not be. None of the arguments i made in my previous posts ever said that America is the worst place in the world. Nor did i say that America has never done anything good. All i am seeking here is an acknowledgement that the US is not goodness incarnate, that it does things that often conflict with the lofty rhetoric so loved by its politicians, media and some citizens. Simply pointing to the fact that other places are worse, or that other people have done evil things, is not a sufficient reply.
As Noam Chomsky, a critic of American foreign policy, has said, people can only be held respnsible for the foreseeable results of their own action or inaction. This is essentially a call for America to get its own house in order before preaching to rest of the world.
And in case anyone missed it the other seven times, NONE OF THIS EXCUSES LAST WEEK’S EVENTS.
Shodan wrote:
The ignorance displayed here really needs no comment. And while the “grown-ups are busy”, Shodan, you must be a little lonely in your (head-in-the-)sandbox.
The “imperialism” or “discrimination” argument CAN be used to justify any attack or killing. To wit:
“What crimes did America commit that led to the Pearl Harbor attack?”
- Imperialistic encroachment on the Japanese “natural sphere of influence” in the Pacific and Asia. Support for the Nationalist Chinese government’s opposition to Japan’s administration of “Manchuko”
- Economic imperialism. U.S. had embargoed oil imports to Japan prior to Pearl Harbor.
“What crimes did Kuwait commit that led to Iraq conquering them?”
See explanation above. Economic imperialism using oil revenues to support a highly consumerist economy to detriment of the Iraqi poor.
“What crimes did James Byrd commit that led to his being dragged to death?”
Interference with local “redneck” cultural expression.
“What crimes did the gay community commit that led to Matthew Shepard’s torture and murder?”
Cultural imperialism. Residents of Wyoming force-fed Hollywood entertainment offerings celebrating wealth and lifestyles of gays.
“What crimes did Nicole Simpson commit?”
Conspicuous and overt consumerism.
What crimes did six million European Jews commit?
Oh please. Nazis accused them all of engaging in type of financial and political influence that Moore accuses the U.S. of having throughout the world.
That’s the great thing about “blame the victim.” You can alway shoe-horn the victim into some box and argue that they somehow brought their victimization upon themselves.
Thank you **schplebordnik ** for your cogent post.
Let me add that it’s particularly comfortable to argue that particular victims brought it upon themselves if one is already prejudiced against their group, e.g., if one is a anti-Semite, racist, homophobe, etc.
Sadly, this thread demonstrates that some people have bought into a kind of anti-American prejudice.
[sigh]Criticism of specific American policies and actions is not “anti-American prejudice”. The major definitions offered by the Oxford English Dictionary for the word prejudice include:
None of my opinions here have been formed without “due examination or consideration”, nor do they constitute an “unreasoning predilection or objection”. While you may not agree with the ways in which some people interpret evidence, this does not automatically make their opinions prejudiced. Your statements on this thread give no indication of any “due examination or consideration” on your part, and, as you can see from the second paragraph of the definition, prejudice can be both “favourable or unfavourable”.
And your reductionism is juvenile in the extreme. You say that criticism of US foreign policy amounts to “anti-American prejudice”, but it is nothing of the sort. In fact, many critics of US policies base their criticisms on a love for their country and a desire to see it realise its full potential.
I’m not a US citizen. I’m an Australian who lives in the US. But i didn’t come here specifically to spend my life taking pot-shots at Americans. I really love living here, i have many great friends here, and the social, cultural and intellectual diversity of this country make it a joy to live in. Of course, following the sort of ‘logic’ that you have displayed in this thread, the very fact that i’m not an American probably disqualifies me from even having an opinion. But if i’m critical of American policies, it is not from some latent prejudice, but arises from an examination of the situation and comes from a desire to see the country be all it can be. Your apparent unwillingness to adopt even the slightest critical stance does you and your country (i assume you’re American?) little credit, and offers little hope for the sort of improvement that would allow this great country to fulfill its potential.
Just wanted to congratulate mhendo on his excellent posts. Well done, man.
Nothing wrong with criticising America. Let’s face it, Americans are probably the best in the world at criticising their country and government – that’s what the 1st Amendment is for.
Problem is, the Moore article examined what he considered to be American foreign policy misdeeds, and equated it to “how we got here” [the WTC and Pentagon bombings]. That, my friend, is “blame the victim.” Or can we established that each of the people on those planes, each of the people in the Pentagon, each of the people in the WTC, and the firemen and cops who tried to save them, had a hand in American imperialist misadventures?
and if American foreign policy misdeeds are how we got the WTC/Pentagon, then can’t we say that WTC/Pentagon deaths are how Afghan, Iraqi, Palenstinian, etc. “got to” the war that is about to be fought around them…?