Zar

Laughable? Absolutely undeserving of any serious consideration?

Well, I guess people thought the world was flat, too.

Zar

There is a difference between making deals and influencing others in a multilateral environment and using great military force, copious terror, and coups d'etats to get your way. The more of this you do, the more imperialistic your behavior, and the U.S. is far and away the leader of the world in this respect at present and probably even historically.

Insofar as one country threatens another to get its way, it is ususally considered a bad thing. Ironically, massive killing power and relentless threats carried out to a horrible end are not, when it is the U.S. that is in question. The "hypocrisy meter" just can't measure that level of double-think.

It is highly debatable whether the U.S. promotes the "greater good" anymore, if it ever really did, or if this is yet another product of U.S. hubris at work, assuming that anything being "Americanized" is by definition good and better than anything else, from McDonald's to McDonnell Douglas. The U.S. certainly tries to promote the greater good for itself, and many U.S. citizens may have the habit of projecting this outcome onto the world through "red-white-and-blue-colored glasses", but even here, the people in the "homeland' (how imperialistic a term) often suffer under the burden of empire, a corrupt elite and a further move to the far right in social matters. A few "vassal" client states probably benefit somewhat from being in the U.S.'s orbit, while a great many other countries are basically made servile under its boot. You would not have a snowball's chance in hell of convincing those ruled that they should be grateful for U.S. domination.

Zar

What is bad about murder?

Let's apply this question to a street gang. Everyone probably realizes that street gangs are often a part of big city American life, especially where there is great poverty. If we acknowlegde that street-gangism is not a completely new phenomenon, and is a form of human social conduct that is not all that surprising, does that mean we must not resist gangs anymore and let society be ruled by their values, the values of a gang of thugs? Would their takeover of a city mean their system will be better than some other system?

Atticus_Finch

Those of you who are singing the woes of "American Imperialism" remind me of the Jewish Zealots (what were they called, "The People's Front for the Liberation of Judea?") in Monty Python's "Life of Brian".

"Death to the Romans...What have they ever done for us...Well there is the aquaduct, and peace, and it is safe to walk the streets at night....but besides all that what have they done for us....nothing....death to the Romans"

[Not an actual quote but a paraphrase from memory. If anyone could find the actual lines I would love to see them.]

Regards,

Finch

Zar

So does this Monty Python skit count as your historical analysis? Are these the depths you plumb for truth?

Atticus_Finch

Actually it is "humor". Come on lighten up.

Regards,

Finch

[edited to add text of the scene from Monty Python's Life of Brian.

Revolutionary I: What exactly are the demands?

Reg: We're giving Pilate two days to dismantle the entire apparatus of the Roman imperialist state, and if he doesn't agree

immediately, we execute her.

Matthias: Cut her head off?

Rogers: Cut all her bits off! Send them back on the hour, every hour! Seldom why not to be tried for it.

Reg: And of course, we point out that they bear full responsibility when we chop her up, and that we shall not submit to

blackmale.

All revolutionaries except Reg: No blackmale!

Reg: They bled us white, the bastards. They've taken everything we had. And not just from us! From our fathers, and from

our father's fathers.

Loretta: And from our father's father's fathers.

Reg: Yeah.

Loretta: And from our father's father's father's fathers.

Reg: Yeah, all right Stan, don't delay with the point. And what have they ever given us in return?

Revolutionary I: The aqueduct?

Reg: What?

Revolutionary I: The aqueduct.

Reg: Oh. Yeah, yeah, they did give us that, ah, that's true, yeah.

Revolutionary II: And the sanitation.

Loretta: Oh, yeah, the sanitation, Reg. Remember what the city used to be like.

Reg: Yeah, all right, I'll grant you the aqueduct and sanitation, the two things the Romans have done.

Matthias: And the roads.

Reg: Oh, yeah, obviously the roads. I mean the roads go without saying, don't they? But apart from the sanitation, the

aqueduct, and the roads...

Revolutionary III: Irrigation.

Revolutionary I: Medicine.

Revolutionary IV: Education.

Reg: Yeah, yeah, all right, fair enough.

Revolutionary V: And the wine.

All revolutionaries except Reg: Oh, yeah! Right!

Rogers: Yeah! Yeah, that's something we'd really miss Reg, if the Romans left. Huh.

Revolutionary VI: Public bathes.

Loretta: And it's safe to walk in the streets at night now, Reg.

Rogers: Yeah, they certainly know how to keep order. Let's face it; they're the only ones who could in a place like this.

All revolutionaries except Reg: Hahaha...all right...

Reg: All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh-water

system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?

Revolutionary I: Brought peace?

Reg: Oh, peace! Shut up!
Life of Brian Screen Play

Skeptictank

What a truly terrible analogy to a perfectly sensible question. I find it doubly interesting since you were quick to smash Finch's analogy which was much more on target.
Given that the Romans did bring peace, aquaducts, roads and the like to places that never had them, was it still bad?
Moreover, back to the previous question, what is wrong with imperialism per se? Well, it depends doesn't it.
When the US decided to intervene unilaterally in Somolia in 1992 I didn't hear a lot of people screaming "imperialism!!" Why? Because the US was bringing food and was attempting to bring stability to a place without it. If we hadn't acted "imperially" then thousands would have starved.
On the converse, the US got a lot of shit when it REFUSED to act "imperially" in Rwanda or intervene sooner in the former Yugoslavia.
Now, am I saying I'm in favor of "imperialism"? No, but don't be so flippant with the question.

Skeptictank

BWAHAHA! Quite possibly the funniest statement I've read all day!
Go tell it to the people of Afghanistan...or Angola... or Etheopia....

Like it aided the liberation movements in Czecheslovakia? Or Hungary? The soviets did a great job of "protecting" them.....from democracy, freedom, breathing........
:banghead:

Zar

Skeptictank,

I disagree. A street gang seems like a good analogy with its "antonym" being a police force (in ideal conditions). In the same way an empire would have as its "antonym" an alliance or the respectful observance of national sovereignty.

Because we as a species have not yet sufficiently progressed to stop making exceptions for empire that we don't make in other echelons of life doesn't mean I'm wrong about making a distinction here.

And no one is saying that helping another country, if indeed we are, counts as an empirical act. But you pick one weak and failed probable act of aid out of a sea of imperial domination and propose that we not only call it even but that we define American involvement in the world in these terms? Even gangsters give out an occasional gift to those under their protection.

But still, if we fully agree that Somalia was an act of altruism, all I can say is that it is an exception, rather than the rule, and that I'm not really sure it is the business of the United States to run around the world putting its soldiers in harms way to settle conflicts we know little about anyway. Perhaps it is the business of multilateral agreements, but it is not the place of the U.S. empire alone. Insofar as the U.S. can encourage peaceable solutions to problems, I'm for it, and do not include these acts as being of an "imperial" nature. Unfortunatley, U.S. interventionism is by and large for imperial purposes.

And as far as the future is concerned, it would appear that whatever altruistic purposes the U.S. may have temporarily engaged in recently during the Clinton era, and can be applauded for, are coming to a swift end and I can only see renewed and increased strife in the future.

Zar

You know what, people? I don't care if you call the U.S. imperialistc or not. Use whatever term you like. This term tends to get in the way of a good discussion anyway, since people don't want to concede that America is imperialistc, as if one word could define any nation it is entirety.

If you want to call the U.S. the World's Greatest Democracy, go ahead. It won't change what has transpired, and merely makes what America has done to be the epitome of democracy. That this may give democracy a bad name is not my fault.

I will still be opposed to what I think are wrong behaviors, either way.