On Wed, Jan 21, 2009 at 8:34 PM, raghu <[email protected]> wrote: > On Wed, Jan 21, 2009 at 3:06 PM, Jerry Monaco <[email protected]> > wrote: > > Do you mean to say that people of color won't or can't support > imperialism? > > It is impossible for people of color to support imperialism? > > I certainly don't mean the above. What I mean is that the empowerment > of formerly exploited groups of people in an imperialist system > introduces some fundamentally new contradictions into its power > structures. > > > > So will Obama, a person of color, dismantle the regional commands of the > > so-called "Defense" Department? Will he suddenly reverse himself and not > > support Israel, even though he was sympathetic to the recent U.S.-Israeli > > attack on the Palestinians? Will Obama withdraw troops from Afghanistan > or > > from Germany or Japan or Colombia or Indonesia? Will Obama stop > supporting > > the corporate exploitation of Central America? > > Hopefully a good fraction of the above. Almost certainly not all of the > above.
You are deluded if you think he will do any of the above. As I said his comments on the most recent U.S.-Israeli attack on the Palestinian people in Gaza indicate that his support for these kinds of imperial slaughter is whole-hearted. I am afraid that we have no common ground for discussion if you can't accept the simple basic facts, as BHO himself has stated, that Obama's foreign policy will be the same corporate oriented imperial policy as Clinton's. Institutions and systems are primary here not individual personalities. > > > > By the way are Colin Powell and Conde Rice imperialists? As far as I can > > tell they always supported imperialism. > > There is a very big difference between Powell/Rice and Obama: unlike > the election of Obama, the average black person did not celebrate or > feel empowered by the appointment of Colin Powell. > > Obama can, of course, still become an old-school imperialist, but he > can only do so by betraying his constituency in which case most > colored people will continue to be exploited and not part of the > imperialist elite. The cynics on PEN-L seem to think this is already > happening, but I think this is not at all clear. His constintuency is Wall Street and the Real Estate interests and corporations, and not the people who voted with him. The same with the most liberal president ever LBJ. > > > > Let me ask you, specifically. What will change in the system and > > institutions of U.S. imperialism now that Obama is in power? > > As I have repeatedly argued here, there is a real possibility here for > progressive change though this is by no means inevitable. This depends > to the extent to which Obama's minority constituencies are in fact > empowered under his Presidency. Some possible reforms are in > trade-related areas such as NAFTA, forcing poor countries to accept > agricultural imports etc; end of war in Iraq (and hopefully) > Afghanistan; no NATO expansion, military bases or missile shields in > Eastern Europe and Central Asia etc. > > -raghu. > > Obama is of the Atlanticist liberal wing of the U.S. imperial elite. This makes him a bit more sane than the previous authoritarian reactionaries who occupied the White House but no different than Clinton or Carter.
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