But imperialism has changed a lot since 1900. The main story during the last 50 years or so has been a political-economic hierarchy of countries with the US as hegemon. Though clearly WASPs such as myself[**] dominated the government of this system and racism has been central to the normal operations of the US economy, it's simplistic to say that it was a racist empire: the US pulverized Vietnam not because it was populated by an "inferior race" as much as because the North and many people in South Vietnam were trying to break from the system that the US was ruling (and strengthening the competing Soviet bloc). Anti-Vietnamese racism probably had its main role in motivating the soldiers at the front; however, I have a hard time seeing it as central to LBJ's world-view. To look at another example, Gabriel Kolko argued that a lot of the nasty imperialist things that the US did to other countries were also done to England, even though it was a very WASP nation at the time.
^^^ CB: I'd say that the war on Viet Nam was objectively racist, as well as anti-Communist. . It was White Man's Burden , i.e. liberal, racism. This aspect makes LBJ consistent in that he was a liberal. He was "saving" the Viet Namese from Communism. But LBJ's subjective state is not central. It was a US imperialist colonialist war, European colonialism of the last 500 years including the last 60 of the US has had a main feature of racism. Racism and anti-Communism are like two peas in a pod. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
