Return to 21st Century 'Imperialism' & 19th Century Empire: Some Thoughts
Re: Interesting piece
(#50024)
by Chris Matthew Sciabarra on January 6, 2005 at 1:19 PM
by Chris Matthew Sciabarra on January 6, 2005 at 1:19 PM
Sudha, superb points here.
American foreign policy, like American domestic policy, has been built up through the years by a fragmented "ad hoc" process. Each is an extension and reflection of the other.
That doesn't mean, I would submit, that there aren't "systemic" pressures at work for various kinds of domestic and foreign interventions. But it is clear that short-term "pragmatic" considerations have left the US in a precarious political position both at home and abroad.
I don't think it is any coincidence that the ideological roots of today's neoconservatism can be found in the utopian constructivism of Trotsky.
Those American neoconservatives who provide the utopian ideological veneer, who would like to make us believe that it is possible to take an Archimedean standpoint so as to draw a new "nation" on a blank canvas, just do not understand what you say: that intervention always takes place in "*continuing* historical contexts." The strands are "woven into the political fabric," as you put it, with no eye toward the ugliness of the patchwork quilt that often results.
American foreign policy, like American domestic policy, has been built up through the years by a fragmented "ad hoc" process. Each is an extension and reflection of the other.
That doesn't mean, I would submit, that there aren't "systemic" pressures at work for various kinds of domestic and foreign interventions. But it is clear that short-term "pragmatic" considerations have left the US in a precarious political position both at home and abroad.
I don't think it is any coincidence that the ideological roots of today's neoconservatism can be found in the utopian constructivism of Trotsky.
Those American neoconservatives who provide the utopian ideological veneer, who would like to make us believe that it is possible to take an Archimedean standpoint so as to draw a new "nation" on a blank canvas, just do not understand what you say: that intervention always takes place in "*continuing* historical contexts." The strands are "woven into the political fabric," as you put it, with no eye toward the ugliness of the patchwork quilt that often results.
Return to 21st Century 'Imperialism' & 19th Century Empire: Some Thoughts
by Max Swing on January 6, 2005 at 10:50 AM