Is America imperalist?

Hell yeah we are -pops open brewski, invades random Middle-Eastern country-

High five, bro!

I JUST WANTED TO GO INTO SPAAACE!!!

Don't congratulate me, this is a WMG. A fairly depressing one, but being depressing isn't the same as being truthful. I believe the same about Israel, except much more so. When that country collpases, if it keeps its current route, it will collapse hard: their vicious cycle is even more immediate and brutal.

You need to keep the high ground and ideologically justify your position before the public. That, and every empire sucks at being imperial: the more ppressive and ham-fisted the rule, the more counterprioductive and unsustainable in the long term. The USA using more "softocore" and indirect methods, and letting internal powers opress the people of those countries for them, is in fact the most efficient course of action. Still, people do notice.

While US imperialism has only been an annoyance to me, French imperialism has positively ruined many lives in my family, and, in one case, ended one. After repatedly torturing it. So yeah, the French government should shut the fuck up, they ain't qualified for the moralfag act.

'''YOU SEE THIS DOG I'M PETTING? THAT WAS COURAGE WOLF.Cute, isn't he?

Naw, that's what the big military is for.

Fight smart, not fair.

A couple notes: let's clarify what the fuck we mean by "America". The name can apply to a stretch of territory and islands, the people who live on that land, or the government that claims to rule and represent them. I don't think anybody hates the land (well okay, Cleveland and Jersey are pretty shitty, but we don't hold it against them), I seriously doubt anyone in this thread is xenophobic enough to hate the people, and when someone says they hate the government they are probably referring to specific actions by specific people in the government (which is not monolithic by any stretch) and by interests that are influencing the government in order to promote their agendas. So lets can the "why do you hate America?" responses please, they get nowhere.

(Full disclosure: I am a Dominican born and raised in the States. My grandparents saw the Marines march into Santo Domingo to "defend the Dominicans from the commies" which was a load of bullshit as anyone could tell. Before the invasion we had decades of the U.S.-backed dictator Trujillo. After Trujillo's assassination and our first democratic government in a while (before it got ousted by U.S. intervention) we got Trujillo's right-hand man Balaguer, who was not much better in any significant way. I don't hate the U.S., nor do my family members, although we have more reason to than the freaking Iranians.)

Next thing: On foreign aid. Don't kid yourself that foreign aid actually goes to the people of the country it's aimed at. The vast majority of foreign aid spent by Country X will go to companies of Country X working in Poor Country Y. The citizens of Poor Country Y are rarely if ever employed in the aid efforts. Every developed country does this, not just the U.S. Canada in Haiti was a particularly bad example; I spoke with doctors working there when I visited my family in the D.R. back in spring 2010. What I heard about Canada's performance in Haiti disappointed and disgusted me.

Finally, I'm going to restrict myself from joining this discussion more fully since it'll be bad for my blood pressure. That and I doubt I'll be able to do anything more constructive than recommend Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States, which I'd recommend to anyone anyways. If people want to criticize A People's History I'd be glad to defend it on another thread.

Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.

Best post in the damn thread.

'''YOU SEE THIS DOG I'M PETTING? THAT WAS COURAGE WOLF.Cute, isn't he?

Can you stop with the "best post in the thread" posts?

I like to congratulate my fellow tropers when they make an excellent, insightful contribution to a thread while revealing a new angle of the problem the other posters had missed. It is so easy to adopt postions to the polar sides of arguments, falling into a False Dichotomy: posters who Take a Third Option are lifesavers. So, no, I don't intend to stop unless you give me a good reason to.

'''YOU SEE THIS DOG I'M PETTING? THAT WAS COURAGE WOLF.Cute, isn't he?

He didn't exactly do anything different from most other posters.

"True story, I came when I read Scrye's story, and so did everyone within five miles." —OOZE

He really detailed personal direct experience of American imperialism while not being a hateful spiteful moralfag about it, unlike me. He also raised the matter of foreign aid, which can be used to fuck shit up instead of help, and Haiti is a blatant example I didn't dare raise because of my lack of direct knowledge, which restricts me to generalities. Also, fuck France.

edited 9th Jan '11 12:31:18 PM by RawPower

'''YOU SEE THIS DOG I'M PETTING? THAT WAS COURAGE WOLF.Cute, isn't he?

I think it was more that his post agreed with how Raw feels, Scrye.

The position of "fuck France" is a sentiment I can sympathize with after my experiences speaking with people who were in Haiti. I was unaware before then that France had actually charged the Haitians for their independence, effectively blocking them off from meaningful economic interaction with the rest of the world until they paid them the value for their lost colonial investments, something totalling millions of dollars - in pre-WWII money.

Dammit, I promised myself I'd stay out of this thread for the sake of my blood pressure. Bad Taoist! Down!

Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.

Its a horiffic thing to find out that Britain was one of the better colonial powers after the kind of crap that was inflicted on so many people

As a turkish friend of mine would say: "The French would rape you. The British would use lubricant. The Americans will bitch-slap you and then won't know what to do about you pimp you to their corporations."

'''YOU SEE THIS DOG I'M PETTING? THAT WAS COURAGE WOLF.Cute, isn't he?

For the most part I am happy that Britain was the lesser of the other evils. At least Britain didn't have a hand in geneocide.

Well, there's the Balfour unpleasantness... but you mean, as opposed to Belgium (twice) or Japan?

'''YOU SEE THIS DOG I'M PETTING? THAT WAS COURAGE WOLF.Cute, isn't he?

Or Germany in east africa... some of the stuff done there was horrific. Or Italy in Abysinia.

And a rubber, I hope. Would be jolly bad form if we didn't, wot wot?

edited 9th Jan '11 2:57:50 PM by RadicalTaoist

Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.

We have made the great leap from the Middle Ages...

edited 9th Jan '11 3:04:06 PM by RawPower

'''YOU SEE THIS DOG I'M PETTING? THAT WAS COURAGE WOLF.Cute, isn't he?

As a European from a country that never held colonies and has never invaded another country, I say the US has certain imperialist tendencies (mainly referring to stuff like the Allende -> Pinochet transition) but isn't imperialist in the sense that it seeks to conquer and annex other countries for exploitation or Lebensraum. It simply sometimes starts armed movements and stages coups to make sure that it gets the resources it wants, and while that is horrible, it is in many ways less awful than occupation by total war followed by rape in every way the term can be understood.

Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.

You've got a point there.

'''YOU SEE THIS DOG I'M PETTING? THAT WAS COURAGE WOLF.Cute, isn't he?

There's a theory that hegemonies tend to be more stable than multipolar systems — everyone simply knows his place in the pecking order, so there's no vying for domination. Geopolitics get nastiest when there're two big rival powers (we've been spared the most recent ones 'cause everyone got scared off by nukes  ^*

). In this case we're pretty well off, in that the hegemon is, uh, relatively decent... 'Course, I've got a First-Worlder point of view here.

"Atheism is the religion whose followers are easiest to troll"

Interesting POV. What's the Kansas of Europe? Poland? Rumania?

'''YOU SEE THIS DOG I'M PETTING? THAT WAS COURAGE WOLF.Cute, isn't he?

<offtopic> It's a fun description I saw on a certain other forum. That was when some dudes in our Parliament tried to pass a resolution declaring Jesus Christ the King, well, the King. So, yeah.

And, I don't hide it, I just prefer people to do a little research in the obvious places. </offtopic>

So, from a First Worlder perspective, I may be oblivious to the view of the Third World. The Soviets seem to have had a marginally better record, but my rule of thumb is that Soviets = bad.

While I'm at it: it's kind of funny, the Yanks deposed commies when it seemed they're just "a bit commie", but democratic, and couldn't get them when they were commie dictators. Is it possible that those deposed just had no time to get worse?

"Atheism is the religion whose followers are easiest to troll"

All I have to say is that the western world in general is a very different (and kinder) place than 100 years ago. You can't really compare the modern states of America and Europe to the old, truly imperialistic powers of the 1800's, or even the 1900's, in any way that isn't favourably. We'll see if things remain so good when China is number one, especially as India is also emerging as a very powerful nation and is in the same part of the world.

The term "Great Man" is disturbingly interchangeable with "mass murderer" in history books.

If we *wanted* an empire, we'd BE an empire. Who's gonna stop us, the UN? (LOL). Example A: Who had the nuke, *when no one else did*? We could have ruled, had we wanted to do so. We did not. We re-built the countries savaged by WWII, which is why the EU is not a third-world hell hole as we speak. No charge, folks, glad to do it. Japan too. Who could have stopped us? We paid, in blood, for the freedom of people who sit around and diss us now. But that's okay, cause if we wouldn't let you diss us, it wouldn't be freedom now would it?