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But, no, there's nothing liberal about American hegemony right now; there was little that was liberal about it, as BooMan has pointed out, under Bill Clinton (who gets a pass because of the sickeningly low bar set by Junior); and there'll be nothing liberal about it when St McCain or Her Majesty win the White House in November. Where's your motherf*%&ing flag pin?
I'm saying that US hegemony while highly imperfect is at least cloaked in the capitalist system rather than naked imperialism.
I doubt that the Chinese will be so obliging. And I'll give my consent to any government that does not deny a man a living wage-Billy Bragg
Neither form of hegemony is good. We need a multi-polar world. Where's your motherf*%&ing flag pin?
And anyone with an inkling of understanding of what European imperialism was like in the Belgian Congo or German Southwest Africa would understand why that's an extremely inappropriate thing to say.
The problem with conflating the two, is it obscures the line between them, and makes it possible to slip from economic dominantion to the something more naked without seeing it coming.
Remember that in Iraq, the main course of civilian casualties has been intercine fighting, not something directly attributable to occupying US forces.
The last time we had mulitpolarity, we got the Second World War, because it's an unstable system that encourages states to pass the buck on deterring agressors to other great powers.
Economic autarky and withdraw to the American continent is an option for the United States if faced with Chinese agression, it is not for European states that are far more depedent on resource imports and are exposed to the east and south on land fronts that allow a nation to attack without being forced to transport their forces across large stretches of water. And I'll give my consent to any government that does not deny a man a living wage-Billy Bragg
