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From: Craig Mastos
T1: cmastos@powernet.net
Date: 10/21/99
Time: 7:54:02 PM
Remote Name: 216.88.152.83
I'm not sure an outsider should be intruding here. I do enjoy logging on to Grover Furr's page,thoug. If it's not right for me to add my two cents worth, anyone, student or teacher, can tell me to stop. Not being conversant in Marx's explanation about the contradictions of capitalism, I may not be right about these things. It seems to me that all the "nice" things that "we" enjoy--cars, clothes, computers, schools, and the rest of it--are the fruits of something other than the kind of imperialism we practiced in Vietnam or Haiti or East Timor or wherever. Charles Beard said in The Open Door at Home (1934) that we didn't need to practice imperialism to maintain our standard of living. Perhaps whatever kind of economy Beard envisioned without imperialism is still capitalism, ultimately subject to contradictions and problems, but I don't believe these contradictions and problems are solved by imperial policies in Vietnam or anywhere else. Thise imperial policies serve someone else's needs--not "ours," the comfortable middle class. I don't think we can excuse imperial policies on the notion that our comforts will disappear if we weren't an imperial power. "We" are being roped into serving the needs of an incredibly small minority by buying into the idea that we have to "save" Vietnam (or any country) from "communism."
Perhaps we may choose to "save" ourselves from "communism." That is our choice. Of course, if the contradictions of capitalism catch up with us no matter what, then we'll be saying so long to capitalism anyway. But we have no business "saving" other countries.
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