So all those gay dudes who are imperialistic and like the military should what? go fuck themselves?
There's nothing in being gay that dictates proper moral values on other positions. If they want to have gay sex and also want to be agents of empire, that's their business but I'm not going to be their ally.
civil rights should be civil rights. and since it's the topic, being in the military is very much NOT a right. It's a privilege.
Huh? Pick one.
And to say people in the military go "Kill and die for the US" you have the same tone as the guy you were replying to.
I didn't really have a problem with the tone. I tried to articulate the point in a way where the tone would be more compelling. Which, judging by my responses and moderation, success!
I feel that your position is wrongheaded and nearsighted. I feel that the position stems from your own, very wrong and unrealistic, beliefs. I actually believe that with some thought, these feelings are correct and self-evident.
Well, good for you. I don't really care what you feel and believe. I've provided argument, and support for my argument, and you've responded by trying to paraphrase my argument in a way that's convenient for you to dismiss, but haven't provided much in the way of challenging my position.
I did not "twist" what you said. I am attempting to demonstrate.
You are changing the meaning of my position in so doing. It's called a straw man argument, look it up.
I simply restated on simpler terms and you found the statement distasteful. Why?
I chose my words carefully, and words are not always interchangeable. Your rephrasing of my position does not reflect what I meant to say, it reflects what you chose to see in it. And if you're not being deliberately dishonest, then you're demonstrating that you don't understand the difference between my version of my position and yours.
You are the one who brought up morality.
If you can't conceive of moral principles besides "evil" and "good"... I don't even know how to finish that sentence. Really?
Exactly how did I change the original meaning?
Well, I never said anyone or anything is evil, to begin with. So, basically, you entirely eliminated the original meaning and superimposed a completely ludicrous one on top of it.
You have taken an all-or-nothing approach to this discussion.
No, I haven't. I absolutely believe in incremental progress. I don't believe the repeal is progress, I believe it is an opportunistic misstep.
This repeal does nothing for you and you construe it to help your enemy.
And, I provide supporting logic for that point. Which you don't seem to care for.
You have some mythical big picture where the government plays us all as pawns and this repeal is a ploy to distract us.
I'm sorry if that's the impression I've given. I don't think it's anything as sinister as that. I think that the government, the military, and so on have interests that they serve, but I don't think they "play" us in any conscious sense. I think they serve their interests as well as they can, and if that means pink-washing imperialism than so be it. They don't have any principles besides power, and the social leanings of the day can be manipulated whatever they happen to be.
Exactly how will we become distracted? Is the HRC going to close up tomorrow?
*I* won't become distracted. I can't speak for you. But I can say that organizations lobbying for the DADT repeal will, if they proceed for changes beyond the repeal, be given the same line that all progressives with an ear in the White House have been getting for the last two years: your expectations are too high, get in line or shut up.
What does American imperialism have to do with DADT?
I don't know why you're asking me to explain something I've addressed from the outset, but okay. DADT was a mistaken policy, now corrected, implemented by the US military which is engaged in imperialism. By correcting this mistake, it is better suited to engage in imperialism.
Gays and lesbians, thousands of them, will someday soon, be able to go to work and not have to lie about how they spent their weekend. How is this repeal anything other than a good thing?
For those individuals, it's a good thing in a sense. And I don't begrudge them that. Though I do wish they'd find a better job. But it's also more than that. It's also a propaganda tool that plays exceptionally well into the hands of their employers.
However, filling the main public pool in a city is more important than putting out a smoldering house that is already a total loss and won't be spreading. So sometimes the public wins are more important than the more meaningful and less visible pieces because, in the long run, the more visible one will elevate the issue and lead to a quicker overall resolution.
Queer liberation isn't a lost cause, and neither is anti-imperialism. Both will eventually prevail. The "firefighters", to stick with the analogy, are facing a tough problem because they're fighting against arsonists.
The repeal of DADT is not a win, it's a distraction.
Why not? Consistency will often result in a seemingly unrelated opinions giving a good idea of or even defining other opinions held.
I explained why not in another comment. To quote myself, "The only part of my political philosophy that's relevant to this discussion is that I'm opposed to imperialism. I could be a traditional conservative, a Quaker, an Iraqi, a socialist, some heretofore unknown brand of progressive-liberal, whatever, and oppose a policy that I think will bolster imperialism." I mean, I could discuss why being an anarchist leads to being anti-imperialist, but it's kind of a waste of my time because I'm not really discussing any principles that aren't much broader than anarchism.
Really, as I said to the other commenter, if you want to discuss my broader political philosophy, open up a discussion somewhere else and I'll join in, time allowing. But I'm trying to focus on the consequences of a civil rights movement being swept up into an imperialist system. And I think that discussion is both relevant and warranted, and has merit in its own right without putting on trial my vision for an ideal society.
This about improving the US military, not furthering civil rights.
That's what I said! And I don't want to improve the US military, I want to improve civil rights. Does *anyone* on Slashdot read before they respond?
What if there is a society of people openly and actively torturing and killing homosexuals as a policy and all diplomatic efforts have failed?
They're our allies.;)
For what it's worth, I'm not taking a stance against violence. And I'm not taking a stance against military or war. I'm taking a stance against imperialism. The US military is not an agent for civil rights and human rights, it's an agent for corporate profit and hegemony. If we change that, I'd be happy to serve in the military myself.
You know when someone starts by saying "oh SHUT UP", something completely stupid will follow. I don't even know what you're talking about.
I didn't say anything about a conspiracy. I didn't quote Chomsky. I didn't say the world is simple. And I don't really care why people join the military, straight or queer. I have no idea what your post has to do with mine.
I suppose you could make an argument for the Native Americans
You suppose? You'll grant that? Conquering an entire continent, hundreds of nations, and millions of people... might just be imperialist? That is how the US got its start.
The rest of your comment boils down to a misconception that empires are defined by complete subjugation of all the countries they exercise power over, rather than the exact same conquest/hegemony/manipulation/institutional soup that the US uses and has used since the age of outright conquest ended around the time the explicitly imperialist phase you describe did.
I don't know why you're wanting to keep rephrasing my points. It's perfectly comprehensible as is, without putting words like "evil" and "good" (as contrasted with "evil") in my mouth.
Is there any chance you can *reply* to the statement instead of twisting it?
The word imperial was not coined to describe the US.
Well, duh. That doesn't mean the US isn't an imperialist, just that it isn't alone (especially in history).
overall, the US is a force for good in the world.
I would never say the US has done no good in the world. But I can't agree that it has done more good than harm. The US began its empire, immediately after leaving the British empire, by conquering an entire continent, dispensing with hundreds of nations and millions of people in the process. It then conquered and annexed half of a neighboring country (Mexico). Much of the receding Spanish imperial territories (Cuba, Guam, Puerto Rico), then the Philippines where hundreds of thousands were murdered. Then Hawaii. Overthrown governments include: Iran, Chile, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras, Grenada, Afghanistan and Iraq. It's intervened on behalf of the Phalange movement in Lebanon, death squads in Colombia (and really all over Latin America), brutal dictators like Pinochet, Suharto, Hussein, Zia-ul-Haq, and on and on. It's the only country on earth to have dropped nuclear bombs on civilian populations (twice!). Following WWII, it reinstated fascist governors throughout contested areas of Italy and Greece. It's supported genocide in East Timor and Kurdistan, committed genocide in Indochina, and been the primary source of support for Israel's ongoing colonization and ethnic cleansing of Palestine for over 40 years (with a lesser degree of support going all the way back to the Nakba in 1948). It is currently engaged in two military occupations which have taken hundreds of thousands of lives. In Iraq, it has displaced about 20% of the population. In Afghanistan, it continues to escalate against the wishes of the population, and the consequences—already pretty bad—will only grow worse.
And that's the short list. The one I could do off the top of my head, insofar as I could keep it roughly chronological. But here I want to take a step back and point back that imperialism is a precise term, and the moral and emotional qualities we're attaching to it are not part of its definition, but rather our reaction to it. Imperialism is the imposition of a state upon other populations. It is absolutely precise to describe the US' role as imperial. What you or I think about that is another matter.
ascribe bad motives to the US to the exclusion of everything else
I never said the US is unique. I don't know where you got that idea.
After fighting and defeating the Axis in the 20th century
Not alone, and not consistently. The US leadership was enamored with Franco and Mussolini, and had high regard for Hitler. Had the alliances played out differently, it's not inconceivable that the US would have entered the war on their side, particularly as a bulwark against the "real" threat (the Soviet Union), but really its immediate quarrel was with Japan, which is where it placed its focus. Germany was defeated primarily by the Soviet Union.
and helping to put things back together
In part by constructing a post-war economy that helped to stall European recovery at the advantage of the US.
and not completely taking away the sovereignty of the vanquished should tell anyone that the US wants a dominant position, but not an empire.
This is how *all* successful empires are run. The British had their Rajas, the Ottomans provincial autonomy, and so on. Few empires maintain absolute control over their entire sphere of influence, but instead shape the politics of the dominated places to be subservient to the central power.
Oh and here I thought you were actually interested in a discussion, my mistake. Try not deliberately caricaturing my position and then we'll talk some more.
So your civil rights are forest fires, while the civil rights of gays in the military are private swimming pools?
No, wait. I'm saying that building a civil rights movement for queers in the US by piggybacking it on an imperialist propaganda win is effectively diverting civil rights efforts away from the fundamental principle of equal rights and toward opportunistic goals. And I'm not talking about *my* equal rights—I'm relatively privileged and in a twisted sense I could benefit from the DADT repeal.
The lobbying organizations that are using the queer rights movement to repeal DADT are delivering a real win to the propaganda machine supporting the US military which is engaged in imperialism, in effect selling out the *human rights of victims of US imperialism* for meager civil rights gains here.
No real movement for justice would make a deal like that.
You want equal rights, but their choices aren't right choices and should be disregarded as not part of the movement?
No, I want equal rights, full stop. Human rights, civil rights, the whole nine yards. Getting the one while disregarding the other is not a moral position.
A man's beliefs are fundamental in forming his opinions. That is why I brought it up. I deduced that you were at least a libertarian and/or a pacifist because of your dismissal of this repeal. A man who disagrees with his government's actions wouldn't have decided that it means nothing. He may have considered it a small step, but not nothing or, as you seem to see it, a setback. Who we are and what we believe has everything to do with how and what we argue.
The only part of my political philosophy that's relevant to this discussion is that I'm opposed to imperialism. I could be a traditional conservative, a Quaker, an Iraqi, a socialist, some heretofore unknown brand of progressive-liberal, whatever, and oppose a policy that I think will bolster imperialism.
If you want to debate the inherent merits or demerits of government and military, on a theoretical level, I might be willing to engage (time allowing), but I don't think it has a bearing on my position in this thread.
You must have misunderstand me. I said that imperialism and equal rights are mutually exclusive. That's not saying that the only right opinion is my opinion, only saying what my opinion is. If other queers (or, hell, you) want to explain to me how imperialism can coexist with equal rights, I'm all ears.
It may mean nothing to you, but it means a lot to those affected by DADT.
Since apparently you missed it (don't feel bad, you're not alone), I'll repeat that I am queer. I was affected, at least in terms of legal application, by DADT.
Civil rights are not a binary bit, civil rights or no civil rights. The fight for civil rights is like fighting a forest fire. You have to stamp out what you can, when you can.
Which is a great analogy, and one which I agree with, except for the nagging issue that the DADT repeal is akin to pulling those firefighters out and directing them to use their fire hose to fill a private pool.
Also, I find it saddening that you think so little of those who work for equal rights, that you believe that they can be distracted from the ultimate goal of equality for all, with what you feel is a little sop.
I don't think little of the queer rights movement, I think little of the mainstream lobby movement that has co-opted their energy into the DADT issue. It's not *our* (note, I'm including myself here) fault that we don't have control over those lobbying resources.
I understand your disaffection for the government and their manipulation of the people. It makes me angry too, but I sense at the end of your sentiment the belief that we can do without government and a military is immoral. That may be me putting words in your mouth though. [...]
If you're inferring from my opposition to US imperialism that I'm an anarchist, I can only say this: while I am, in fact, an anarchist, my opposition to US imperialism shouldn't lead you to that conclusion. There is a big difference between opposing a system of government and its military apparatus that has been used for conquest and hegemony for centuries, on the one hand, and opposing all government and military on the other hand.
I could make a case for anarchism, and I do in other contexts, but this isn't the place for that and it will hopefully be enough here to say that my critique of the DADT repeal strategy doesn't depend on that argument. It should be enough to say that I don't want to send queers off to kill Afghanis or be killed by them. And that has no bearing on whether or not a government or a military is a necessary feature of a good society.
So are you trying to say that it would have been better to continue the open discrimination against LGBTQ?
First of all, DADT wasn't *open*. It was literally the exact opposite of open. Second of all, while I support the repeal of DADT as such, yes, I'm opposed to queers serving in the military. It's not part of the queer rights movement and shouldn't be portrayed as if it is. US militarism is on the opposite end of the moral spectrum from civil rights struggles.
If your answer is “yes, because it’s legitimizing our war machine etc etc etc” sorry, that doesn’t fly.
You're oversimplifying my point. And it's no wonder, after over-simplification, that it "doesn't fly." Let me reiterate: militarism and imperialism are incompatible with civil rights; allowing militarism and imperialism to co-opt a civil rights movement will weaken and diffuse the movement; it will become a tool used to isolate different the queer rights movement from the broader movement for justice; and it will be used as a propaganda tool to portray militarism and imperialism as the opposite of what it really is.
American corporations will continue to use the US military to secure cheap resources and promote their business interests – regardless of public opinion.
Who said anything about public opinion? Justice isn't won by having strong feelings, it's won by making injustice too costly to maintain. The consequences of using the DADT repeal as described above will deal a real, meaningful blow to those of us trying to achieve that.
Even if we don’t challenge your guesswork, it’s a major stretch to believe that this change in public opinion would strengthen US militarism.
Do yourself a favor and look into Israel using gay rights to bolster its image as a liberal utopia, defending itself from its backwards neighbors by colonizing them. This is something that's going on right now, and to think the US won't take advantage of the same thing is pretty naive. And if you don't think it works, go spend some time talking to left Zionists.
US militarism is dictated by corporate interests and the monied
Yes, but it depends on a complacent, if not participating, public. The US imperial agenda was severely curtailed in the 70s under public pressure—not through opinion, but, in the words of the powerful, because the society was falling apart.
public opinion is easily purchased
Well gee duh, that's what the whole DADT drama is about. They're co-opting us and they're going to use growing public sentiment in favor of queer rights to promote similar sentiment to a "more tolerant" military.
All this repeal does is allow gay people to feel a little less “the other” – and that is a good thing.
It doesn't make me feel any less other. How would being entitled to become cannon fodder for the empire make me feel more included?
Please be happy for them.
In case you missed it, I'm queer. So before you go on telling me that I'm dismissing some victory that queers care about, keep that in mind.
Where's it going to go? It's going to go and price itself right out of the market. Thanks to the global market and technology shenanigans that have been played with food, food production for export/shipment just can't function without near-slavery wages on the fields. If you really want to end illegal immigration, you should be focusing on ending food export/shipment, dismantling NAFTA, and ending the War on Drugs.
Wait, are you insinuating that MLK was an agent of the state? If so, I think those of us reading would very much appreciate a coherent explanation. If not, what exactly is the implication of "going off script" as it relates to his assassination?
The comment above is clearly written in a way that will get a rise out of people, but it makes a legitimate point. Insofar as the LGBTQ civil rights struggle is one rooted in justice and equal rights, the DADT repeal strategy has left a lot of us scratching our heads. Any civil rights struggle which fits in a broader context would necessarily come to the same conclusions that the 60s/70s racial civil rights struggle in the US did: the oppression of classes within the domestic population is part of the same system of oppression waging imperial war elsewhere, and that the internal oppression is used as a means of social control in order to divide people who might otherwise unite to stop the broader system of oppression.
All of which is to say, speaking as a queer personally, I do not see a meaningful improvement in the cause of justice by allowing queers to go kill and die for US imperialism. I don't think the strategy of focusing on militarism is going to do any good for queers here or anywhere else. It will, instead, elicit misplaced pride in militarism, drown criticism of US war in needless and irrelevant murky moral grey (and if you don't believe me, go and take a look at how Israel's queer rights record, in contrast with their neighbors, is used to pink-wash their own colonial crimes), and distract queer movements from the fact that real equal rights are not on the agenda of anyone in power.
Quite a lot of the queer rights movement realizes all this, but the movement has been hijacked by mainstream organizations whose lobbying message reflects the twisted values of the system they've swept themselves up into.
A meaningful queer civil rights struggle would be anti-imperialist and anti-militarist by default, and the extent to which it disregards those values it is actively undermining the fundamental moral principle of equal rights.
Slashdot Mirror
I think ending farm subsidies would probably be a consequence of ending the others, but if not, yeah that should be on the list too.
Uhwhut. I repeat, I AM QUEER. I am not using it as a term of derision.
America has been in a perpetual state of war since its inception.
What's step two? Inquiring minds want to know.
So all those gay dudes who are imperialistic and like the military should what? go fuck themselves?
There's nothing in being gay that dictates proper moral values on other positions. If they want to have gay sex and also want to be agents of empire, that's their business but I'm not going to be their ally.
civil rights should be civil rights. and since it's the topic, being in the military is very much NOT a right. It's a privilege.
Huh? Pick one.
And to say people in the military go "Kill and die for the US" you have the same tone as the guy you were replying to.
I didn't really have a problem with the tone. I tried to articulate the point in a way where the tone would be more compelling. Which, judging by my responses and moderation, success!
Well that's cute. I'm kind of disappointed that you didn't get even one of those stereotypes right, but oh well.
Go read up on how the British Empire managed its possessions. Or the Ottoman Empire. Or, you know, pick an empire.
I feel that your position is wrongheaded and nearsighted. I feel that the position stems from your own, very wrong and unrealistic, beliefs. I actually believe that with some thought, these feelings are correct and self-evident.
Well, good for you. I don't really care what you feel and believe. I've provided argument, and support for my argument, and you've responded by trying to paraphrase my argument in a way that's convenient for you to dismiss, but haven't provided much in the way of challenging my position.
I did not "twist" what you said. I am attempting to demonstrate.
You are changing the meaning of my position in so doing. It's called a straw man argument, look it up.
I simply restated on simpler terms and you found the statement distasteful. Why?
I chose my words carefully, and words are not always interchangeable. Your rephrasing of my position does not reflect what I meant to say, it reflects what you chose to see in it. And if you're not being deliberately dishonest, then you're demonstrating that you don't understand the difference between my version of my position and yours.
You are the one who brought up morality.
If you can't conceive of moral principles besides "evil" and "good"... I don't even know how to finish that sentence. Really?
Exactly how did I change the original meaning?
Well, I never said anyone or anything is evil, to begin with. So, basically, you entirely eliminated the original meaning and superimposed a completely ludicrous one on top of it.
You have taken an all-or-nothing approach to this discussion.
No, I haven't. I absolutely believe in incremental progress. I don't believe the repeal is progress, I believe it is an opportunistic misstep.
This repeal does nothing for you and you construe it to help your enemy.
And, I provide supporting logic for that point. Which you don't seem to care for.
You have some mythical big picture where the government plays us all as pawns and this repeal is a ploy to distract us.
I'm sorry if that's the impression I've given. I don't think it's anything as sinister as that. I think that the government, the military, and so on have interests that they serve, but I don't think they "play" us in any conscious sense. I think they serve their interests as well as they can, and if that means pink-washing imperialism than so be it. They don't have any principles besides power, and the social leanings of the day can be manipulated whatever they happen to be.
Exactly how will we become distracted? Is the HRC going to close up tomorrow?
*I* won't become distracted. I can't speak for you. But I can say that organizations lobbying for the DADT repeal will, if they proceed for changes beyond the repeal, be given the same line that all progressives with an ear in the White House have been getting for the last two years: your expectations are too high, get in line or shut up.
What does American imperialism have to do with DADT?
I don't know why you're asking me to explain something I've addressed from the outset, but okay. DADT was a mistaken policy, now corrected, implemented by the US military which is engaged in imperialism. By correcting this mistake, it is better suited to engage in imperialism.
Gays and lesbians, thousands of them, will someday soon, be able to go to work and not have to lie about how they spent their weekend. How is this repeal anything other than a good thing?
For those individuals, it's a good thing in a sense. And I don't begrudge them that. Though I do wish they'd find a better job. But it's also more than that. It's also a propaganda tool that plays exceptionally well into the hands of their employers.
However, filling the main public pool in a city is more important than putting out a smoldering house that is already a total loss and won't be spreading. So sometimes the public wins are more important than the more meaningful and less visible pieces because, in the long run, the more visible one will elevate the issue and lead to a quicker overall resolution.
Queer liberation isn't a lost cause, and neither is anti-imperialism. Both will eventually prevail. The "firefighters", to stick with the analogy, are facing a tough problem because they're fighting against arsonists.
The repeal of DADT is not a win, it's a distraction.
Why not? Consistency will often result in a seemingly unrelated opinions giving a good idea of or even defining other opinions held.
I explained why not in another comment. To quote myself, "The only part of my political philosophy that's relevant to this discussion is that I'm opposed to imperialism. I could be a traditional conservative, a Quaker, an Iraqi, a socialist, some heretofore unknown brand of progressive-liberal, whatever, and oppose a policy that I think will bolster imperialism." I mean, I could discuss why being an anarchist leads to being anti-imperialist, but it's kind of a waste of my time because I'm not really discussing any principles that aren't much broader than anarchism.
Really, as I said to the other commenter, if you want to discuss my broader political philosophy, open up a discussion somewhere else and I'll join in, time allowing. But I'm trying to focus on the consequences of a civil rights movement being swept up into an imperialist system. And I think that discussion is both relevant and warranted, and has merit in its own right without putting on trial my vision for an ideal society.
This about improving the US military, not furthering civil rights.
That's what I said! And I don't want to improve the US military, I want to improve civil rights. Does *anyone* on Slashdot read before they respond?
What if there is a society of people openly and actively torturing and killing homosexuals as a policy and all diplomatic efforts have failed?
They're our allies. ;)
For what it's worth, I'm not taking a stance against violence. And I'm not taking a stance against military or war. I'm taking a stance against imperialism. The US military is not an agent for civil rights and human rights, it's an agent for corporate profit and hegemony. If we change that, I'd be happy to serve in the military myself.
You know when someone starts by saying "oh SHUT UP", something completely stupid will follow. I don't even know what you're talking about.
I didn't say anything about a conspiracy. I didn't quote Chomsky. I didn't say the world is simple. And I don't really care why people join the military, straight or queer. I have no idea what your post has to do with mine.
I suppose you could make an argument for the Native Americans
You suppose? You'll grant that? Conquering an entire continent, hundreds of nations, and millions of people... might just be imperialist? That is how the US got its start.
The rest of your comment boils down to a misconception that empires are defined by complete subjugation of all the countries they exercise power over, rather than the exact same conquest/hegemony/manipulation/institutional soup that the US uses and has used since the age of outright conquest ended around the time the explicitly imperialist phase you describe did.
I don't know why you're wanting to keep rephrasing my points. It's perfectly comprehensible as is, without putting words like "evil" and "good" (as contrasted with "evil") in my mouth.
Is there any chance you can *reply* to the statement instead of twisting it?
The word imperial was not coined to describe the US.
Well, duh. That doesn't mean the US isn't an imperialist, just that it isn't alone (especially in history).
overall, the US is a force for good in the world.
I would never say the US has done no good in the world. But I can't agree that it has done more good than harm. The US began its empire, immediately after leaving the British empire, by conquering an entire continent, dispensing with hundreds of nations and millions of people in the process. It then conquered and annexed half of a neighboring country (Mexico). Much of the receding Spanish imperial territories (Cuba, Guam, Puerto Rico), then the Philippines where hundreds of thousands were murdered. Then Hawaii. Overthrown governments include: Iran, Chile, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras, Grenada, Afghanistan and Iraq. It's intervened on behalf of the Phalange movement in Lebanon, death squads in Colombia (and really all over Latin America), brutal dictators like Pinochet, Suharto, Hussein, Zia-ul-Haq, and on and on. It's the only country on earth to have dropped nuclear bombs on civilian populations (twice!). Following WWII, it reinstated fascist governors throughout contested areas of Italy and Greece. It's supported genocide in East Timor and Kurdistan, committed genocide in Indochina, and been the primary source of support for Israel's ongoing colonization and ethnic cleansing of Palestine for over 40 years (with a lesser degree of support going all the way back to the Nakba in 1948). It is currently engaged in two military occupations which have taken hundreds of thousands of lives. In Iraq, it has displaced about 20% of the population. In Afghanistan, it continues to escalate against the wishes of the population, and the consequences—already pretty bad—will only grow worse.
And that's the short list. The one I could do off the top of my head, insofar as I could keep it roughly chronological. But here I want to take a step back and point back that imperialism is a precise term, and the moral and emotional qualities we're attaching to it are not part of its definition, but rather our reaction to it. Imperialism is the imposition of a state upon other populations. It is absolutely precise to describe the US' role as imperial. What you or I think about that is another matter.
ascribe bad motives to the US to the exclusion of everything else
I never said the US is unique. I don't know where you got that idea.
After fighting and defeating the Axis in the 20th century
Not alone, and not consistently. The US leadership was enamored with Franco and Mussolini, and had high regard for Hitler. Had the alliances played out differently, it's not inconceivable that the US would have entered the war on their side, particularly as a bulwark against the "real" threat (the Soviet Union), but really its immediate quarrel was with Japan, which is where it placed its focus. Germany was defeated primarily by the Soviet Union.
and helping to put things back together
In part by constructing a post-war economy that helped to stall European recovery at the advantage of the US.
and not completely taking away the sovereignty of the vanquished should tell anyone that the US wants a dominant position, but not an empire.
This is how *all* successful empires are run. The British had their Rajas, the Ottomans provincial autonomy, and so on. Few empires maintain absolute control over their entire sphere of influence, but instead shape the politics of the dominated places to be subservient to the central power.
Oh and here I thought you were actually interested in a discussion, my mistake. Try not deliberately caricaturing my position and then we'll talk some more.
So your civil rights are forest fires, while the civil rights of gays in the military are private swimming pools?
No, wait. I'm saying that building a civil rights movement for queers in the US by piggybacking it on an imperialist propaganda win is effectively diverting civil rights efforts away from the fundamental principle of equal rights and toward opportunistic goals. And I'm not talking about *my* equal rights—I'm relatively privileged and in a twisted sense I could benefit from the DADT repeal.
The lobbying organizations that are using the queer rights movement to repeal DADT are delivering a real win to the propaganda machine supporting the US military which is engaged in imperialism, in effect selling out the *human rights of victims of US imperialism* for meager civil rights gains here.
No real movement for justice would make a deal like that.
You want equal rights, but their choices aren't right choices and should be disregarded as not part of the movement?
No, I want equal rights, full stop. Human rights, civil rights, the whole nine yards. Getting the one while disregarding the other is not a moral position.
A man's beliefs are fundamental in forming his opinions. That is why I brought it up. I deduced that you were at least a libertarian and/or a pacifist because of your dismissal of this repeal. A man who disagrees with his government's actions wouldn't have decided that it means nothing. He may have considered it a small step, but not nothing or, as you seem to see it, a setback. Who we are and what we believe has everything to do with how and what we argue.
The only part of my political philosophy that's relevant to this discussion is that I'm opposed to imperialism. I could be a traditional conservative, a Quaker, an Iraqi, a socialist, some heretofore unknown brand of progressive-liberal, whatever, and oppose a policy that I think will bolster imperialism.
If you want to debate the inherent merits or demerits of government and military, on a theoretical level, I might be willing to engage (time allowing), but I don't think it has a bearing on my position in this thread.
You must have misunderstand me. I said that imperialism and equal rights are mutually exclusive. That's not saying that the only right opinion is my opinion, only saying what my opinion is. If other queers (or, hell, you) want to explain to me how imperialism can coexist with equal rights, I'm all ears.
We need to just tear up any treaty that has the words "free trade" in it. It's just code for feudalism.
On that, we can definitely agree.
You can have gay rights and imperialism. You can't have *equal* rights and imperialism.
It may mean nothing to you, but it means a lot to those affected by DADT.
Since apparently you missed it (don't feel bad, you're not alone), I'll repeat that I am queer. I was affected, at least in terms of legal application, by DADT.
Civil rights are not a binary bit, civil rights or no civil rights. The fight for civil rights is like fighting a forest fire. You have to stamp out what you can, when you can.
Which is a great analogy, and one which I agree with, except for the nagging issue that the DADT repeal is akin to pulling those firefighters out and directing them to use their fire hose to fill a private pool.
Also, I find it saddening that you think so little of those who work for equal rights, that you believe that they can be distracted from the ultimate goal of equality for all, with what you feel is a little sop.
I don't think little of the queer rights movement, I think little of the mainstream lobby movement that has co-opted their energy into the DADT issue. It's not *our* (note, I'm including myself here) fault that we don't have control over those lobbying resources.
I understand your disaffection for the government and their manipulation of the people. It makes me angry too, but I sense at the end of your sentiment the belief that we can do without government and a military is immoral. That may be me putting words in your mouth though. [...]
If you're inferring from my opposition to US imperialism that I'm an anarchist, I can only say this: while I am, in fact, an anarchist, my opposition to US imperialism shouldn't lead you to that conclusion. There is a big difference between opposing a system of government and its military apparatus that has been used for conquest and hegemony for centuries, on the one hand, and opposing all government and military on the other hand.
I could make a case for anarchism, and I do in other contexts, but this isn't the place for that and it will hopefully be enough here to say that my critique of the DADT repeal strategy doesn't depend on that argument. It should be enough to say that I don't want to send queers off to kill Afghanis or be killed by them. And that has no bearing on whether or not a government or a military is a necessary feature of a good society.
So are you trying to say that it would have been better to continue the open discrimination against LGBTQ?
First of all, DADT wasn't *open*. It was literally the exact opposite of open. Second of all, while I support the repeal of DADT as such, yes, I'm opposed to queers serving in the military. It's not part of the queer rights movement and shouldn't be portrayed as if it is. US militarism is on the opposite end of the moral spectrum from civil rights struggles.
If your answer is “yes, because it’s legitimizing our war machine etc etc etc” sorry, that doesn’t fly.
You're oversimplifying my point. And it's no wonder, after over-simplification, that it "doesn't fly." Let me reiterate: militarism and imperialism are incompatible with civil rights; allowing militarism and imperialism to co-opt a civil rights movement will weaken and diffuse the movement; it will become a tool used to isolate different the queer rights movement from the broader movement for justice; and it will be used as a propaganda tool to portray militarism and imperialism as the opposite of what it really is.
American corporations will continue to use the US military to secure cheap resources and promote their business interests – regardless of public opinion.
Who said anything about public opinion? Justice isn't won by having strong feelings, it's won by making injustice too costly to maintain. The consequences of using the DADT repeal as described above will deal a real, meaningful blow to those of us trying to achieve that.
Even if we don’t challenge your guesswork, it’s a major stretch to believe that this change in public opinion would strengthen US militarism.
Do yourself a favor and look into Israel using gay rights to bolster its image as a liberal utopia, defending itself from its backwards neighbors by colonizing them. This is something that's going on right now, and to think the US won't take advantage of the same thing is pretty naive. And if you don't think it works, go spend some time talking to left Zionists.
US militarism is dictated by corporate interests and the monied
Yes, but it depends on a complacent, if not participating, public. The US imperial agenda was severely curtailed in the 70s under public pressure—not through opinion, but, in the words of the powerful, because the society was falling apart.
public opinion is easily purchased
Well gee duh, that's what the whole DADT drama is about. They're co-opting us and they're going to use growing public sentiment in favor of queer rights to promote similar sentiment to a "more tolerant" military.
All this repeal does is allow gay people to feel a little less “the other” – and that is a good thing.
It doesn't make me feel any less other. How would being entitled to become cannon fodder for the empire make me feel more included?
Please be happy for them.
In case you missed it, I'm queer. So before you go on telling me that I'm dismissing some victory that queers care about, keep that in mind.
I wouldn't characterize it all that way, but you clearly more or less understood it. What's confusing you?
Every time I finished a sentence, I kept expecting the next sentence to be "I sit on my throne as the Prince of Bel-Air."
Where's it going to go? It's going to go and price itself right out of the market. Thanks to the global market and technology shenanigans that have been played with food, food production for export/shipment just can't function without near-slavery wages on the fields. If you really want to end illegal immigration, you should be focusing on ending food export/shipment, dismantling NAFTA, and ending the War on Drugs.
Wait, are you insinuating that MLK was an agent of the state? If so, I think those of us reading would very much appreciate a coherent explanation. If not, what exactly is the implication of "going off script" as it relates to his assassination?
The comment above is clearly written in a way that will get a rise out of people, but it makes a legitimate point. Insofar as the LGBTQ civil rights struggle is one rooted in justice and equal rights, the DADT repeal strategy has left a lot of us scratching our heads. Any civil rights struggle which fits in a broader context would necessarily come to the same conclusions that the 60s/70s racial civil rights struggle in the US did: the oppression of classes within the domestic population is part of the same system of oppression waging imperial war elsewhere, and that the internal oppression is used as a means of social control in order to divide people who might otherwise unite to stop the broader system of oppression.
All of which is to say, speaking as a queer personally, I do not see a meaningful improvement in the cause of justice by allowing queers to go kill and die for US imperialism. I don't think the strategy of focusing on militarism is going to do any good for queers here or anywhere else. It will, instead, elicit misplaced pride in militarism, drown criticism of US war in needless and irrelevant murky moral grey (and if you don't believe me, go and take a look at how Israel's queer rights record, in contrast with their neighbors, is used to pink-wash their own colonial crimes), and distract queer movements from the fact that real equal rights are not on the agenda of anyone in power.
Quite a lot of the queer rights movement realizes all this, but the movement has been hijacked by mainstream organizations whose lobbying message reflects the twisted values of the system they've swept themselves up into.
A meaningful queer civil rights struggle would be anti-imperialist and anti-militarist by default, and the extent to which it disregards those values it is actively undermining the fundamental moral principle of equal rights.