Is the left just as Imperialistic as the neo-cons?

http://blog.seattlepi.com/davidhorsey/20鈥?/a>





Look at this leftist cartoon, which attacks the "evil" Muslims and the "wicked" Slavs as viciously as any of the neo-cons. Of course, the claim is that "women are oppressed" in these countries. It is linked to a column calling for a "Crusade" to "free" and "empower" women in these countries (presumably by destroying families, just as the feminists have done in our own country). In fact, it is arguable that the main reason why we are still in that pointless Afghan War is because it is a "Crusade" to "empower" the women of Afghanistan.





If these leftists weren't the historically ignorant Imperialists that they are, they wouldn't be using words like "Crusade" to call for even more Imperialism in the Middle East. If the "towelheads" find out, it might remind them of the real Crusades, where Europeans invaded the Middle East and massacred everybody in their path, whether (Eastern) Christian, Jew ("Christ-killer"), or Muslim ("Saracen"). Eventually, of course, the barbarian Crusaders became somewhat civilized and took back many aspects of Islamic civilization (and many lost classics of Greco-Roman civilization that the Arabs had preserved).





Actually, what these leftists are advocating bears more resemblance to the "White man's burden" than anything else. This was the justification used for Imperialism at the turn of the 20th century.





While I'm sure that the cultures of the Islamic world and of Eastern Europe have their flaws, ours has just as many flaws. The cartoon I linked to labels Sudan the "genital mutilation capitol of Africa," but it ignores the fact that the USA is the "genital mutilation capitol of North America" (most newborn boys in the USA are victims of male genital mutilation, although there is a proposal to ban this practice in San Francisco). It accuses Iran of "stoning women" for 3000 years, but I think Iran also stones men (this seems to me to be alot more fair than our double standard of criminal justice where the women rarely get equal punishment for their crimes). Allegedly, "sex slavery" thrives in Eastern Europe, but I'm pretty sure that they are conflating voluntary capitalistic acts (prostitution) with slavery (I have noticed that the "human trafficking" hysterics combine the anti-prostitution fanaticism with anti-immigrant bigotry). Our own country deprives men of equal rights and treats us as second class citizens (of course, most men in the USA are either unaware of this or support this state of affairs, just as most women in the Islamic world support the current state of affairs there).





We are also facing a fiscal crisis. Our national debt is over 100% of GDP and our deficit is $1.6 trillion a year and growing (the administration's predictions for 2012 and onward assume record levels of revenue growth in the next few years). The state governments are broke, just like the federal government. We can't even afford to pay the "unfunded liabilities" for old-age entitlements (Social Security and Medicare), let alone the bipartisan foreign policy of Imperialism. This fact trumps all of the arguments for continued Imperialism.





Shouldn't we reject the Imperialists of both the left and the right and try to fix our own problems before we go around trying to "fix" the problems of countries on the other side of the world?|||Yes they are. But their sheep followers will only tell you republicans are when your source and other facts prove that both parties are|||There really is no left or right anymore, there are two parties whose Representatives play both sides but at the end of the day report to the same corporations. The rest is theater to keep US in the game, paying taxes and supporting the shift to globalism, and government of the corporations for the corporations.|||You mean like Obama meeting with the UN to discuss plans for war against the Libyan government?