Re: Empire after 9/11?

Khaldoun Samman wrote:

> Greetings,
>
> Has Hardt/Negri followed up on their argument of Empire to include the 
> US response to 9/11?  If so, where can I get it?
>

Hardt statement on 9/11: 
http://slash.autonomedia.org/article.pl?sid=01/09/26/1250203

Review of Hardt-Negri in light of 9/11: 
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v23/n19/bull2319.htm

> Questions I am trying to come to terms with:
>
> Does the response of the US in anyway undermine their argument of 
> Empire or does it support it? 
>
Undermine it. The USA has acted unilaterally in a way that the British 
Empire would have never dreamed of. Generally speaking, both Hardt-Negri 
and certain world systems theorists who shall go unnamed never 
understood the USSR dialectically. With the collapse of the USSR, the 
USA has a free rein.

> Is the US response more in tune with the continual destruction of 
> modernity (ie modern 
> soveriegnty/imperialism/dialects/difference/public vs private spaces, 
> in short Empire) or is it boomeranging back to its pre-postcolonial 
> modernity where imperialism in its old guise has reappeared?
>
There are aspects of the current struggle that evoke the pre-socialist 
struggle against colonialism with all its atavistic and obscurantist 
aspects. See my article on the Mahdist revolt for more on this: 
http://www.columbia.edu/~lnp3/mydocs/fascism_and_war/mahdism.htm


-- 

Louis Proyect
www.marxmail.org