@wdlindsy I am afraid that we are going to keep repeating ourselves. British and European evils are historic and ongoing. I could continue to relate my opposition to those ills to little point.

Perhaps it is difficult to understand the concept of American hegemony from inside America.

@wdlindsy If you have followed me long enough, you will know that I have posted about the British monarchy’s foundation of a monopoly on the Atlantic Slave Trade.

I think we are a long way from “scapegoating”. The original issue was one of racist policies pursued by the US. That is not diminished or excused by the racist policies of other countries, just as American and British participation in Israeli war crimes does not excuse Putin’s war crimes. Evil is as evil does.

@wdlindsy I profoundly disagree.

When I lived in the UK, there was only one foreign power with military bases in that country.

I now live in Japan, where only one foreign power has military bases.

A hegemony is a dangerous thing.

The only time in my twenty-five years in Japan that the LDP lost an election, removing the US base on Okinawa was a vote winner. Obama said no. So much for sovereignty.

US policies define and endanger the entire world.

@wdlindsy I agree that there are cases to be made. The Commonwealth conference has drawn that into sharp relief. I like the Irish response that if the king does not wish to be blamed for the past, then he cannot continue to enjoy privileges based upon that past.

And that, I am afraid, is why the focus must be on the US. Its hegemonic power is not only the continuation of a past racism, but is also a current racism, with Gaza and the Southern border as evidence.

@wdlindsy Indeed; and the same countries continue to profit from maintaining the same inequalities. I think this is one of the reasons that BRICS represents a real challenge to the hegemony.

As both dominant parties in the US and UK support colonial war and domestic deportations, there is little to hope for there, or in Europe. How far will the West go to cling onto its power?

@wdlindsy “Costly national investment in racism”. For a country founded on slavery and genocide, still committed to the deaths of people of color in Asia, I’d say this is business as usual.