One point - don't get hung up on selfproclamation as the defining characteristic of Empire. India was only formally a dominion of the UK following the Mutiny - but was, in fact, controlled utterly by the East India Company 50 years earlier. If you want an instructive and sobering lesson, compare British responses to the Mutiny with US responses since 11/09/01.

I'm betting Holden telling Buffy about Scott being gay was a nod to Fab's appearances in QaF.

Oh yeah! I forgot that bit, but you could be right.

cereal:

Which all fits in with Cindy's,

I think there's world-order sort of motives in there, too. Which, given who's on first, also carries the potential with it to be scary. I don't think this is only a greed endeavour though. I think it's our try at a domino theory. I just hope the dominoes don't fall on our frigging heads.

and Brenda M's,

Unsettling conversation with my brother today. He says that the animosity towards Americans in Russia is unbelievable, and from his perspective, it's not going to go away any time soon. Meaning in the next twenty years. He's been advised by a number of people to conceal the fact that he's American and just tell them he's Canadian (which he is, dual citizen).

... from his perspective, the level of anger at the U.S. has grown so much that many people don't or no longer can make this distinction. His take is that the Bush administration has flipped off the world one (or seven) too many times, culminating in an invasion that much of the world vigorously opposed, and he's starting to experience the price for that.

and Fay's

So when I mentioned a pattern of "Fuck You" messages being sent from the US during Dubya's reign thus far (Kyoto agreement et al.), I was pointing at the time period (during which I have perceived US-RestOfWorld relations cooling) rather than trying to give Dubya sole responsibility for all that has been done in the name of the United States.

There has been a visible transference of economic and political power from governments to corporations and an oft quoted example is President Bush both reversing a campaign pledge to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and opting out of the Kyoto treaty on global warming at the behest of Enron and the other US energy giants that funded him to the tune of US$47 million.

The reach, availability, and commercialisation of satellite capabilities and the Internet have created an apparent ‘shrinking’ of the world in the realm of data transmission. This ability to send information instantaneously from one side of the planet to another is responsible for accelerating the pace of cross-border capital investment, producing new forms of trans-national economic governance, and increasing the spread of economic globalisation. The growing trend towards ‘global awareness’ and ‘planetary consciousness’, has also been linked to a reappraisal of the world via new imagery of the globe from satellites and space, of particular relevance to ecological and environmental crises.

Paradoxically, the communications revolution has simultaneously allowed and encouraged greater understanding of the globalisation processes, such that individuals and collectives use those very processes to organise as a counter-movement. The proliferation of new forms of communications technology as consumer durables is enabling disparate groups to organise themselves in an unprecedented manner across time and space. The growing awareness of the complexities and contradictions of the globalisation processes, and the freeing up of information, are making the plight of those who are suffering the most harmful effects of globalisation increasingly difficult for the developed countries to ignore and releasing information about what or who is responsible.

Which leads us to Heather's,

As to conflating a people and their government, well, this is nominally a democracy. Doesn't mean people should be accosted in the streets, but I get where some of the world is coming from.

and, most importantly

Americans, alone in the world, had the power to prevent this from coming to pass. Not necessarily the war - that could well have happened anyway. But the spectre of the U.S. running rampant over the world, unstoppable, deaf to other ears, is in large part a function of the current administration. And that's what has people so scared and angry. The animosity is no more in defense of Iraq than the war is to liberate it. Which is to say, related, but not the key issue.

Organisations such as the WB and the UN have produced report after report showing that economic globalisation is not only exacerbating inequalities around the world, but that the benefits claimed by its advocates do not reach the poor. The CIA has repeatedly warned that economic globalisation processes worsen global protest and chaos.

And what have we got now?

Edited for formatting and to answer Nutty,

So, moonlit, you're telling me that it really is all about voodoo economics?

YES.

Okay, voodoo economics and the American false self-denial of the trappings of empire?

What Jim ET said about empire and remember that most of the rest of us western countries are only cleaner by virtue of a couple of things

• we're following you
• we're smaller and with less reach

and as for understanding voodo economics, it works like many things in today's world, see The Emporer's New Clothes

No, they're not. It was mentioned, in passing,

Jim Eaton-Terry. Excuse you. When the BBC uses the phrase with a straight face then the phrase is being used with a straight face. Lump it.

As for the Royal family you might want to consider your advantage before rubbishing an issue of sovereignty (the cedeing of).

Hey, Zoe, why don't you watch your attitude there? There's no call to be rude.

What Dana Said.

As for the Royal family you might want to consider your advantage before rubbishing an issue of sovereignty (the cedeing of).

Could you explain this sentence? I'm not sure what it means.

moonlit ... wow, like so many others here, you're scary. :)

Evil Jimi, No social life to speak of.

Neither of those were me moonlit. I think Penny has the brother in Russia, and I'm not sure who the other was, but I agree with them.

As for the Royal family you might want to consider your advantage before rubbishing an issue of sovereignty (the cedeing of).

Could you explain this sentence? I'm not sure what it means.

Historically sovereignty of a nation is bestowed upon and symbolically dwells within the person of the monarch -constitutional or not. The cedeing of sovereignty is when the central power of a nation or region is passed through the monarch to a different nation. When the British monarchy was replaced by a German one (see protestantism v catholicism + Union of the Nations (re:Scotland and England = UK)) sovereignty of BRITAIN got ceded right along with it (-see also Jacobites, clearances American and Australian colonisation).

Advantage: given the unification of Europe and the influence of the British monarchy England is in a position of advantage within Europe. If he'd get down of his high horse for just one minute and take a look.

If he'd get down of his high horse for just one minute and take a look.

Okay, three posts ago, didn't I mention something about your attitude?

Seriously. Can it.