Terrorist Assemblages

People are now coming out of the closet on the word empire,'' said the conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer.''The fact is no country has been as dominant culturally, economically, technologically and militarily in the history of the world since the Roman Empire.''The metaphor of coming out is striking, part of a broader trend of appropriating the language of progressive movements in the service of empire.How outrageous to apply the language of gay pride to a military power that demands that its soldiers stay in the closet.-AmyKaplan, ''Violent Belongings and the Question of Empire Today''