With the notable exceptions of a few tropical islands, the United States doesn't have colonies. It is not occupying other countries for the purpose of enriching the homeland (sorry, Professor Chomsky, we just aren't). No country is paying us tribute; quite the contrary, in fact. The one thing everybody wants is for the U.S. to get the hell out of the Middle East; the difference is simply in what we think needs to happen before we can/should do that.

We are an Empire in exactly the same way that an iguana is a pig.

Harpers is like Sports Illustrated, except that instead of reporting on sports, it reports on ivory tower wanking.

Well according to the DoD we have military bases in 7 of our territories and 39 foreign locations. Not the same as running a colony, of course, but it certainly smacks of empire.

And if Harper's is like SI, where is my swimsuit issue dammit?

Switzerland we ain't, that I will admit. On the other hand, comparing our situation with that of Imperial Rome or the British Empire is very much an example of comparing apples and oranges.

(For that matter, the whole idea of "Empire" is so foggy that arguing about it strikes me as stupd. Just think how differently England, Spain, Holland, France, and Germany approached acquiring, managing, and milking their respective colonial holdings, and it becomes pretty clear that the devils are very much in the details. On the other hand, if an entire academic infrastructure is built upon the concepts of class struggle against a top-down societal control model, every empire you can write a thesis about is a good empire....)

As to swimsuit issues, that gave me a bad moment when I thought of Andrea Dworkin at her most impressive....