Why is Imperialism bad?

[Leinad HC]

So I am going through some stuff right now where I see all of my political acquaintances and friends getting really excited about developments in the movement and communism in general and unfortunately I don't get as excited as them. I need some motivation. I want it to come from the anger that consumes one when one finds out about some bullshit yankee imperialism has done. I'm from Mexico but live in California. I want some real shit. Something that really consumes me and gets at me at a real level. I've tried reading about this stuff online but nothing really connects with me. I think what is missing is that human level of interaction. Once I can someone connects with me and gets me pumped up, I will be inspired and motivated to do stuff. But yeah I'm desperate right now. Please help. I know fuck imperialism, but I don't know why imperialism should go fuck itself.

"The purpose of life is a life with a purpose, so I'd rather die for a cause than live a life that is worthless" - Immortal Technique

[Luisrah]

How can you be so sure Imperialism is "bad" if you don't know what it is?

As I understand it, from Lenin's interpretation in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperialism,_the_Highest_Stage_of_Capitalism , Imperialism happens in the later stages of capitalism where companies grow so large that they can't "feed" just on the countries they emerged. Thus there is a demand for expansion into other countries.
That is what happens to McDonalds, for example. I live in Portugal and there are plenty of mcdonalds everywhere. They employ people from here (exploiting them) and the profits don't even stay in Portugal, they go wherever the company showed up.

You could argue that something like that is happening in Europe. With the open borders (or whatever it is called), you don't have to pay to sell your products in some other country. One of the reasons Portugal is in such a bad shape is because our governments accepted money to shut down our factories etc. The objective of this was to eventually make us stop being auto-sufficient and therefore have to use products from other countries, like Germany (not to mention that such powerful economies could already sell their products here for much less money and thus making our products stay in the shelves)

Companies continuously try to grow. When borders begin to stop them from growing and dominating other countries, they find a way to bypass them.

[UncleLenin]

Unfortunately I can not actually give you an intellectual reply because I am too emotionally attached to this subject. I hate imperialism in all forms as I am from Ireland, Northern Ireland.