Does working class influence foreign policy? (Re: "Cause" vs. "Justified" (was: Re: Hitchens responds to critics)

Nathan Newman nathan at newman.org
Wed Sep 26 10:12:00 PDT 2001


----- Original Message ----- From: "Stephen E Philion" <philion at hawaii.edu>
>--Oh, so that is the pooint of all this. Then I have to ask, aside from
>textual analysis, where do you get the idea that we who criticize US
>foreign policy place the onus of the blame for that policy on the US
>working class?

You misunderstood- a lot of folks don't put the onus on the US working class and artificially attribute it to some corporate "other" that manages to run US foreign policy apparently without any interference by the actual voters.

I'm the one blaming the working class, at least partly, for US foreign policy, both the good and the bad. Sur, corporate interests create all sorts of biases, but when it was revealed that Ollie North was violating not only international law but US law as well, large numbers of the working class supported him, despite a pretty thorough public discussion of policy. A chunk of the working class even wanted to put him in the US Senate.

The idea that the working class has no influence on foreign policy is actually a useful fiction for leftists who want to condemn US foreign policy while defending the virtue of the working class. On this point, the old SDUSAers who defended both and the Maoists who condemned both are far more consistent. I end up in between, condemning and praising both in different areas, reflecting the contradictions of workng class attitudes on foreign policy and the struggle with corporations for control of that policy.

-- Nathan Newman



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