On Wed, 26 Sep 2001 18:01:57 +0000 "Justin Schwartz" <jkschw at hotmail.com> writes:
> Nathan, you are losing all perspective here. You are a sociologist.
Nathan may be a sociologist but it appears that he is more of a DP apologist than a sociologist.
> You
> should gbe aware of the very extensive polisci literature on the
> determinants of foreign policy. It's basically the mainstream,
> consensus,
> nonradical, conservative-liberal view, shared incidentally by most
> radical
> scholars, that foreign policy is the area where the public has the
> least
> influence in a democracy.
Of course, but Nathan apparently is ideologically committed to the idea that the US is a "democracy" - hence its policies including foreign policy reflect the "will of the people."
>
> The dominant neorealist view is that states are states and pursue
> their
> perceived interests in the international system regardless of theor
>
> political form. I think that accounts for a great deal of the
> variance. The
> other views that give attention to internal structure don't give a
> lot of
> weight to the political form of the country, although there is the
> intriguing and oft-remarked on fact that liberal democracies don't
> go to war
> with each other.
>
> The reserach on particular cases just doesn't support the idae that
> even the
> public in general, much less the working class, has had much
> appreciable
> effect on foreignpolicy outside of even extraordinary mobilizations,
> and
> even then it is debatable how much effect. e.g., the Movement had on
> the war
> in Vietnam or the Nuclear Freeze, etc. on the end of the Cold War.
>
>
> Apart from all that, your arguments are getting wilder and wilder.
> Tos show
> that people who seek to explain in part the events of 9/11 by
> reference to
> bad us foregn policy are really blaming the working class, you have
> to
> attribute them increasing heaps of suppositions that we who offer
> these
> explanations expressly reject, that causation is justification, that
> the
> working class has a lot of influence in foreign policy, etc.
Well, we have seen Nathan turn to mysticism - the hijackers did what they did because they were EVIL - no other explanation required. We also saw Nathan ignore the observation that to explain human behavior is not to justify it. Indeed, we saw Nathan deny that any explanation of the hijackers' actions were possible outside the mystical explanation that they were EVIL. Nathan also told us that to attempt to explain their actions was to defame the memories of the dead etc., etc.
>MAybe
> your idea
> is that the public acceots thsi set of connections so taht it would
> be
> inopportune to say what we think just now, and that proposition
> could be
> debated, but you yourself affirmatively adopt them. It's nit like
> you. Time
> to step back from the bar, counsel; recognize when to cut your
> losses.
Well, Justin. I guess Carrol is right. If one becomes a DP activist for as long as Nathan apparently has, eventually one's brain will surely rot away. I am sure that Nathan means well and has nothing but the best of intentions. But then you know what the road to hell is paved with.
Jim F.
>
> jks
>
> >
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