|| -----Original Message-----
|| From: Doug Henwood
||
|| Hakki Alacakaptan wrote:
||
|| >It's more likely Nunn is worried about unilateral US threats
|| losing their
|| >credibility rather than unilateralism per se.
||
|| No, I think a lot of the U.S. ruling class takes some degree of
|| multilateralism seriously. You know, they run multinational
|| corporations. They've got many interests to balance.
||
|| As Slavoj Zizek said a while back, you could argue that the Dems
|| represent capital-in-general, and the Reps represent narrower
|| regional, sectoral, and ideological interests. Watching W, I think
|| there may be something to this.
||
|| Doug
I wrote a while back that among dem and repug backers there's a marked new economy / energy&arms split. However, sectors backing dems are lightweights: Tech companies (not MS, however), entertainment, etc. Computer-related firms gave more to the dems but they'll get some defence and homeland security pork [1] so this support may weaken. Anyway, they're nowhere big enough to cause a swing. Pro-repug big oil and arms manufacturers have far deeper pockets and are decidedly _not_ globo. They have no reason to be trilateral and depend on Uncle Sam to secure markets and concessions. The biggest campaign contibutors are still financial institutions and they're nonpartisan. All they care about is Wall Street.
I don't see multi/unilateralism as being any kind of issue for US capital, especially with the massive public support Shrubya has. As long as he keeps the tax cuts, pork, deregulation, etc. coming they'll be happy, until the economy comes to a grinding halt.
[1] http://www.latimes.com/business/la-011902techshift.story Big Brother Finds Ally in Once-Wary High Tech