>Carrol Cox wrote:
>
>>I wonder how much interest hunter-gatherers 10,000 years ago in (say)
>>what we now call Indonesia had in hunter-gatherers in what we now call
>>the Ukraine? And so forth. In what pronouncement handed down from the
>>heavens does it say that to desire peace one has to "know and care"
>>about "the rest of the world." Isolationism is, in fact, a synonym for a
>>true interest in peace -- in leaving others alone and in being left
>>alone oneself.
>
>Every now & then you expose the reactionary misanthropy of a certain
>kind of leftism. As the Old Guys put it 150 years ago:
When opinion-makers disparage "isolationism" with regard to foreign policy, they aren't talking about lack of interest in world literature or refusal to enjoy a good cup of cappuccino, however. They are making a preemptive attack on ordinary Americans' lack of interest in imposing the American power elite's policy on other nations.
Here's an interesting opinion survey (presented as a chart in print) that the <em>New York Times</em> ran together with an article about the Democratic Party national convention: David E. Rosenbaum and Janet Elder, "Delegates Lean Left and Oppose the War" (July 25, 2004, p. 1+).
'How Democratic Delegates Compare'' A comparison of delegates to the 2004 Democratic National Convention with Democratic voters and all registered voters. . . .
INTERNATIONAL POLICY -- The United States should . . . . . . try to change a dictatorship to a democracy where it can. DEM. DELEGATES -- 16 [%] DEM. VOTERS -- 15 ALL VOTERS -- 25 . . . stay out of other countries' affairs. DEM. DELEGATES -- 56 DEM. VOTERS -- 76 ALL VOTERS -- 60
A couple of facts that leftists ought to keep in mind:
Only a minority of Americans -- 25% -- favor a liberal imperialist policy (i.e., changing "a dictatorship to a democracy where it can"). Rank-and-file Democratic voters are even less in favor of liberal imperialism than US voters in general and Democratic delegates in particular.
The majority of Americans -- 60% -- may be labeled "isolationist" by pundits on the matter of foreign policy, in so far as they believe that the United States should "stay out of other countries' affairs." Rank-and-file Democratic voters are even more "isolationist" than US voters in general and Democratic delegates in particular.
Most ordinary Americans have a sound and sensible political disposition when it comes to foreign affairs. That is why pundits and politicians who fear it label it by a disparaging term "isolationism."
Yoshie