[lbo-talk] Misusing "Racism", was Re: Bush down to 33%; public loves posturingxenophobiccongress

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Thu Mar 16 16:34:15 PST 2006


Nathan Newman wrote:


>As for the politics, it has clearly gotten Democrats big political points.
>Now, is all distrust of foreign government control of US institutions
>automatically racist? Is may be nationalistic and a bit hawkish, but
>reducing it to racism debases the word, since foreign ownership by British
>or German companies have been attacked during times of conflict with those
>nations in the past.

Yeah, and a British company, P&O, had been running the ports, and DPW was taking it over. So it wasn't all about foreign ownership - it was specifically about Arab ownership.


>What's interesting about the UAE is the Syriana-Michael Moore point that
>these big oil wells masquerading as countries are tight allies with US
>corporate elites represented by Bush, but are the enemies of many of their
>people, including imported laborers denied participation in the oil bounty,
>and of most core US interests.

I doubt very seriously your average American has the slightest idea of this. To them it's all about towelheads owning the ports, nothing more subtle or complex than that.

And I know that in your heart of hearts you know this, but you just don't want to admit it.

Doug



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