[lbo-talk] New Libyan Prime Minister is U.S. Citizen

Michael Smith mjs at smithbowen.net
Wed Nov 2 19:11:08 PDT 2011


On Wed, 2 Nov 2011 21:44:02 -0400 Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:


> So "the Zionists made them do it" wasn't an inaccurate summary of
> [Mearsheimer & Walt's] position.
>
> it's implausible that a small group of people, even, you know, those crafty Jews,
> could hijack U.S. policy to this extent. But I'll stop there.

Quite right, too. That's been pretty much the canonical response to M&W, and generally couched in equally thoughtful terms. It's easy to state in few words, and why waste 'em?

There is a rather interesting history of dedicated single-issue "lobbies" -- though "factions" might be a better word -- having an influence out of proportion to their numbers. One might cite in relatively recent years the fetus lobby, the gun lobby, and the Cuban emigre 'community', as factions are generally referred to in this land of diversity.

I have felt for a long time that the usual Left view of the ruling class -- I personally prefer the term 'elites' -- is defective in that it sees the elites as a kind of monolith.

My own view is a little different. I see the elites as a loose collection of loose factions and groupings, some ad-hoc, some more durable. The actualities of year-to-year policy, in this view, result not from some transcendent capitalist rationality but from a process of improvisation, negotiation, and horse-trading.

There are some big-picture underlying patterns, but the details can't all be referred back to the big picture. That's like people who think a freak snowstorm refutes global warming.

-- --

Michael J. Smith mjs at smithbowen.net

http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org http://www.cars-suck.org http://fakesprogress.blogspot.com

"I think the American people want a solemn ass as a President, and I think I will go along with them."

-- Barack Obama

(Okay, okay, it was really Calvin Coolidge.)



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