WARNING--REPEAT of a message I sent to PSN

Apologies and Warning: Some of you already saw the (slightly revised) post below, because I posted it to PSN. I generally don't support the practice of everyone with a "hot idea" deciding to post it to six hundred e-mail lists simultaneously, flooding the mailboxes of people who have no idea what the particular discussion is about. However, I have been an active member of WSN for a long time which has recently been discussing aspects of this issue, and I know that there are many list members from outside the USA. So I thought that the impressions that I wrote below might be of interest, certainly, at least to balance out the one-sided drumbeat that makes it appear as if all in the US are ready to KILL-KILL-KILL.  For those who have seen this, apologies again. Just hit delete.=-===

 

Alan S. 

 

P.S.--I have NOT included the original comments to which I was responding out of respect for the original writer's privacy. It doesn't matter anyhow. The points stand on their own.

 

=====================my comments follow=================================================

 

The analysis ...[to which I'm responding that said that Americans are in lockstep blindly marching for war] ...makes some accurate points, but it is based on superficial stereotypes. It is true that for now the working class of the United States will generally fall in line and support a pro-imperialist war. That should not be surprising. The news blackout in this supposedly "most free" country in the world has always been extreme.  But the initial support for U.S. military involvement in the Vietnam War was almost unanimous, and it was only two or three years before millions were in opposition, from working class students at public universities to proletarians in uniform in the military and even blue collar workers on the job, who organized a massive, militant strike wave, despite being told that it would "hurt the war effort."  And black working class people in the cities rebelled against racism hundreds of times, despite being told that it would "hurt the war effort."

 

Because of a lack of understanding of imperialism and because of the general news censorship, the working class generally actively, or passively supported U.S. imperialism many times since then. There was general support when President Ford attacked North Korea over the seizing of the ship Mayaguez. There was general support for the invasion of Greneda and Panama. The massive number of deaths (several hundred thousand) caused by U.S. foreign policy in Guatemala and El Salvador & Colombia, & Chile, to name just a few) was not opposed, in general, although a movement over El Salvador did develop in the 1980's.  The Iran-Iraq war, provoked in large part by the U.S., which armed both sides at different times, killed perhaps a million, and the U.S. working class did not object to that.  During the Gulf War, support for the U.S. military effort was very strong, and during the "Iran hostage crisis" of 1980, the patriotism was at a fever pitch.

 

Here is my point:  The current crisis has been brought on by something much, much, much more intense than any of those incidents. Not only have "foreigners" struck against the U.S. on U.S. soil, but there were civilian deaths. Not just fifty, which would have provoked massive outrage, but rather fifty multiplied by one hundred --- actually about 6,000 dead, including many working class people. Six thousand killed on U.S. soil, and watched again and again by hundreds of millions on television, night after night.

 

Yet in spite of that, there is NOT the kind of one-sided massive, irrational call for war among the working class. Don't misunderstand me. For now, the people of the U.S. would go along with a war, especially if there is any more violent attacks against civilians. But the support is not as deep as you might believe, including among the working class.

 

How do I know this?  I live in a blue collar, working class city near Chicago. Yes, one can see the flags flying. But it was, at its peak, perhaps one house out of five. In the parking lot of the working class college where I work, there were flags on less than 2% of the automobiles.  The university called for a forum where two instructors addressed 250 students and mainly just said that terrorism was bad. When a professor offered an anti-imperialist analysis, attempting to explain the imperialist roots of all this violence, dozens of students applauded. When one of the forum speakers criticized the anti-imperialist, he received virtually no support.  Students in classes were shocked and angry against the terrorism, but very open to an understanding that imperialism has created a world where billions are miserable, and different capitalist factions are fighting and using religion as a way to effectively tap into people's alienation and mobilize them for violence.  At a patriotic memorial service on campus, all the speakers but one asked for "peace" and said that the U.S. should not be careful not to start a war that will kill thousands more civilians. That would be doing the same thing that the terrorists did.  The one politician who gave a strong pro-war speech got almost no applause.   This is not University of California Berkely or Santa Cruz. This campus is not Wisconsin or Wellesley. This is not a campus of "the Left" or of strong "counter-cultural" middle income youth. The students are children or grandchildren of steel workers, bound for careers in teaching, nursing, social services, some to engineering, or low level management jobs. This is an accurate cross section of the U.S.

 

Do they generally understand and oppose imperialism?  No.  Can they be "scared" into supporting a fascist regime at home and a big war abroad?  Yes.  But do they have a genuine concern for civilians around the world, and a concern that many more innocent people not be killed. The answer to that is also yes.  This is more true today than it was during the Gulf War and much more true than it was during the Iran hostage crisis. And this is with daily repeats of the news of 6,000 burned or crushed to death.

 

Why the skepticism is hard to say. Maybe having two million in jail, and a slumping economy, and a president who stole the election has created some cynicism. Maybe some of the anti-imperialist rhetoric over the past thirty years has had an impact. Maybe partly it also reflects ambiguity on the part of some of the big capitalists, who have to "strike" carefully so that they don't end up isolated in a war against a billion followers of Islam.

 

To sum:  yes, the American working class is generally supportive of capitalism in the abstract and generally patriotic. But it is one-sided and superficial to make an analysis like the one below which says that the U.S. working class it totally supportive of a genocidal war. Those who really have a base of support and know what people are thinking, understand the contradictions, have a more accurate view of the complexities of the situation and understand that the dangers and opportunties are both growing. The dangerous side grows faster, of course. But there is more than one side to every development, and what we do makes a big difference.

 

Alan Spector

 

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