Re: Oil Power Politics: Iraq as American armlock on Europe and Asia

In a message dated 3/3/2003 11:54:41 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
leonardjp@earthlink.net writes:

> that
> most of the neo-cons are Jewish and strongly Zionist.. I find this
> extraordinary and not an accident. The origin of the neo-cons is also
> wrong. The originals were a group of anti-communist Jewish socialists
> [Social Democrats USA], led by Norman Podhoretz, editor of Commentary, who
> decided that Stalin and Communism was the overall enemy and that they
> should ally themselves with the US government which would also be good for
> Israel. They did rally behind Scoop Jackson and Moynihan, 
> both of whom
> were, of course, huge supporters of Israel.

I find the eagerness with which some quarters on the left dwell on the 
Jewishness Of Perle, Wolfowitz, etc.  increasingly creepy.  US policy is not 
set by a cabal of intellectuals, zionist, Jewish or no.  Regardless of the 
state of democratic institutions (and, in the big picture, the ones in the US 
aren't in too terrible shape) governmental policy is negotiated through 
coalitions of various elites, interest groups, etc.  This is true of all 
governments, ultimately, even Saddam Hussein's, Pinochet's, etc. and its 
certainly true of George Bush's, which puts most of its focus on acting as 'the 
executive body of the ruling class', i.e. capitalists, but also has one eye on 
getting re-elected (which, along with various shenanigans to disenfranchise 
Blacks (and, perhaps, in Florida, Jews), also entails garnering substantial 
numbers of votes). Neither the capitalists nor the middle class voters George 
Bush needs to be concerned with are predominantly Jewish (Jews account for 
about %2 of the US population--although they are quite disproprotionately 
present in ruling groups, those that they are most typically found in--Media, 
law, academia, etc--are overwhelmingly Democratic). Rather than dwelling 
obsessively on the Jewishness of Perle, Wolfowitz, etc. people would do better 
figuring out how their vision of the US role in the world has been sold to 
something like a ruling coalition--what strands of corporate interests support 
such a vision, what aspects of racism, Christian fundamentalism et al are being 
mobilized, etc.

Steven Sherman