Re: COUP d' ETAT IN WASHINGTON

In a message dated 6/26/2003 1:41:36 AM Eastern Standard Time, 
btws549@singnet.com.sg writes:

> One question about all the alleged cowardly behaviours of the Congress and 
>the Media in the states, since the US is the democracy it is, why can't they 
>speak up? Is it because of nationalism, or is it because all the financial 
>strings and political powers are vested in this Presidency?
> Nationalism is quite a hard argument to subsantiate, as the corporatist 
>culture with the migrant society in the US would make it difficult to really 
>develop such strong nationalist 
> characteristics. 

Oh,nationalism is quite strong in the US, regardless of corporate or migrant 
characteristics.  Its just called 'patriotism'.  

Historically, the congress has been to the right of most presidents.  This goes 
back at least to the scuttling of the League of Nations treaty.  There is a 
strong sense that serious alliances, multinational organizations, or treaties 
are unwise and would compromise US sovereignty. During the McCarthy era, the UN 
was sometimes described as a communist plot. Clinton did not seriously believe 
that the congress would ratify the international criminal court.  

More recently, the most active foreign policy lobby in the US is AIPAC 
(pro-Israel lobby).  They do much to police dissent in congress.  When the Bush 
administration made minor efforts recently to resume the traditional official 
US policy of trying to produce a two state solution to the Israel/Palestine 
situation, he was attacked in congress for being insufficiently pro-Israel.  
AIPAC is strengthened by a convergence on the pro-Israel line from Christian 
fundamentalists.

Bush has moved the executive branch much closer to this sensibility by 
sidelining the state department, typically an institution insulated from 
democratic input, and a home of liberal  internationalism.  The belief that the 
US should not have any lasting allies abroad (excluding Israel) is quite a 
popular one.

The media are a mixed bag.  CNN focuses on sensationalistic reporting of terror 
alerts and hype about WMD to attract viewers.  Fox News and the Washington Post 
are as far right as Bush on foreign policy.  The New York Times opposed 
invading Iraq on the grounds that it should have been a multilateral affair, 
but the Times is also obsessed with maintaining the respectability of the US 
government, so it pulls its punches, and, for example, recently denounced those 
who accuse Bush of lying.

The left in the US is almost totally absent from national politics and the mass 
media in the US.  This does not mean that it has no influence on public 
opinion.  However, its bases of support--academia, the 'left public sphere' 
(food co-ops, bookstores, small presses like South End or Common Courage), and, 
most poorly understood, among many religious leaders--are marginalized in the 
official national debate.  At times it can get a little surreal, since the 
official mass media will vigorously denounce the left even while refusing to 
actually print its views in its own words (for example, there is probably no 
daily newspaper in the US that would publish 
Noam Chomsky).

Steven Sherman