check out this letter to the editor from antiwar.. i think it may be 'spot-on'
***Promoting Nationalism
I just read Justin's "Our Phony Foreign Policy 'Debate'" post. Justin quite rightly observes that the debate about war on Iraq is phony because only the war option is included in acceptable discourse. But while making this point, Justin makes assertions which are not only wrong, but, more importantly, are fundamental pillars of the propaganda used by the War parties to justify their actions.
Here is what I mean. Bush and company, like all rich and powerful elites in history, need to obscure the conflict between themselves and the majority of people over whom they rule. They do this by promoting nationalism, the idea that everybody in a given nation has the same fundamental goals and interests and is represented by the rulers of the nation. They want Americans to view foreigners the same way -- as members of this or that nation. They don't want people to think in terms of elites with elite values and goals versus most ordinary people with very different values and goals that are pretty much the same regardless of which "nation" they live in. Unfortunately, Justin writes in terms of nationalism just as much as the politicians he rightfully criticizes. For example, he says that a U.S. invasion "serves the interest of one and only one country, and that is Israel." Nonsense. It serves the interests of both US and Israeli leaders and it attacks the welfare of ordinary people in both countries. What Justin doesn't seem to grasp is that the US corporate elite uses the Zionists to polarize the Middle East along ethnic lines (Jew versus Arab) in order to keep the corporate-friendly Arab dictators in power. Israel acts as a lightning rod for class struggle, diverting Arab "street" anger against "Israel" and away from the almost equally hated Arab regimes, whose leaders' legitimacy comes mainly from their posing as "champions of the people against Israel."
Justin says that "When Ariel Sharon tells Bush to 'Jump!', his only question is 'How high?'" This has it all wrong. US leaders for decades have made the Zionists militarily and economically powerful because the Zionists (for their own reasons) are eager to play the "lightning rod" role for US leaders. If the Zionists weren't willing to play this role, Zionism would be an obscure cult in Judaism and not the leader of the 4th most powerful army in the world. The Israeli leaders can barely control their own population (700,000 Israelis went on a general strike in 1997 and the Finance Minister called them an "exploding bomb more dangerous than Arab terrorists") except when they mobilize them against Arabs. When Justin writes, "No American interest is served by such a mad course [war on Iraq]" he obscures the fact that elite corporate American interests are very much served.
Lastly, I object to Justin's reference to the American Constitution as if it had any valid authority over us, as when he berates Bush for viewing it only as a "courtesy" to obey it, and when he complains that the Democrats are the only ones who even pay lip service to "that nearly forgotten document." Come on! The Constitution is an agreement entered into by, at best, some property owners who are long since dead; it is not in any way an agreement voluntarily entered into by anybody living today and it has no legitimate authority over us. It, like "God's will" in feudal days, is used as a mumbo jumbo incantation by powerful people to make the rest of us think we have to obey their "government of the people, by the people, bla bla bla."
If we are going to defeat Bush and company, lets start by rejecting the lies they use to control us.
~ John Spritzler***
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