My personal broad analysis, appropos of nothing in particluar:
U.S. foreign policy in the 20th Century has primarily served one goal: securing the interests of American Industry. This goal has taken two distinct approaches, namely the insistence on �open-door� foreign markets for domestic product surplus (the chief concern prior to the Great Depression), and the unhindered access to both raw materials and labor overseas. Purported concerns such as supposed democracy can be easily dismissed as not only a thinly veiled necessity for the subsequent imposition of exploitative capitalist practices, but also blatantly contradictory in light of both American domestic policies and support for countless foreign dictatorships whose economic policies are aligned with our own.
Furthermore, in virtually no instance has this drive for U.S. supremacy been presented for what it is; rather, it is most always couched in sloganeering, propaganda, and deception (willful or otherwise). It is only when significant time has passed, memoirs have been written, and government documents declassifed that a cohesive picture comes to light. To sum up: since we have come into our own as an industrial power, we have systematically exported aggression and conquest and grossly misrepresented our motives to rally popular support., Why, then, would anyone assume this has changed in the past 20 years, an era virtually defined by the increasing stranglehold on public policy by private interests?
Do you feel this is an accurate assessment of American foreign policy in the 20th Century? If not, why not? If so, can we agree, as citizens rightly concerned with the growing concentration of economic and political power in fewer hands, that there is something fundamentally wrong with a system so designed, a system based on the unchecked consumption of finite resources, a system rooted in the tyranny of profits over people?
By what right is anyone entitled to as much as they can grab, as fast as they can grab it?
Thoughts?
(note: I�ll be happy to provide numerous supporting examples for the points outlined above, despite the fact that they should be so self-evident as to dispense with the need for documentation, i.e. it�s common sense. Please do the same in any refutations or support)
U.S. foreign policy in the 20th Century has primarily served one goal: securing the interests of American Industry. This goal has taken two distinct approaches, namely the insistence on �open-door� foreign markets for domestic product surplus (the chief concern prior to the Great Depression), and the unhindered access to both raw materials and labor overseas. Purported concerns such as supposed democracy can be easily dismissed as not only a thinly veiled necessity for the subsequent imposition of exploitative capitalist practices, but also blatantly contradictory in light of both American domestic policies and support for countless foreign dictatorships whose economic policies are aligned with our own.
Furthermore, in virtually no instance has this drive for U.S. supremacy been presented for what it is; rather, it is most always couched in sloganeering, propaganda, and deception (willful or otherwise). It is only when significant time has passed, memoirs have been written, and government documents declassifed that a cohesive picture comes to light. To sum up: since we have come into our own as an industrial power, we have systematically exported aggression and conquest and grossly misrepresented our motives to rally popular support., Why, then, would anyone assume this has changed in the past 20 years, an era virtually defined by the increasing stranglehold on public policy by private interests?
Do you feel this is an accurate assessment of American foreign policy in the 20th Century? If not, why not? If so, can we agree, as citizens rightly concerned with the growing concentration of economic and political power in fewer hands, that there is something fundamentally wrong with a system so designed, a system based on the unchecked consumption of finite resources, a system rooted in the tyranny of profits over people?
By what right is anyone entitled to as much as they can grab, as fast as they can grab it?
Thoughts?
(note: I�ll be happy to provide numerous supporting examples for the points outlined above, despite the fact that they should be so self-evident as to dispense with the need for documentation, i.e. it�s common sense. Please do the same in any refutations or support)