Home > DO AMERICANS HAVE A "NATIONAL INTEREST?"
Attack-Terrorism Governments USA
by John Spritzler
Is it in our "national interest" for the United States to wage a "war on terror?" What immigration policy best serves our "national interest?" Framing questions this way seems neutral and uncontroversial. We’re all Americans, after all, and so we should at least agree that whatever serves our "national interest" is good and whatever harms it is bad.
But there is no such thing as our "national interest." Working class Americans have interests and values that conflict with the interests and values of America’s very wealthy and powerful families. What benefits one typically harms the other: High unemployment. Job insecurity. Low wages. Reduced benefits. Job loss due to automation or out-sourcing or massive downsizing. These and many other similar things are hell for ordinary Americans but great news for the Wall Street crowd. Why are these problems good news for the Wall Street crowd? They are good news because whatever makes working people more insecure and divided against each other makes it that much easier for the upper class to control them and make greater profits off of their labor.
The corporate and government elite have a big problem. Their power and privileges are hard to maintain. Why? Because most people want society to be far more equal and democratic, and they keep trying to make it so in one way or another. From the point of view of the elite, it is a problem when working people feel secure, because then they develop the confidence to challenge the inequality and lack of democracy in society. Much better, from the elite’s point of view, if workers are scared to death of rocking the boat for fear of losing their jobs to outsourcing or illegal immigrants or automation. Much better if workers are resentful and angry at each other and hence unable to act in solidarity. All of the problems that make working people insecure and divided are, from the point of view of the elite, not problems to be solved but rather solutions to their problem of retaining social control.
Our wealthy and privileged elite aren’t trying to protect the "national interest" by solving our problems. They’re deliberately creating our problems to keep us under their control. The only real solution to our problems is revolution.
Take immigration, for example. For the American upper class, illegal immigration is not a problem; it is a solution to their problem of how to weaken and control American working people. Our government and corporate leaders, in collaboration with their counterparts in Mexico, imposed measures in Mexico designed to force peasants off the land and make them migrate to the United States illegally.
"National interest" is a misleading and manipulative term even in the realm of foreign policy. Working people in America and in foreign nations want the same thing: a more equal and democratic and peaceful world, where ordinary people can make a decent life for their families and not live in fear or insecurity. But upper classes want the opposite: a world of extreme inequality where a privileged few rule over the masses in every country in the world, where people work for low wages under terrible conditions because of fear and economic insecurity, and where war or the threat of war is used as a means of Orwellian social control. Terror attacks like 9/11 are a problem for ordinary people, but for the upper class they are a solution to the problem of getting Americans to accept the need for a "war on terror" so that the elite can use that war as a pretext to make us obey them, while they enrich themselves and take away our few remaining freedoms, all in the name of "national security."
Behind the elite rhetoric of "national interest" lies the reality of class. Working people in the U.S. and Mexico and everywhere else share the same class interests and class goals. Only by looking to our shared class goals and interests can we solve our problems.
Forum posts
3 June 2006, 07:51
So fucking what... the american public deserve to be shit on from their elite ruling class... they don’t give a shit about invading foreign nations being illegally invaded and those innocent civilians being murdered... so get fucked american people you fat lazy self-centred pigs... you deserve all the problems coming to you
3 June 2006, 10:31
Okay, fine...problem is not only the american public gets screwed. The working class of the world gets screwed as long as our corporate elite continue to manipulate through bribery and blackmail other potentially sovreign nations. It has been going on too long. The world doesn’t deserve this. Workers unite.
3 June 2006, 22:57
The united states became rich and powerful through a mixture of slavery, natural resources and military might.
Having been forced to rescind outright slavery in favour of low wages and having switched from using most of their own resources in favour of stealing from other nations, the u.s. has now reached the point of internal collapse. The world has "conspired", and turn by turn the screw tightens, the dollar will soon be usurped by the euro.
Almost a "coup", without either crude oil or unbridled dollar hegemony, the american "neocon elite", and their military and industrial "gang" have no leverage, no real power.
Of course as long as their are those who join the military to serve their "nation", then the people of the united states will continue to be enslaved.
3 June 2006, 16:30
Good article! Now let’s take this sentiment from the internet and express it in the work place.
3 June 2006, 20:47
It has always been this way with the European people that came here; nothing has changed since the founding of the Unite States. (Perhaps the European stock that invaded what is now North America had some genetic predispositions to the actions it took that preyed on other nations and others of their own stock.)
In any event, the people who currently realize that there is conflict and elite rule are the legacy of the contemporaries the historical past. Majority of Americans have always been reactionary religionist.
3 June 2006, 22:44
the best way to organize would be to find REP IN each voting district, find a candidATE even for areas whee you had to file already to be on ballots. get them simple platforms that involve rico statutes for fed reserve board, corp boARD MEMBERS OF MIL IND COMPLEX , big OIL, MERCENARY COMPANIES, ETC.. simple platforms that would result in a redistribution of the wealth, make the candidates all agree and sign forms that say they will immediately step down if they vote against their campaign promises. call em the purple faced party, or something unique that could be used to garner free advertising by peoples natural curiosity like a representative from each district, with a list of platforms and all candidates we support in each race. with printed up agendas and some kind of obvious attention getter , like a purple painted face, just about everyone they see, would ask about it, and before long most people would have their faces purple too, also works well on election day, because when 9 out of 10 people show up nationwide with purple faces indicating the purple faced candidates are who they vote for, the diebolds would not work for the fascists then.like i say, platforms could be agreed upon, but if we chgarge these criminals responsible, under rico statutes , which allow seizure of all assets , worldwide, you get their attention, their money, and justice and natural order restored all for one. well think about it, write in candidates dont have to be on ballots, so you see all jobs nationwide could be swept with a movement like this. and with a pledge by the candidatezs that they follow platforms would not allow them to get totally corrupt either by not having opposition party. just a thought but hey even if it is a simpleyon plan, its a darn good one that doesnt cost anything but work and a dollar worth of paint to get kick started, and a movement like this could sweep nationwide in a months time. it doesnt have to be purple paint, it could be any oddity, you see. we are all naturALLY curious