Reply #12: Do DU'ers agree that Americans are better off when all countries around

[1932]

the world have strong middle/working class societies? We all agree that we all do better when we all do better, right?

I saw Syriana recently, and I think that it made the point well that when there are very poor people who feel exploited and hopeless, that they turn to violence. I believe that's true. However, I think the movie did not make the point well that when the west exploits foreign countries it doesn't make ALL of America wealthier. It just makes a few Americans wealthier, but makes the rest of us poorer in the sense that we lose solidarity with other working class people in other countries and we end up having to compete for cheap jobs with the exploited, and it also hurts democracy by creating a wealthy class of Americans which is SO MUCH wealthier and more powerful politically and economically than the American working and middle class.

I think sometimes I get the sense that there's this subtle RIGHT WING tendency among a very few unwitting liberals (or, perhaps, they're right wingers posing as liberals) who celebrate Morales and Chavez as giving the finger to the US. They're not giving the US the finger. The US -- the nation of Martin Luther King and of Cesar Chavez and of the New Deal and the New Frontier and the Great Society -- is much much better off when other countries around the world have leaders who embrace those same values of MLK and Cesar Chavez and of FDR and JFK.