Gar Alperovitz: "Understanding the Imperialist System Changed My Life"

[marmar]

....(snip)....

ALPEROVITZ: Well, what is interesting about the development at that time--and it was a very sophisticated development, not only of the power of capitalism, but of the power of generating a culture and ideology which encapsulated the society and gave people ideas about what could or could not be done, including American imperial ideas, and how that was formed, not a crude analysis of just the power of the corporations. Indeed, if you look back at that, who pushed for American imperialism at the beginning of the 20th century, it's not only Wall Street; it's the farmers who want markets, small businessman. So it's a very big culture, a big theory of what they were doing.

....(snip)....

ALPEROVITZ: At that moment, the 89th Congress, the House had changed 76 votes because of Goldwater, and the Senate was very pro-Democrat. You could pass--he passed Medicare, he passed Medicaid. You could pass progressive legislation, water bills. It was an amazing moment. And for a moment I thought that was possible. And, of course, after the next election it disintegrated. We went back to the norm. But at that particular moment it--and that's a very odd two years in the U.S. Senate. And I happened to be running a legislative shop. And we could pass all kinds of legislation at that point, including legislation to set up community ownership and to pass--we did a bill in those days, 33 senators, including half liberal Republicans, to set up community-owned industry. And they put it in--it's actually, if you look carefully, it's in the party platforms of both parties, 'cause we wrote it into the platforms. And that all went away after the election of nineteen sixty--ninety-six. And then, of course, the Vietnam War took it all back to what was the norm. So there was a brief moment, but it was an aberration, and I realized it was an aberration. .........................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://truth-out.org/news/item/21405-gar-alperovitz-understanding-the-imperialist-system-changed-my-life

[SamKnause]

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