Paul Street -- who writes a blog on znet -- is one of the best leftist writers around. Here is a recent post from him about how liberal the electorate is when it comes to foriegn issues, and how conservative the government is when it comes to those same issues.
American Population surveyed: 1,195 randomly selected non-institutional US citizens interviewed in mid-July 2004:
http://www.ccfr/globalviews2004/sub/usa.htm There’s a reason that United States policy masters have constructed and refined a system of “representative democracy” that keeps vast swaths of the homeland populace as focused on candidate personalities as on actual policy issues. If majority opinion on such issues was fully expressed and institutionally empowered in the political institutions of the “world’s greatest democracy,” there’d be a lot less US empire abroad and a lot more US equality at home.
1. Percentage who think the following should be a very important goal of US foreign policy:
protecting jobs of American workers: 78%
preventing spread of nuclear weapons: 73
maintaining superior military power worldwide: 50*
Help bring a democratic form of government to the others nations: 14*
2. Ranking of popular support for expansion of government spending on following programs:
health care: 79%
aid to education: 69
Social Security: 65*
Homeland Security: 51
Intelligence gathering on other nations: 43
defense spending: 29*
farm subsidies: 27*
economic aid to other countries*
military aid to other nations*
5. Percentage of Americans who think the US should remove its military presence from IRAQ if that’s what the majority of people there want: 72%*
6. Percentage of Americans who think has the repsonsibility to be the world’s policeman: 20%
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>..
much more here:
http://blog.zmag.org/index.php/weblog/entry/semi_invisible_american_internationalists_and_the_shocking_disconnect_betwe/