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Message: [QUOTE="connie, post: 2349881, member: 7882"] Okay. So I am not done with this thread . . . quite yet, because I did not see this until my previous post. I very much agree with most what you say here (especially the suggestion that nations are birthed in violence). As to "radical nationalism", what I mean is a conception of statehood that seeks to make a break from certain entrenched societal structures of authority and power. But we need not take time to parse a precise definition (after all, we all know that political science is not really a [I]science[/I]). As used in the context of the post-colonial world, I take the term to mean a kind of nationalism where the political leadership attempts to extricate the society from the prevailing influence of the dominant global powers, even if that means seeking alliances. When Vietnam declared its independence in Sept. 1945, Ho Chi Minh reached out to President Truman for a sign of recognition. No response was received, as Truman moved to back the French re-colonization. No doubt, at least [I]part [/I]of the reason is that the Truman administration saw an independent Vietnam under Viet Minh leadership as inconsistent with U.S. economic interests in the region. (The idea that Vietnam was perceived at the time as a satellite of the Soviet Union is a complete fiction. The early pages of Vol. 1 of the Pentagon Pages indicates that U.S. intelligence could discern no rapprochement at all between Vietnam and the Soviets. Nothing.) The problem with the idea that every state "has its own best interests at heart" is that there are class differences [I]within [/I](and across) nations. Governments largely reflect the extant prevailing forms of power. In the U.S., that means private economic power, whose influence tends to dominate policymaking on a national scale. That comes at the expense of the poor, certainly, and the middle class. And that is why the consent of the poor is peripheral at best to U.S. national politics (except when rhetorically convenient). And if I may, the poor aren't stupid. They perceive that the game is rigged. They have no major political voice. And so, on the whole the poor do not even participate in the representative democratic process (what is called "voting" in the U.S.). In that context, the U.S. interest cannot be said to be the interest of the poor. I realize that much of what I am saying here is extremely broad. But there is only so much one can accomplish in this format. Gotta go! [/QUOTE]

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