serious question about foreign policy. How does a regional confederation conduct foreign affairs—including providing for the mutual defense? It would do so duty of producing a new basic instrument of government. That constitution would begin with the Bill of Rights and move on to such matters as the common law, Looking across a storage facility at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. sources, and the negotiation and enforcement of inter-regional economic agreements. Once such a constitution was ratified, the confederation parliament would be primarily concerned with handling interregional affairs and the conduct of foreign policy. The creation of such a system would decentralize power, diffuse and drastically reduce the bureaucracy, and—most importantly—create a far more democratic politics. 3. And so we come to foreign policy, as much the bane of radicals as liberals and conservatives. Most radicals have never broken free of the inane conception of foreign policy defined by ‘isolationism’and ‘internationalism. ’ But stated bluntly, the purpose of foreign policy is to enable a culture to proceed with its self- determined development within its legitimate boundaries. Saving the world is neither a rational nor a morally justifiable objective of any society’s foreign policy: it is instead authentic evidence of nationalistic egomania. Which is to say that if, by the force of its self-contained example, any given culture prompts other peoples to emulate its values, procedures and institutions, then it earns no reward beyond the duty to honor even more carefully its principles and practices. It has no right to create an empire in the name of protecting its foster children. Parents, after all, are charged with freeing—not smothering—their offspring. Elementary. Stop arming the bastards and the people will get rid of the bastards. Sum it up this way. Social revolution is not terrorism. At its very worst, social revolution is a desperate attempt to stop terrorism. At its best, social revolution is an effort to create a new set of moral and institutional arrangements designed to make it possible to live more humanely. The outsiders who intervene in social revolutions always lose. It is not so much that the locals ultimately assert their power. It is that the outsiders lose their self- respect. Not all at once. But down the years, over all the dead bodies, the rationalization of empire in the name of freedom kills the soul. That is as true for radicals as it is for liberals and conservatives. 4. But, given all that, there is a F or surely the Pacific Northwest is as much a theater for limited nuclear war as Western or Eastern Europe. Boeing and Hanford are unquestionably as important as any Russian centers west of the Urals...So in the logic of linkage, we lose Seattle and Hanford for Leningrad and Murmansk. structurally by creating a foreign office ever so closely watched over by a shadow foreign office staffed by the elected members of the current regional minority. Here I anticipate the obvious question or objection. The conduct of foreign policy, we have been taught as an article of faith, requires the delegation of power—including the authority to act quickly and forcefully without general consultation. But my reading of history belies that proposition, except and unless the culture is conducting an imperial foreign policy. My understanding of contemporary technology supports my contrariness. Given a radical reconstruction of American society, the local, regional, and continental institutions could discuss and decide all but one issue of foreign policy with time to spare. The exception, of course, is a nuclear Pearl Harbor. And here, particularly during the transition to a new America, I think radicals would have to be ruthless. We would have to speak a simple, blunt truth to the world—be it Russia, China, Arabs, Zionists or whomever. We are making a true revolution. Do not interfere. We will launch an appropriate counterattack on confirmed evidence that you have initiated any assault that threatens the integrity of our revolution. IV ow of course you can ■ w dismiss all of this as Utopian. I am frankly rather more than less inclined to agree with you. There are not today enough Americans, radical or otherwise, ready to confront Bonaparte, Lincoln and Marx. Indeed, someone ought to write an essay about the transformation of the conception of the frontier: from going out in fear and trembling in the hope of creating something different into simply projecting the present on This is an edited version of William Appleman Williams’ article which appeared in democracy, Vol. 1, No. 4—October, 1981. © The Common Good Foundation. NOW SERVING LUNCH AND DINNER discover SU06OW GALLERY 206 SW Stork Portland 221 -0258 Open Monday thru Saturday, 10-5. down the line. That was, it seems to me, the sad nature of John Kennedy’s New Frontier. Probably even pathetic. No imagination at all. But then that strikes me as the sad state of American radicalism. Not only nd imagination, but no conception of Utopia. Face it: the purpose of a radical Utopia is to create a tension in our souls. Our first responsibility as radicals is to create a knowing, individual and then social, that what we are doing is not good enough. Then we must imagine something better. That defines us as people who offer our fellow citizens a meaningful choice about how we can define and live our lives.ee 8 Clinton St. Quarterly Photograph by Mark Albanese
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NTc4NTAz