Rainer Shea
OpEds
If genuine, this image would be an attempt by DSA to claim genuine leftist credentials which it definitely lacks.
J. Sakai’s Settlers: The Mythology of the White Proletariat, the brutal 1983 polemic which argued that the American left’s dominant institutions are enamored with the ideology of the U.S. empire, is
far from being above criticism. But it also accomplishes something very important, which is to compile a history of how the country’s labor organizations and movements have frequently worked to strengthen the structures of U.S. imperialism and colonialism.
One of the strongest points in Settlers is where it exposes the hypocrisies of the New Deal, which was designed to fortify the subjugation of oppressed nationalities like the Africans and the Puerto Ricans while enriching the favored U.S. settler population through imperialist plunder during World War II. The New Deal was a successful campaign by the U.S. ruling class to co-opt the era’s