1. It’s Important to Know Who we’re Talking About
On the one hand, there are those who oppose “Buy American.” Opponents include most every congressional Republican; eleven Democrats in the House of Representatives; U.S. businesses with global ties and good futures, including some of the biggest blue-chip names in American industry as well as those likely to face higher costs due to the “Buy American” restrictions, such as the construction industry charged with completing ARRA projects; libertarians and others who espouse the primacy of individual liberty over government, seek to ‘minimize’ powers of the state and, so, oppose government intervention in the market economy; and, all others who subscribe to the prevailing orthodoxy of individualist, market-based, laissez-faire, neoclassical economics and neo-liberal political economy.

On the other hand, there are those who support “Buy American.” Here, we’re talking about a vast majority of congressional Democrats and only three moderate Republicans in the Senate; labor unions and industry associations who together represent key states and (politically-important) domestic industries, especially those in the manufacturing heartland; U.S. businesses in (politically-important) declining industries or that have fared poorly in global competition, such as American auto makers and steel producers; and, social advocacy groups, populists and those pressing for greater civic agency, more generally, who cry foul at the collapse of U.S. manufacturing and loss of U.S. jobs and, so, appeal to the masses now suffering in the midst of economic distress. To this we might add the overwhelming majority of Americans (84-86% according to recent polls) said to support, for the moment at least, the “Buy American” clause. Time will tell how popular support for this waxes and wanes as the recession progresses.Time will also be important in another respect, which brings us to the second thing that’s important to do before proceeding.2.      It’s Important to Be PatientWe’re dealing with myths here, so we need to be mindful of what Girard tells us about myths. ^[1]Myths, he says, are both truthful and falsifying; all at once, they’re partial representations of some truths and partial obfuscations of other truths, particularly of mimetic violence. They operate through processes of narrative transformation, telling things not as they are but as we want to remember them (and want you to know them), reflecting only one side, our side, of the story. They succeed precisely to the extent that they ‘mutate,’ ‘mute’ or ‘keep secret’ some key but unpleasant truths and, thereby, surreptitiously recall things they don’t fully reveal or even realize. Significantly, Girard sees myth as narrative that’s ultimately rooted inreal conflict and real victims, even though we might prefer to forget this and tell the story differently.So it is with the myths involved in the “Buy American” debate. And like most myths, these too have been built up over hundreds of years of forgotten, not-so-forgotten history. So we’ve got to go backwards in time, a bit, and get past layer after layer of misunderstanding, mistruth and misrepresentation before we can break through to greater clarity and reality in these matters. It’s going to take more than a few minutes and more than a few installments of this blog.Bear with me, though, because our perseverance will be worth it; the realities behind the curtain may shock and surprise you.

^[1] As my key source for this brief summary, I’m indebted to Chris Fleming, René Girard: Violence and Mimesis.