I have already argued that the period -1944- early 50's (say) was the high point of US history.  Sadly it has been largely ruled by political pygmies since who have corporate culture and the military industrial cmplex to dominate the polity since.

Ireland was formally neutral and quietly supportive of the allied cause during WW2 for reasons not relevant to this thread.

Sometimes reality is a little more nuanced that the Communist/Capitalist, Democracy/Dictatorship, Freedom/Bondage dualities so beloved of US ideological discourse.  

One of my arguments which I may expand on in a diary sometime is that the US appears to have a need to exacerbate tensions abroad in order to provide an easily definable or stereotypifiable Enemy which it can then attack.  The resulting war is then functional for the US both in terms of the immediate spoils of war and the degree to which it can unify and stabilise an otherwise quite precarious national unity within the US.  

Even when the resulting war is a disaster - as in Iraq - it still has the internal "beneficial" effect in the US for the dominant elite of wrongfooting all opposition and distracting attention from many other contentious and destabilise divisions within the US.

Have you been to Venezuela?  The reports I get speak of a very high degree of popular involvement in politics - as evidenced by recent referendum - a great deal of public criticism of the Government, and a good deal of social progress - probably more so than the US.

This is going to really confuse you Terry, but I am not a "socialist" or anything else which can be easily defined by any such label.  Let's try "thinking human being" as a first order approximation...

Index of Frank's Diaries