ABSTRACT
The SDS agenda addressed both domestic and foreign policy domains, representing a critique of racism, inequality and poverty at home and military interventionism abroad. The two were fused through an analytical focus upon the reflex to violence and the links between the military and industry structured through the Federal State’s permanent war economy. The continuing ‘war’ against communism was identified as key in underpinning the need for unquestioning social conformity reproduced through institutions, including the university. The US practice of intervening to destabilise unacceptable foreign governments, or regimes, was presented as ‘an objectively justifiable phenomenon’ resulting in ‘Worldwide amusement, cynicism and hatred towards the United States’ (ibid.: 31).
