The prime suspect in the death of the dollar is the massive trade deficits America has run up, some $5 trillion in total since the passage of NAFTA and the creation of the World Trade Organization in 1994.And yet Buchanan (reluctantly) supported Bush in the last election. Buchanan does point out (correctly) that the trade deficit is not all Bush's fault. But he does not tell his readers that the only strong voices against NAFTA and the WTO in the 1990s came from Democrats and the left. What group of right-wingers ever launched a street protest against the WTO?
Yes, NAFTA was supported by Clinton and Gore. But most Dems viewed the deal warily, and most voted against it, while nearly all Republicans voted in favor of it. Although Dennis Kucinich is one of the few willing to ask in public for a return to the status quo ante, very few Dems feel the near-religious devotion to "free trade" that one finds on the right.
4 comments:
Pat Buchanan is a xenophobic maniac. In his article he writes: "The Canadian dollar, which used to be worth 65 cents, is worth more than the U.S. dollar for the first time in half a century." The Canadian dollar was worth US$1.04+ on April 25, 1974. ("A billion seconds here, a billion seconds there" -- Sen. Everett Dirksen.)
Maybe you don't owe your readers an explanation for saying "Buchanan (reluctantly) supported Bush in both elections" in light of the fact that Buchanan was on the ballot in 2000 as the Reform Party's candidate, but maybe you do owe one.
What I owe you, my friend, is both an apology and my thanks. How could one ever forget "Jews for Buchanan"? I shall rewrite and amend.
Who, who were alive at the time and of an age to pay attention, can forget the Gore/Perot Larry King/NAFTA 'debate'? (Giant sucking sound, indeed!)
As much as I think Clinton was a good president overall, and Gore likely to be as good or better overall on policies, if not in atmospherics and PR, their position on NAFTA, far from the mainstream Democratic Party position as has been mentioned, must be seen as a titanic error.
And with fellow DLCer/founder Joe Lieberman taking W's foreign policy whole cloth as his own, why is it that mainstream Democrats aren't supposed to decry the DLC types and their policies as dangerously wrong?
Frankly, this is at the heart of much of what you, Joe, think is Democrat bashing by the progressive purists. Clear thinking people realize that the overly bought and paid for portion of the Democratic Party that are corporatists, or at least have corporatist money behind them, are a) far out of the mainstream of traditional Democratic Party norms and ideals, and b) hurting the country.
Is that a radical notion, or simply common sense? If it is obvious common sense, how can you so vigorously condemn those who see it like it is and call out those Democrats and their policies for the corporadoes they are?
...sofla
sofia, the US hasn't been a society to speak of since LBJ sacrificed himself and the Democratic Party to the cause of improving its citizens' lives (of noisy and quiet desperation). Since then, America has been an economy only. Bill Clinton's early attempts to revive us as a society were met with derision and scorn. His 1992 victory lacked a majority, there was no provable mandate, and there wasn't to be any consensus. The DNC saw the writing on the wall, that its victory was a fluke, and the future of Democratic Party successes was as precarious as it had been since LBJ's 'betrayal' of the South and blue-collar anti-integrationists. Consequently (I'm guessing) a genuine public and social debate about NAFTA was out of the question. Of course its outcomes have been awful and worse. But its historical context has to be recalled, and then one has to ask if there was any alternative.
The US economy at the time was the biggest in the First, Second, and Third Worlds, but its size and superiority were clearly being challenged by the Pacific Rim economies (especially Japan's, South Korea's and Taiwan's) and the emerging EU, which was committed to being much bigger and better than the earlier European Common Market. As I recall, NAFTA was proposed as a means of coming to terms with the real challenges and threats to the US way of life, i.e, economic growth and expansion.
Before NAFTA, before Clinton, Americans were not willing to voluntarily reduce their self-destructive and frivolous consumption. Nail salons sprung up as a brand new industry in the 1990s, next door to the cinnabun shacks and the buck-a-cup coffee stalls. (I happen to love malls but gave them up.)
My dog used to watch my neighbor run his power lawn mower, then he'd watch me walk my push mower, and he concluded that the only reason the neighbor had a power mower was because it cost a lot more, it used enough gas to account for 5% of all energy use and pollution, it made a lot of noise, it was a lot heavier and harder to use, it cost money to maintain and repair, and it 'cut' grass inefficiently while hurting the grasses. But most homeowners figured differently. He didn't even want to go outside after everyone got leafblowers and weedwhackers because none of his friends could hear his barks, nor he theirs. You think I'm making this up? If it wasn't for NAFTA and its benefits only to corporations, I doubt we could afford to buy both plug-in room deodorizers and clothes-dryer strips. As long as most Americans define themselves as consumers rather than as citizens, we have no alternatives to things like NAFTA.
Okay, at the voting precinct today a worker asked me how I'm doing. I live in North Carolina where we're polite. I told her I'm not doing well (beat) because I was prevented from being on the ballot (beat), I had hoped to run for Poet Laureate at the Auto Bell Car Wash at Monroe and Wendover Roads (beat), but the state refused to recognize my party, the Romantic Party. Very very old voters were also signing in next to us, and they laughed and laughed. The worker asked me if I thought her hot flashes were contributing to global warming.
I expect the Democrats to sweep everywhere in November (the French word esperer means to expect/to hope/to wait for), but I don't expect the people who voted for them to do much of anything after that, even though they could make their collective wills known and impose them -- if they knew how to do that. But we're a politically ignorant 'society'. Wanting to do something, wanting to do it badly, means nothing if you don't know how. I'm optimistic but I can't justify my optimism.
In the 1950s and 1960s Claire Nutt (Jackie Gleason with a pencil-thin mustache) owned and ran the pool hall in Westerville, Ohio (pop. 5,000). He was a college graduate and varsity football booster. He smoked Marsh Wheeling Stogies and read the papers every day, especially The Star (3 rungs lower than The National Enquirer). Townies who wanted to rack balls for part-time work would tell the story about Claire telling them to go down to the basement, wait a minute and come back up, and Claire would ask what kind of coin was dropped on the floor above their head, and if they guessed right they got the job. (Halves, quarters, and dimes still had 90% silver.) Every two years he said if the economy's good, the party in power will stay there; if it's bad, they'll be voted out.
(Hand up) Ross Perot announced his candidacy on Larry King Live! Do I get to advance my token 3 spaces?
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