who suffered enormously from "free trade for the rich" (enforced by US-controlled instruments like the World Bank/IMF and the WTO), and it was to the long term detriment of our economy as well, in the bleeding of jobs and manufacturing from here to elsewhere. Those were not good jobs for the third world. They were shit jobs--slave labor jobs--that often combined with US ag dumping and other global corporate predator destruction of local markets. Jamaica is a good example. US ag dumped items like powdered milk on Jamaica, destroying the local dairy industry. They did the same with other products, and destroyed the local economy. The corrupt government meanwhile got the country into crippling debt with the World Bank, and this meant the destruction of social programs, safety nets for the poor, etc. Then the global corporate predators built "free trade zones" on the docks, immune from local labor laws. People had to work in these "international" slave shops because there was nothing else.
This suffering-bought "prosperity" benefitted the upper middle class--and of course the rich and very rich--here, and some segments of the middle class--but what was happening with most of the middle class and at the bottom was a grave erosion of good jobs, destruction of entire communities--manufacturing and farming communities--and increasing debt and despair, just as assistance to the very poor was being deliberately dried up. One could almost think it was a plan for creating "cannon fodder."
The computer revolution saved Clinton's policies from crashing the economy earlier than it did. The Bushwhacks' profligate spending on various "wars" (the genocidal war for oil, the "war on drugs," the "war on terror"), and on tax cuts for the rich, and its
further deregulation of finance/banking (which started under Reagan--with the S&L lootings--and continued under Clinton to reach its absurd apex under the Bush Junta), deregulation in every sphere, assaults on labor, and other assaults on decent government, all aimed at "drowning the government (i.e., the "New Deal") in the bathtub", finally finished us off, with the final looting--the Bushwhacks Financial 9/11 in September 2008--completing the transfer of most of the country's wealth and power to a handful of global corporate predators, including--not incidentally--the far rightwing corporation, ES&S, which just bought out Diebold, and now has just about cornered the "market" on 'TRADE SECRET' voting machines in the US. ES&S manufactures its extremely riggable touchscreen voting machines in sweatshops in the Philippines! --and it has far rightwing connections that would raise the hair on the back of your neck. We can kiss the "New Deal" good-bye. They weren't able to dismantle its couple of remaining successful programs, such as Social Security, but they were able to loot us blind, and the effect is pretty much the same.
We really need to wake up about the Clinton "bubble." Some of us did see the dangerous structural problems that were being created, and did our best to cry the alarm in Seattle '99. We got lungsful of teargas and bashed heads for our trouble. But those protests were aimed at the heart of the problem--who and what "free trade" was leaving out, and how serious a danger that was. Now we see our farming communities becoming dustbowls, and no good jobs even in the cities, and the decimation of public services and education--as suffered by so many poorer countries during the '90s.
Clinton not only stripped us of our sovereignty as a people--our ability to control our destiny, which is now in other hands than our own--those of global corporate predators some of whom were spawned here, but who have no loyalty to this country whatsoever--and helped lay the ground work for this "Grover Norquist" USA, in which political discussion sounds like something Lewis Carroll wrote in "Through the Looking Glass." At one point, Carroll has the Red Queen order her servants to paint the white roses red, because red is her color. "Free trade for the rich" is similarly non-sensical. Freedom for the few, slavery for the many--and the many have to be heavily propagandized so that they think this is natural. Bill Clinton--who is most certainly a better man than Bush, and ran a far better government in every respect--unfortunately played the role of the Red Queen. "Free trade" is a sweet-smelling rose, he told us, and for a while it seemed true--until the paint killed it.
------
Interestingly, one of the victims of “free trade for the rich”—Bolivia—is now projected to be one of the hottest economies in the world next year. They did it by resoundingly rejecting “free trade” policies, throwing the World Bank/IMF, the DEA and the US ambassador out, nationalizing their resources (gas, minerals, oil), hard-nosed negotiating with multinational corporations, and making education, health care, pensions for the elderly and other social programs their top priority. They also have transparent vote counting, and a “best practices” election system--characteristic of all the new leftist democracies in Latin America—something we have lost here.
These leftist democracies are all doing quite well, amidst the first world economic meltdown—precisely because they rejected the policies that Clinton so fervently pushed, and that the Bushwhacks put on steroids and tried to enforce, in Bolivia’s case, with a rightwing coup attempt (just last September). The key is
socialism—NOT trusting “the market” and the super-rich; strongly regulating them; strong government working on behalf of the majority; common sense and common decency. These countries—the countries with a conscience—are having no problem attracting investment. Foreign investors are flocking to them, and are agreeing to fair and decent contracts, that benefit local people—in order to access their rich resources--and the money is then being invested
in the people—in education, health care, local manufacturing, land reform, diversfication, food sovereignty and other forward-looking programs.
Another key has been solidarity—the leftist leaders of different Latin American countries working cooperatively on many projects. But the main key, the first key, the vital trigger for change, was rejecting Clintonism. It is
bad to cut social programs. It is
bad to let the rich run rampant. It is
bad to deregulate. It is
bad to sell your country to global corporate predators.
It is not socialism that is bad—as the Wall Street Urinal and the Associated Pukes try to brainwash us to believe. It is
lack of socialism—lack of care for the backbone of economies, the workers and their dependents—and lack of regulation of the “dog eat dog” super-rich--that crashes the banks and spoils everything for everybody. Reagan was wrong. Clinton was wrong. The Bushwhacks were wrong (and into massive looting). And all their bullshit theorists were wrong. And Brazil, Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and their leftist allies throughout Latin America are landing on their feet because they defied those dictates.
If you steal from people, rather than cooperating in “raising all boats,” you end up like us, with a looted economy and trillions of dollars in debt, unto the 7th generation. Greed is not the answer. Greed will do you in. Greed kills economies. It must be balanced with social justice--an equally strong human motivator.
----------------------
A primer on Latin American leftist economics:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-weisbrot/ecuador-bolivia-show-that_b_339968.htmlAnd here's a whole lot more of Mark Weisbrot--well worth reading (helps block Grover Norquist noise out of your head):
http://ideas.repec.org/e/pwe148.html
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
