GLOBALIZE THIS!

Thursday, June 24, 2004

HERE'S A THORNY FIRST AMENDMENT ISSUE

The Federal Election Commission will decide today whether television ads for Michael Moore's new documentary, "Fahrenheit 9/11," may be restricted and even prohibited under campaign finance laws.

Read more here.

¶ 6/24/2004 11:04:31 AM

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MY LIFE IS LIKE A BOX OF CHOCOLATES

I'm two thirds of the way through Bill Clinton's auto-encyclopedia now, and I'm starting to understand how #42 earned the nickname "Bubba." Reading this book is like sitting on the park bench with Forrest Gump--a really smart and powerful Forrest Gump. Bill Clinton runs into all kinds of famous people and finds himself wrapped up in all kinds of historically significant moments.

Of course we should expect this of an ex-president, however the book strikes me as rather surreal in how it reads: a long, circuitous recounting of seemingly discrete memories strung together as one, punctuated only with a generous dose of down-home colloquialisms. I get a haunting feeling that I am being told the same things over and over again (I just can't quite remember whether I had already read that same paragraph some 200 pages ago, and before my brain can sort it all out, Clinton is on to the next colloquialism and tale of meeting Boris Yeltsin, etc.). Somehow, Gumpifying the tale of his life makes the historic seem less significant, but not in the comical way that a half-wit from rural Alabama does.

Clearly the book was written to personalize the man that has been so demonized by the "Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy" and to atone for failings in his personal life. I've heard a number of media pundocrats refering to the tome as part memoir, part personal expose, and part policy seminar. Don't believe the latter. There is no depth to the treatment of the Clinton White House's internal policy making process or how and why he reached important decisions that reshaped this country and the world.

For example, there is no discussion of how or why Clinton decided to table the push for health care reform (which had been a central tenet of his 1992 campaign) in favor of passing a controversial trade and investment treaty that was the progeny of the past 12 years of Republican policy (which ultimately split his own party and depleted his political capital such that health care reform was no longer feasible). After discussing the his administration's lobbying effort on behalf of the Reagan-Bush trade treaty (consequently omitting the massive lobbying in Washington effort by the Mexican government and the major multinational corporations), Clinton writes: "it was becoming clear that a vote on health care reform would not come until the following year." (p. 547).

Now, imagine Forrest Gump on the park bench: "And that's all I have to say about that." Except when Forrest Gump says it, we know that did not make the leap that connects one event or concept or action to another, nor did he question why things happened a particular way, he just accepted that they did. Reading Bubba, on the other hand, we know that there is just a huge piece of the story missing.

¶ 6/24/2004 10:03:47 AM

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Wednesday, June 23, 2004

GLOBALIZING LABOR

Andy Stern gets it. Globalized corporate production systems demand a globalized labor movement so that we can globalize the social contract. Harold Meyerson sums it up here. (I'm all over the WaPo this morning).

¶ 6/23/2004 10:37:50 AM

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OH VEY

It's columns like this one that make me wonder how one gets to have a weekly op-ed column in a major national newspaper...and also why I don't.

Think about how much Anne Applebaum got paid for these 871 words. Think of the opportunity cost of wasted newsprint where someone with real opinions might have enriched our national socio-political dialogue.

Applebaum starts with a jab at a democratic strawman--who is standing in line to buy My Life:

Generally speaking, the people in the line were not hirsute, overtly left-wing or even visibly political.

Duh. Guess what, Anne? Clinton never was too popular with democratic wing of the Democratic party. He sold out social insurance. He tore apart the party to pass a trade deal conceived by Ronald Reagan and negotiated by Papa Bush. He did more to consolidate the bipartisan consensus on American Empire than any who came before him. (But man, what we wouldn't do to have him back today...).

I'm guessing Applebaum was following the Drudge Report rumor board about the book's celebrated release at Politics and Prose. I went to Kramer Book's at about 12:15, walked right up to the counter, and slapped down my credit card. No line, no fuss, no inane WaPo commentators.

¶ 6/23/2004 10:30:58 AM

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I DON'T GET IT: INTERRAGATION MEMO

It seems like this WaPo article is saying Bush's Justice Department wrote a legal memo in August 2002 that outlined ways to skirt international law prohibiting torture. Because this memo looks bad (i.e. it shows the Bush administration condoning and promoting torture) it will now be rewritten to fit today's new moral and political norms.

In another indication that the Bush White House is more concerned with politics than security (and that claims of priviliged silence to protect national security are merely political weapons):

As part of a public relations offensive, the administration also declassified and released hundreds of pages of internal documents that it said demonstrated that Bush had never authorized torture against detainees from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In doing so, the administration revealed details of the interrogation tactics being used on prisoners, an extraordinary disclosure for an administration that has argued that the release of such information would help the enemy.

¶ 6/23/2004 10:02:19 AM

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Tuesday, June 22, 2004

GLOBALIZATION IN PICTURES

From the BBC:

Tobacco accounts for approximately 70% of Zimbabwe's foreign exhcange earnings.

¶ 6/22/2004 10:29:42 PM

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MY LONG-WINDED LIFE (aka CLINTON BLOGGING)

Yes, I now own a copy of Clinton's My Life as of last night about five minutes after midnight. My first impression: heavy. What a tome. Spent an hour late last night thumbing through the first 375 pages and to my disappointment, there were no pictures of Jennifer Flowers, Monica's dress, or any of the other floosie tail that Clinton bagged in is years in politics.

To call these memoirs is something of a misnomer. There is no way that Clinton "remembered" everything he put into the book. I'm thinking particularly of his amateur political history of his coming of age, college life during the VietNam War era, and early career. Let there be no doubt it took a great deal of research assistance to reconstruct all that history.

Now it's time for the next 600 pages. Here's what I'll be looking for: Clinton's decision to table health care reform and spend all his political capital passing a balanced budget, NAFTA and the WTO; the response to the Peso crisis and the Asian financial crisis; the role of business in White House policy decisions relating to the IFIs, globalization, consolidating American financial hegemony (e.g. repealing Glass-Stegall), etc.

Stay tuned...

¶ 6/22/2004 09:01:14 AM

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Monday, June 21, 2004

THERE GOES THE NEIGHBORHOOD

Space is ripe for commercial conquest. Its potential for private market colonization will make Intelsat look like a home-based e-business.

On NPR this morning, while fixing my breakfast, I heard the SpaceShipOne creators gloating about how they launched a space mission without any assistance from NASA or the government. Give me a break.

Need I recount the wealth of basic science knowledge, spillovers of technological innovation, and human capital accumulation fueled by NASA research and development and space programs? It's like saying pioneers conquered the Western frontier using only their true grit (and ignoring government subsidization of railroad expansion, land giveaways, etc., etc.).

So much for great scientists standing on the shoulders of those who came before them.

¶ 6/21/2004 01:29:27 PM

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