There will be right wing and corporate Chicken Littles who chant the mantras of free trade, and they'll whine that the sky will fall if any restraints are put on the current feeding frenzy. But as Thom Hartmann so eloquently argues in his article, Democracy - Not "The Free Market" - Will Save America's Middle Class . That's the title, and here's what Hartmann says,
"The conservative belief in "free markets" is a bit like the Catholic Church's insistence that the Earth was at the center of the Solar System in the Twelfth Century. It's widely believed by those in power, those who challenge it are branded heretics and ridiculed, and it is wrong.
"In actual fact, there is no such thing as a "free market." Markets are the creation of government."
Just as the Bush administration has engaged in experimentation with preemptive war-- albeit without wisdom, intelligent planning or anticipation of consequences-- Bill Clinton started us on the road to Globalism, by signing NAFTA and the WTO.
Even arch conservative Pat Buchanan, in an article on worldnetdaily sees the problem. He comments,
"They're calling it a jobless recovery. Wrong. Millions of jobs are being created. They're just not being created here in the United States.
"The reasons can be traced to these four acronyms: NAFTA, GATT, WTO, PNTR. These are the trade treaties and global institutions that have permitted the historic substitution of foreign labor for American labor, to the enrichment of the transnational companies that look upon the Congress as a wholly owned subsidiary.
"Numbers do not lie. In 2003, America exported $1 trillion in goods and services. Almost 10 percent of GDP. Excellent. By the Clinton-Bush I rule -- $1 billion in exports creates 20,000 jobs -- that $1 trillion worth of exports created 20 million jobs. Exports are good for America.
"The problem? We imported $1.5 trillion in goods and services. That created or supported 30 million jobs abroad. But even this understates the case. For foreign workers can be hired at a fraction of the cost of a U.S. worker. Our $1.5 trillion in imports is probably supporting 150,000,000 jobs abroad.
"The U.S. trade deficit is the greatest foreign aid and wealth transfer program in history, and our workers are paying for it by the loss to their families of the American Dream."
Bush energetically supports this GLobalism experiment gone awry. He accuses Kerry, who, the last time I looked, was still pro WTO and NAFTA, of isolationism. Bush says that isolationism is "a recipe for economic disaster," that it might hurt international companies.
This is the kind of black and white, simple-minded "wall" thinking that is about as appropriate in the year 2004 as the abacus, hand typesetting or the pony express.
Buchanan comments,
"The crisis of the Bush dynasty is that, like the Bourbons of France, they have learned nothing and forgotten nothing. They do not understand that we have entered a new world where the old ways no longer work. They yet recite the old litanies that lost their relevance in the Reagan decade."
And he goes on to say, "
"Republican free-trade dogma inhibits action to protect U.S. jobs. The GOP is hogtied and hamstrung by its ideology in dealing with the crisis. Its only response is to mutter with Dr. Pangloss that it is all for the best."
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