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[Max B. Sawicky]

> .  .  .
> industrial core investors panic and flee. Thus I am depressed at seeing my
> options for change reduced to either Lauch Faircloth (who thinks that 30
> million people in East Asia need to be thrown out of work because East
> Asian borrowers who overborrowed *must* be punished)or Ralph Nader (who
> thinks that 30 million people in East Asia need to be thrown out of work
> because New York lenders who "overlent" *must* be punished). There's a
> depressing symmetry here.

Your symmetry is way overdone.  Fact is that your position
is not very different than most left-of-center critics of
the IMF.  Clearly the latter mindset does not look with
hostility, in principle, at institutions that are either
public (e.g., 'government'), international, and regulatory
with respect to markets, unlike the political Right in all
three respects.

In this case, it's not even good politics to depict oneself
as a center between equally irrational alternatives.  Right
now the reigning political consensus is for an unthinking
continuation of the status quo, which, for lack of better
analytical ammunition, most Democrats are going along with.
The left's problem is a lack of a focused, substantive, positive
alternative, which problem lends itself to your perception of
irredentism.  The most congenial audience for your critique is
the folks you are lumping with the barbarians.  But insofar
as you seem to occupy a center, you risk getting lost among the
supporters of the status quo.

Cheers,

MBS