Doug Henwood wrote:
>
>And how many people are you feeding & clothing? Is filling the street
>in defense of the turtles doing the trick?
>
>
>Yeah, wonderful. What's next on your agenda? Tell me about the world
>trading system you envision.
>
>
>
Entirely unfair. I've always been a critic of the dopey side of environmentalism but what trading system does Bill Clinton envision? It's certainly nothing coherent or unified. He was aiming at some idiot notion of "legacy" by trying to stuff China into the WTO. He was looking at a win to please a small constituency. What's amazing is that the hippies in black masks and turtle costumes apparently appealed to a bigger constituency than the keystone of U. S. trade policy - WTO.
Anarchists test the water. They break some windows and see whether people condemn them, ignore them, agree with them , actively, tacitly or simply fail to condemn them. The test results show that nobody cared one whit for a broken WTO or a couple trashed Nike, Starbucks and McDonalds locations. ( Even here in Seattle, the only store owners the media trot out for sympathy are small independents)
It's not a plan, but that's not the way politics works except, almost uniquely, in the minds of Marxists (and Newt Gingrich, I guess). Politics works by small victories for small constituencies. The Seattle WTO protests were a clear political victory because they showed that the fawning love affair with big business that Reagan started is over. Even Americans are not so dumb they don't see a system plagued with excess that has left them behind without a thought. The WTO protests didn't mark the beginning of anything, I think. They marked an end to the effective spin of trickle-down. That dog won't hunt no more.
I think America has one more enormous gasp left in it, however. I think the bubble could be really huge. It might even last a decade. Europe could join in. Japan - gasp - could join in (all those beautiful yen just waiting to be dissaved). Then, the harder they come, the harder they fall. Let all good Marxists save their pennies to buy put options and when Doug Henwood calls the real, true, final top: Place your bets.
peace