Like you, I have no illusion about empty rhetoric by politicians.
Yet, it would take an anti abolitionist Abraham Lincoln (1806-1865), who would gain attention early in his political career as a pragmatic segregationist cloaked under the high-minded rhetoric of democratic ideals, to finally overcome his previous political rationalization and to make peace with his personal morals to issue the Emancipation Proclamation in 1862. Lincoln would come into national prominence in the Lincoln-Douglas debates during the 1858 Senate campaign by shrewdly trapping his opponent, Stephen A. Douglas (1813-1861), into introducing the anti-slavery Freeport doctrine, permitting the new territories to exclude slavery in the name of popular sovereignty. The compromise proposed by Douglas, in spite of the Dred Scott decision by the Supreme Court a year earlier, in 1857, ruling that slavery could not constitutionally be excluded from any territory, would cost Douglas much popular support, particularly among pro-slavery Southern Democrats, even after his insistence on his personal indifference to the immorality of slavery. Lincoln, the man who would oppose the exclusion of slavery in the new territories with his perversely righteous and dubiously motivated declaration: "A house divided against itself cannot stand", and who would declare himself to be personally opposed to racial equality, would end up abolishing slavery for the whole nation four years later as a political expediency brought about by a poorly conducted, ongoing civil war, notwithstanding his earlier belief that while "Negroes" should enjoy the right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness promised to all men by the Declaration of Independence, the extinction of slavery could only be a gradual and lengthy process, with no near-term target date.
No doubt, Gore's crusade for "democracy" in Malaysia was motivated by American domestic politics as well as America's strategy of using "democracy" to attack Mahathir bin Mohamad, Prime Minister of Malaysia, who is no longer America's "boy", with his anti-Western Asian nationalism.
Below is a pro-Western reporters view on Gore in Malaysia.
"Gore's Confused Message by David Hitchcock
Major U.S. papers have supported Vice President Al Gore's criticism of Malaysia at the pre-APEC dinner for the region's businessmen. His remarks may help Mr. Gore at home, but they caused confusion and criticism among participants who questioned the appropriateness of such remarks. One problem was that Gore mixed his messages and examples. He cited the maxim that democracies have done better at overcoming economic crises than "nations where freedom is suppressed," because "democracy confers legitimacy that reforms must have to be effective." He then mentioned examples of reform movements: "people's power" in the Philippines, "doi moi" in Vietnam and "reformasi," a slogan being shouted in the streets of Malaysia and Indonesia, even as he spoke.
But "Doi Moi" (a government-initiated, economic renewal through partial market opening while protecting the Communist political system) can hardly be compared to the Philippines' "people power," which ousted a dictator and restored democracy. And Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad is a far cry from the corrupt and tyrannical Ferdinand Marcos. Mr. Gore seemed to be placing the U.S. in the official position of advocating change of government through mass demonstrations, by expressing admiration for the (undeniably) courageous and largely peaceful Kuala Lumpur demonstrators.
The widely accepted view that democratic rule can help governments through painful economic change may be a useful message for some audiences; but why for APEC businessmen, from countries where, excepting China and Vietnam, democracy has been developing quite successfully, in Thailand, Korea, Taiwan and perhaps Indonesia? One cannot help wondering if Mr. Gore — and President Clinton — are really so terribly eager to see 1.2 billion Chinese elbowing their way into Beijing's decision-making, as central
authorities struggle to bolster unsteady financial underpinnings, which, if they fail, could lead to a currency devaluation that might overwhelm the region and hurt the U.S.
The powerful U.S. is often seen in East Asia as pushing its own agenda too zealously. In this case, Gore has managed unwittingly to rally more support for Dr. Mahathir. Actually, Malaysia practices a number of democratic processes. There is some political opposition and, until the Anwar ouster, even limited (and self-censored) press freedom. There are regular elections, which Mahathir skillfully wins, despite differences among disparate factions within the country's long-time ruling political organization; and occasionally, a provincial state victory for opposition candidates. "
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Germany is a slightly different situation. Although I remain skeptical of the trustworthiness of Social Democrats, the German coalition of the SD and Greens has possibilities. The new German attitude on NATO and on the doctrine on No First Use of nuclear arms is encouraging. China has been proposing NFU for decades and the US is adamantly against it.
Below is my December 21, 1998 LBO post: A Bolder Germany.
Re Kennan's futile letter to Acheson proposing unilateral nuclear disarmament in 1946, as claimed by his letter to the HK Standard on new German attitude on No First Use, there was a report by Roger Cohen in the NY Times (Saturday, December 12, 1998), describes the new posture of the Social Democratic government of Germany as a "refreshing liberation". Specifically, the report cites Shroder's attack of Germany's unfair contribution to a wasteful European budget, Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer's suggestion for NATO to change its nuclear policy and Finance Minister Oskar LaFontaine's remark about American-style globalization not to his taste. Schroder's recent declaration that Germany should show the "self confidence of a nation that has come of age" is also reiterated in the report. No First Use was a doctrine subscribed to by China. The United State has steadfastly refused to agree. I would be interested to hear from European and EU specialists on this. (Fisher has been a Green radical in his youth and is the Greens highest ranking member in the coalition government.) ******************************************************
The problem is, except on a few lists on the internet, the international left is a mere shadow of its former reality. There is no real organized political opposition to global financial capitalism since the dissolution of the Soviet Union. With the exception of China and Cuba, the left controls no government. Internally and ideologically, they are busy engainging in factional attacks, fighting for ideological legitimacy that has no real world meanings.
Davo is interesting not because it will save the world from financial capitalism. It is interesting because it is a debate society on the global economy, and as such provides a window into financial capitalism's weakness.
Three prospects: 1) Global capitalism will collapse from its own inability to moderate its inherent destructiveness. This is the least likely, at least within the next century or even millennium. 2) Global capitalism will reform enough to include much socialist measures. 3) The United States will permit the incorporation of socialist characteristics in the economies in the periphery, but will continue to dismantle and privatize existing and historical socialist programs domestically, such as public education, social security, healthy insurance, unemployment insurance and interventionist government philosophy. The strategy to accomplish this is an extended bubble economy maintained at the expense of and with the drain wealth of the rest of the world through "open" markets. This is the main reason behind the clash between Japan and the U.S. The Japanese would rather suffer longer until they find an alternative way to revive their own economy rather than falling deeper into the trap of a semi-colony of American economic imperialism in the name of free markets.
Henry
Henry
Daniel wrote:
> Henry,
>
> You quoted a report: "President Herzog added that whatever the international business
> community does in the years ahead, it should not only focus on the financial or
> short-term aspects but also should "look at it in terms of peace and social justice
> for humanity."
>
> I'm very skeptical about this. (I don't know anything about President Herzog, and this
> comment is not directed at him specifically - obviously.)
>
> The issue we face is that most often these statements are just words - but just
> because they are just words does not mean that they don't have utility in concrete
> situations. Unfortunately, they are usually used as weapons of power and domination.
>
> Take, for example, VP Gore's remarks when he visited Malaysia. Wasn't that a spirited
> call for freedom and democracy coming from a lieutenant for the empire? Did it have
> anything to do, perchance, with the song of capital controls that PM Matahir had been
> singing before the rest of falling Asia?
> Suddenly America wants to see democracy in Malaysia? How gallant of us!
>
> But, this was only a relatively insignificant use of the politics of
> "morality." My greatest fear of the moment is that this same politics will send us to
> war in "Yugoslavia."
>
> Quincy