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Edited on Sat Jan-14-06 08:47 AM by Peace Patriot
over the last year are such amazing and passionate statements of principle on constitutional government, and on common sense and common decency, that it just seems he is a changed man and has done a rigorous re-thinking of policy from outside of government and outside the circles of power. NAFTA is a difficult thing to forgive. But if there is anyone who supported it who is capable of a radically changed position on it, it is Gore. I would be open to hearing what he had to say about it now.
I am coming from a position of having protested Clinton/Gore trade policies in Seattle. So I am not naive about this matter. NAFTA, GATT and the other trade agreements, among other things, undermined our sovereignty as a people, putting trade policy into the hands of global corporate predators. If we have problems today of being just as badly exploited as any third world country or "banana republic" has ever been, it's because of these trade agreements approved of by Clinton/Gore. The outsourcing of jobs is largely their fault, not the Bush junta's (--although I think that Gore, as Prez, would have reacted quite differently, would have tried to mitigate the impacts, and, not having invaded Iraq, would have had the resources to do so).
Given Gore's speeches over the last year, I'm open to the possibility that he made a mistake based on a miscalculation of how vulnerable the country was to a fascist junta, and not based on corruption--which I think may be a critical difference between Gore and the Clintons. I think the Clintons are, and ever have been, after the main chance. I think they are the willing tools of our corporate rulers. They're playing the game. Maybe they think that's the only way anyone can gain power in this country, and they may be right about that. But still, they are sullied, in my view. How to describe them? Temperate fascists. I do think they are temperate, but are nevertheless fascists, or would-be fascists. I'll never forget standing on a street corner in Seattle near a group of several hundred people who were sitting down peacefully in the intersection, blocking an avenue to the WTO meeting, with Darth Vader cops all lined up to attack them, and asking one of the Darth Vader cops what they were going to do to us, and he said, "We're not going to kill you." That's the Clinton's. 'We may hose you with pepper spray, and bomb you with tear gas, and beat you with nightsticks, and deny you any say in global trade policy, but we're not going to kill you." The Bush junta, of course, would shoot to kill. I read a thing by one of their rabid dog columnists who said just that, at the time. (--that the Seattle cops should have used live bullets.) So there you are. The junta would kill us without a thought. We all know that. And the Clintons would not. But Gore?
If Seattle happened today, I think Gore might just join us on the street, and lead that march of 50,000 labor unionists, environmental and human rights groups, teachers, preachers, small business people and other citizens, who never got the credit we deserved for our utter peacefulness and patience in Seattle, and our faith and hope that American policy could be changed. (The war profiteering corporate news monopolies completely slandered those protests. I was there. I know what they did with their "news" reports.)
Anyway, I'd be willing to listen to what Gore had to say about it today. He hasn't said anything about it, so far as I know. But based on the content and conviction of his other speeches, I hold out the hope that he has changed his views. Keep in mind that he was V-P, not Prez. Keep in mind also that no one could have predicted the Bushites' utter obliviousness to the financial ruin of our country. I mean, who could have guessed that so-called "conservatives" would do what they have done--just plain looted us blind? A trillion dollar deficit. It may be that Gore thought that, with careful economic policy and budgeting, Clinton-Gore could MITIGATE the suffering at least to Americans of the impact on jobs and so forth. That's what I suspect. As I said, a miscalculation (possibly)--based on a mis-reading of the intentions of the Bushite Republicans and those behind them.
Everything has changed now--with this junta--and anyone with sensibility and intelligence, who is not just purely a political animal (Bill and Hillary)--has to look back over the Clinton economic boom and the bust that followed it, in light of the thieves and war criminals who have taken us over. Should we have signed those trade agreements? Absolutely not. They undermined the country's economy in ways that we will never recover from, given what the Bush junta has done (bankrupted the country, and completely deregulated the corporate powers, which are now utterly out of control--they can't export jobs and destroy workers' rights fast enough). And we've got the whole of South America rebelling against the trade agreements today. They are seeing to their own sovereignty, as well they should.
Also, I think that the issues of unjust, illegal, unconstitutional war, torturing prisoners, and other assertions of dictatorial powers by the Bush junta are of equal importance with economic and trade policy. I mean, who would have thought that we--the great progressive American majority--would have had to deal with issues like these? They don't trump economic and trade policy (which kill people slowly, instead of with bullets), but they pose an immediate crisis that has to be dealt with. We MUST restore some kind of "balance of powers" in the government. If I myself were in a position to give speeches about the current situation, I, too, would start with that. Actually, I'd start with election reform (Bushite corporations now controlling the tabulation of our votes with "trade secret," proprietary programming code, and virtually no audit/recount controls--the ultimate in corporate rule). But right up with that would be the "balance of powers," in my speech. Constitutional government. Rejection of rule by presidential fiat. I don't fault Gore at all, for concentrating on the "balance of powers" and on the fundamentals of decent behavior (i.e., torture). Things have gone so awry, he has to start somewhere. Let's hope that he is also thinking some fundamental thoughts about fair and just trade policy.
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