Never underestimate the penchant of the media/political elite to ramrod critical economic issues into the most distorted terms - terms that denigrate any efforts to make public policy actually work for ordinary citizens. We see this everywhere - but New York Magazine this month really takes the cake. In a piece on Sen. Hillary Clinton (D), all of the elitist biases are flaunted out in the open - with not even as much as a sentence permitting the opposition to speak. It is as if the author of the piece, Chris Smith, would rather be caught dead than actually allow what he likely views as "the great unwashed" to have its say (Note: Stay tuned for my upcoming piece in In These Times which explores exactly how all the elitism on trade policy is going to play out in the 2008 Democratic primaries).
Smith's piece purports to be one profiling Sen. Clinton's moves on immigration, but about two thirds of the way through, it degenerates into a screed against those who are courageously questioning America's corporate-written "free" trade policy that is wreaking havoc on citizens both in the United States and abroad. The screed starts off with a quote from - not surprisingly - former Christian Coalition official and John McCain political operative Marshall Wittman, who is now employed by the corporate-backed Democratic Leadership Council. Wittman immediately tars and feathers those who want our trade pacts reformed to include labor, human rights and environmental protections as "declinists." Then, like the smarmy Washington political operative he is, he desperately tries to get in good graces with Clinton by calling the corporate trade agenda "the optimistic-future wing" of the Democratic Party.
Right after this, Smith moves into yet another "free"-trade-glorifying quote from an unnamed "Washington economic policy expert" - a typical euphemism for someone out of the Bob Rubin/Wall Street/Business Roundtable Establishment. This "expert" says Clinton "Talks to sensible Democrats on trade policy—people like Martin Baily at the Institute for International Economics—but then she has people like Jeff Faux of the Economic Policy Institute. They’re quite protectionist, quite nationalist. They think free trade not only hurts America, it hurts the countries we’re trading with, that the only winners are corporations."
Notice the language - being for more and more corporate "free" trade agreements that drive down wages, workplace standards, environmental standards and human rights protections is "sensible." Meanwhile, people like Faux are breathlessly billed as - gasp! - "nationalists," even though even a cursory glance at the cover of Faux's new book shows he is exactly the opposite - he effectively proves that the class war going on is one that reaches beyond national borders - it's global. Thus the title of his book, "The Global Class War."
Then there is perhaps the most depressing part of the article - the part where Clinton's aides get defensive about even listening to what well-respected reformers like Faux have to say. "A Clinton spokeswoman says that the senator seeks a wide range of opinions on many issues," the article says. "but dismisses the notion that there’s any group of outside advisers on globalization." Wow, getting asked about trade must have been a real emergency in the Clinton office - and they reacted in kind, immediately reassuring the elite that they will have nothing to do with seriously challenging the trade policies that may be destroying our economy, but are racking up huge profits for the Big Money interests that run Washington.
As if all these corporate talking points weren't enough, the article ends not with a voice of reform that has been vilified throughout the article, but instead with yet another diatribe about just how wonderful "free" trade has been to the world. "The trade issue is crippling the Democrats," says Jagdish Bhagwati, the Columbia economist who wrote In Defense of Globalization. "The unions are terrified by trade, and they’re still a major Democratic constituency. Hillary Clinton will be caught in this dilemma unless the party faces up to it and says, ‘Look, we really can’t be against trade with poor countries.’"
Finally, Smith smugly closes the article saying that Clinton "needs to decide whether she cares more about economic security or economic freedom" - because, we are to believe, the two simply cannot go hand in hand. Either we must permit a bunch of fat-cat Wall Street types to continue manipulating trade policy as a weapon of class war, or there is no "freedom." What a joke that anyone could even offhandedly say something, much less write it and then have a series of editors at a major magazine approve it.
Again, there's no mention that no one is proposing being "against trade with poor countries." There's no mention that the reformers are really simply asking for trade deals to include labor, human rights, and environmental protections for workers along with the patent, copyright and profit protection measures that these pacts already include for corporations. All there is is another corporate apologist euphorically hosing down the reporter in dishonesty - and the reporter sits by happily slurping it all in.
But then, that's the political Establishment's indoctrination system at work. It is a system that veers out of its way to ignore the flood of data about declining wages, nonexistent workplace standards, plummeting living standards, exploding trade deficits, increasing global poverty, rising inequality, and growing worldwide opposition to "free" trade - all while feeding the public a steady diet of corporate-written talking points telling us that oh, yes, "free" trade is just absolutely glorious. Journalists feed the system with their fabricated storylines and thinly veiled attacks on ordinary citizens who dare desire different economic policies. Similarly, politicians give us their platitudes about supposedly caring about the average Joe - while doing the bidding of the Big Money interests that are driving our country - and the rest of the world - into the ground. And the system continues on, as if unbothered by the destruction left in its wake.
But make no mistake about it - there is a breaking point, and it is coming. The furor over immigration is a loud alarm signal that the "free" trade orthodoxy peddled like religion in Washington is creating a level of stress on the system that even the elitists can't hide. Sooner or later (maybe the 2008 election?), something is going to snap - and there will be a backlash. And when that happens, all of the snobbish journalists, the fat cat donors, and the insulated politicians in both parties will be faced with their worst nightmare: a new political playing field owned by the ordinary citizens they so disdain.