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The China Trade Question and the Struggle
for Democracy
By
DEL CASTLE
According
to recent press reports, textile imports from China have risen 67 percent to
31,131 containers in the last year in the Port of Seattle.
In other words, Chinese clothing is flooding the U.S. market.
According
to The Seattle Times, Terry Laggner "analyst for the Washington Council on
International Trade said she has seen statistics that imported clothing has
dropped retail prices by about 6 percent."
And
furthermore, "Some U.S. clothing manufacturers report the domestic industry
has lost 26,000 jobs this year because of low-cost imports from China."
. . . "Also" the article continues, "while economists
argue that all parties win under free trade, some workers in the U.S. garment
industry aren't winning."
So
goes the story under globalization, WTO, IMF and the World Bank. The U.S. is
falling behind China in the world economic picture.
The question then arises: How can Bush and the neocons, free traders and
Iraq empire builders expect to win when we are falling behind as a world
economic power? Another little note
along this line is that of our delinquent educational record.
It has been reported that while China graduates engineers, mathematicians
and scientists in the hundreds of thousands each year, the U.S. graduates them
in only thousands. We can't keep
ahead of China on the
world stage,
we can't win in Iraq, we can't keep jobs at home, we can't take care of the
victims of Katrina and Rita, and we're pretty
sure that Bush doesn't know one end from the other.
Right now something is hitting the fan and it doesn't smell like roses.
In
face of this deep quandary facing our future, the powers that
be are debating how to proceed. They
have two choices: One choice is to maintain profits by clamping down on dissent
as things continue to get worse. If
wages and living standards continue to decline and opposition and dissent
continue to increase in the streets, in the unions and democratic forces opposed
to dictatorship, their answer is to clamp down in some form of dictatorship.
The other choice is to blunt dissent by making concessions that strengthen
jobs, increase living standards, support democratic forces and promote the
general welfare. That choice was
made at the time of the New Deal during the Great Depression.
That decision helped save the system from rebellion and fundamental
systemic change - socialist revolution was avoided.
Which choice
will they make this time? The answer is complicated by the question of whether
the second World War was what brought concessions through better living
standards and reduced the threat of
revolutionary change rather than the New Deal.
In other words that time around war was the solution to the problem of
revolutionary
threat.
But this time war is not solving any problem; it is only making things
worse.
On
that basis, if war is not the solution, the first choice (oppression) is the
likely way out for the powers that be. It
would take the form of some American version of fascism, not the old
Hitler-Mussolini form of open dictatorship and force and violence with storm
troopers and military pomp and glory, but something more in the way of mind
control. They feel they have enough control, with financial and power pressure
over all forms of the media to make it work.
Can
they succeed? Ironically, Osama bin
Laden is helping Bush bring about destruction of democracy.
Do they both want the same thing? Bush's Patriot Act which allows secret
searches and seizes in violation of the U.S. Constitution; plus secretly jailing and
detainment of anyone at any time without any public notice or court of law
appeal starts a slow, illegal invasion of democratic and privacy rights.
If bin Laden pulls another strike on our country, Bush will have another opportunity to clamp down on democracy. This
scenario of partnership between bin Laden and Bush can become the greatest irony
of all time. The difference between the two is that bin Laden is an open enemy
of democracy at home and elsewhere. When
the world recognizes the confluence of evil between Bush and bin Laden the cat
will be out of the bag. Bin Laden
strikes from outside, Bush bores from within.
The people will see how far Bush and bin Laden will go in partnership to
destroy democracy. One might ask how
come Osama bin Laden is still on the loose?
Can
the Bush plan for destroying democracy at home succeed? It is chancy.
The decision may be easy, but its implementation isn't.
If Bush can't do any better than he has done in Iraq, Katrina, Rita, the
Blame blunder, budget irresponsibility, they're not likely to succeed.
In
addition the massive worldwide opposition to Bush's destructive policies, a
beginning internal split in the right wing Republican camp,
The continuing downward spiral in Bush's approval rating, and the
unprecedented political education of the masses now taking place, all point to
the development of a populist movement that can save democracy and the future of
the world.
Make your choice and make democracy live!
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