Party of the Moustache of Understanding, or of the People? by Dave Sirota

[Douglas Carpenter]

posted by permission of Mr. Sirota. be sure to subscribe to David Sirota's E-mail list - link:

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"Will We Be the Party of the Moustache of Understanding, or of the
People?

By David Sirota

http://bookclub.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/11/11/12721/843

For my final post of this discussion, I first want to refer readers
to Nathan Newman's terrific piece over at the House of Labor - I
think it puts a pretty important exclamation point on this
discussion, especially with some of the folks on this site now
basically saying "let's talk about anything other than trade." That's
exactly what Nathan essentially says is the problem with some of the
so-called (and oxymoronic) "liberal free traders." They talk all
about the goodies of trade (especially when the free trade deals are
being negotiated), their organizations spend huge amounts of
resources pushing these trade deals, but then when its time to talk
about the downsides of that trade policy, they want to move on to
other topics. And worse, they don't even want to fight for the
policies that they promised were going to lessen the negative impacts
of their trade deals on ordinary Americans. Sad.

As one last note, let me just say one other thing: it is true, there
are many different policies and forces that affect our overall
economic growth. And it is easy to simply say international trade
isn't that important a factor, and that policies like an expanded
EITC are more important because there is a more direct benefit. But
here's the thing: trade policy is really the crux of all of this,
because it bleeds into so many different parts of our economy.

As I have said in previous posts, America's trade policy doesn't just
affect the workers who were directly displaced because a given factory
moved to Mexico or China to exploit terrible labor conditions (that
our trade policy allows to be exploited with impunity). We'd like to
comfort ourselves and just think that free trade policy only hurts
these older manufacturing industries. But that's a gross distortion.

America's corporate-written free trade policy negatively affects
workers' ability to negotiate better wages/health care
benefits/pensions, workers' ability to unionize and collectively
bargain, and state and federal lawmakers' ability to push for more
progressive environmental and economic policy. Without a trade policy
that protects labor/enviro/human rights standards, workers and
lawmakers know that any efforts to improve conditions here at home
can be used against America by Big Business as a rationale to ship
jobs overseas. You can argue that's inevitable - but it is only truly
inevitable if you have a trade policy that crates no disincentives for
business to head overseas in the first place.

There's been a lot of talk in recent days all over the blogs about
America's trade policy. That is productive, and long overdue. The
truth is, the biggest most powerful economic force facing America
today is globalization. Whichever political party puts together a
coherent strategy for dealing with globalization in a way that
actually serves the American people (and not just the corporate
elite) is the party that will be a majority party for years to come.

Right now, we have one party - the Republicans - that is all for
selling out America. And we have about half of another party - the
so-called "centrist" Democrats who go along with the GOP on these
issues (I put "centrist" in quotes because polls show their positions
are way out of the mainstream of outside-the-beltway American
thought). Even when these "centrists" occasionally do vote the right
way, they quickly go out of their way to publicly kiss the rear end
of the corporate elite, and promise to be subservient in the future.

This party-and-a-half basically worships at the altar of the
Moustache of Understanding, otherwise known as the Flathead, or by
most Americans as Tom Friedman - a man whose passion in life seems to
be lunching with well-to-do CEOs, and who seems to be disgusted at the
idea of actually talking to or understanding the concerns of real-life
working people in America. He spews a trade policy that basically says
"put a McDonalds in every part of the world, repeal labor/wage laws in
the industrialized world, buy another one of my ridiculous books that
is essentially a guided tour of all the Ritz Carlton's that I stayed
at in the developing world, and - bingo - America's troubles are
over!"

It is up to the other half of the Democratic Party to reach out to
the millions of Americans outside this elitist bubble who reject this
malarkey. It is up to political leaders to forge a trade policy that
works for ordinary people. There are great heroes in Congress already
trying to lead this fight - but it is going to take many years, as the
debate on TPMCafe shows there is much work to be done, even on the
Democratic side. But this is the movement of the future. Making
America's trade policy start working for America is a goal worth
striving for and it is not an unimportant debate as some on this site
claim. It should be one of THE central economic focus points for
Democrats, as it will ultimately make our country stronger and more
secure for the long haul.

Sources: Nathan Newman on "liberal free traders":

{http://houseoflabor.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/11/11/83816/215} "Free
traders" now don't want to talk about trade:
{http://bookclub.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/11/10/15263/748} Blogs have
lit up with discussions of trade policy:
http://www.workingforchange.com/blog/index.cfm?mode=entry&entry=7AE648D9-F17E-DD46-A27485BE93FFE3B5}
Polls show the so-called "centrists" are anything but in the center:
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050103&c=1&s=sirota
"Centrists" publicly kiss the rear end of the corporate elite after
CAFTA: http://www.rollcall.com/issues/51_25/news/10551-1.html
{http://www.mnftiu.cc/mnftiu.cc/moustache_of_understanding.html} The
Flathead: http://newyorkpress.com/18/16/news&columns/taibbi.cfm
http://www.davidsirota.com/2005/06/tom-friedmans-hatred-of-workers.html
Polls show a majority of Americans reject the Moustache of
Understanding:
http://www.davidsirota.com/2005/05/poll-on-trade-follow-lou-dobbs-not-tom.html "