Politics as usual

What I learned today:

Supercapitalism is not ... ta da! It's SUPER CAPITALISM to the rescue!

Robert Reich talked like a politician (he ran for office once). He also pointed out something quite obvious: technology/innovation created greater global competition between firms which created cheaper costs for goods which created worse conditions for workers. His solution (as it sounded to me): spend those few extra dollars for the "Made in [insert your country here]," elect better leaders. The main point of his book, I guess, was to point out the problem, not really to create a solution. [The New York Review of Books here and his rebuttal to the review here]

I wish I could have asked him what he expected low-income people (36.5 million in the US) to do when shopping. Like they can afford the extra 5$ for organic. Also, why are the consumers so completely blamed? I remember when we boycotted certain clothing lines (and even stores), but where did that get us? There was a slow infiltration of "Made in [other country not yours]" and all of a sudden there weren't any options to buy "Made in the USA." Really, if we want to tackle labor injustices and failing competitively, instead of freaking out about "those people who steal our jobs" why aren't we pressuring our leaders to help improve the situation in "those people's countries?" If Mexico and Morocco and Portugal and China and Thailand had better economies themselves wouldn't that stop their workers from taking jobs for pennies an hour? Maybe we ought to send our laid-off union workers overseas to organize!! The United World of Cesar Chavez.

But this wasn't really the point of his book (although it was of his speech - something I'm learning: give a b.s. speech for about 30min-1hr and then take questions because no one cares what you say really, they've already brought their own questions). The point was that supercapitalism is making us only focus on the bottom line and turn into economist heads. There's no social in our capital. There's no people in our labor. There's no "doing it for the kids, yeah" in our rock and roll.

Run, candidate, run!

Alas, I ducked out for Jerry Hagstrom's presentation on the current state of elections in the US. Sometimes I wonder how these people score the gigs they get. Yesterday he was in Brussels, today he's in Paris, but really he's kind of just a wry guy who happened to be in Iowa when things went down this year. (I'm glossing over the 30 years of being contributing editor for the National Journal.) There was no amazing insight into the Dems or Repubs or the campaigns as a whole. He did a Freudian slip at one point and said, "President Clinton" instead of Senator. He also incorrectly paraphrased the "bureaucracy" debate between Clinton and Obama - trying to distinguinsh the differences between them right now - and said that Obama said he wasn't a manager and Clinton rebutted with the fact that she is. When really he said something different to the Reno paper and was misinterpreted by Clinton on it.

He did make a good point on the length aspect of campaigning in the US. I was rolling my eyes when I was back in the States hearing about possible December primaries. But imagine if the future president in Europe had to campaign from Malaga, Spain, all the way up to Oulu, Finland? You'd want time, too!

He also briefly grazed the topic about the dynamics surrounding women voters and Clinton. Older feminists are dismayed that a lot of young women are leaning to Obama. He's a youth magnet I hear, confirmed by Hagstrom's critique of "Dreams From My Father": it's heavily influenced by "Catcher in the Rye" and "On the Road." My counter-critique: how old is Obama? Born in 1961, Rye published in '51, Road in '57 - it's not too far of a stretch to think it wasn't deliberate that he reflects these literary pieces. [The above rebuttals to Hagstrom are simply because he leaned rather Hillary in his analysis which dismayed me as I had hoped for a balanced report from home.]

Anyway, the women are divided. The older feminists celebrate that finally there's a chance at a woman president. While the younger feminists say, so what? Is she really the better candidate? I understand this debate. For the first time in our country's history we have an awesome connundrum. A man of color and a woman running for leadership of our country (not discounting Edwards, mind you, but he is 3rd in this potato sack race). And for all the history of women fighting for my rights, I feel compelled to step up and be a new shoulder for the younger generation to climb up on. I'm just not sure that I can vote for someone because of their gender or skin color. But I am grateful for being able to decide that.

Not to ignore the Republican side of things, Hagstrom did go into the complexities of that primary, too. It seems like, for different reasons, both parties are struggling to decide who their leader should be. Of course, because I'm going to vote against Republicans this year, I've not paid much attention to them. Hagstrom seems to think it's coming down to McCain, Huckabee, and Romney. But he says that McCain has it a lot harder due to his age - 71!! Huckabee, his super conservativism. Romney, his flip-floppiness and Mormonism.

And, then, I heard that the Iraq war has taken major backseat to the economy. Our friends over here were dismayed to see this trend. I wanted to hear more on the candidates' stand on foreign policy (which does not only equal the Iraq War - which seems to be the case on Clinton.com - really, who designed her website? Tsk, tsk), but Hagstrom didn't have much to say on that.

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I sent in my absentee ballot request form so I should get some down here any day now. I'm still undecided and I know it'd be impossible for it to be a BarHilClinObam Pres/VP ticket - the one offered the VP would be insulted, I'm sure. So, if you have special insight or reasons for why you're voting for whomever, please share that with me.

Oh, and, we really need to stop letting the crazy Americans leave the country. One guy, during the Q&A, stood up to explain why the Iraq War was a good idea and why Bush is great and why Europeans suck. I wonder if he got cornered in a dark alley later - I wouldn't put it beyond nicely suited French men to toss a fist around when it's warranted. Not so smart.


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Update (01-20-08): Here's Jerry Hagstrom's overview - in French - on the Sci Po web portal (which I did not know existed, whoops). I also joined the Transatlantique student group which is a unification of French and US students at Sci Po. Unfortunately I missed the opportunity to have dinner with the US Ambassador as the slots were filled. I'm sure there will be other wonderful events in the future.