[PEN-L:5178] Re: Trade Sanctions

[Justin Schwartz <jschwart@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I can't specukate on Clinton's motives, as most of what he does seems
stupid to me even from his own point of view. But I can second Doug's
remark that Japan-bashing is strong in Michigan and Ohio, especially among
the employees of partly-Japanese owned auto companies like GM, Ford, and
Chrysler. It's odd: I have a Toyota made in Lexington KY and a Colt made
by Mitsibushi in Japan. Guess which is the "American" car? Here in central
Ohio, where the largest industrial employer is Honda, you better drive a
Chrysler (even if made in Japan), a Ford (even in made in Europe), etc. if
you want to get the blue collar vote or indeed the blue collar ear. (Do
collars have ears?)

Why the unions traded in a BVuy Unionn for a Buy American campaign beats
me. No, it doesn't. But it was a stupid and self-destructive thing to do,
and very harmful to working class consciousness.

A story: my barbers are working class women who leave talk shows on while
cutting hair. One day a few years back a woman auto worker was being
interviewed
who had won and refused some nonunion car on a game show and whose
esxplanation of her refusal had been bleeped out as "offensive." (Ideology
"R" us, eh?) My barber said that her brother would really agree with her
(the auto worker); he was big into Buy American. I said that wasn't the
woman's point. This took some explaining. BTw, the workers at the woman's
plant, as I recall, built a car for her on their own time which the union
paid for. You can't buy that sort of publicity. Unfortunately theor own
propaganda cancels it out.

Justin Schwartz

On Mon, 22 May 1995, Doug Henwood wrote:

> If US Kapital is so hot to open the Japanese market, then why is most of US
> big business so ambivalent at best about the Clinton sanctions? Van Doorn
> Oorms (I may have inserted a superfluous 'o' there somewhere), the chief
> economist for the Committee for Economic Develoipment, a ruling class think
> tank par excellence, was quoted in the NY Times the other day as being
> opposed to the administration's move.
>
> Don't underestimate domestic political considerations. The bite of the
> sanctions, if they hit at all, will be mainly on upper middle class voters
> who hate Clinton anyway, but it could gain votes among white male workers
> in the upper midwest, who are absolutely critical to BC's re-election.
>
> Doug
>
> --
>
> Doug Henwood
> [dhenwood@xxxxxxxxx]
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