Fast track, Clinton, and bourgeois democracy

[john gulick <jlgulick@xxxxxxx>]

>From today's _NYT_,

> Clinton argued that if the House vote were taken in secret, "it would pass
> overwhelmingly," but that members of Congress were under intense pressure
to > vote against the measure, an oblique reference to the political clout
of > organized labor, which opposes it. He accused House members of being
more > concerned about their own political futures, than about national
economic > policy.

This is preposterous, pathetic, and hilarious all at the same time. Clinton
touts "spreading the ideals of American democracy (sic)" as one of the virtues
of FTA's, and then not only subverts it in practice in the U.S., but also
philosophically argues that Congresspeople making decisions on behalf of their
popular constituents (supposing for a second that any such thing occurs) is
unsound. This is really grotesque -- the man won't even give a superficial
nod to the procedural rituals of bourgeois democracy. He might as well be
Fujimori.

John Gulick
Ph. D. Candidate
Sociology Graduate Program
University of California-Santa Cruz
(415) 643-8568
jlgulick@xxxxxxx