This Will Play Well with the Base
End farm subsidies, says Bush, to the European Union member nations, and the U.S. will reduce theirs. Fine, says I, although recognizing that there are still small-holders out there likely to lose everything as a result, at least insofar as they are forced to sell out to the conglomerates. But if we’re going to help the Third World nations build their economies to feed themselves and grow industrially, this is part of what has to happen. We might want to work on keeping rapacious multinational corporations from exploiting the situation, however, whether in the U.S., the EU, or Africa, Asia, et al., unless we feel we’re ready for genetically modified food. Free trade, like communism, works well in theory, but in practice sometimes causes more harm than good. We haven’t heard much of a “giant sucking sound” as promised from NAFTA, but these things are more incremental than immediate, a condition that is all too easily exploited in the rhetoric that flies around in the lead-up to implementation. As much as we cannot afford not to act, we cannot afford to act rashly.

I do wonder just the same how this announcement will be received in all those “red” states, where “moral values” were the purported basis for Bush’s majority.