Thoughts from
San Diego on Law, Politics, and Culture

 
The Browns and the Greens
By Tom Smith

From Mark Strauss's "Antiglobalism's Jewish Problem" in the important journal Foreign Policy:


History is repeating itself. As in the 19th century, the far right is plagiarizing left-wing dogma and imbuing it with racist overtones, transforming the campaign against the capitalist “New World Order” into a struggle against the “Jew World Order.” The antiglobalization movement is, however, somewhat culpable. It isn’t inherently anti-Semitic, yet it helps enable anti-Semitism by peddling conspiracy theories. In its eyes, globalization is less a process than a plot hatched behind closed doors by a handful of unaccountable bureaucrats and corporations. Underlying the movement’s humanistic goals of universal social justice is a current of fear mongering—the IMF, the WTO, the North American Free Trade Agreement, and the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) are portrayed not just as exploiters of the developing world, but as supranational instruments to undermine our sovereignty. Pick up a copy of the 1998 book MAI and the Threat to American Freedom (wrapped in a patriotic red, white, and blue cover), written by antiglobalization activists Maude Barlow and Tony Clarke, and you’ll read how “Over the past twenty-five years, corporations and the state seem to have forged a new political alliance that allows corporations to gain more and more control over governance. This new ‘corporate rule’ poses a fundamental threat to the rights and democratic freedoms of all people.” At an even more extreme end of the spectrum, the Web site of the Canadian-based Centre for Research on Globalization sells books and videos that “expose” how the September 11 terrorist attacks were “most likely a special covert action” to “further the goals of corporate globalization.”

Unfortunately, conspiracy theories must always have a conspirator, and all too often, the conspirators are perceived to be Jews. It takes but a small step to cross the line dividing the two worldviews. “If I told you I thought the world was controlled by a handful of capitalists and corporate bosses, you would say I was a left-winger,” an anarchist demonstrator told the online Russian publication Pravda. “But if I told you who I thought the capitalists and corporate bosses were, you’d say I was far right.”

The browns and greens are not simply plagiarizing one another’s ideas. They’re frequently reading from the same page.

posted by thomas at 12/06/2003 06:22:00 PM