Rallying against the Radical Right
TYLER, GUS
Rallying against the Radical Right Reason: Why Liberals Will Win the Battle for America By Robert B. Reich Knopf. 257 pp. $24.00. Reviewed by Gus Tyler Syndicated columnist;...
...In the Radeons' eyes, evil is linked to sex: "out-of-wedlock sex, homosexuality, abortion...
...Born on the heels of the War, the baby boom generation grew up in a time of dizzying change...
...Can they afford to reduce hazardous factory conditions, or to limit the workday to eight or 10hours?The wageof $1 that laborers in China commonly receive for a 16-hour day suggests otherwise...
...As it turned out, because the law applied universally, buying power leaped upward among consumers nationally, and clothing companies that in the Depression days were going bankrupt enjoyed newfound revenues because millions of American workers could suddenly afford to buy clothes...
...As anyone who has called for technical computer assistance knows, the advice frequently comes from India— sometimes with a distinctive IndianBritish accent...
...But the Radeons go soft on such antisocial behavior in the white collar world while they denounce legal abortion as a criminal act...
...For them ends justify means...
...Although he recognizes the roots of this reaction, Reich concludes that it has fed a repressive political movement which threatens our basic freedoms...
...As for the brainy stuff, the evidence shows that a substantial portion of it is already being outsourced...
...Should the Democratic Party accept Reich's stance that outsourcing presents no real threat to the U.S...
...Punishment is another instance where liberals and Radeons diverge...
...This was not an isolated incident...
...ports to Chinese products until Beijing grants workers the right to form independent unions and to go on strike...
...Most Republicans supported it, not out of conviction, but because they did not dare vote against the proposal...
...They demanded a world created in their own image...
...They'll do whatever it takes to win...
...apparel producers in 193 8 when Franklin D. Roosevelt's Administration proposed a minimum wage of 25 cents an hour...
...More important to liberals are corporate leaders who abuse the vast power their firms entrust to them...
...Some 10,000 computer programmers in Lahore owe their employment to American and European companies...
...The nascent Radeons spoke of themselves as the "moral majority," implying that those who did not share their ideology were members of an immoral minority...
...Hence, there must be laws enacted and enforced by government to circumscribe such deviant behavior, punish the perpetrators as examples, and uphold the paradigm of the family...
...Liberals, on the other hand, hold that regulating sexual behavior between consenting adults constitutes an invasion of privacy...
...He further charges that "legal bribery," in the form of massive campaign contributions, has in effect transformed American democracy into a plutocracy—government of the rich, by the rich, for the rich...
...In short, the U.S...
...He deals lightly with the past, heavily with the present, and fervently with the future, shifting in tone between cogitation and agitation...
...Almost every day newspaper headlines report the multifarious ways they cheat their shareholders, employees, customers, and the government...
...Reich sees the Radeons' rise as a response to the radical Left's antics during the late 1960s...
...It simply means there are fewer routine jobs...
...To many in the United States, what the young called freedom seemed like licentiousness...
...The focus on sexual matters, Reich contends, is a case of misdirected moral energy...
...The most striking recent case was IBM's firing of 6,000 highly trained and well paid computer programmers when the company transferred the work to India...
...companies...
...It makes no sense," he says, "for the Left to demand that our trade treaties with poor nations include labor and environmental standards unless such standards are pegged to what poorer nations can afford...
...Europe's old empires were falling apart, and new nations were springing up in Africa and Asia...
...But he inexplicably breaks ranks on one of the hottest subjects in the 2004 election: the "outsourcing" of jobs to foreign countries by U.S...
...Because "any job that's even slightly routine is disappearing from America," he goes on, "this doesn't mean there are fewer jobs overall...
...The vacuum, says Reich, will be filled by jobs in the personal service sector—e.g...
...Radeons have driven a hard line, staking much politically on the need for capital punishment and stiff prison terms...
...In contrast to traditional conservatives— like Arizona Senator John McCain or, Ohio Governor Bob Taft—who want to preserve what they consider to be traditional American values, the Radcons are "revolutionaries...
...The author admits that millions of American jobs have been lost to outsourcing, but, he consoles us, practically all those jobs are "routine...
...In the Senate a bill to deny Federal contracts to firms that outsource was passed to the tune of 76 to 20...
...former assistant president, ILGWU In his ninth book, Robert B. Reich— who served as President Bill Clinton's Labor Secretary, ran unsuccessfully for Massachusetts' governorship, and is currently an adviser to presumed Democratic standard bearer John Kerry—presents a well argued evaluation of the state of American liberalism and how it could and should reinvent itself...
...They deem what goes on in the bedroom to be a matter of public morality...
...Liberals, many of whom oppose the death penalty, believe excessive sentences directed against offenders are, in the long run, bad for the individuals and bad for the society...
...Both their numbers and the explosive years when they came of age made them feel they were, rightfully, the wave of the future...
...economy, President George W. Bush and his fellow Republicans are likely to score an impressive victory in the November elections...
...To combat it, they have demanded that all trade agreements contain clauses outlawing the production of goods by child labor or slave labor, or by workers denied the right to organize...
...Even the reading of x-rays is often done overseas...
...In all of the foregoing—and in a chapter on the war in Iraq entitled "Why We Can't Fight Terrorism with Imperialism"—Reich reflects the thinking of mainstream American liberals...
...Given free reign, their zeal for regulating individual behavior would bring about a gigantic expansion of government into people's personal lives...
...States run by Democrats and by Republicans have passed legislation to deny state contracts to companies that engage in the practice...
...nurses, bartenders, barbers, doctors, dentists, hotel and restaurant employees, etc.— and by a second category engaged in "symbolic analytic" work that involves "analyzing, manipulating and communicating through abstract symbols...
...has no monopoly on brains...
...Reich's argument recalls that of U.S...
...It is true that personal service jobs are increasing in the U.S., yet, as Reich himself notes, most of them pay poorly...
...If the Democrats take his advice and lose, I have a title for his 10th book: Apologia Pro Mea Goof...
...Liberals in general, and unionists in particular, oppose the growing practice...
...Robert H. Bork, who as attorney general during President Gerald R. Ford's Administration hired Reich— a former student of his at Yale Law School—to work in his office, put it bluntly: "Every new generation constitutes a wave of savages who must be civilized...
...Reich seeks to rally liberals against a group of zealous opponents he dubs "Radeons," for "radical conservatives...
...Anyone has the right to decry such actions as improper, but they stand outside the purview of legislation...
...The subtitle of Reich's book reads, Why Liberals Will Win the Battle for America...
...Can poor nations afford to outlaw child labor, or grant employees the right to join independent unions...
...They posed a threat to civilization and had to be curbed, if necessary by force...
...They wanted not only to be free of past restraints but to flaunt their freedom in the face of those who felt they should adhere to tradition...
...We are radicals working to overturn the present power structure of the country...
...Though he does not define "routine," he seems oblivious to the fact that most jobs in the U.S., whether in the manufacturing or service sectors, require repetitive operations...
...The AFL-CIO, a key force in a liberal coalition, has taken advantage of the Trade Act of 1973 to file a request to close U.S...
...In passing, Reich points out that if the Radeons' moral code were enacted, theirphony derision of "big government" would become even more ludicrous...
...Southern garment employers, who were paying as low as five cents an hour, claimed they would go bankrupt if forced to increase hourly pay by 500 per cent...
...Discussing the clashes between liberals and Radeons, Reich locates a fundamental ideological divide over the concept of evil and the way government ought to confront it...
...The author cites Paul Weyrich, founder of the Heritage Foundation, who declared boldly, "We are no longer working to preserve the status quo...
...Reich is against these demands...
Vol. 87 • May 2004 • No. 3
