THE CLINTON VISION Noam Chomsky ISBN 1-873176-92-9 CD 56 minutes $12.98 Orders to: AK Press POB 40682 San Francisco, CA 94140-0682 U.S.A. Contact Patrick Hughes (415) 923-1429 For those among you who have had the pleasure of hearing Noam Chomsky fire one of his critiques at the rule of capital, this CD will give you the opportunity to enjoy and learn once again. For those who haven't heard this anarcho-syndicalist Doctor Who of the Academy, here's your chance to listen to him as he blows the media smoke away from the Clinton Presidency, while he holds the mirror of logic to the face of lesser evil. How does he do it? Being a world renowned expert in the field of linguistics helps. But don't let that scare you. Chomsky is as easy to understand as a clear blue sky. He follows his usual method here. By taking quotes from the most "respectable" of sources--the "Wall Street Journal", the "New York Times", U.N. statistical documents and Bill Clinton's own speeches--he is able to expose the smell of burnt human flesh underlying the cost-efficiency ethics of the ruling class chefs--in this case their Chief Executive Officer in the State apparatus. So, what is the Clinton Vision? Listen to this CD as Chomsky makes it stand up on its three hind legs--the globalization of capital, the replacement of bourgeois democracy with corporate totalitarianism, and the gulagization of unproductive (of profit) members of the proletariat. The globalization of capital has and is being ratified in various international trade agreements: NAFTA, GATT and the Asian Pacific Agreement. Noam chooses to illustrate this by using Clinton's visit to the Boeing complex to sign the APA. According to the Clinton Vision, Boeing sets an example for the future of U.S. capital in the New World Order. Boeing, a company whose stockholders enjoy immense State subsidy in the form of research and development costs via the military, is that hybrid of current successful market competitiveness. Little did you know that when you hopped that jet to Newark, you were riding in a modified bomber design. The mingling of the State and capital is the model of the Clinton Vision, whether it is Boeing, Cray Computer or the nuclear power industry in the U.S.A.. That this model of capital is being ratified in agreement after agreement on a world scale shows that other ruling classes realize the same vision. Needless to say, Chomsky makes it clear that their interests and ours are not the same. Linked to this notion for the need to ratify corporate/State capital's dominion over the world market by "agreement" is the corollary need to distance control over political decision making from the unwashed masses. As if the distance were not already great enough, agreements like NAFTA, the APA and so on tend to have clauses embedded in them which prohibit national entities from passing laws which conflict with their "agreed" on positions. Thus the governing model of the Clinton Vision is more and more closely aligned with the totalitarian operating structure of the modern corporation and less and less with the republican form of government initiated by the American revolutionaries of the 18th Century. Connected to both the international agreements and the increasing attraction of the corporate power pyramid as a means of political rule, is the answer to that age old capitalist question--"what to do with the unemployed?". The Clinton Crime Bill and the billion dollar prison construction plans are no accident of history. We're not rebuilding the infrastructure here; we're constructing the gulag of the future for those who, according to Chomsky, have no value to the privileged elites of the U.S.A.. "Human beings have value only in so far as they contribute to profit making." Seems to be the prime directive of the modern bourgeois "Enterprise". This lecture provides us with both a lesson in contemporary political economy and an example of how to cut through the crap of media mystification. The "Clinton Vision" demonstrates conclusively that relying on the lesser evil is not the solution. The hard truth is that we can only depend on ourselves, organized as One Big Union. Mike Ballard This review is from the pages of the "Industrial Worker", newspaper of the Wobblies. Send $15 for a 1 year sub to: Industrial Worker PO Box 2056 Ann Arbor, MI 48106 U.S.A.