Justice . . . Do You Want It?

In his latest editoral in Tom Paine, Mark Engler argues that:

Arguments for trade and development policies that truly address poverty and serve working people have moved from the left margins into the mainstream of international debate. The paradigm of "neoliberalism" that dominated world development for two decades has been steadily losing legitimacy. And, in its wake, some important spaces for building alternatives have appeared.

Whether in the Democratic sweep of the midterm elections, in the eruption of domestic protests supporting immigrant rights, in the leftward realignment of Latin American politics, in the collapse of the Doha round of talks at the World Trade Organization, or in extended victories in issues like debt relief, these trends continued in exciting ways in 2006.

Who knows, maybe it's the holiday season, but I'm actually feeling cautiously optimistic politics-wise for 2007 - at least relative to the relentless disaster the last two and a half years have represented. The reason for this is best summed up by Engler's next paragraph:

Given that Bill Clinton’s Democrats were the party of NAFTA, and that the Dems continue to rely on big money from corporate America, many global justice activists have long grown skeptical that a push for real change can be led from Capitol Hill. While this view has merit, the Democratic landslide nevertheless represented a serious blow to the reactionary Bush administration, and you would have to be unusually jaded not to see any bright spots in the electoral sweep. In fact, in terms of trade and development issues, the midterm elections helped foster a major realignment within the Democratic Party away from a corporate globalization agenda.

But the Wall Street Wing, AKA "Centrist" Democrats will not go quietly into that good night, as can be witnessed by the recent birth of the Robert Rubin-inspired "Hamilton Project". Thankfully, now progressive forces are planning a new policy project to launch next month to serve as a counter-weight. I'm looking forward to finding out more about this latter project, as well as following what is shaping up to be what Harold Meyerson referred to in the Washington Post as the "Democrats' Economy Wars".

Here's to fighting the good fight in 2007.