February 5, 2002
Kamloops Daily News



The devil incarnate, Osama bin Laden, may have disappeared
from the radar screen but one small problem remains.   On
September 11, 2001, the world changed forever.

That's the way it often is.  Single, pivotal events cause a
cascade of dominoes that can never can be reset.  For
example, the assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand of
Austria-Hungary on June 28, 1914, triggered World War I.

The world was forever changed on November 9, 1989.  The
Berlin Wall ceased to be a barrier between east and west
Germany. The Berlin Wall symbolized something greater than a
physical divide.  It also represented the divide between the
competing ideologies of the world's two superpowers,
communist Russian and the capitalist U.S.   The fall of the
wall was seen by many as the failure of not only communism,
but also socialism.

"The dozen years between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the
assault on the Twin Towers will be remembered as an era of
delusion," says John Gray, author of The Two Faces of
Liberalism.  The collapse of one catastrophic utopian
experiment in 1989 launched another -- a global free trade
market.

Both experiments, Marxism and globalization, have the
similar underpinnings, says Gray.   "In both, history is
understood as the progress of the species, powered by
growing knowledge and wealth, and culminating in a universal
civilization."   

The new era, post-Twin Towers, will be characterized by
disillusionment of free market ideologies and neo
liberalism.  The exact nature of our new era of
disillusionment has yet to unfold but a few things are
clear.

Many Americans understood the fall of Russia to mean the
triumph of capitalism as embodied in the American way of
life.  It is now obvious that way of life is not universally
embraced by a large portion of the earth's 6 billion
inhabitants. 

The rapid consumption of non renewable energy by its engines
of industry;  the destructive life style as demonstrated by
increasing morbid obesity in children; the worship of
celebrity and self; -- all symbolize decadence, not the
triumph of a world ideology.

It was a popular model that Governments the world over tried
to emulate.  They moved decidedly to the right -- punishing
the poor through reduced welfare and unemployment insurance;
rewarding the wealthy with tax breaks. 

The only successful left-of-centre governments, like Prime
Minister Tony Blair's Labour Party in Britain, integrated
capitalist concepts.

But now even Canadians are changing their view of the
American dreamland.  In a recent CBC/Maclean's poll, 25 per
cent of Canadians said that they would like to live and work
in the U.S.  In 1990, it was 30 per cent.  In the same poll
two-thirds of Canadians felt "Cordial but distant" or
"friends but not especially close". 

In B.C., warmth towards the U.S. was lowest in Canada, with
three-quarters feeling distant from the U.S.  But that's not
surprising, given the treatment of B.C. by the American
softwood industry.   When the illegal U.S. duty on our
softwood causes the loss of 30,000 jobs, it's hard to feel
warm and fuzzy towards our American cousins.

The opinions Canada-wide are surprising, however,  when you
consider that Canada is viewed as the tiny siamese twin of
the U.S., joined at the hip.  Whichever way the U.S. turns,
it's expected that we will follow.

What's odd is that B.C. is again out of step with global
ideology.  While capitalist flames raced from state to
country in the 1990s, B.C. had a left-leaning government.  
At the same time places like New Zealand  swallowed the
right-wing prescription whole.

Taxes were cut to the rich in the pretense of creating jobs. 
Spending to education and social services were cut.  Public
utilities were sold off.   But New Zealanders woke from
their right wing dream and tossed the neo-liberals out.

The new prime minister of New Zealand, Helen Clark, had some
advice to others who want to try the right-wing experiment,
"Don't try it.  It won't work"

Now, B.C. premier Campbell is embarking on his own
neo-liberal experiment that has failed elsewhere.  Does
Campbell know something he is not telling us?  Perhaps the
whole world is out of step but B.C. 

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