Focus 580; Anti-Americanism

This morning in this part of focus 580 will be talking with Benjamin Barber. He's professor of civil society at University of Maryland and a principal of the democracy collaborative. He's an author of a number of books and one that got a lot of attention came up back in 1995 a book titled Jihad Versus MacWorld in which he made this argument that there were two forces at work in the world that he calls tribalism and globalism and the shorthand for those two things are jihad and make world in the title. He argues that in most ways these forces are in opposition yet one thing that they share is a distaste for democracy. In the book as I said a lot of positive attention to one fact one of the people who was oppressed by the book was President Bill Clinton. And as a result our guest Benjamin Barber got a chance to spend some time in the Clinton circle and in the White House and in an advisory kind of capacity. And he has a new book out that's based on that experience which is titled The Truth of power. The subtitle is intellectual affairs in the Clinton White House and that book is published by WW Norton

and is just out just fairly recently here. Also if you're interested in reading Jihad Versus Macworld that book is still available it's now out in paperback editions published by Ballantine. So that should be on bookstore by this time perhaps in the library. And as we talk this morning with Benjamin Barber You should certainly feel free to call in ask questions make comments be a part of the conversation we welcome that all we ask is people just try to be brief so we can keep things moving along. The number here in Champaign Urbana 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. Also we have a toll free line that's good anywhere that you can hear us and that is 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. Professor Barbara hello. Hi how are you. I'm fine thanks and thanks very much for for talking with us once again. Maybe we might just go back for a moment and ask you to talk about the basic arguments in the book Jihad Versus Macworld because there certainly seem to be relevant to where we are right

now. Well yeah I mean it's a little too relevant for my taste I mean it's I'm kind of sorry that it's as relevant as it is but what I. Maybe it's messages will be better received now and perhaps we can it will help us respond in more appropriate ways I mean I wrote for salute eight 10 years ago I started working on this and I was struck back then by the fact that about half the people writing about the world were saying the world was coming together around technology around global commerce and world trade around the American pop culture McDonald's fast food fast computers fast music MTV. Guys like Fukuyama were talking about the end of history history and capitalism triumphant. The other half like Robert Kaplan were saying the end of the world falling apart. The world's extent of tribalism reactionary fundamentalism. It was clear to me as they were both right. Both things were happening and they were happening simultaneously and I tried to write about the way in which the forces of integration and assimilation globalization

around what I called Make world and the forces of reactionary fundamentalism and tribalism and disintegration around what I called it actually were locked in a kind of battle with one another in which each of them needed the other in which they provoked and caused one another and in which between them there was an insidious effect on democracy on freedom and on diversity. So the notion was that neither Jihad nor MK world were serving diversity or freedom and indeed in the struggle between them. They were they tended to be destructive of democracy and that unless we understood those of us who were devoted to the world of the world the world of global capitalism the world of global markets the world of global commerce and global consumerism unless we understood the kinds of responses it was not only provoking but to some degree serving and facilitating. We were likely to be locked in a struggle that could get more violent and more difficult and undermine the freedom of democracy of modern states.

And in in trying to understand what happened and what motivated the attacks of September 11th it has been characterized by by many people as being an attack on Western ism and also an attack on modernism. It seems it would seem as if in large part this was an attack on Macworld. It is that the way that you see it. Well I think it was an attack on the world although let me be very clear about one thing I think there's a world of difference between the small circle of terrorists 18 and 19 here and maybe 100 or 200 here and elsewhere who provided the supportive framework for terrorism. This world is what they did and who they are and the larger third world characterized by despair and anger and resentment I think we need to make a sharp distinction between them because the terrorists themselves. After all we're not hungry people there were not people in poverty they were fairly well-off people educated in this case in fact and motivated I think we have to say by

little other than annihilation really nihilism there. They weren't there to negotiate. They weren't saying if you can increase North-South transfers if you can create a more just situation in Palestine we'll call off the terror. I mean clearly their terror is rooted in deep nihilism whose only and is destruction there's no way to deal with the terrorists themselves. Other than the way Bush is doing through I think a strong military intelligence response. But the larger circle in which terrorism operates which tends to facilitate and nurture it. We've seen pictures of people in third world Palestinian a West Bank in Pakistani and Afghan cities cheering the terrorists results. That's a different story. I mean there you have people who are not trying to destroy me join it. There you have people who don't want to destroy the global economy but have an opportunity to participate if and their situation is one which up until now we have not really begun to address and

I think in a sense the lesson of the Jihad Versus MK world are that unless we begin to address this world of global markets global capitalism and address the despair the anger the resentments and above all the hopelessness of so many young people in the rest of the world we're going to continue to have a breeding ground for terrorism. Such that no matter what we do with bin Laden and his associates Let's assume we get them all and eliminate them. We're still going to face the prospects of terrorism in the years to come. And you certainly touch on something that I have thought about and not really even been quite sure how it is to talk about what sort of terms to use but I guess I myself was very struck in again thinking about what happened in September when one starts to think about political motivation I guess I was left dealing with the fact that this was not a political act that it was and it was a political act. You know I think that's right it was an act against the very idea of politics. I mean politics is how we negotiate our differences and try to create you know justice and sometimes

people who are on the outside use violence as a part of the political system as a threat as a incentive or even as a mass face of their despair but usually violence under those circumstances is aimed at trying to change something and you know I was one of the tragedies here was that the good men who piloted those four airplanes clearly surrendered their seats to the scariest thinking and this is a standard negotiation you know they have been trained to accommodate hijackers to put the safety of their passengers above all and you know they obviously thought these guys wouldn't take the planes and land them somewhere that they'd enter into a negotiation but that the perfect proof that there was no negotiation was that all these terrorists wanted to do was use the. Planes as bombs and they did that I mean it was so there. There's no negotiating directly with these people. But that's not to say that America is not itself to a degree involved in the creation of a world which in turn has made a situation in which sharp north south

differences rich poor differences mean that over half the world really sees America as part of its problem sees us maybe unfairly. But the fact I mean we have to take the fact sees us as the ones who have created a world which gives their children no opportunities. The generational divide is very powerful in Pakistan for example half of Pakistan's population is under 16 and an awful lot of them you know are hungry. Palestine same thing much of the Third World the demographic curve you know favor favor the young and even in our first world cities like L.A. and Phoenix New York and Chicago and a lot of the population is young multi-cultural and poor. And that's a that's a devastating reality which creates. Issues that if we do not begin to address them I think even if we link terrorism in the first front war that Bush is conducting are going to mean in a couple years from now they'll be a whole new generation of terrorists and a whole new generation of problems even more

intractable than the current one so I think we really are compelled to conduct a two front campaign a campaign that has a strong and effective military intelligence front right now. But a campaign that also opens simultaneously a civic and political and if you like a Democratic front so that we're interested not just in retributive justice punishing those who did this ugly and horrible act but also distributive justice creating a world where the goods are more equally distributed between North and South rich and poor such that. There's no climate of terrorism in the future. Our guest Benjamin Barber professor of civil society at University of Maryland principal of the democracy collaborative author of a number of books his most recent on the mention beginning takes a look at intellectual affairs in the Clinton White House that's titled The Truth of power. Also you might be interested in his book Jihad Versus Macworld which was first published in 1995 actually based on an expanded version of an article that he

wrote for The Atlantic magazine that appeared in March of 1900 too and that's still there on their website if you just like to go and read a brief version. Also the book is available in paperback published by Ballantine questions comments are welcome 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. It seems to be it really difficult now at this point to have. Reason public sort of discussion about all of this the desire perhaps understandable and maybe even justified for for justice is so strong that people now for those people who are trying to raise the question of past American policies in the world and and how that helped to bring us where we are get get shouted down as being un-American somehow which Woods makes it difficult to have this conversation. Well it does but you know part of that is I some people I think particularly some people on the left have tried to make it a choice. They've tried to say we shouldn't respond

in a strategic and military intelligence terms. We're responsible for the world created and therefore we have to just do that I mean I think that's a mistake. These are not alternative strategies. They are parallel strategies. My own belief is that we need a strong military a prudent but a strong military response that does its best to locate and bring to justice. Despicable people who who actually did this act in a non negotiated act of naive nihilism and annihilation. But that there's no reason why simultaneously we can't. Not in the interest of some utopian world order but in the interest of national security why we shouldn't also treat with the underlying problem it reminds me of you know people who say one of the other. It's like if you're a smoker and you get cancer you go to your doctor and the doctor says we're going to leave the cancer there but stop smoking. You know that would be very foolish but it would be equally foolish to say we're going to cut the cancer out with some good surgery and use radiation but don't worry and keep smoking we've got to be concerned both with the tumour

and these terrorists are kind of cancerous tumor about to be cut out. But also the conditions that promoted the tumors to grow and to say that you know we can only do one or the other is a foolish kind of civic medicine. We need to do both we need to cut out the cancer with military intelligence surgery. But we also need to deal with the underlying conditions that promote the growth of cancerous tumors and to do so is not unpatriotic or is not even utopian foolishness. It's the essence. Of prudent prudent national security strategy that will enable us to change the conditions and secure ourselves from future terrorist attacks I mean that's my goal. Once upon a time I had an interest in global democracy simply in and of itself. At this point a more democratic unjust global order has become a pretty wet visit of American national security. And I think people who talk about those issues are just as much Patriots as people who rightly talk about the need for swift and effective and

just military retribution. We have several callers to bring into the conversation we'll start here with someone on a car phone on the line already for one. Yes John that I agree with your guest 100 percent I've been so frustrated in conversations with people recently who don't want to hear anything about the geo political context of how this happened. They hear any talk of what sounds to them like their you know reasoning behind the attacks as somehow a justification for them. And I find that distressing when it gets translated nationally into things like this. The really strident denunciations of people like Bill Maher and Susan Sontag I don't necessarily agree with the specifics of their comments. But in the sense that you know we can't talk about anything that smacks of the some people of as justifications when there is obviously no justification for what happened. Well if you want to comment further on that.

You never used the comma I think the caller points to the distinction between understanding and clarification on the one hand and making excuses on the other. It's also I mean I have to say people like Susan sun ZOG with their own kind of intemperate and sort of intrinsically anti-American stances don't help make a case for a broader understanding I mean when Susan Sontag says you know things like you know America's whole existence has been devoted to impoverishing the rest of the world and so on and the Americans are directly culpable for what just happened. She begins to sound some version of Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson he may recall said right after the attack on New York themselves sounding like Taliban that America deserved this it was the fault of abortionists and gays and the American Civil Liberties Union that this it happened this was God's wrath and in the certain way that there is a certain kind of leftist anti-American who says you know this is this is the wrath of the despairing of the poor on a despicable America about which nothing good can be said and that you

know it's too bad because that that gives the super patriots on the one hand and the kind of anti-American anti Patriots on the other. Create a climate of kind of Taliban like climate of extremism in which thoughtful and rational people the talk in the way your caller just did saying look you know there are issues out there that we have to address and face not. Just because it's right to do so and moral to do so and just to do so but in order to protect America and you know I mean the people I know who have been talking about the wider context are doing it not just because they care about justice but because they care deeply about America and they want to see America protected. And a simple way to sum this up is the say the best protection for America against terrorism is a more democratic unjust world. And if you can create that you will have also a much safer world and God knows what Americans want first of all I live in New York what I want first of all is safety. But you can't buy safety with military force alone.

You can only by saying the comment that I'd like to get a reaction from your guest chair and that is the analogy. You know when I think about what happened historically with Germany that facilitated the rise of Hitler and the kind of resentment and poverty that was. At work there is nothing about that justifies Hitler is action. But it did motivate world leaders to begin to want to construct a post-war order that would not you know that would hopefully prevent the rise of future fascism and I just wondered if that might be an apt way of thinking about how the US you should think about its post war attitude toward the problems you're talking about. I think that's entirely appropriate because in fact the aim of the post-war institutions from the Bretton Woods institutions to the United Nations to the Marshall Plan the reconstruction of Europe was a simple premise and that premise was that the best guard against future tele turn isms and fascism was democracy and that a democratic order in Europe could not flourish without a decent economic order and an order of

economic justice so the whole point of American policy after the war was to in a sense open that second front the first front had been the military front against Hitler and once that front was secured America and its allies understood that the front a second front had to be opened we had to create a democratic Europe and what's extraordinary is that in fact our closest one of our closest allies and one of the most democratic nations there today is Germany. You know here's a nation that 50 years ago was filled with Nazis and fascists and been badly defeated in a war which is now become a powerfully democratic nation and as a consequence a nation insulated internally. Exactly against the kind of terrorism and so on there where we're dealing with I mean I think that we that your call is exactly right. The second response to Naziism after they've been defeated militarily was to reconstruct Europe in a more just economic and civic and politically democratic order. You know way that would save it from fascism and communism in the future and that has succeeded I mean Europe is the most extraordinary

example of the power of democratization and of social and economic justice to insulate societies against extremism of the right and left and of Fundamentalisms and hyper forms of fascism and communism. We've talked about where in this particular discussion the poles of the debate are and it seems to be the case with this as with a lot of other things in American politics. That we have we have to probably relatively small very vocal groups on the poles and then the nation is somewhere in between. Surveys tell us that the president's getting very high approval ratings that there's a very high level of support for military action but I'm not I'm not sure that that really tells you where the country is in the way that they think about this. I wonder if you have some feeling and perhaps it only can be a feeling of Indeed where most Americans are on this.

Well I mean look I've done probably 40 or 50 radio and television interviews over the last couple of weeks here and in Europe. And what I found remarkable is that the tenor of discussion you know in all different parts of America. And in Europe has been one of what I would call thoughtful prudence. Of course there is anger. Of course there is rage and of course there is a deep human need for some form of retribution and justice to see it done I mean thousands and thousands of innocent Americans perished in the Pentagon and in the World Trade Center and perhaps even worse you know four planes were made into human bombs and they carried people who were utterly innocent including many babies. That was a horrendous deed and we all thirst for some meaningful form of retribution I think we have a right to that. But what's what is struck me even here in New York where people suffered most directly is that almost everybody I've talked to has said as long as they're not provoked by somebody who says you know America is the evil empire it has created an evil world and is responsible for anything that happen if you don't say that but simply

say. But there are causes in the world there are problems in the world that contribute to and help facilitate these sorts of despicable activities. And we also need to address them and I think there's been a hunger for this kind of an explanation and Interestingly even the Bush administration itself has moved in a more prudent direction in the first week understandably it talked about retribution it talked about swift military action. But as the administration itself came to see that there were no easy targets. That there were no visible uniformed enemies and that even the various governments that might be involved one way or another with if not harboring at least rationalizing the activities of terrorists that those were complex things and as a consequence we've seen Don Rumsfeld the secretary of defense and Col. Paul the secretary of the state and Bush himself begin to utilize a language which talks about partnership that talks about interdependent that talks about America's need to adjust to and accommodate the different realities of nations around the world there's a wonderful piece

yesterday in The New York Times op ed section by Don Rumsfeld the secretary of defense. They have a complicated world. And you know different place that we dealt with in different ways. There's a much greater and new sophistication a sense of the interdependence of the world such that I think the government itself is saying you know there's a need for thoughtful prudence here not just swift and random an arbitrary military strikes. Let's go on. We'll go to a caller in Urbana. This is line 1. Hello. Good morning. I grew up in the 50s and I recall a phrase that was bandied about a lot then and it was in the lightened self-interest and that referred to the fact that General Motors might indeed put out a huge quantity of cars that people belonged to a union usually who worked there and

the president is talking to. To the union head and said you know we could go we could go robotic and you guys wouldn't get any union dues. The union leader said. Well uh robots can't buy cars. And so I think the 50s were sort of a case of the latent self-interest but I don't see that now I see the corporations being willing to steal from even America. The jobs went overseas to sweatshops and Americans were in many cases left without viable skills and ways of earning a living. So I feed the corporations you know squeezing America squeezing the resources of America. I don't see them engaged in NY in self interest. And if they would be willing to decimate

American labor as they have in the last 10 years and how in the world would they be willing to bring in like democracy and. And care for the people who work in the Third World. I appreciate those sentiments but let me say corporations are doing what they're supposed to do. They have one responsibility and one responsibility alone that's to their shareholders and the profits of their shareholders. Their job is to maximize profits not to secure the interests of the United States. The can't have it just say more of them just let me finish the thought. The savage and brutal capitalism that exists now in the world that you rightly describe is not the fault of the capitalists. They did not dismantle the regulatory state. We did that we voted into power the Reagan administration we bought in the Bush administration we voted neo liberal ideology into power. We dismantled the regulatory institutions that oversaw

and that civilizing gave capitalism a human face and then we went on to create an international order in which democracy and regulatory institutions the rule of law vanished altogether because we thought it served these corporations. We did it that the WTO for example the IMF their democratic institutions they represent our government. It's our government that turned them into instruments of the corporate world. They're just the corporations do what they're supposed to do they live in a state of nature. They're there to compete with others to make as much money as they can and that's it. That's what they do. It's our job to regulate contain and civilize them and we have failed to do that because we have bought the etiology of privatization. I mean look at what privatization did in the safety area. Five bucks an hour to people who are an educated in many cases from foreign lands hardly speak the language to sit and watch the X-ray machines and so on in the airports of course. You get the you get what you pay for. In Europe airport security is a question handled by federal police.

It's a federal responsibility and national responsibility of the government. Here we privatized it we outsourced it and of course the companies that run the private security firms they're in it for the profits. They don't care about security so they paid as little as possible and as little training as possible. That's a perfect example of privatization. But again you can't blame the private firms you have to blame American citizens for creating a government that privatized what should be a federal police function and we now pay big for that. I think however to be a little more positive what you're now going to see is that a lot of Americans are going to suddenly understand that private corporations can't help them with their public interest in their public goods. On the morning of September 12 nobody woke up and called Bill Gates and said GI bill to help us out here we have a national security problem. Recognize that this is something that only American government can do. Suddenly mayors like Giuliani and governors like attacking presidents like Bush became emblems of our need to do things together. So I don't disagree with your analysis of what corporations do

but I think blaming the corporations is really to put the blame in the wrong place we created for 30 years. A neo liberal privatizing order in which our government was downsized and which even President Clinton you know despite many of us doing don't do it said this is the end of big government. He ended big government without ending big business of course big business had the advantage that the big businesses problem it's the government's problem because it got out of the business of regulating business. And so I want to say that this is our civic you know that's our civic mission is our civic responsibility to assure a government that takes its regulatory and legal and oversight function seriously. If we don't do that if we dismantle our state don't blame the corporations for doing what they do best which is making money like that. And if corporate money and even money from people that acknowledge corporate level who have been politicians who have been willing to dismantle the regulatory agency.

Corporations are doing what they do have their fair undermining America. I couldn't agree more but they're doing that according to laws passed by the Congress and it's passed by congressmen on both sides of the aisle progressive as well as conservative ones who are worried about you know keeping their incumbency. I agree. I agree that it comes back to us and so if you and I vote for politicians who won't vote for campaign finance reform then don't blame the corporations for buying the politicians and dumping the politicians for being bought. Blame ourselves for allowing those guys this thing Congress to make comes back to us it's too easy to scapegoat the corporations or corrupt politicians. This is a democracy where I last look we still vote for these folks and if we insist on voting for them regardless of these issues we get. I'm afraid you know what we vote for. It's very hard to influence our political Missi be it Republican or Democratic. And I'm not one of the people who voted for Nader.

So you know I'm not agreeing that it's very hard but you know democracy has always been hard it was hard. You lived under the Stuart kings to you know try to create an autonomous parliament it was hard when you lived under Louis the Sixteenth to create you know a revolution of Rights it was hard in 1776 for Americans to you know gain their independence of the certainly hard for people who lived under Soviet rule in the 1980s to break from it. Democracy is hard but it takes some work by us and it's much too easy to you know to turn and blame it on the corporations or the government when we you know we have that power and if we don't exercise it you know maybe we should start looking to ourselves and the problems that you know don't allow us to exercise or prevent. From ourselves exercising the power that we have and I know this isn't the way of saying it's OK. I completely agree with your analysis I think it's deeply corrupt to our system to have big money buying big power but we are the only ones who can do anything about that and if we don't it's not enough simply to scapegoat them and say Oh well there go the big

corporations again or there go the corrupt politicians we've got to bring it back home. It's all responsibility of terror. Terrorism is a wake up call. It's a wake up call to the necessity for American citizens to take their political fate back into their own hands and create a kind of government which creates a kind of world in which poverty and hopelessness are not bred because it's poverty and hopelessness that ultimately in turn breed terrorism. We just have about 15 minutes limit more than 15 minutes left I hope the last caller will forgive me for wanting to go on because the lines are full and I'd like to give a chance to some other people to have their say our guest this morning Benjamin Barber He's professor of civil society at University of Maryland and principal of the democracy collaborative. The number here is 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 toll free 800 2 2 2 9 4 5 5. Our next caller in line is champagne. One number two. Hello hello. I wanted to ask your caller about the democracy collaborative and whether they are somehow trying to work with people

in the Islamic and Arab world. On the one hand it's very hard to do you know say well you need to change your discourse or you know there's something a little unhelpful about your political and religious discourse as far as perhaps Jihad which might affect these people that are quite young and dissatisfied and see no hope for the future. But is there any effort to help people who want to change or prevent some kind of a counter religious discourse which I'm sure there are. I mean I know there are from personal acquaintances in the Arab and Islamic world in terms of I mean of education I guess. The thing I'm concerned about is I know that there are these people who are not very well educated who don't have much hope for the future but it seems like changing that it's just a very long term process and. Well it's going to take some kind of investment as well.

Well you're right I mean the investors the times not I mean this is something we can do some things pretty quickly by the U.S. government being started to show a somewhat different face you know after 10 years of not doing so last week. President Bush paid our U.N. dues you know he probably did that just because you know we want some influence the U.N. We better pay up our dues but nonetheless you know for 10 years we had you know a year ago we were Geck to the Kyoto Protocol on global warming we walked out of Durban the race racism common South Africa just the week before the terrorists. Fact now that that conference had been to some extent taken over by EPA logs who had their own agendas. But again America has to get used to dealing with these you can't just walk out every time you don't like something we walked away from the landmine ban treaties we were getting ready to walk away from the ABM the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty on the way to missile defense we rejected the new International Criminal Court at The Hague because it might compromise our sovereignty. And there are a lot of things America can do pretty quick to put on a different face. We also could begin to think about and you're right about the costs to think about what it may

cost to actually change the economic face of the world and that's something we really have to begin to do because you know half the world is under 16 years old right now in a lot of those young people in the third world and they're mostly in the south not the north. Are people for whom there's going to be very little hope if we don't create a juster economic order if we don't start paying in the north for the ecological and environmental reforms we're asking some other nations of the South to undergo you know we don't want slave labor we don't want to environmentally polluting forms of production but we don't want to pay for it. You know we in America in the West in the 19th century created our industrial order at the cost of the environment that we don't expect China to act like we did exactly in that but why shouldn't they unless they get some help unless India gets some help and Brazil gets some help and Chile gets some help in Indonesia. Get some help from us and paying the cost. We are right to say the world can no longer afford your production methods the way we did in the

19th century. But we have to say with that but we understand that that would put in possible burdens on your economy. So we will make transfers of wealth from the north to the south. That in effect pay for some of the measures you are going to take to protect not just your and air and water but our air and water as well. I don't really think this comes back to you know the earlier question about political will and we citizens I don't think it's such a big jump I mean if we make the commitment that we want the WTO and the IMF and the UN and other world bodies to be governed by the principle that every international trade measure every international treaty should be organized not about the protection of private investors but the protection and redistribution of wealth in ways that allows the third world the same opportunities we had in the 18th and 19th century. I think you could see within a year or two some fairly profound changes by people in laws that would also secure America's safety

against terrorists. I know that one out of eight dollars with invested in socially responsible investing before this happened or that was I think it from 1999 but. People on Wall Street thinking about that and you know what they are now right. Then they might not have been before September 11. But the the silver lining in the dark tumultuous You know hurricane cloud that came across the United States is that a lot of people are thinking about a lot of things that they weren't thinking about before. We all rightly are deeply concerned with the future safety of our children and of America on our air and water and I think a lot of people have learned that that's not something you can just do with missile defense. You know we had we even had a successful missile defense shield and most people think of it possibly get one but let's just say we had one. It would have done a thing to stave off these attacks because the new interdependence of the world is the interdependence of AIDS the interdependence of global prostitution and global crime rings the

interdependency of terrorism and those things creep on little silent feet across our borders they don't come in intercontinental ballistic missiles. And so we have to start addressing that part of the problem. And just as we very quickly after World War 2 as an earlier caller very intelligently said. Launched a massive Marshall Plan that within five years had reshaped and reconstructed the face of a war devastated Europe. There's no reason why with the same political will the same commitment of resources. We could not reshape the global order and make it in order that not only privileges economic interests in corporations and financial investors but one that protects and indeed in Vance's the interests of poor children in the third world that creates environmental safety with us contributing to the costs of I mean that those things are not difficult to actually do. What's difficult is to secure the political will to do them.

I find it very ironic that and perhaps sad that we suddenly what we've been doing as with Afghanistan before I don't think it's new but we're going to give them lots of food aid. And ironically I mean I'm not I'm can't state what we should have done after the Kuwait war or when we should have ended it. Should have it at the border at our at Baghdad. But I mean part of that great anger in the Arab world it's about the starvation of the Iraqis that you know we have food to send to the Afghanis. I don't know how we can possibly you know bring down Saddam Hussein by giving them food. But if we could have done that before we would be in a much better position now. Right and of course it's also the fact that when people are starving you don't want to just give them apples you want to help them plant apple trees so they don't need your donations and your philanthropy in the future. And America can't simply rely on philanthropy and trying to feed people because you know you feed people for a day and that's great but the more they're hungry again you have to help them create their own self-sustaining economies. And you have to give them the wherewithal to create those

economies in terms of and accommodating the standards of safety and child labor and environmental standards that you want to do and that means you have to help them you know you have to help them pay. For that what you want to do is create a sustainable economic in a sustainable ecological order in those countries so that you don't have to send people care packages but they can take care of themselves and again but I think I mean you know the short term sure is send some care packages. But in the long term I think a lot of people received a wake up call me my fondest wish I had like so many Americans I yearn for a real revenge on these horrendous terrorists who did what they did. I can think of no better revenge than those terrorists sitting in a hell. I've discovered that in fact their martyrdom won them a hell of not having and seeing that the acts they committed instead of bringing down America or turning us into a spiteful arrogant military Punisher instead brought us to our senses and led in the long run to a more democratic world a more just

world in which there was no place for terrorism. And what a wonderful revenge on terrorism to make them irrelevant to the world. Let's continue. Again I hope the caller. Get me going on go to Jacksonville for next color line 3. Hello. Are you new. Yes I. If you don't mind before I say anything else I did want to correct something that has just been said. The United States is importing a sizable percentage of our oil from Iraq in order to give them enough money so that there is absolutely no need for any kind of starvation to go on or anything remotely resembling it. The problem is that the leadership is not allowing the income to be used intelligently and that's something that right now we don't have any control over. But what I really wanted to say was that I think you kind of got into a situation where you have to realize that the free enterprise system which certainly has treated me well that's why I can be down here in Jacksonville Florida retired. Is that the

system is amoral and so is government. Government has to be amoral it has to look out for what is to its best advantage at all times. And until you configure a system which is going to take some philosophic study to be honest with you you're going to have to. Find something that modifies the free enterprise system. So that it is no longer a moral to have. Stockholders demanding you know quarterly increases in profits all the time is not an avenue to treat the rest of the world humanely. It's when you think about it it's probably counter to that. But until the rest of the world can economically. Be. Content with their lot so to speak in other words their standard of living comes up you're going to continue to have this this hateful revenge motivation because they see people living quite well and they see themselves in abject poverty.

Well you know when I die I appreciate what you say in you write about free enterprise but I want to say that I don't think the difference f'ing government and free enterprise is that one is supposed to be more on the other isn't whereas as you say neither can be moral. The difference is between. Can private interests you know that word Republic of the American Republic comes from the old Latin for press public and things of the public. The difference between the market and government is that government is about our public our common interests our common ground and free enterprise about our private interests in the free enterprise zone we are producers and consumers in the public ground. We are citizens and the difference between citizens and consumers is the crucial difference here because citizens think about their common interest what we share what we do together. And I think it is government's job in trying to embrace and discover and enforce our common interests to enforce the good of the public for the good of the Commonwealth the good of the common weal the private we owe on the private interests of the system and my problem of the last 30

years is we've seen a default of the public sector we have seen in the name of an etiology of neo liberal privatized and we have seen the dismantling of the public sector the dismantling of regulations I mean back in 1996 that precious public airways in the new technologies which for so long had been seen as a public utility were treated by the Clinton administration my administration I'm a Democrat you know as a private utility and turned over to the private sector completely privatized airport security. And allowed allowed these underpaid untrained illiterate guards to put the national safety in our hands I don't think we have to talk about moral vs. in moral. We want to talk about his public versus private and the way that you control and civilize and humanize capitalism is by putting it under public authority. The common wealth the common views of public citizens working for the public good and that I think is where we have gone wrong so I don't think we

have to worry about morality in the good guys. Here we have to worry only about public interest trumping private interests instead of as has happened for the last 25 years. Private interests trumping problems of interest which have about two minutes and I have three people holding an I'm sorry to say I can't get you all in. I'm going to try to at least give one more person a chance. We'll go to champagne and line one. Hello. Yeah. I just want to say that I just I think that the speaker is a very glib and very hypocritical as a liberal liberal approach. I can see why he went to the Clinton White House I think he was bought off by the Clinton White House. And I think that the spin. It's about corporations not having the moral responsibility is just a kind of Liberal Fascism. Well Professor Barber you can respond. I'll give you about a minute or so here I well let's take one more call. All human beings are Rizal instead of a rabbit actually to other human beings. OK let's get another hot I really don't want to see a Clinton in Burleson is extremely shallow and extremely facile and your way of way of

responding to Fleet Week I think we heard that first time to account again of well another caller with you know with a reasonable idea of his own or her own. Well I just well I we we try to we create we try to like to give the callers an opportunity to have their say I GOOD I'M GLAD I'M facile I'm a Clinton lover and he's a Clinton hater good. OK let's move on. All right well let's go to Bloomington Indiana then lie number four. Well I haven't heard of everything you have said Mr. Barber this morning but I haven't heard you mention Israel your whole analysis of the motivation of the terrorists. Nothing said about Israel. Haven't you missed the point. What does Israel what is Israel. How important is Israel you know it's a good question and obviously no discussion can take place without a discussion of Israel we don't have time to talk about everything but I do want to say that I believe that the underlying problems that nurture terrorism are not about Israel the terrorists themselves this particular group are certainly exercised about Saudi Arabia and the American presence there about the Palestinian-Israeli struggle but in the long term the circumstances that

breed terrorism. Rise out of the character or just of an international disorder and I think if we don't focus on that but instead simply make the Israeli-Palestinian conflict our struggle we will simply get caught up in all of the dilemmas and contradictions of that struggle and find ourselves incapable of acting. I think if we act on the larger scene to construct a world that is more just and more democratic we will find that as has always been the case the best answer to fascism to communism and to terror in the world is democracy. We are going to have to stop I'm sorry to say but we're just at the end of the time. We want to say to you thanks very much for giving us some time to watch for this lively discussion. Guest Benjamin Barber He's professor of civil society at the University of Maryland. Principal of the democracy collaborative. His new book intellectual affairs in the Clinton White House titled The Truth of power published by Norton. And if you're interested in reading the book Jihad Versus McWorld that book also is still

available it's published in paper by Ballantine Books.