Richard Spencer

February 05, 2009

I think it?s a little too easy for paleos types like Matthew to simply equate Obama?s support for free-trade with a global-leftist ideology, or his not being sufficiently rooted in America.

Obama doesn?t have relatives in ?the world,? he has relatives in Kenya; and if Obama is driven by a left-wing ideology, it isn?t ?worldism? but a residual black nationalism, as is laid bare in Dreams of My Father and Steve Sailer?s ?readers guide.? Last time I checked, we aren?t importing very many manufactured goods from Kenya, nor are many sub-Saharan countries looking like big winners in the globalization game.

Moreover, while liberals like Krugman might support free trade ?for the sake of the world,? Obama?s intellectual background is of a Marxian bent, in which all capitalism and trade is assumed to be part of big scam in which white (and now perhaps yellow) people cruelly lord over brown and black peoples. In the words of Rev. Wright, ?White folks greed runs a world in need.? (And, No, people like Wright and Obama aren?t likely to discriminate between the state-managed trade of NAFTA and ?real free-trade.?) And while I?m on this track, there are also massive amounts of American Christians in the South and Heartland, whom the paleos seem to assume are good, rooted, salt-of-the-earth types, who go to their megachurches and obsess about lifting up Africans and stuff like this. 

My point is that the question of free-trade and globalist ideology is much more complicated than Matthew is making it (or at least in my reading of his post) and that it?s time for right-wing critics of economic globalization to start making some different kinds of arguments than the only people who support it aren?t rooted in the land. 

I?d also emphasize that Obama isn?t really in a position to pursue a policy that he thinks would make Americans’ economic problems worse (as he helps out the world). I agree with Kevin that Obama?along with countless others in Washington?is absolutely clueless about economics, and he?s basically flailing around trying to do something?anything! But I?m positive he genuinely believes the government can ?save the economy? and improve the lives of average Americans.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.