dozen or so representatives in the New York region who were
voting against NAFTA. It showed their contribu - tions from labor
and said that this raises ominous questions about the political
influence of labor, and whether these politicians are being honest,
and so on.
As a number of these representatives later pointed out, the
Times didn’t have a box listing corporate contributions to them or to
other politicians—nor, we may add, was there a box listing
advertisers of the New York Times and their attitudes towards
NAFTA.
It was quite striking to watch the hysteria that built up in
privileged sectors, like the Times’ commentators and editorials, as
the NAFTA vote approached. They even allowed themselves the
use of the phrase “class lines.” I’ve never seen that in the Times
before. You’re usually not allowed to admit that the US has class
lines. But this was considered a really serious issue, and all bars
were let down.
The end result is very intriguing. In a recent poll, about 70% of
the respondents said they were opposed to the actions of the labor
movement against NAFTA, but it turned out that they took pretty
much the same position that labor took. So why were they opposed
to it?
I think it’s easy to explain that. The media scarcely reported
what labor was actually saying. But there was plenty of hysteria
about labor’s alleged tactics.
The CIA
What about the role of the CIA in a democratic society? Is that an
oxymoron?
You could imagine a democratic society with an organization that
carries out intelligence-gathering functions. But that’s a very minor
part of what the CIA does. Its main purpose is to carry out secret
and usually illegal activities for the executive branch, which wants
to keep these activities secret because it knows that the public
won’t accept them. So even inside the US, it’s highly undemocratic.