19 March, 2008

Globalization

Exhibit one, Barack Obama:

This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life. This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn’t look like you might take your job; it’s that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit.

Exhibit two, the Times of India:

More than a century after the company’s great forbear Jamshedji Tata scoured Ohio looking for steel expertise, India’s tech major Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) opened a 1000-seat delivery centre outside Cincinnati on Monday, marking a small but significant counter to overwrought reports about job flight from the United States.

To be honest, I quote the only part of the Obama speech that made no sense. The rest of it was flat-out brilliant. He spoke of race in America with a nuance and subtlety that is rare in political discourse, but his rhetoric against free trade and profit, which are the driving forces of human progress, was archaic and befuddling. He was making a speech for posterity, not just for the Democratic Party nomination, and his populist pandering, which lacked the nuance that set the rest of his speech apart, struck a discordant note.

That said, even if he really believes his economic spiel and wasn’t just pandering, even if many of his ideas are wrong, I admire this man immensely. He could have taken the safe way out and “denounced and rejected” Jeremiah Wright. But instead, as the Philadelphia Inquirer put it, he “condemned the sins but embraced the sinner.” That takes courage and conviction, so hats off for that.

For more, check out the reactions linked from Real Clear Politics.