Thursday, August 27, 1998

Good cheer through a mad season

By Molly Ivins

AUSTIN - Strange peaches. There we were, trying to decide whether to can the president for having a frisky sex life and lying about it, when we were rudely interrupted by some clear thinkers who felt their grievances entitled them to kill about 250 Kenyans and maim another 5,000 in an effort to annoy us. El Prexy felt constrained to respond, big time, thus moving all who had been against him to be for him, and vice versa, more or less, leading to some really entertaining television chat shows.

I have a theory about the harmonic convergence of strangeness. I believe it comes in clusters. Thus, shortly after President Kennedy was assassinated, we watched the man who killed him get murdered on TV. After Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, we witnessed violent riots in memory of the greatest pacifist of our time. While we have been absorbed in the unedifying saga of Monica Lewinsky, the world has been storing up strangeness to dump on our heads. Economies around the world are collapsing, and now, Russia has reached complete crisis.

Could it be that the Great Pumpkin is trying to help us get our priorities straight?

I realize "I told you" is not a helpful response. Nevertheless, credit is due to those hardy few who warned us arming the mujahedeen was not a good idea.

I brought this up several years ago with Charlie Wilson, the Texas congressman who was practically an honorary member of the mujahedeen. He dismissed the concern as entirely unfounded. Nevertheless, what we have here is yet another case of the CIA arming people who later use our arms against us.

These unintended consequences of the Cold War keep coming back to haunt us, and Afghanistan was so late in the Cold War that at least some of us could see what was going to happen because we had watched it happen before.

Meanwhile, as our former allies in the Cold War are trying to slaughter us, we clearly need to help our former enemy in the Cold War. A useful article in The Nation pointed out several months ago that just as the University of Chicago was responsible for the economic mess in Chile (by introducing the merciless doctrine of free markets above all), Harvard University is responsible for the mess in Russia (having advised that government through various institutional mechanisms during what is now clearly a disastrous transition to free markets). We always like to find someone to blame, so let's blame Harvard.

However, it's unclear if anyone knows how to move an economy from socialism to capitalism without inflicting hideous damage on the people. Both Harvard and the Russians probably should have thought about it far longer than they did. The New York Times points out that Nigeria, the richest country in Africa, which is once again collapsing into civil war, is the victim of miserable leadership. Henry Kamm, in his new book on Cambodia, points out that country's 20 years of unnecessary agony was the consequence of miserable folly by its own leaders and others.

But unless a country lucks into a great leader (Nelson Mandela looks better all the time), is not some level of institutional solidity necessary before the less-than-tender mercies of the free market are applied? Are we not seeing the accumulation of evidence that some way to control greed has to be present before capitalism can work? As you may have noticed, we are still having trouble with that very problem ourselves after 200 years, and it can be seen even more clearly in Mexico.

The questions themselves imply a solution of sorts. Perhaps what we need to do here is concentrate less on bailing out Russia's economy than on building its legal institutions, giving it the means to enforce its own rules. If all capitalism does in developing countries is give kleptocrats a chance to steal billions, it's going to acquire an unpleasant reputation. And democracy along with it.

Meanwhile, Ken Starr was doing his bit for democracy by announcing he suspects the president of obstruction of justice through tie-wearing. Have we considered the possibility that the man is totally bonkers? Just when one is ready to give up on Clinton, Starr does something so surreally strange that Clinton starts to look good again. That man is blessed in his enemies. Newt Gingrich, Ken Starr and Osama bin Laden - what a trifecta.

I recommend, as always, trying for some level of good cheer through this season of strangeness. Because, you know, things can always get worse. And often do.

Creators Syndicate, Inc.