(Ian Williams is another leftist supporter of the EU Constitution along with Toni Negri. Williams distinguished himself as a long-time supporter of NATO's wars in the Balkans.)
Just Say Non to Progressive Values By Ian Williams, AlterNet. Posted June 1, 2005. The French predictably voted "non!" to the proposed EU constitution this weekend. While the outcome of the referendum was hardly surprising, the reactions of some U.S. commentators to the vote were as collectively incoherent as the motives of the voters themselves. Diehard conservatives in the United States cheered on French Communists and leftists for their success in frustrating a multinational challenger to U.S. global dominance, while many on the American left expressed solidarity with their French comrades who joined with fascists to vote down a "capitalist" constitution. The irony of this blinkered endorsement is redoubled by the rejected constitution itself, which guarantees rights undreamt of by any liberal in the United States. This is a constitution derided by the conservative Weekly Standard for guaranteeing "entitlement to social security benefits and social services providing protection in cases such as maternity, illness, industrial accidents, dependency or old age, and in the case of loss of employment." How can so-called liberals in a country that has 45 million uninsured citizens dismiss a document that ensures the right of access to preventive health care and the right to benefit from medical treatment? The draft constitution even has a clause on animal rights -- whither Brigitte Bardot? -- and recognizes equal rights for religions and "philosophical" associations for all those born-again atheists. full: http://www.alternet.org/story/22123/ -- www.marxmail.org
