Djelloul Marbrook

The business of The New York Times, like that of any media company, is language, and as newspapers go The Times is the most literate. That is why I was disquieted to read this passage in a Times editorial yesterday:

“Mr. Bush’s father deftly managed the Soviet Union’s dissolution. President Bill Clinton did a poorer job managing Russia’s post-cold war decline and Mr. Bush has done even worse managing its resurgence.”

Managing? Another country’s affairs? I know perfectly well The Times is referring to the management of our response to events in Russia. But, having at its disposal a language so rich in nuance, it strikes me as odd The Times would use such a word.

What I fear is that corporate imperialism dictated this language. The Times, after all, like most America media, belongs to the world of corporate globalism—policies pursued in the interests of business, which may or may not coincide with the interests of the average citizen.

We should not be managing any nation’s affairs, particularly at a time when we are doing so poorly managing our own.  Yes, we must respond to developments in other countries, but in a society that finds it as difficult as we do to tell business how to manage itself it seems perverse to tell other nations what to do about their own business.

I think the root of the problem is that our political and social ideals, as they have evolved since the Boston Tea Party, are often at odds with the aims of corporate America. Thomas Jefferson said he feared business’s power to corrupt. I fear The Times has unwittingly expressed the defining de facto circumstance in which we live, namely that our military and foreign policies serve big business and that we have become more consumer units rather than individual citizens. —DM