Abraham. How can we be anti-ourselves?”nWhatever else he is, David Dinkinsnis not quick on the uptake. Asked aboutnCarson’s press conference, Dinkins declared,nin the great befuddled understatementnof the campaign, that “He’snapparently a person who doesn’t likenwhite people.” A few hours later, however,nDinkins rallied, reading a preparednstatement denouncing Carson’snbigotry and intolerance, which he hasnfought all his life, blah-blah-blah. Had InBut Known.nWith the help of Carson and newnquestions about Dinkins’ tax returns,nGiuliani’s fortunes have risen, as twonDaily News/ABC polls (one taken onnOctober 15, the other one a week laternon October 22) make clear. On Octobern15, Dinkins led by the seeminglyninsurmountable 53 percent to 34 percent.nOnly one week later, Dinkins lednby a mere 45 to 41 percent. The mostnstriking and critical change occurred, asnmight be expected, among liberal andncentrist Jews. Whereas Jews voted fornDinkins by 46 to 36 percent in the firstnpoll, on October 22 Jews chose Giulianinby 44 to 26 percent.nAnd so the race is even as we go tonpress.n— Murray Rothbardn”TRADE WITHOUT FRONtiers”n— when the European EconomicnCommunity talks about barrier-freentrade, the wall begins at Spain and thenUS is left on the wrong side of it, as thenBush administration, which has supportednthe coming federation of Europe,nis beginning to discover. In Octobernthe EEC voted 10 to 2 to adopt anset of as-yet nonbinding rules thatnrecommend to European televisionnstations that they spend a majority ofntheir airtime running European shows.nHollywood’s billion-dollar business innEuropean rights is threatened. In somenparts of Europe 70 percent of thenentertainment shows come from thenoutside — many, many from the US.nWhat tourist in Rome hasn’t tunedninto Dallas?n”Local content,” said Carla Hills,nthe US trade representative, in complainingnabout the rules, “is the enemynof free trade.” She is quite correct. Butnthe issues are, at least ostensibly, widernhere: it is not just American profits thatn6/CHRONICLESnanger France, the most militant EECncountry on the television question. It. isnthat old bugbear of cultural imperialismnand franglais. “Culture is not anpiece of merchandise, like othernthings,” says Jacques Delors, presidentnof the European Commission, thenEEC’s executive branch. “I say to thenUnited States: Have we the right tonexist, to perpetuate our traditions?”nAs a regionalist, I sympathize. Onenof the downsides of your free market/nopen borders/devil-take-the-lowestpaidnhardy garden variety of Americanncapitalism is that it tends to do tonregional tradition what Sherman did tonChadeston.nUnfortunately, European state socialism’snanswer to American culturalnimperialism is a cure that looks to be anlot worse than the disease. The EEC’snidea is not just to promote the Frenchnfilm industry for the French, but —nwhile excluding the US and the rest ofnthe worfd — to create within the Communityna single market of 320 millionncaptive viewers: a French film industrynfor Europe. And what that means, asnthe Germans are already admitting, isnfilms, drama, and situation comediesn— in English. For English is the languagenof cultural diplomacy today. Itnmust have been bad enough, for a goodnFrench patriot, to watch his localnbreadmaker abandon Godard for ClintnEastwood. Yet surely it will be a thousandntimes more painful to watch Godardnabandon French.nNationalism has its uses, and itsnabuses. The European film schools,nwhich have been targeted as beneficiariesnof EEC largesse in a typicallynmisapplied social-democratic attemptnto beef up the local product, will profit.nBarring a trade war, so will somenEuropean filmmakers and distributors,nprobably largely at Hollywood’s expense.nBut that is all. For all the noisenthe EEC is making about revivifiednculture, its eye is only on the money.nIts plan cannot work, because what isnbeing hailed as nationalistic in fact isnnot — France is not only distinct fromnAmerica, but from its friends in thenEEC, and heaven help that country ifnits proverbial chauvinism has witherednto the point that France has forgottennwhat German or Italian cultural imperialismnis like.nJudged even on the basis of its ownnplans, the EEC protectionism that isnnnsupposed to preserve the creative culturenof these individual states of Europenclearly will not work. Whether itnis today or ten years from today, Europenis going to soon discover that thengreat cultural bugbear is not America,nbut itself (KD)nTHE SOVIET EMPIRE these daysnoffers a formidable challenge even fornthe most experienced Kremlin watchers.nWhile economic collapse, thencommunications revolution, the threatnof another nuclear disaster likenChernobyl, the decline in life expectancy,nand the environmental crisis arenall tinder for fires of change, the powernof nationalism still remains central.nShortly after Worid War II therenwere perhaps 70 states recognized asnsovereign nations in the world. Nownthe count is approximately 170. Thenbreakup of the British Empire into ancommonwealth of independent nationsnseems in retrospect as inevitablenas water running downhill. There is nonreason that this same growth of nationalnidentity should not play out in thenSoviet Union, a country composed ofnover one hundred different nationalitiesnand covering one-sixth of thenearth’s surface.nOf all the places in the Soviet Empirenwhere nationalism is asserting itself,nthe three Baltic nations have anunique claim. Lithuania, Latvia, andnEstonia once enjoyed the status ofnindependent statehood between 1920-n1940, and they receive de jure recognitionnfrom the United States as well asncountries in Western Europe. Much ofnthe population has living memories ofntheir freedom and how it was lost. Lastnsummer the Kremlin was forced tonadmit of the Secret Protocols of thenStalin-Hitler Pact of 1939 that led tonthe forced annexation of the Balticnnations into the Soviet Empire. On then50th anniversary of the Pact in August,n400,000 Baits formed a human chainnacross Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuanianto dramatize peacefully their desire fornfreedom.nWithin the Baltic nations, Lithuania,nwith its special links to the West,nmay play a key role. Its immediatenneighbor is Poland, where the SovietnUnion tolerated the peaceful ascent ofnSolidarity to political power. Sovietnrestraint thus far on the use of force inn