The Master Hypocrites

As anyone could have guessed when the U.S. under G W Bush invaded Iraq and recognized Kosovo, any other power with ambitions is now at liberty to bypass international law. We see the consequences most obviously these days in Georgia.

Bush' legacy is a destabilized world, to the detriment of the U.S' own security interests. No loudmouthing from the Bush administration can conceal this. Other governments, e.g. the Swedish, that follow suit are merely showing that they have not understood the implications of U.S. policies in recent years. Add to that, in the Swedish case, a foreign minister who has investments in the oil business - crucially important in the case of Georgia - and we find a conflict of interest that is so blatantly embarrasing that it is miraculous that he is still in office.

Psychologically the stance of the governments aligning themselves with the U.S. is easy to understand, as they are embarrassingly eager to perform the role of Bush' lapdogs.

A Little Egoism is a Dangerous Thing

Ownership isn't always a blessing; it might even be a curse. A new book by Michael Heller (The gridlock economy) highlights the caveats.

Phrased differently: The sum of many small egoisms might cause a great standstill in the economy.

Obfuscation as Propaganda Technique

Isn't it fascinating, btw, how these right wing think tanks dress up as academic institutions (names of the organizations, titles of the propaganda staff, publishing patterns and formats etc), when in reality all they are into is ideology production. That way they appear as gravediggers in a double sense.
- Of democracy, due to the content/'subtance' of their propaganda and agenda.
- Of the quest for truth, and the quality of public debate, as far as the format of their activities goes.

Further - such a blurring of missions and boundaries is fully consonant with their general manner of operation. Like Bolsheviks in the 20th century they advance their cause not by open debate and democratic efforts but by action, preferably covert, in the darkness of crisises. Afterwards the act of cleansing their hands ensues.

That is were the apologists staffing these institutions, again analogous with the history of Bolshevism, enter as useful idiots.

The defense of freedom and justice demands... the abuse of freedom and justice

Jane Mayer from The New Yorker, and Physicians for Human Rights, have released books/reports on the abuse against human rights, performed by the U.S. in their 'war against terrorism'.

This coincides, more or less, with G W Bush ’speaking out’ against China. Which only proves, again, that he has no intellectual honesty and most definitely no sense of shame.

Someone who has is Naomi Wolf (also in one of the large Swedish dailies), who asks the world for assistance in stopping the U.S. in its abuse. Let's!

A Vision of Tomorrow - from one Inside the Bush Loop

From John Robb, a security consultant closely associated with the neofeudalistic nexus that the Bush years in the White House have seen the growth of.

’Security will become a function of where you live and whom you work for, much as health care is allocated already. Wealthy individuals and multinational corporations will be the first to bail out of our collective system, opting instead to hire private military companies, such as Blackwater and Triple Canopy, to protect their homes and facilities and establish a protective perimeter around daily life. Parallel transportation networks--evolving out of the time-share aircraft companies such as Warren Buffett's NetJets--will cater to this group, leapfrogging its members from one secure, well-appointed lily pad to the next. Members of the middle class will follow, taking matters into their own hands by forming suburban collectives to share the costs of security--as they do now with education--and shore up delivery of critical services. These "armored suburbs" will deploy and maintain backup generators and communications links; they will be patrolled by civilian police auxiliaries that have received corporate training and boast their own state-of-the-art emergency-response systems. As for those without the means to build their own defense, they will have to make do with the remains of the national system. They will gravitate to America's cities, where they will be subject to ubiquitous surveillance and marginal or nonexistent services. For the poor, there will be no other refuge.

Until, that is, the next wave of adaptive innovation takes hold. For all of these changes may prove to be exactly the kind of creative destruction we need to move beyond the current, failed state of affairs. By 2016 and beyond, real long-term solutions will emerge.’
(from Fast Company, December 19, 2007)

This is neofeudalism at its most brutal, after the state has withered away, sold out by the likes of the Bush administration.

’Crush the infamous one’

’[W]hen the French philosopher Voltaire (1694–1778) said, “Écrasez l'infâme” (“Crush the infamous one”), he may have meant superstition, ignorance, and tyranny, but what they added up to concretely in the minds of the revolutionaries was the supposed alliance of the monarchy with the Roman Catholic Church.’
(from Encyclopædia Britannica, on ’Roman Catholicism’)

This is fully analogous to what we witness today, and what must be fought back: the alliance of corporate interests – guided by a narrow set of dogmas, advanced by a self-appointed clergy of Friedmanite economists – and the government, forming in effect a ’corporatist’ or ’corporativist’ state, out of democratic control.

The Friedmanites Feeble Fight Back

After decades of persistent efforts – unfortunately successful – in conquering the high ground of economic policy throughout the world, after hijacking vital national and international organizations for its narrow agenda, after aligning itself with dictators and anti-democratic forces in numerous countries, the Church of Friedman has finally come under legitimate fire and is exposed for its real track record. I am talking of course about Klein’s ”The Shock Doctrine”.

One of the junior choir boys of the Church – though he is indeed advertised as ’senior fellow’ (pleez... I'm fully aware that it's merely a pseudo-academic badge of honor) – has been assigned the ungrateful task of defending the righteousness of the crusade. Seldom has a rescue operation failed so miserably. In an article published by the Cato Institute (one of the high profile branches of the sprawling Church), Johan Norberg is making a lame attempt at exonerating the Prophet from the results of his doctrines. We all owe him gratitude for this failure.

The damage Norberg does to his own cause comes not from what he writes in the article, but from what he does not write. The Klein exposure of the modus operandi of the Chicago Boys is not countered in any way. Either he is to lazy to make the effort or he has no arguments. As anyone, save Norberg, is aware of, the central rescue mission ought not to be Friedman the person, but Friedmans’s ideology – dressed up as ’science’ – and its implementation. This does not happen in the article.

It is obvious, from the limited scope of Norberg’s capabilities and efforts, that his argument relies upon that no one reads the original indictment against the Chicago Boys. Rather than taking on Kleins’s damaging account of Friedmanism, Norberg merely tries to dissociate Friedman from his Church and from its clergy of libertarians.

If this is what the Church and its officiants can muster in its defense it is obvious to anyone that the Prophet is naked. The clerics should, in shame, turn their faces away from the spectacle; the rest among us find ample reason to rejoice.

Bush on Human Rights

Bush the Brave is criticising China on their human rights record.

I have no quarrel with someone with credibility doing that, but Bush!?!? Is he the man to express anything but the most self-abnegating apologies on such matters, he with his record of creating an archipelago of detention camps, spanning the globe. He who started a war, based upon lies and false premises. Does he expect us to give him a standing ovation, or what?

This merely proves, as if necessary, that words and their relation to reality count for nought in the world of fantasy that Bush and his band of neocons have created for themselves.