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Date: Sat, 5 Aug 1995 00:00:14 -0700
Sender: Arun Mehta <•••@••.•••>
Subject: Re: Democracy & NWO -- Draft 2.0
This is an excellent analysis and summary. Makes me almost glad the
Maharashtra government stood up to Enron and cancelled the contract for
the power plant -- well, almost.
Countries in the Third World would be less amenable to IMF manipulation,
if alternative models hadn't failed so miserably. Socialism has been a
failure in the 3rd World. Enron would not be needed, nor AT&T, if the
public sector had been able to deliver.
Likewise, while I appreciate the point you make about the conspiracy
against Saddam, I'd have a more sympathetic ear if the guy had not been
such a bastard. Just like in the case of the Vietnamese marching into
Cambodia, you are pleased first and foremost that the atrocities have
come down.
I have some problems with the solution you hint at. Maybe I need to see
more, you only touched on it towards the end, but 3rd World Solidarity is
a failed model too. The Non-Aligned were a grouping of the sort you
describe. But solidarity is out the window.
Apropos New World Order, don't you think Somalia (Lebanon before that)
and Bosnia have nicely burnt the fingers of would-be Napoleons and
Alexanders who might have dreams of controlling the world?
Arun Mehta, Indata, B-69,Lajpat Nagar-I, New Delhi-24,India
Tel: +91-11-6841172 or 6849103. Fax +91-11-4635785. •••@••.•••
I do not want my house to be walled in on all sides and my windows to be
stuffed. I want the cultures of all the lands to be blown about my house
as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any-Gandhi.
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Editor:
If at first you don't succeed,
try, try again.
One point to consider is the extent to which "socialism" has been
intentionally undermined. As just one example, the international financial
community exercises "value judgements" over where it grants and refuses
financing. These value judgments, unfortunately, don't concern themselves
with human rights, but do concern themselves with the extent to which
financed projects will generate profits for multinationals, who are
important clients of the same banks that provide (or don't provide) the
project funding. Any project which is "socialist", or otherwise aimed at
maximizing benefit to the domestic economy, will clearly generate less
profits for multinationals.
That's really the essential conflict: multinationals have the primary goal
of extracting wealth from national economies; to an unfortunate extent,
this becomes a zero-sum game, with one or the other side gaining only at
the others expense. We can try to convert this to a win-win game -- where
healthy domestic economies eventually generate generous multinational
profits as well -- but that would require a degree of patience from the
multinationals that they have no motivation to offer voluntarily.
Another point is that doctrinaire socialism is inadequate, just as is
doctrinaire free trade. Let's think less of exclusive "alternatives", and
more of intelligent mixed strategies.
But your cautions are well founded -- this hostile environment toward "3rd
World Solidarity" will continue to exist and be a considerable barrier to
success.
---
I submit that the way to think about the un-argued "bastardness" of Saddam
is this:
It is exactly "bastards" that the U.S. intentionally installs and
funds all over the world. They are easier to control, expressly because of
their unpopularity. And they are quite happy to accept military hardware
in exchange for supporting the dictates of corporate investors. The
foul-doings of these regimes are glossed over when the system is operating
profitably (look at how the media mostly stays away from the gross
human-rights situations Guatamala, Hondouras, Kuwait, etc. etc.)
When the U.S. decides for one reason or another to carry out a
"management shake-up" in one of these client feudal fiefdoms -- it then
"reveals" the perfidy that the U.S. itself helped bring into being, and
uses that demonization campaign to justify intervention.
>>From this point of view, I refuse to be swayed by the heat-of-the-moment
demonization campaign. If we allow oursevles to be so swayed, then the NWO
has a sure-fire mechanism for intervening anytime and anywhere it wants,
for whatever hidden reasons.
---
I think that interventions in Somalia, Lebanon, and Bosnia need to be
evaluated in the context of the goals involved. If one assumes the goals
were to achieve peace and prosperity for those countries, then the
interventions indeed failed. If you assume the motivation is to "control"
the territories, in the sense of a Napolean or Alexander, then I suggest
you must update your model of what "control" means.
Your examples are quite interesting. The conquerors which history
especially notes typically had not only consummate skill, but also brought
interesting innovations.
Alexander had a particular paradigm for control -- very novel in its day.
He encouraged local cultural autonomy, and focused mainly on coverting
nomadic and village economies into city-based economies. He was a
world-reformer more than an imperialist. Despite deep personal devotion
from his commanders and troops, he ran into considerable trouble from them
over his innovative policies, and his failure to follow the traditional
Macedonian model.
Napolean too was extremely innovative. His use of large,
republican-motivated armies; his policy of re-organizing societies
according his "rationalist" schemes; etc. Some of these innovations were
pre-shadowed by Cromwell, but I doubt if he was used as a model.
Both Alexander and Napolean were unique personages, and brilliant generals
(although Alexander was far more remarkable than Napolean). In both cases
their record-breaking successes died with them.
Post-WWII paradigms of conqest and control are, in stark contrast, highly
impersonal, and unfortunately, highly robust across changes in personnel.
But they are comparably innovative, and we can be seriously blind-sided if
we look for yesterday's sheep's clothing on today's wolves.
There's an intersting graffiti poster on a power pole adjacent to the
Wexford Arts Center:
Only those who allow themselves to be misinformed
by the official media believe that facism is just
a sieg heiling skinhead with a swastika and that
anarchy can be defined by mere chaos.
In Somalia, the CIA had worked with the various warlords for years, arming
them, creating tension among them, and creating a version of anarchism that
facilitates profitable oil development. The invasion served to consolidate
the strength of certain of the warlords. Clinton did get his "fingers
burnt" media-wise, but the mission was successful. If he were a Republican
president, the scenario would have been carried out with a different spin,
so that the President would have come out a hero. Clinton had no ability
to control the spin, nor the details of the operation. He had to turn the
operation over to "the experts", and take his chances with how it turned
out and live with whatever the media _chose_ to make of it all.
In Lebanon, the goal was to destabilize Lebanon, to kill as many
Palestinians as possible, and to give the Israelis a chance to flex some of
their pent-up military muscle. Another success. You do know that it was a
joint U.S.-Israeli invasion, don't you? Or do you think it was mere
coincidence that an entire U.S. fleet was stationed immediately offshore,
tacitly preventing any conceiveable intervention by Syria or others?
I said something about Bosnia in my response to Kurt (cj#255).
-rkm
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