The current Global Economy Crisis
The lessons of the global economy are clear, the upheavals of capitalism in the Weimar Republic in the 1930s and the rise of fascism confirms the current global economy crisis is set to become the most important issue of the 21st century.
No fuss is made about the Middle East's only nuclear armed power, whose murderous invasions of a neighbouring country, all of them in violation of 6 UN resolutions and overwhelmingly condemned by the UN General Assembly were carried out with impunity. This is Israel, armed and supported by the US, whose terrorism, known as 'self defence', is supported by the United Stares. Israeli politics is so redundant that Netanyahu is returned as Israeli PM for the seventh time. Arab/Jewish violence depends on the daily body count. US support of Israel, paying $38 billion over 10 years is cheaper than placing a US Armoured Division in the Middle East. A shared democracy may be doubtful due to racist apartheid policies as practised by Israel, is a 7th time PM democratic? Arabs revere Abraham, John the Baptist, the Virgin Mary as shared by the US and Israel.Finally, 6.3 million Jews among hostile Arab states ensures Israel is under constant threat.
NATO has expanded rapidly into Eastern Europe prompting, the claustrophobic encroachment on Russia's borders which strengthened nationalistic forces in the Russian parliament - an open crisis on the Eurasian continent culminating in the February 24, 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Blair on visiting the Aylesbury Estate, UK, uncovered a slum which he insisted on it be cleaned up, setting an example as Lady Bracknell stated- 'Really, if the lower orders do not set a good example, what on earth is the use of them?'
What does a multi-purpose cluster bomb do? The Hunting Engineering man replies 'That's classified'. This is the re-incarnation of Major Major from Heller's Catch-22!
in 1988, the year before the democracy movement in China was crushed in Tainanmen Square the people of Burma revolted and 10,000 were killed by the Burmese army. Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace Prize winner said, 'Countries and events slip from the headlines, and we slipped.' In Tavoy, Burma, Orwell's gardens of mohur and pyinkado trees are described in his Burmeses Days. U Po Kyin the magistrate in Burmese Days describes British troops marching into Mandalay. The death railway where locals are forced to rebuild the neglected railway infrastructure for dubious tourist dollars is inherently cruel with many deaths. The Burmeses military junta are now no different from the occupying Japanese. 'In Buddhism we are taught there are four basic ingredients for success. 'The first is the will to want it, then you must have the right kind of attitude, then perseverance, then wisdom...' - Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. Amnesty International described the 'Visit Myanmar 1996' was the worst year for human rights in Burma that decade, 2000 people were arrested for calling for human rights reform and severe restrictions were placed on Daw Aung San Suu Kyi's freedom of movement and speech. There is civil war in Burma with little end to the war in sight.
Australia, 'an entire continent peopled by the lower orders' Mark Twain. In 1920, the Australian Labor Party formed governments twenty years before any comparable socialist or social democratic party took office in Europe. Europeans described the state as a boldly experimental agent. In fact the state was an orthodox Keynesian social democracy, with a strong sense of class. Bond, Kerry Packer, Wrinkled Murdoch and Paul Keating introduced a de-regulated, anything-goes financial system. Ordinary workers had incomes cut by 25%.
East Timor, Australians are said to owe the East Timorese who stood by them in WW2! Suharto, the Indonesian dictator, is no longer sure of who his friends are. The regime is now promoting the idea of Suharto's mortality. The Indonesian opposition must exploit this situation. An uprising engulfed East Timor in 1994, the Indonesian military lost control of its colony. 'The struggle for freedom is the struggle of memory against forgetting,' as Milan Kundera wrote, with have a universal meaning.
Vietnam, on liberation suffered South Korean factories paid for by the US, the workers paid 12 cent daily to sew running shoes sold for $150 in the US. The Vietnamese people rebelled and halted further US imposed globalisation.
Lord Tervelyan, in charge of relief of the Irish famine, 1847, relief was an opponent of 'welfare dependancy'. 'The only way to prevent the people from becoming habitually dependent on Government is to bring operations to a close.' 'England made the famine,' wrote the Irish socialist James Connolly,'by a rigid application of the economic principles that lie at the base of capitalist society'. Globalism in practice, nothing has changed.
An agony aunt column received many letters about matrimonial problems:- 'I submit to my husband three times a week, or three times a month or three times a year if they were lucky.' Modern life!
'Those who aim to give the public what they want begin by under-estimating the public taste, and so end by debauching it.' T.S.Eliot. On Blairdom, as in the former Soviet Union or down on Animal Farm, all those who fail to greet the 'new' establishment must be suffering from a from of mental illness. According to a psychologist, not taking unquestioning pleasure in the rise of Blairdom must be because 'there is something safe in negativity one often finds this state of mind in someone who appears to be a fighter, who takes on external injustice and enemies, but who, is unable to recognise their own attachment to defeat.'
Media or parliamentary silence hid the facts of the IRA bombing campaign from the British public. Then, in 1988, Ken Loach released Hidden Agenda which revealed the British government's 'shoot to kill' policy, followed by In the Name of the Father, Michael Collins and Some Mother's Son thereby revealing suppressed history to the British public.
A veteran journalist announced the notion of objectivity is regarded as an illusion which belongs to bystander journalism, he believes now in the journalism of attachment, a journalism that cares as well as knows, that is aware of its responsibilities, and will not stand neutrally between good and evil, right and wrong, victim and oppressor. The inherent propaganda role of the media as an extension of establishment power Martin Bell. 'The more one is aware of political bias, the more one can be independent of it, and the more one claims to be impartial, the more one is biased.' George Orwell.
The Green Berets, 1968 written along the lines directed by the Pentagon, presented reporters as naive and the 'communists' as baby killers, gook zapping was absurd. Full Metal Jacket revealed a more cynical attitude along with the duality of man.
In 1993, Nelson Mandela , asked 'How many times has the liberation movement worked together with the people and then at the moment of victory betrayed them?, should they relax their vigilance, they will find their sacrifices have been in vain. '
Should Lincoln or Jefferson run for the US presidency, today, they would be no hopers. Self-started millionaire egomaniacs who combine desire for publicity with money and charm in abundance dominate the US presidential elections.
In 1835, Alexis de Toqueville, observed that 'scarcely any political question that arises in the US that is not resolved sooner or later into a judicial question. All Americans are formally equal before the law, in practice, some are more equal than others thanks to the activism of organised interest groups - George Orwell's indictment of communism.
Tribilalism, a human universal, the incarceration of Japaneses-Americans during WW2, exclusions of Jews from universities during the 1920s and 1930s, the persecution of Mormons, the eradication of Indian tribes, and a brutal racist caste system in the pre-1960s South then the reversal of all theses social policies by the American political system. The overall record of the Western Europe at a comparable time then America suffers greatly in comparison. Nelson Polsby, 1997.
Source: Irish Times, Sunday Times