I just saw an X-Files episode I’d never seen before. The 2nd one ever, some airbase romp. Men in black, cancer man, weirdly different characters. How strange. Seeing that series from so long ago makes me feel so old… it was 1993 and the first Bush’s first Gulf War had just died down and my God I hadn’t even heard Underworld yet or met Emer or felt eternity in an instant. Ah the young and the beautiful have no enemy but time.
This Economist article is well-reasoned. But it ignores the underlying fact that globalization means the increasing freedom of movement of capital without complementing freedom of movement of labour, has led to a massive democratic imbalance in the world.
This is because Corporations have lobbyists and expense accounts whereas poor people can only throw rocks.
Corporations prosper while working people are denied freedome of migration and emigration and suffer and end up rotting in huge unemployed pockets of poverty. This is not right and leads to the kind of tensions that I see expressed as fundamentalism in Muslim countries and riots by rich Western kids in Genoa.
Apparently, “unbridled laissez-faire” has got us into this predicament. Maybe it’s time to restructure international trade to prevent plunging so many countries into IMF misery?
This is not unprecedented. Before World War One the global economy was very tightly knited together. Unfortunately, this imperial, colonialist and racist system massively benefitted certain countries at the expense of others. What we call today’s “laissez-faire” is in fact nothing of the kind but a complex regulatory system designed to perpetuate Western Hegemony.
I benefit greatly from this, getting to eat candies when I want and buy cheap shoes at Payless. But if I had to settle for less candies and knew this was in some way reducing the risk of a suicidal airliner dropping on my head then I’m all for it.
Maybe it’s time for a Tobin Tax? Make all those currency speculators produce something worthwhile from their mindless machinations. Donate the proceeds to developing world educational programs….
Erotic Origami?!?!?!
Ah the cunning of those sleeper terrorists in our midst knows no bounds… Thank God for eagle-eyed investigators able to respond to any hint of a clue, no matter how subtle…
Here’s a good article about how part of the Bush “strategy” is to give tens and hundreds of billions in aid to gangster and fascist regimes in return for joining his coalition. The enemy of my enemy is sometimes not my friend. Half the reason Bin Laden has legitimacy in Islamic countries is because he represents those who are against the US mindlessly propping up so many destructive and viciously corrupt governments. Unable to compete against US-trained and funded Gestapo-style police gangs, they resort to extreme religious fundamentalism as a last resort. Kind of like the way Ireland went virulently Roman Catholic during the long years of Biritish oppression.
I also found out that my favourite old bogeyman, Kissinger, “sits on the board of Freeport McMoran, the New Orleans-based mining giant that operates the Grasberg gold mine in Indonesia, one of the world’s ongoing acts of environmental crime and terrorism. The Indonesian military has doubled as a security force for the mining company, slaughtering hundreds of residents who have protested the destruction of their community.”
Well, he was the guy who told the Indonesian government it was okay to invade and genocide most of East Timor so I guess he has to keep his hand in there somehow.
Weird parallel photo montage between Islamic Jihad Warrior’s attacks on NYC and the US/NATO attacks on Belgrade a couple of years ago.
I think no power to your refrigerator, no gas to your stove, you can’t get to work because the bridge is down – the bridge on which you held your rock concerts and you all stood with targets on your heads. That needs to disappear at three o’clock in the morning.
U.S. Air Force General Michael Short, in charge of US air attacks against Serbia, explaining his philosophy behind bombing civilian facilities including hospitals, homes and chemical factories, killing thousands of people.
Kind of weird as well how in this undeclared war the US was fighting to ostensibly “save” Muslim Bosnia, whereas now they are fighting to destroy Muslim extremism.
Christopher Lee is still alive and playing Saruman in the new Lord of the Rings Movie. This I did not know! My God, he’s around a 100 by now. Maybe has one of those life-stretching power rings?
