posted March 19, 2002 at 8:11 p.m. MDTAn interesting way of passing expensive hours, the computer simulation of social dynamics, as illustrated with this set of movies of Rauch animations (a sidebar to the April 2002 edition of The Atlantic). But scientific theories, as good as they are, and I've spent years studying the best I could get my hands on, are only useful if honestly applied. When interpreted or disseminated by those who are either cynically dishonest or those whose views are distorted by utopian fantasies, they only add to the mystification of our world. Just as in the life of the individual, development of a community to its fullest potential requires a vigorous and rigorous honesty. (This is not, however the agents of villainy would tell you, equate to a call for mystical infallibility.) An open-ended acknowledgment of the challenges, that's what we respond to most productively; the more mendacious will always tender a version that is edited in order to advantage some fore-gone conclusion and by so doing fore-close some future better than they dare claim.
But my point at this moment is to disclose the saddest development of all: whether it be the tender-hearted humanists or the credible liberals who are proposing yet another insightful social or economic theory, they who do so are damned by the wicked machinations of those with real power. Those who really would market sausages made from the bodies of labourers worked to death if they could are in fact and actually engaged in practices just as dark. This small snippet from a longer article will suffice for this place:
| Interview of Greg Palast, Journalist for BBC and Observer, London, by Alex Jones (The Alex Jones Radio Show, Monday (PM), March 4, 2002) |
| GP: [...] I'll tell you two things. One, I spoke to the former chief
economist, Joe Stiglitz who was fired by the (World) Bank. So I, on BBC and with Guardian, basically spent some time debriefing him. It was like one of the scenes out of Mission Impossible. So I got the insight of what was happening at the World Bank. In addition, [h]e would not give me inside documents but other people handed me a giant stash of secret documents from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. (And so one of the things that is happening is that, in fact, I was supposed to be on CNN with the head of the World Bank Jim Wolfensen and he said he would not appear on CNN ever if they put me on. And so CNN did the craziest thing and pulled me off. AJ: So now they are threatening total boycott. GP: Yea right. ) So what we found was this. We found inside these documents that basically they required nations to sign secret agreements, in which they agreed to sell off their key assets, in which they agreed to take economic steps which are really devastating to the nations involved and if they didn't agree to these steps, there was an average for each nation that signed one-hundred and eleven items that they are required to sign on to. If they didn't follow those steps they would be cut-off from all international borrowing. - we've got examples from, I've got inside documents recently from Argentina, the secret Argentine plan. This is signed by Jim Wolfensen, the president of the World Bank. By the way, just so you know, they are really upset with me that I've got the documents, but they have not challenged the authenticity of the documents. First, they did. First they said those documents don't exist. I actually showed them on television. And cite some on the web, I actually have copies of some on www.gregpalast.com [...] So then they backed off and said yea those documents are authentic but we are not going to discuss them with you and we are going to keep you off the air anyway. So, that's that. |
| *Talk Radio's Alex Jones Vs. the New World Order *The Writings of Greg Palast |
I personally make an effort at every opportunity not to disillusion the young people I have discussions with. I do not encourage their fantasies, I encourage them to realize that the good is best achieved by abandoning all mystifications and utopian distortions. But there are moments when the travesty that is described as governance and civil societies is so appalling ... words fail me.
My country either stood by or collaborated in the overthrow of Salvadore Allende's democratically elected government in Chile. And there I was, all airborne ready and comm_tech trained ... with my brain drained of blood. On one hand we have George W. Bush brandishing nuclear arms and on the other we have the chicanery of our countries' complicity with IMF and WB skulduggery. So yet another generation of youth will have their reasonable expectations despoiled. Those who insist on the legitimacy and efficacy of bourgeois institutions should tear their hair out and weep, and would, if they had the energy of righteous conviction.
