Posted by
voice_of_reason on Saturday, February 06, 2010 12:30:55 PM
Here's how some Leftists are praising/describing this article:
While the majority of the media keeps harping on Obama's generous aid to Haiti, there has really been a “swift and crude” militarisation of the relief efforts in earthquake-ravaged Haiti. The Haitians have been punished for over two centuries for daring to cast off slavery and colonialism. They are still being punished by the power of the international financial system, backed up by military force when necessary. Obama is impotent in the face of the major American corporations and their determination to expand and satisfy their shareholders. By asking former presidents Bush and Clinton to lead private-sector fundraising efforts for Haiti, Obama has demonstrated that the devastating human tragedy in Haiti will not bring any change in the rapacious role of US imperialism in that impoverished country. Both Bush and Clinton have the blood of Haitian workers and peasants on their hands. Here’s a refreshing eye-opener from renowned investigative journalist and documentary film-maker John Pilger, whose work has been described by noted intellectual Noam Chomsky as “a beacon of light in often dark times.”
My comments:
The first clue as to the nature of this article is that its author John Pilger is praised by noted intellectual Noam Chomsky as a beacon of light ..
Noam Chomsky is only noted as an intellectual among a particularly virulent cult of America-bashers, a group that includes many American citizens of the far-Left persuasion. Leading the non-American section of the Chomsky fan-club is Hugo Chavez, another claimant to the beacon of light mantle.
The loopy leftists who worship Chomsky are quite critical of America's ability to create wealth. They are staunch anti-Capitalists, which means that they hate the very system that encourages economic freedom, and leads to America's prosperity. Of course, Leftists have plenty of suggestions w.r.t how this evil [wealth] should be redistributed.
Affluent Leftists [an oxymoron, if there ever was one] have no qualms about using the fruits of Capitalism [e.g. technology, such as television, the Internet ...or the stock market] to make their fortunes, and then bash the system that improved their lives! While they get their kicks from a kind of egalitarian snobbery that plays so well on the cocktail party circuit, they unwittingly give currency to those who oppose Capitalism in order to gain power over others. It is important to remember that Capitalism is the absence of Govt control - it is the natural extension of individual freedom, when applied to economics.
America bashers begin with the assumption that all wealth comes from exploitation, and is therefore evil. They are quick to extrapolate on the few, notorious examples of fraud and view all wealth with contempt - except when it is made available to them. A quasi-religious argument (loaded with altruistic teargas) is often used to put the squeeze on successful people, who are made to accept an unearned guilt for having worked hard for their success. This comes from an acceptance of the flawed worldview that wealth is finite. Therefore, in this zero-sum game, America's gain must have come at the expense of others. In their view, America's success, which began in the late 19th century, must have come at the expense of Native Americans, or poverty stricken people from other continents.
If you believe in the zero-sum theory of wealth, ask yourself this question: if an American becomes wealthy by inventing a lightbulb (or a cure for cancer), how did that wealth come into existence? Was it stolen from someone else?
The reality is that modern America does some things well: wealth creation, innovative technology, production, entertainment, services, etc. To be sure, America does some things poorly. There was much violence during its birth and terrible mistakes made through its relatively short history. No doubt America will make mistakes in the future. But, modern America has a culture that is hard on failure but that is relatively soft on those who fail. This allows a feedback/learning process to exist, leading to the possibility of self correction.
It ain't perfect, folks. But ask yourself why people try so hard (sometimes risking their lives) to get here ... Even before the tragic earthquake, why did Haitian boat-people float past the idyllic coastline of neighboring Cuba, risking their lives on the open sea to get to Florida?
Most people who 'escape' to America are being exploited, not by rapacious American Capitalists, but by the politically powerful in their own countries, whose policies erode freedom and economic opportunity - often under the guise of benign redistribution.
BTW, I do not classify Chomsky himself as virulent. After all, he is a soft-spoken, articulate professor of linguistics, who is entitled to his views and to his fan-club. However, that word
does apply to many of his followers who use his words as a pseudo-intellectual rationale in support of
their virulent activities.
Here is a link for anyone who wants to know where Chomsky stands on Capitalism: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DA9q284fvs
Note: it is possible to support Capitalism as a wealth-creation mechanism WITHOUT supporting Govt bungling (Katrina), war, and all other mistakes. The fact that wealth is not always spent wisely does not mean that we should abjure a system that promotes wealth creation. Further more, why promote substitutes that have been proven to be utter failures?
Capitalism allows ordinary people to try - and sometimes achieve - extraordinary things, in the pursuit of their self-interest. Note that I am not making an argument here for American exceptionalism. Americans are like everyone else, but they happen to have evolved a semi-Capitalist system either by design (Constitution) or by accident (the Wild West could've gone on forever). This system coupled economic freedom with mostly objective law, property rights, the sanctity of contracts etc. Severe contradictions existed, e.g. slavery, but these too were painfully resolved in a direction of individual freedom. After all, why, if slavery existed for many centuries before Columbus headed West, did it begin to decline (in semi-Capitalistic Western Civ) after the mid-19th century?
Somehow, around the mid-19th century, Americans aligned economics with human nature. Most of the competing schemes [Feudalism, Communism, Monarchy, Fascism, Religious Fundamentalism ..] required either (a) a continued succession of benign monarchs / religious leaders -or- (b) workers 'toiling' for the benefit of a faceless collective. The flaw in both (a) and (b) is that it required characteristics that are not consistently found in most humans. Undeterred, supporters of (a) and (b) insist that humans should change, and become ____ (insert any kind of preferred nonsense here). Capitalism doesn't require any such nuanced nonsense, it just rewards the self-interest in humans. As a result, it happens to work in the real world, something that leftist intellectuals don't appreciate, because it runs contrary to their nuanced worldview. For those who think that this is simplistic, cold and un-feeling, yeah sure, but it is poverty that harms/kills most people who live in non-Capitalist countries. Wealth can be an antidote, although sometimes imperfectly applied.
The creation of wealth gives America economic, military and political power. This power can be misused - in fact, it HAS been misused quite often. Chomsky and others are sometimes right when they criticize abusive applications of American power [disclosure: I find myself agreeing (occasionally) with Chomsky when I watch a Chomsky/Buckley debate on YouTube]. But, does that indict the system that created the wealth, or those who abused the power that came from wealth?
Also, if imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, then ponder this: after 1989 countries such as India & China began to wake up to the fact that their success was connected with the degree to which they 'liberalized' in the direction of economic freedom, while maintaining the rule of law.
Returning to the main topic of this article: America's wealth has led to its ownership of aircraft carriers (floating cities, with state-of-the-art hospitals on board). Several American carriers are now in Port-au-Prince, offering much needed medical assistance to earthquake ravaged Haitians. Bad, bad warmongering America ..