Letters to the Editor

The Washington Post editorial page's latest rule of law sermon Those who have sanctioned some of the most extreme acts of illegality and human rights abuses continue to condemn other countries for less egregious acts. Glenn Greenwald [2008-07-28]

• Standards are for Others, Not Ourselves

  One of the things which apparently marks you as part of the whacked out fringe crazy extreme left in this country is that you seem to think there might ought be consistency between (a) what the U.S. foreign policy establishment demands of other, typically weaker nations; (b) what the U.S. foreign policy establishment feels free to do with regard to and even in those other nations; and (c) what the U.S. does at home.

  It provoked no end of frustration throughout the late 1980's and early 1990's for observers to note that the U.S. -- directly, and through proxy control of international lending institutions such as the IMF and World Bank and IBRD -- would demand impoverished nations undertake vast changes in their economy and social funding in exchange for continued debt service.

  'We' recommended 'they' follow changes and economic fantasy logic both likely to instigate severe instability and which would never be thought of doing at home in the domestic U.S. I.e., you need to stop helping your impoverished peasant farmers with productivity aid due to our theories of market activity, and meanwhile we'll just maintain these enormous subsidies to help Florida sugar barons continue producing some of the least cost-efficient crops on Earth.

  The U.S. establishment was shocked and insulted when Argentina & Venezuela broke this hold on South America, and walked away from U.S.-led economic advice. And although none of these places were paradises before, their levels of growth and social development now far, far outpace than when they were doing what 'we' told them to do.

  Yet your Washington Post and New York Times dorks kept forecasting that it would be doom -- DOOM! -- for these nations to stop following the crazy ultra-right free market fundamentalist nonsense advice we gave them while 'we' didn't follow it at home.

  Similarly, during the Asian financial crisis sprung by Western speculators (including but not limited to Soros), Malaysia's heavily state interventionist government rejected U.S. insistence on how to deal with the crisis, again to the usual harsh criticism of the U.S. establishment nut squad, and yet, which country climbed out of that crash the fastest and sustained the least damage?

  Here recently the government of Malawi -- no paragon of progressive reform -- said 'screw you' to the market fundamentalist nuts and started directly aiding its farmers in production, and went fairly quickly from a net food importer with a sub-famine status to a full domestic food producer with export surplus. Surprisingly, they even got some positive coverage for this in the New York Times even, whereas 10 years ago they would have been condemned as some sort of hard line evil Marxist blah blah blahs.

  I will give a bit of credit to the Bush Jr. administration, though -- they more than anyone else tried to bring the lunatic right wing market fundamentalist crony nonsense policies to the U.S. that 'we' have been cramming down the throats of so many 3rd world nations around the globe.

  Unfortunately, we are paying the price for that, and now you can read in our papers what you used to read about as textbook discussions of economic disasters common in, say, Africa of the 1980s Structural Adjustment periods, just, obviously, on a less severe scale.

  -- El Cid
  [Read El Cid's other letters]
  Permalink Flag Monday, July 28, 2008 08:28 AM
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