StephenKMackSD's Blog

It is hard not to treat this collection of ex post facto explanations and condemnations, of a self-appointed Foreign Policy Mandarin as so much whistling in the dark, as the Egyptian People, including the Muslim Brotherhood, make their own history, seemingly unaided by the paternal hand of America. Mr. Gelb is one of the members of a sclerotic, myopic policy establishment, that can only think in terms of American interests and not the interests of the Egyptian People and their concerns, values, etc.; and to engage in the denigration of Human Rights, as sign of lack of ‘toughness’ is, perhaps, totally within the realm of the believable, in his stunted world view, here expressed. Is this in any way a surprise? Mr. Gelb and his philosophical confreres are ‘realists’ and take their political cues from an actual corrosive cynicism and opportunism; that has led us into the blind alley we now occupy, in terms of Foreign Policy: Iraq, Afghanistan and whatever new front will soon open in ‘the War on Terror’ or whatever it is now named and the network of manufactured allies that , now, seem to be falling like dominos. Mr. Gelb represents the failed nature of a generation of ‘Policy Makers’, of whatever political stripe; for narrowness is definitive of a particular American self-conception of moral/political superiority. The Egyptian People cannot be trusted to make their own history, without the aid, the direction of a stern, yet compassionate, Uncle Sam, issuing directives from afar. How much paternalism is enough paternalism? That might be a question Mr. Gelb is not yet ready to answer, in the present state of History unresolved. Continue reading →

This ‘well informed’ article in The Wall Street Journal, here quoted by the Economist, owned and operated by Murdoch and his bevy of sycophantic scribes help to manufacture paranoia about the mortal political danger of Public Sector Unions. Let us not forget that the ‘Financial Reform’ of 1999 enabled the creation of derivatives that were key in undermining the world economy and that Murdoch and his economic allies at the Economist were it’s most vociferous proponents-shouting the benefits of this ‘Reform’ as a panacea. Now amidst the ruins of this ‘economic reform’ they seek to target others as a tactic to take the onus off themselves, by attacking the stronghold of the Democratic Party’s power : the Public Sector Unions. The “Free Market Ideology’ failed miserably to deliver on the promises it made; and Murdoch and the Economist were its chief advocates, its chief apologists. But just to play it politically safe, to cover their asses, their new target is the dread and very politically effective ‘Public Sector Unions’: the newest target of their reactionary malice and bankrupt theologizing. The quotation of each other as sources of ‘facts’ is clue to their mendacity.
Democratic Socialist