US To Keep Latin America In Check With War On Terror

Ok I agree it would be nice if more people were more altruistic, but that doesn't say anything about whether or not Chavez had good economic policies, nor does it change the severe and potentially crippling economic problems that Venezuela faces as a result of his policies.

 

There is nothing wrong with producing or using computers. Farming, not merely for subsistence, but for profit should be encouraged. But leaders should primarily strive to make their nation self sufficient in terms of necessities. An agrarian lifestyle is suitable for this purpose and should be stressed. Things like computers should be secondary.

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The point I am making to you is that you are blaming Chavez for things that really have their causality based in the greed of the rich and powerful.

 

No! That is a distortion. Here is what I said exactly:

Notice I said capital flow should be SECONDARY not absolutely excluded.

 

So since your model depends on altruism and since computers are secondary then how can you justify owning one while there are still high levels of poverty within Venezuela, or hell, within the rest of the world? See even you are greedy (by your definition, not mine). You are evidence of your own model breaking down.

 

Those hundreds of thousands of poor farmers in India who committed suicide were doing fine for generations until Monsanto came.

 

No they weren't and if you honestly think that then you have an overly romantic image of historical India.

 

Again what I said was that people who want to make profit from the resources of a nation should do so in a spirit of maintaining the people and environment of the nation primarily and making profit secondarily. If I owned a company that was doing business in Venezuela, that's how I would operate. And if I could not do it that way, I would not do it at all.

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And you are absolutely wrong. And I bet I know way more about India than you do. How the hell is committing suicide being better off?

 

Either way you slice it you are still currently hoarding wealth in the from of secondary assets while over a Billion people elsewhere in the world who live in extreme poverty struggle with the most basic of food security issues. Under your model you should willingly sacrifice your creature comforts to distribute your wealth to them while asking nothing in return. A Nice idea and charity is great, but that doesn't seem to be what you are actually doing, otherwise we wouldn't be having this conversation. If even someone like you (a grand supporter of your ideals) can't live up to them then what makes you think big business will?

 

How does hypocrisy of our own leaders in relation to foreign policy have nothing to do with the US keeping Latin America in check with the war on terror ?

My claim is that first we need to take responsibility for our own actions in the use and support of terror as foreign policy before claiming to have the moral high ground on others.

 

Want to take a stab at how many people in India (as a percentage of the population) died annually before modern economic growth there, and what the average quality of life was like in comparison to today?

 

Again, you are distorting. I don't know how many times I have to repeat things to you to get you to understand. What I am saying is that people WHO WANT TO PROFIT FROM THE RESOURCES OF VENEZUELA, should do so in a spirit of serving the people and the environment primarily, and making profit secondarily. To make it very simple, I do not have a business that is operating in Venezuela. If I owned Exxon-Mobil, and I was here talking like this, you would have a point. But since I DO NOT OWN A BUSINESS THAT IS OPERATING IN VENEZUELA, you are talking rubbish.

 

This has been a very interesting discussion and I like the way that it has evolved to embrace wider issues relating to socioeconomic conditions. There has been a lot of accusations here about red-herrings and strawmen from Dylith, but one cannot disconnect the nature of the wider socioeconomic structure from the narrower political issues relating to Venezuela which is what the said accusations imply.

Precisions analysis is spot on. I would though add one caveat. Rather than referring to greed as being the fundamental problem, I think it's more useful to see the problem as being one of the capitalist system itself as identified by Karl Marx over 150 years ago. It's not greed per se that's the fundamental problem but rather the prevailing economic ideology that gives rise to it. This is a very important distinction. It's the economic system whose motivations are driven by profit-maximization at all costs that's going to be the ruination of the planet.

Certainly greed is an essential component of this, but it's an error to focus disproportionately on individual human behaviour in the absence of the broader capitalist economic system itself. Marx's prognosis is as relevant today in explaining how the world works as it has always been.

Dylith's problem, it seems to me, is that he/she has an inability to separate out the smoke and mirrors illustrative of the capitalist system and the neoclassical model that underpins it on the one hand, from the various apologists including economists and politicians who promote it unconditionally, on the other. The assumption being that neoclassical economics that underpin capitalism is somehow an exact science. I have news for you Dylith, it's not. It's often used as a propaganda tool as a means to justify its continued existence from which the tiny minority of super-rich disproportionately benefit at the expense of the mass of the human population, as well as the planet itself- quite literally so.

 

You have wealth though and you aren't doing what you are advocating for businesses. That's called being a hypocrite.

Why does it matter how you derived your wealth?

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I think that my problem here is that I am the only one with both an education in the subject and the only one with both professional, and field experience in economic development. It's easy to have an utopian ideological model, but unfortunately that's not the way the real world works.

 

I appreciate what you have said. However, I see excessively greed as giving rise to the system of capitalism. You are not going to eradicate greed from society. But the problem is that it has become a quality that is glorified. The system of capitalism seeks to leverage this quality. However, due it it's destructive nature, excessively greed is what is behind the deadly business cycles that create the systemic problems that threaten the well being of everyone.

Got to go now. Will get back to this later!

Thanks, I really have appreciated your astute input in this discussion.

 

I hope you stick around. Your analysis is invaluable. The greed/capitalist thing is a minor quibble. It seems to me that the entire economic ideology that underpins Dylth's economic development role is symptomatic of the socioeconomic problems Venezuela faces as opposed to offering any potential solutions, vis a vis the nations of the world in general. That's what I meant, Dylith, when I suggested earlier that you were misguided in believing your role offered any solutions to the problems the Venezuelan people face. The economic development prognosis sustained by the kind of model it pertains to, is inherently flawed. The notion of FDI that you keep bleating on about, for example, is in truth a euphemism for foreign pillage of a nations resources. It is your inability to be able to distance yourself from the fog of Western propaganda by looking at the bigger picture, that has led you down an ideological cul-de-sac.

 

It's precisely that kind of 'head up my own arse' insularity that is part of the problem. The economic development model is a burst balloon and its leading to the ruination of the planet. The sad thing is from my point of view is that you are a clearly bright dude but it's going to waste. You cannot even self-identify as being an apologist for imperialism which is what your 'better than thou' mindset implies.

 

In truth, the ideology underpinning economic development to countries like Venezuela is predicated on a flawed economic model, one that's essentially exploitative that insists upon a combination of aid conditionalities and privatization as its guiding logic. Chavez challenged this model which is precisely why he was hated within Western imperialist circles.

Craig Murray, former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan, echoes this undoubted truth, saying of Chavez:

'He applied the huge increase in revenues to massively successful poverty alleviation via social programmes, housing and education.

'The western states of course do everything to stop developing countries doing this, on behalf of the multinationals who control the politicians. They threaten (and I am an eye-witness) aid cancellation, disinvestment and trade sanctions. They work to make you a political pariah (just watch the media on Chávez today). They secretly sponsor, bankroll and train your opponents. The death of such "dangerous" leaders is a good outcome for them, as in Allende or Lumumba.

'Chávez faced them down. There are millions of people in Venezuela whose hard lives are a bit better and have hope for the future because of Chávez. There are billionaires in London and New York who have a few hundred million less each because of Chávez. Nobody can deny the truth of both those statements.'

http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2013/03/chavez/

One of the great tasks of our time is to appreciate how these undeniable realities distort media coverage right across the supposed corporate media 'spectrum' and by extension seemingly fool otherwise intelligent people like Dylith. Our ability to understand and respond to this problem is vital for the future, not just of Venezuela, but of all of us.

 

Want to take a stab at how income inequality is rising in India due to globalization? Want to take a stab at why farmers, who for generations had relied on seeds passed down to them from their ancestors, suddenly committed suicide because they were in debt because they were forced on buy seeds from Monsanto? Want to take a stab at why basmati rice, the best rice in the world, which has been grown for centuries in India, is being patented? Want to take a stab at explaining how Union Carbide, brought it's capital to India, which resulted in the death of 15, 342 and 521,000 suffering permanent injury due to its poisonous Bophal chemical plant? Want to take a stab on the role that money played in bribing big politicians in the 2G Telcom scandal? Want to take a stab at how modernization in the form of the Narmada Dam Project, resulted in the sudden displacement of over 100,000 people when the dam was first activated?

Go and ask those poor farmers, who are hiding in the jungle from the army of the Indian Government, if there lives have improved due to modernization.

You don't know jack about India.

 

There is a difference in context here. It is one thing to give charitable donations to the needy. It's another thing to consider how to do business in such a way that the people can share in the rewards that come from the use of the resources of a country. You do understand that, don't you?

Your problem here is that you cannot see the forest for the trees. You are stuck so far down in the paradigm that says that attracting capital into a nation should be the primary focus of the leaders, that you cannot see the problems that such a narrow focus creates.

 

Now that was awesome.

My political science professor in college got me interested in the Congo. I went to the library and started reading about it, and could not stop. I almost wanted to cry when I understood what happened to Patrice Lumumba. Such a brilliant man, butchered in cold blood. The CIA was going to poison him, but they were beat to the punch. So sad! What a waste.

 

Indeed. That's a point I made previously. FDI is a euphemism for theft. However, for pro-globalization ideologues their work in economic development is regarded as a force for good when in truth it does more harm than good for the people on the receiving end of it. Rarely has the disconnect between reality and illusion been as great. Truelly Orwellian.

 

Just to add the what has been so eloquently stated, governments should exist to serve the interests of ALL those who are governed, not just the few who possess wealth and power. Of course some people will be better than others at making money. However that person may not be the artist that someone else is. And neither of them may have the intellectual capacity as someone else. And that is good. They should all use their talents in the spirit of service to one another, to the environment, and to humanity in general. That is the mentality that will create a harmonious and healthy environment for all. However, what appears to be taking place at this particular point in history, is the emergence of the notion that somehow what is good for the sake of profit of, in particular, large corporations, is what is in the best interests of mankind. This is a false and very dangerous notion. This is so because the human mind has the tendency to distort it's perception of reality in the presence intense pressure to have certain needs satisfied. I like to refer to the example of having to relieve oneself when going to restroom, when illustrating this principle. When a person has to really go bad, that is primarily all that they can focus on, to the exclusion of everything else. In a similar way, humans, driven to intensely by the desire for profit, have to tendency to do so at the exclusion of everything else. Indeed it has been seen time and time again, throughout history, that humans will lie, cheat, steal, or even kill their mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, and children, for the sake of seeking profit. Therefore there is a need to instill within the minds of humans, a sense of service to humanity and to the environment PRIMARILY, and the pursuit of profit secondarily.

What we see on the world stage now, is that people in leadership positions, practically function in terms of serving the interests of the rich and powerful primarily, and if there is anything left over, it can trickle down to everyone else. Indeed, no politician can be elected to the position of President of the United States, who is not blessed by Wall Street. Furthermore, the President of the United States cannot appoint a Treasury Secretary, or more importantly, a Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve system, who is not blessed by Wall Street. This functions to insure that the interests of the wealthy and powerful will be served primarily.

There are some who argue that this is good. That this is the natural order of things. That this functions as a mechanism to safeguard the resources available to society. According to this view, there is a reason that these persons are more wealthy and powerful. It is because they are more prudent, they are wiser, and therefore they deserve to have their needs met first, for then they can look to the properly look to the needs of those who are not as talented.

However, there is a flaw in this thinking. In particular, the assumption that persons who have wealth will be motivated to look to the broader needs of humanity and the environment is glaringly flawed. Rather, practically speaking, the opposite is generally true. For men come to power, especially these days, by being ruthless, selfish, and doing whatever it takes to destroy those who they feel are in the way of their pursuit of wealth and power. Not only that, even if they are well intentioned, their minds are distorted by misconceptions that cause them view people who should not be considered enemies, as enemies.

In the Middle East, the United States was taken to war on the pretext of keeping the country safe from the threat of weapons of mass destruction. Not only that, but the noble goal of ridding humanity of a ruthless tyrant was put forward as rationale. However, the real reason was to ensure that the flow of oil from the Middle East would continue. For oil is the blood that drives the world economy. Oil is the blood that drives the military technology on which the world hegemony of the United States rests. And because the leaders of the US government consider that they have to primarily serve the interests of the wealthy and powerful who control the large corporations, it is the blood that sustains the hegemony of the rich and powerful as well.

As has been stated, Hugo Chavez viewed the world quite differently than these leaders. His vision was one that viewed the resources of society as being meant to serve the interests of everyone primarily, with the residual going to those who wanted to profit. And that is why he was demonized. Thinking people need to consider what is going on in the world today. Is it really true that society's best interests are served when the rich and powerful are given control? What happens is that such persons will take the power that they have to construct mechanisms designed to enrich themselves more and more, and that give the masses less and less. Therefore we are witnessing the significant growth of income inequality in the United States. And because wealth is the key for access to power, the rich are becoming more powerful at the expense of everyone else. This development, coupled with the growth of the police state, due to the events of 911, does not bode well for the future.

People need to wake up and look at what is going on around them.

 

It can't be real times of war sufficient to deny and disparage our privileges and immunities if wealthiest are not paying wartime tax rates, even for a war on drugs; should be an extenuating circumstance.

 

I like creative thinkers like you. I agree with your contention that there is nothing inherently wrong with making profit. The problem for the planet though, as you correctly inferred, is that the logic intrinsic to capitalism is profit maximization at any cost, even if that cost includes the very foundation upon which the system rests.

Capitalism has produced wonders but at the same time it produces the very destructive instruments of war that have killed millions. Marx identified this central contradiction implicit to capitalism over 150 years ago. To this end, Marx summed up capitalists as a band of warring brothers. This was true when industrial capitalism emerged during the time when Marx was writing and it remains true today.

The question is, how can a system that is so creatively destructive continue on seemingly indefinetly?

Well, the illusions pertaining to capitalism as a system that is supposedly 'natural' is reinforced daily by corporate journalists whose writings reinforce the corporate system which pays them their cheques. Corporate journalism describes someone paid to write for a corporation.

The key principle of corporate law was established in the 19th century by England's Lord Bowen:

'The law does not say that there are to be no cakes and ale, but there are to be no cakes and ale except such as are required for the benefit of the company... charity has no business to sit at boards of directors qua charity.' (Lord Bowen, cited, Joel Bakan, The Corporation, Constable, 2004, pp.38-39)

This quite literally outlawed authentic corporate compassion. More recently, the American Bar Association observed:

'While allowing directors to give consideration to the interests of others, [the law] compels them to find some reasonable relationship to the long-term interests of shareholders when so doing.' (p.39)

Put more bluntly, the rule that corporations exist solely to maximise returns to their shareholders is 'the law of the land', business journalist Marjorie Kelly comments, 'universally accepted as a kind of divine, unchallengeable truth'. (p.39)

Canadian lawyer Joel Bakan asks us to imagine how we would regard an individual who refused to help the sick and dying unless it made solid financial sense. He argues that such a person would be deemed a psychopath. If readers find the description extreme, they might like to consider the barely believable response of the fossil fuel industry to the catastrophic threat of climate change.

Journalists working for the corporate media are choosing to work for just such an employer guided by the same cold-blooded priorities. So what should our reaction be?

Well how would we have responded to a journalist taking big salaries from Pravda in Stalinist Russia or from Der Stürmer in Nazi Germany during the 1930s? The question might seem outrageous, but is a global psychopathic corporate system more or less destructive than a national Stalinist or fascist system?

Part of the difficulty in considering the question rationally lies in the very nature of the problem being addressed. The corporate media are as skilled at promoting their non-existent virtues as they are at marginalising critics. They also have an astonishing ability to make even the most appalling state crimes ('mistakes') seem somehow trivial, unimportant, 'not that bad'. So the very deceptiveness of the system makes the comparison with totalitarian media seem far more outrageous than it really is.

In fact the question is reasonable. If we look around us today - at the devastating Western wars of aggression, at the mass killings fuelled by corporate militarism, at the truly awesome, perhaps terminal, exploitation of people and planet – we are looking at a world being devastated by psychopathic greed. Former New York Times journalist, Chris Hedges, comments of 'the liberal class', the 'quality' corporate media included:

'The liberal class has become a useless and despised appendage of corporate power... as [it] pollutes and poisons the ecosystem and propels us into a world where there will be only masters and serfs.' (Hedges, Death Of The Liberal Class, Nation Books, 2011, p.12)

Journalists are participants in this system. But mere willingness to cooperate says nothing about the motives of the individuals involved. Some are indeed cynically serving greed and power. But others are sincere, attempting to improve and even reform the system from within. One could also reasonably extend this argument to people like Dylith who sincerely but misguidedly believe that they are working for the common good. Although I don't agree with their strategy, I nevertheless accept that it is a reasonable position to take, one that may even offer the best hope of spreading progressive views to a mass audience.

A proper functioning democracy where all views are heard equally is impossible within capitalism and by extension the corporate interests it serves. This is because analysis that is, for example, critical of climate change self-evidently impacts negatively on the generation of advertising revenue. So the problems are structural in nature. If people are not properly informed, they cannot make informed choices. The planet is a finite entity, but capitalism works on the premise of infinity.

Chomsky and Herman's book, Manufacturing Consent, published 25 years ago this year, is arguably the most rational analysis of structural media bias there is. Both authors are still alive, Chomsky is a ground-breaking linguist and one of the world's most-read political analysts. And yet the book has been ignored by the great and the good of corporate journalism. It has been mentioned eight times in the last five years in all national UK newspapers, all of them mentions in passing (one or two sentences) with zero serious analysis of the contents.

Corporation newspapers on average rely on advertising for 75 per cent of their revenues which naturally impact upon their contents. But this rarely ever discussed by corporate journalists for obvious reasons. Herman and Chomsky DO discuss it in detail but few hear or read the discussion again for obvious reasons. The establishment like it this way.

Corporate journalists are unlikely to respond to the point at all. He or she might make a vague gesture in the direction of truth from the safe confines of a book in the style of the BBC's former political editor Andrew Marr:

'But the biggest question is whether advertising limits and reshapes the news agenda. It does, of course. It's hard to make the sums add up when you are kicking the people who write the cheques.' (Marr, My Trade, Macmillan, 2004, p.112)

But, as in this case, there will be no attempt to explore the implications of what is an obviously crucial problem, no attempt to offer key examples from experience, to discuss alternatives, and absolutely no attempt to call the public to action.

Can the goal of profit-maximisation under billionaire owners sit with the notion of honest journalism?

Obviously it cannot.

One really has to be wilfully blind, or perhaps not have worked for a corporation, to fail to understand that criticising the company, the product, the owner - suggesting that the product is harmful and that customers should look elsewhere - is incompatible with the corporate profit drive. It cannot be tolerated because, from the perspective of profit, it is self-destructive and absurd. It is like deciding to play a game of football in which one of the teams tries to score own goals. What would be the point? Why bother at all?

The problem goes much deeper, because the de facto ban on structural self-criticism extends beyond journalists discussing their own media company to the contradictions afflicting the 'corporate free press' generally. Whistle-blowers who speak out honestly become 'radioactive', unemployable and are not welcome anywhere.

 

Let's break this down then. You suggest that I am in some sense of the word bright: So at best let's assume that I'm not completely dumb. You also seem to think me genuine in my desire to help. So not dumb & genuine.

Now you guys are critical of me in a couple of areas:

1.) is theory. That's fine, we have different ideological stances; but why do you automatically assume that I must be completely wrong? After all I'm not dumb, I do genuinely want to help people and as far as I can tell I'm the only one here who has spent years intensively studying the subject in question, both formally, and informally. So I'm not very sure why you are so eager to simply dismiss anything that I would have to say before I even get to say it. You say that I have my head up my ass, but how arrogant does one have to be to automatically shut out someone who has clearly spent a lot of time examining the subject, and is perhaps, for better or for worse, much better learned on the subject than you are? I mean precision has already admitted that he/she only has taken one or two basic econ classes (presumably in some undergrad degree). And I'm arrogant? I'm comfortable with the material, and have a lot of experience with it and at applying it, that is why I have strong views on it.

2.) Is that you criticize me for only utilizing theory that hasn't worked outside of the classroom. Yet again though, as far as I am aware, I am the only one here with actual and long term professional experience in the area of economic development; and not only that, but I have worked in some of the least economically hospitable and poor regions of the world (Sub-Saharan Africa). You assert that I am simply taking an "I'm better than thou" stance, but, simply put, I do have more experience in the field than you three do (unassumingly, as I don't know what your experience is). I'm also the only one who is trying to talk about economic specifics in relation to Venezuela while you guys are the ones more focused on overarching ideological constructs so I found that criticism particularly puzzling.

3.) You claim that I have an imperialist mindset, aka that my ideas were developed in some ivory tower and then forced upon unwilling populations; but that's not really how current developmental economics work. You guys have these assumptions about me; but the truth is that these ideas are based on talking to people in developing countries. Thousands of them. The data sets that we utilize aren't made up by some third party, nor are they simply constructed from the comforts of our homes in richsomewherestan; they are based on real polling data and real on the ground data. When I was initially getting started I worked in agribusiness: my job was to liaison with small scale farmers from Africa and find out from them what they needed in order to be successful. I'm curious if any of you have spent as much time, or any time for that matter conducting such primary research in the area of development? And if not, then why simply dismiss my findings before you've even heard them?

You guys seem so pumped up with stereotypes, generalizations, and caricatures of "western" individuals that you can't even see beyond you own (quite generalized) ideological frameworks, or seemingly beyond the country flag that I happen to be sporting.

But let me ask the same of you: what are your qualifications in the field? What advanced method of study have you utilized that should so lightly trample the experience of others? In short: why should I listen to you?