Random Thoughts
US Policy: Hope & Resignation
I have been critical of US policy on many occasions, but have forgotten to mention and praise the freedom to criticize it openly. I am going to summarize it one more time and end with the hope of change and the resigned acceptance of reality.
The main platform of policy is to pay heed to the economically and militarily powerful, especially in Europe and to tolerate those nations that provide a reliable source of cheap raw materials or finished goods, to keep the US economy growing and the US consumers happy, while brainwashing them or engaging them in the mindless pursuit of false info-tainment, spectator sports and soap operas.
This is pragmatic, prevalent behavior in nature and consistent with amoral Chanakyan or Machiavellian principles. It has led to writing off the entire continent of Africa, much of Asia, Central and South America, most recently Argentina. The focus is on Western and emerging Eastern Europe and patronizing acknowledgement of Russia. China is a source of cheap goods and Japan, a source of capital. Israel and India are two bookends to contain and squeeze restless, radical and or oil bearing Islamic states and Australia and New Zealand are outfielders and monitors of Southeast Asia. Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and India also help to contain a future powerful or belligerent China.
Those nations which serve as trading partners and are willing to absorb the endlessly printed dollars to buy technology or because their own currencies are worthless or they are ignorant of Gresham's law, are made to overdose on the ceaseless flood from the overflowing US Treasury. Dumping dollars would cause their own currencies to appreciate and thus reduce exports and employment and wreak havoc on their own domestic economies. This would lead to unacceptable political mayhem and threaten the privileged status of their power elite, be they elected or usurpers. Those who crow loudest about free trade subsidize their favored constituents, ranging from uneconomical sugarcane to mohair harvesters. It is not surprising that US policies play taps in requiem for much of the third world, but it is surprising that this death march is played with the consent and applause of sycophants, mendicants and plain thieves and crooks, who belong to that pariah third world. It is not fair to fault America for its policies, because enlightenment, repentance and renunciation are only possible, when satiation with greed leads to revulsion and reflection like the gluttony of Roman vomitoriums. Human nature is such that desire is rechannelled rather than quenched and all of us are with sins and should not cast stones.
The ironies of these avaricious policies are validated by evolution, in that individuals like nations indulge in behavior leading to extinction of their own species and ultimately their genes. In some ways the cupidity of the American power elite is reminiscent of the sowing the seeds of their own demise, by the feudal oligarchy nearest to the French throne. They persisted in their fatal practices, oblivious of the fact that their undermining of the kingship, and the resultant falling debris of the royal institution, would lead to their own demise by burying them. Unfortunate perversion of the documents of liberty, equality and fraternity occurred twice in the late eighteenth century, because high sounding words were written in the ink of hypocrisy, script of dishonesty and the language of expediency. The ultimate price was oceans of blood in the old and new world in ten to hundred years. the ways of nature are indeed strange and mimicry of virtue and hypocritical altruism lead to success and survival. Cowardice makes saints and ego makes heroes. A beautiful lotus is born in the mud and as Tennyson said, 'good customs corrupt the world'.
Utopian dreams and hopes are never fulfilled and the stark reality is that the masses can be roused, only if they are in profound need for prolonged periods. Even then, their attention span and arousal is limited in time and the natural tendency is to revert to inertia, indifference and resignation. When their bellies are filled enough to numb their minds, all they need are diversions and amusement, as affluent western societies prove. This is their evolutionary stable state of low energy and their sorry fate to be exploited by the rich and powerful and no rants, tears or prayers have any chance of salvaging them, from their destined subservience and apathy for any prolonged period of time.
06-Jan-2002
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Gaurang Bhatt, MD
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