Tuesday, October 21, 2008

A Ridiculously Good Explanation of the "Bailout"

From one of the best writers on the planet, channeling the spirit of Hunter S. Thompson, but with populist overtones and an unerring eye for the follies of the Empire in decline, our friend Joe Bageant just outdoes himself in this post. If you've been paying attention to current events, you won't read this account in your local fishwrap, or the MSM, or anywhere else. The man set up shop in Belize; he has serious cred as well as the gift of expression. Read it at your peril...

2 comments:

KELSO'S NUTS said...

I like Joe and will bookmark him and follow and perhaps suggest a link to my teammates.

While everything Naomi Klein has written is important and her style and fame is more important in that it gets her scholarship out to a wide readership, I like Stiglitz, Henwood and Chomsky better as thinkers, writers and scholars.

As popular writers and journalists, I liked Hunter Thompson and like Matt Taibbi more than I do Naomi Klein.

The reason is pretty simple: none of those writers ever had any problem with admitting to prefer the capitalist system of allocating goods and services. They were/are against US imperialism, "American Exceptionalism," and the American War and racist Punishment culture domestically.

I "fear and loathe" the modern American Republican Party and its electorate.

I find the modern Democratic Party and its electorate merely laughable and pathetic. They seem to like the War and Punishment Culture so long as it's run by a "D" instead of an "R". They refuse to do any economic study at all and are terrified of the words "capitalism," "socialism," "libertarianism," "populism," "anarchism," "sovereignty," "fiscal policy," "monetary policy," etc...etc...etc...

Republicans want to dominate markets. Democrats consider them necessarily evils. Which point of view do you think is stronger?

I'm kind of a persona non grata on White liberal blogs because I always ask they question "why are you afraid to say you favor capitalism or worse say you 'hate' capitalism?" There's no creature more vile than a parlour Marxist.

You're either Lori Berenson or you're not. There's no "guess so."

Yet, American liberals cannot deal with the realities of Hugo Chavez. They either like him for silly reasons. Or dislike him because Obama is following a script on him.

I don't understand why it's so hard to see that Hugo Chavez can call himself anything he likes but he's not a Socialist. He's got a generous public sector but he's a fiscal and monetary conservative.

Ford Motor Company is far more evolved on international issues than American liberals will ever be. They desperately want to get into the "green tech auto manufacturing business," but they can't do it in America.

Obama can prattle on about the need for renewable energy sources as "part of our national security from enemies such as Venezuela," Ford Motor Company's bosses know that Venezuela, Brazil, Panama, Argentina and Chile are where the real commitments to green tech are.

So, without any fanfare, they floated a Bolivar Issue on the Caracas exchange to finance a high-end joint venture with Venezuelan public and private interests whose goal is to produce luxury green automobiles.

Venezuela, an OPEC state, is well aware of the need to diversify away from being only a natural resources exporter.

Chaos said...

Chaos largely agrees with and appreciates the rare and detailed comments...wonders if kelso has read any Derrick Jensen. The most unflinching writer/poet of the Deep Green movement...bringing down unsustainable industrial civilization is necessary. Taibbi is just simply awesome in descriptive powers relating to contemporary politics...Chaos devours every word.
BTW, Hell's Daily Newspaper still has great difficulty loading in Chaos' browser...here's hoping the site regains its equilibrium.