Tuesday, September 23, 2003
(11:47 PM) | Adam Kotsko:
Today at the UN
During my drive to Chicago, I heard a wonderful speech on NPR by President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa. Addressing the UN General Assembly, he touched on the obvious issues of international terrorism and American preemptive attacks, but then he shifted focus in a way I found very valuable:
"Global poverty and underdevelopment are the principal problems that face the United Nations. Billions across the globe expect that this General Assembly will address this challenge in a meaningful manner," President Mbeki said. "For us, collectively, to meet these expectations will require that each and everyone of us, both rich and poor, both the powerful and the disempowered, commit ourselves practically to act in all circumstances in a manner that recognizes and respects the fact that none of us is an island, sufficient unto ourselves."
Although the UN's website sites Mbeki's speech as one of several examples of the importance of multilateralism, I disagree -- he talked about the current political conflicts, to be sure, but his main point was to get below the present rhetoric into the core problem of the world, which is economic inequality. Terrorism is a problem, and 9-11 was a devestating loss, but the real problem in the world today is global poverty.
Global poverty is clearly not a problem that the right wing is prepared to address. With the Republicans in charge of virtually every aspect of government today, the greatest economy in the world, the economy of a nation so prosperous and so bursting with wealth that you'd almost have to try to mess it up, is faltering, increasingly unable to provide work for its citizens, with no upturn in sight. Although the consequences of our little Republican adventure will be long-term, hopefully we can extract at least one lesson from this: all those talking points from right-wing radio, all those policies thought up by the think tanks, all the counterintuitive "logic" of achieving a goal (for instance, higher government revenue) by doing exactly the opposite of the common-sense way of achieving that goal (for instance, cutting taxes), all of it was bullshit. Twenty years of non-stop propaganda have now produced policies that clearly do not work, at all. There is no conceivable excuse for this failure. They won. They face no substantial obstacles, either in the form of domestic liberal opposition or meaningful foreign enemies. They have gotten everything they've wanted, from the stupid tax cuts to the stupid war. It just does not work. It's all bullshit, all smoke and mirrors.
So to all the radical Republicans, I say: You tried your best, and you failed. Now please shut up and go away, because your constant whining and grandstanding is drowning out the voice of the poor.
Yesterday, a dear friend told me that he's not angry enough to contribute to my web page. I don't know what he's talking about.
