Mouse Droppings
Having milked the economy for enough to survive on without being forced to dine on Corn Flakes more than twice a day (Jeez, who can afford Corn Flakes!), I feel free now to criticize fearlessly our great capitalist system (while avoiding split infinitives). The urge to gripe mightily was imspired by the reply one of The Nation's writers made to a couple of letter writers in the mag's most recent issue.
Seems a gal by the name of Daphne Eviatar (wonderful surname for a female Baldwin County crop duster, eh) had writ a piece criticizing those two great avatars of capitalist theory, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund for their rape of Bolivia and other "developing" countries. Her article had drawn fire from an ex-high-official of the rapist organiztions and another "well qualified" complainer. She fired back with a predictably effective defense, but the final paragraph of her salvo bombed the daylights out of "progressive" China with the same petard by which she had hoist the rapine minions of the West. "As for China, there's no doubt it will invest in Bolivia and across Latin America. But there's no reason to believe it will be any less agressive [she could have said "rapacious" with greater and more truthful effect] than Western corporations at trying to profit from Bolivia's natural resources."
When I read that paragraph I went into a trance that lasted most of the afternoon. I was awakened by the 6-point end the Canadian curling team threw against the Finns, only to discover that the realities of the economic world had not been changed by that miraculous score. Capitalists and "progressives" were just as greed-driven as before, and the critics employed by the freedom-loving press were still as prone to cast a pox-on-both-their-houses. The earth had revolved only another 67 1/2 degrees.
Nevertheless, I slept well through the ensuing night, and so far have managed to retain a loose grip on reality . . . one of the benefits of being independently ignorant of the invisible forces controlling the flow of wealth and happiness in this best of all possible worlds.
Seems a gal by the name of Daphne Eviatar (wonderful surname for a female Baldwin County crop duster, eh) had writ a piece criticizing those two great avatars of capitalist theory, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund for their rape of Bolivia and other "developing" countries. Her article had drawn fire from an ex-high-official of the rapist organiztions and another "well qualified" complainer. She fired back with a predictably effective defense, but the final paragraph of her salvo bombed the daylights out of "progressive" China with the same petard by which she had hoist the rapine minions of the West. "As for China, there's no doubt it will invest in Bolivia and across Latin America. But there's no reason to believe it will be any less agressive [she could have said "rapacious" with greater and more truthful effect] than Western corporations at trying to profit from Bolivia's natural resources."
When I read that paragraph I went into a trance that lasted most of the afternoon. I was awakened by the 6-point end the Canadian curling team threw against the Finns, only to discover that the realities of the economic world had not been changed by that miraculous score. Capitalists and "progressives" were just as greed-driven as before, and the critics employed by the freedom-loving press were still as prone to cast a pox-on-both-their-houses. The earth had revolved only another 67 1/2 degrees.
Nevertheless, I slept well through the ensuing night, and so far have managed to retain a loose grip on reality . . . one of the benefits of being independently ignorant of the invisible forces controlling the flow of wealth and happiness in this best of all possible worlds.
posted by Benedict S. at 11:31 AM
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