Monday, July 21, 2008

Dreaming Dreams of Delusion for Fun and Profit

Dear George,

Gotta love your neocons! Not only have they divorced the intellect from reality, but they have managed to sell their delusion as truth.

Their premise is simplicity itself: America was founded on universal principles. Therefore, it is our moral duty to introduce these principles to the world, whether the world is ready or not.

And they are so right. Greed and exploitation are universal ideas that resonate throughout history with the dissonant clank of a broken bell. The neocon genius is equating these virtues with democracy and freedom.

They believe the world sees our power as benign, just as the wife-beater believes his wife is grateful every time he blackens her eyes and splits her lip.

They believe nothing expedites policy better than force.

And they are right. Pirates need the cutlass and the twenty pounder to execute their policies.

Working through their missionaries in the World Trade Organization (WTO), they are teaching the natives all there is to know about the democratic exploitation of assets and resources. At the same time, the natives learn about freedom of mobility as they are forced off their land and into the urban slums with their manifold economic opportunities.

Being idealists of the highest order, the neocons have no use for the messiness of realism. They cling to their dream of a unipolar world dominated by the United States, even though history since the sixteenth century has shown that international politics are either bipolar or multipolar.

I can understand why you are so drawn to them. They have intellectualized and marketed fantasy. This makes you brothers under the skin.

Your admirer,
Belacqua Jones

2 comments: