Failed States: Pug-Ugly 10:10

‘Failed State’ has become an American cliché. When international affairs are not going their way, American establishments lash out. The first thing they do to foreign States that won’t toe their line is first label them ‘rogue’, then, ‘failed’. When the offending State has worn both labels long enough they send in the marines.

Not that failed States need worry too much. America also has a reputation for losing wars against them miserably – Vietnam, Lebanon, Somalia. Or they lose the peace – Iraq, with Afghanistan to follow.

George W. Bush and his neo-cons learned nothing from previous debacles. ‘History? It’s in the past, God damn it.’ In order to avenge 9/11 they attacked ‘failed’ Afghanistan for sheltering ‘successful’ Osama Bin Laden, and missed the target abjectly. Then they falsely linked him to ‘rogue’ Iraq’s Saddam Hussein and claimed that the second Gulf War was a crusade waged against him, personally: in the name of freedom, democracy and oil, of course.

Medieval popes had the same attitude towards Saladin and his successors, and set out to resurrect the Holy Land via a series of crusades. If you, like George W, are unsure of events, Google ‘The Crusades’ and weep.

Now to the subject of one big failed State: America. Democracy is no longer the right word to describe America’s political system. The American model is an example of how the World should not be run. America has become a dictatorship by bosses (of giant corporations). Using unimaginable wealth and influence they ‘persuade’ half-witted politicians to create laws favourable to corporations as opposed to their own big State.

Look at the evidence: on behalf of Big Banks, their politicians (and ours) deregulated the banking sector and turned it into a destructive monster. Bad laws helped bankers accumulate vast wealth, even as their banks were failing, and/or, ruining State economies. Look at Big Oil and the drilling rights they secured to exploit Alaska and to take up dangerous deep drilling. After cocking its snoot at those who were trying to preserve the environment, Big Oil prospered even more.

America is close to anarchic failure, as predicted by fiction writers and filmmakers. America is part-ruled by shadowy figures occupying penthouses atop ivory towers overlooking Wall Street. Do you think they’ll care if America implodes? They’ve probably laid bets on it imploding.

But anarchic failure? Yes. Look at Detroit. Look at all the rust bucket states. Look at New Orleans. Look at the southern states awash in light crude. Look at California. With an economy bigger than many countries, California is in an advanced state of failure. Like the citizens of Mogadishu and Kabul, Californians can't get out of the place quick enough.

‘Law and order is set to break down’, say America’s rich. Look at the hundreds of gated communities being built to protect them. They’re scared to death of having to live among the poor of their own country.

If you think that these are blips and not iconic examples of chronic failure of America and the West’s political and capitalist systems, you are wrong. Having been a rogue political State for a very long time - look at its disgraceful record in propping up or installing sympathetic dictators in Latin America – who, I’d like to know, is going to slap the ‘failed’ label on America? Tony Blair?

State failure is not only confined to America. Deregulation of the banking sector, mismanagement of economic systems and false accounting have dragged Europe into the same quagmire. Some States in the European Union are set to fail by default, if they haven’t already. The EU as an entity is in a terrible state. Economies are shot to hell. Unemployment is rife and the validity of the euro in its comfort zone is in grave doubt. Other than because they followed the American model, why is that?

To qualify for entry into the eurozone, certain sovereign States deliberately falsified the state of their economic situations. To facilitate entry they used ‘creative’ accounting. To ensure the short-term political success of the eurozone, politicians turned blind eyes. The eurozone was built on sand.

Inedible euro-chickens are coming home to roost. Efforts at correcting the current financial debt crisis by spending cuts and increased taxation will have a drastic effect on European society, but not on the bankers, the corporatists, or the rich. The people who will bear the brunt will be those who cannot avoid paying taxes, the ones most affected by cuts. Riots (in Greece) are a foretaste. Resentment is building.

So do we only have the politicians to blame? No. Voters are to blame, namely, those who voted for political parties that promised to lower taxes, increase benefits, protect values of homes, currencies, pensions and shares. I.E. parties daft enough to borrow money on international markets to do precisely that!

I didn’t vote for any of them. Having no faith in free markets I haven’t voted for years. The idea of government dominated by the likes of the people who ran Lehman, or run BP, BA and Ryan Air, disgusts me. Deep down I’m a Marx and Engels-man, minus the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ angle. A Socialist cum Luddite, I would smash machines in order to save jobs.

So who would I vote for? I’d vote for any party that vowed to abolish the House of Lords, plus, following the demise of our gracious Queen, dump the Monarchy. In contrast to America’s madly conservative Republicans, my republican-minded party would nationalise banks, public transport, energy and water companies and, in their spare time, wage warfare against car, oil and other climate-polluting companies. They would redistribute wealth and if the rich kicked up a fuss, impose a tax on the rarefied air that they breathe.

Thus, (thanks be to God, I hear some say) I have no one to vote for.

So instead of avidly anticipating social revolution, I am destined to merely watch as modern States, in this so-called developed World, slip into an amoral vacuum and fail by default. I can do nothing to change this pug-ugly mess, except incite you, the voter, to pull your head out of your arse and vote with your heart instead of your calculating brain!