Milton Friedman was the father of contemporary disaster capitalism and the ideologue behind capitalist genocides post 1970. If he is the undisputed father than
Jeffrey Sachs is the leading contender for the title of "first son". Sachs has successfully driven hundreds of thousands of people into the depths of poverty based on his agenda of structural reform in Bolivia, Poland and Russia. He man is now getting interested in the Copenhagen conference on Climate Change. The likes of Jeffery Sachs thrive in a crisis and find the most innovative ways of manufacturing and profiteering in a crisis. Their area of super-specialization is to bring a country to it's knees by forcing it to sell their assets and waiting for the coffers to get drained before stepping in with reforms that drive the country to poverty. Sachs, after killing democracy in Russia, is now wearing a halo and talking about poverty, famine and climate change.
His article in today's Hindu -
We need action, not Kyoto II - sent a shiver down my spine. If Iraq was a disaster capitalism success story than the climate crisis is tailor made for Sachs and
Chicago Boys. The crisis will be the playground from which Sachs can wrest the title of successor to Milton Friedman.
This paragraph in the article is very revealing -
The climate issue is too complicated to swallow in one gulp, as was tried in Kyoto in 1997. This invites a toothless agreement that could be more posturing than progress. We should think about the component parts of real progress, and then insist on practical policies by all major players, even as the legal framework is hammered out for later signature. There is still time for a three-part package: a political framework, a financing package, and a series of practical steps announced by all major regions to tilt the trajectory on emissions.
When a disaster capitalist like Sachs who evangelizes the
shock doctrine uses the term "political framework" it translates to killing democracy (Russia, Chile, Bolivia, Argentina and Poland) and butchering any opposition (preferably with a bloodbath). When he uses the words "major players" he refers ONLY to MNCs that profiteer based on his work.
When somebody like Sachs talks about a "financing package" it will mean removing the safety nets for the poorest of the poor in the globe and providing taxation benefits to the largest corporates. It will mean creating a free market for common property resources and putting a permissible price tag to corporate pollution rather than treat it as a crime.
Sach's "
Practical Policies" led to the rise of the Oligarchs in Russia, an invasion of Chechnya, a doubling of the suicide rate, the destruction of the parliament building and immunity for businessmen and politicians from being prosecuted for corruption. How practical is that?
Based on Sach's track record around "Practical Policies", "Political Framework" and "Financial Packages it is obvious that the disaster capitalists are going to tax sub-saharan Africa and other poor countries while encouraging the increase of consumption in the first-world. They will find a way to make it look "fair" by inventing a way to trade "carbon" (read "trade" as "I pollute and you pay").
The fact that the article is bereft of any mention of the contribution that his country makes to global pollution is conspicuous.His call for an interim agreement will be the cornerstone argument adopted by the Americans in ensuring that a concrete settlement remains elusive. The only agreement acceptable to the disaster capitalists of this world will be a scenario where the First World can continue to create war, destabilize nations and steal their wealth either overtly or covertly. Such an agreement will be readily signed by Obama (even without a tele-prompter).
In my opinion, the best way to begin the Copenhagen Summit would be to burn an effigy of Jeffery Sachs and Milton Friedman. We should ensure that the IMFs, World Banks, WTOs and Halliburtons of this world have nothing to do with deciding the fate of our environment. We should also ensure that America has no space on the negotiating table. Their only mandate should be to comply. They lost their participatory rights the day they set foot in Vietnam.
We should ask for a complete retreat of all US troops to their barracks. America and Europe should be taxed for the environmental damage that they have caused over the last seventy years. Americans must be severely taxed to prevent any escalation of their destructively consumptive patterns. Any failure to comply should be dealt with in the same way that they dealt with Iraq. Bomb all the factories, bridges, hospitals, electricity plants and water treatment facilities on US soil. Once the corporatist structure of the US economy lies in ruins one will be able to see the world bloom and the environment begin to heal itself. Somebody has to tell Mr Sachs that Copenhagen is not about American Imperialism or economics. (...it is about the environment stupid!)
PS- Unlike some of us, the media still has their head where the sun does not shine. The media will go to any length to promote Sachs and his policies. The media continues to manufacture consent for people like Sachs who have so much of blood on their hands.
