Let the Experts Decide

by Sheilanagig
Watching George Bush on television is an experience somewhere between revulsion and hysterical laughter. Yesterday, with a straight face, he told the world that indeed, he is a free market man; but, well, er, um, after consulting with the experts, he decided he better go along with them. The US taxpayer is now on the hook for billions, even trillions, to bail out the experts who created the sub prime crisis in the first place. Of course, not one homeowner facing foreclosure will be saved; but the elites mansions will be safe and sound now, as will be their failed financial empire.

Americans are paralyzed like deer in headlights and continue with their blather on the upcoming election, perhaps hoping that a hero will come along and save them from going down the vortex of the bankruptcy drain. Their faith in the maxim 'what you don't know can't hurt you' has been taken to the height of absurdity even as the 'American Dream' becomes a nightmare from which they cannot awaken.

Meanwhile, the leaders of the EU assure it's unbelieving citizens that the best option for the future is to give more power to the experts in Brussels. The EU president Nicholas Sarkozy plays a game with NATO and Russia, embracing the tainted rhetoric of the American version of the 'Georgian invasion' which could put Europe smack dab in the middle of WW3. If the so-called diplomacy of Sarkozy fails, no doubt the blame will fall on the Irish who refused to give a blank mandate of power to the Brussels elite. Of course, the citizens of three member states have now rejected the Lisbon Treaty/Constitution; but in spite of his over-sized ears, Sarkozy does not seem to be able to hear the people he claims to represent.

How dare people challenge the competency of their political/economic experts!

In South America and Africa, quite a different mood has emerged among the peoples of many countries: they are willing to take their leaders to account, with machetes and rocks if necessary. Westerners look upon the news of some new rebellion in Bolivia or South Africa with horror and pity from their comfortable consumer rapture, shaking their heads and returning to the pleasures of capitalism they have enjoyed up until now, while their own freedoms and control of their lives ebb into the sea of experts in Brussels and Washington DC.

If the political will of people were gold, third world countries would be rich and Western civilization would be bankrupt. The difference between the two is quite obvious and understandable: when people have nothing to lose anymore (and are hungry), they are dangerous (to the elites). In the West, capitalism has given people just enough to make them complacent and willing to surrender their power to the experts for the sake of 'business as usual'.

In the current meltdown of global finance, 'business as usual' may not go on for long, even with all the experts collaborating in a solution to prop up the defective internal structure of capitalism. This crisis did not come about as a result of average people doing anything different then they have always done. It is the elite financiers and gamblers of the stock markets and banks who now are afraid that their profits are in jeopardy. In their expert opinion, common people paying taxes should bail them out and make the world safe again for imperial finance ventures.

This fact is conveniently obscured to Western people as Western media is owned by another group of experts who decide what is good for masses to hear, and what is not. What the experts fear more than anything is people with real political will who demand that government operate for the benefit of people, instead of the reverse.

However, they overlook one critical factor; people do not need the media to tell them whether they are hungry, homeless or jobless and in despair. Such is the case in the third world countries. Imagine a starving family in South Africa reading in the daily rag that it should not worry because experts are now fixing everything. By the time the promised solution arrives, the problem people may be dead. It is after all, a solution of a type.

Perhaps scarcity is not such a bad thing in relaying the true character of political experts to the people they supposedly represent. When Western citizens have nothing more to lose, they will not heed the media spin, but will know the truth. Then, the dreaded 'R' (revolution) word may once again create a government for the people and by the people; but not before the soil of earth is soaked with the blood of the previously smug and complacent supporters of the experts. The political will of the West has a long way to catch up with that of the citizens in the third world.