When “It” Does Not Work, The Management Must Be Changed.

1. Voters, attention. Here is a simple suggestion to guide your political input on the economy. “When an approach fails you need to change the business plan and the management.”

2. A network exists to support dictatorships. Places such as Burma benefit. Let us not overlook North Korea. Without Peking and Moscow as well as funds from the ROK, that abnormity would be in the museum. There it would sit on a shelf next to two-headed embryos. The same goes for tyrannies that the West prefers not to mention. Instead of critique, they continue to receive funds. Those that have not learned their taboos well while in PC school detect a correlation with religion and pigmentation. 

The African Union’s bold stand regarding the departing régime of Libya is illustrative. At the time this is written, the uprising hunts the exotic “Brother” Gaddafi. The labyrinth under the Leader’s compound stuns investigators. The search continues in the underground that the Rat-in-Chief used to escape his admirers.

As the outposts of tyranny are falling, the world is recognizing the “rebels” as Libya’s government. Recognition implies that the funds hoarded abroad are returned to their rightful owners. That means the Libyan people. It is now in need of money to reconstruct what the departing dictatorship has ruined. 

Last week the African Union has refused to recognize the National Transitional Council. Gaddafi is a founder of the AU. (Newly Algeria topped that by becoming the protector of the Gaddafi clan.) The moral confusion of the moralists united in that organization might be related to donations to the dictatorships that ail postcolonial Africa. Earlier bribes seem oblige in the era of mutual “Götterdämmerung” (the twilight of the Gods). Or has the moral problem a “racist” aspect? Killing Libyans by African mercenaries means that the crime is not a “white-on-colored” act. Could moral outrage be wearing colored spectacles?

Currently, the case of Syria cannot be contained under the lid. Assad has massacred enough of his subjects to make even the UN want to take action. Russia and China are blocking the world body. Officially, this is to give the murderer’s reforms a chance. Supposedly, they will benefit all accidentally surviving Syrians. 

There are other motives. Authoritarian systems are loyal to their kind. The unrest in the Arab world and its possible crossing of ethnic boundaries contains a warning. The disobedience of the led might infect the home turf of Security Council members. Fighting such infections abroad is, therefore, a defense of the homeland. Accordingly, by recognizing the rebellion, we promote a positive force. 

3. In August, we remembered the Berlin Wall. Since its construction, it has fascinated those that were lucky enough to live west of it. The notoriety has odd aspects.

The anniversary of that “coral” gave an opportunity to rehash the event. As presented, the facts proved to be no hurdle to reinterpret the “Wall”. Some efforts created an imaginary construct that drove the real thing out of the picture.

An oddity of the Wall’s image is in the emphasis. As an opponent of Marxist dictatorships –whether of Soviet, Maoist or of lesser providence- one feels gratitude for the bad press that Communism received. While the structure confessed to bankruptcy, its existence also demonstrated the weakness of authoritarian Socialism in power. One is tempted to say that the Wall proved that Socialism has the best of its arguments when in opposition. In that role, its exponents can cater to the envy in most of us. That voice inside us expresses discontent for failing relative to our dreams. In this case, the promise is attractive that what others have accumulated and we crave, shall be given to us once power is taken. On the way to the take-over there can be limited looting through punitive taxes. The handouts financed by that form of confiscation serve as vote getters. 

The ironic 19th century summary of the essence of Communism, “what is yours is mine, what is already mine is not of your business”, is frequently applied and remains attractive. However, while not yet having enough power to kill the supporting organism, the parasite causes only limited damage. This supports the allegation that since even partial power brings returns, the total power of the “reallocators” will fill the horn of plenty. Socialist theory might cater to pecuniary interests and satisfy prejudices located near the categories of “justice and equality”. However, once in power, the system strangulates the hosting organism. Without motives that encourage productivity in ones enlightened self interest, terror is needed to maintain the temperature of society above the point at which morgues store stiffs. 

Before modern times autocracy stifled local protest. Dissidents could go in exile. Totalitarian dictatorship has discovered that handcuffing dissent at home is inadequate. If the uppity know that they can escape, their boldness will grow because they can flee from retaliation. By this logic, the desire for total control led to the creation of border enclosures. These converted the territory separated from the rest of civilization into a prison. The writer remembers how family and friends were hatching plans to escape the forced “building of Socialism”. (The most outlandish: build a motorless U-Boot using the flow of the Danube to transport it.) The wall in Berlin is not unique. Its fame comes from being notorious. It is like the relationship of Paris Hilton to sexy women. Many others are as pretty, equally virtuous and just as tempting. PH is just better known because of her press. The point applies to the “Wall”, too. 

The Berlin Wall was merely a section of the Iron Curtain that cut the world into halves. That divider in Berlin had been a visible part of a death strip that could be hidden elsewhere. The notoriety also benefited from tearing apart a major people of Europe. No one else had his “Federal Republic“ on the “other side”. And no captive people commanded the interest that anything German can. Nor did the ignored victims use a language through which their plight could be heard as easily as that of the Germans banished to the “East”.

For parties that are committed to “overcome Capitalism” and the “Socialist road”, the Wall is an embarrassment as it recalls their system’s record. Therefore, there is an industry alleging that, the “anti-Fascist wall”, has prevented a world war. This ignores the question why the Wall’s removal has not resulted in mayhem.

Equally entertaining is another angle that dismisses the record and distorts the case to fit the theory. The last ditch of the Wall’s apologists is that the USA is also building one along its southern border. So, why castigate the “GDR”? However, the hindrances America might erect will lack automated firing systems and minefields. Guards instructed to shoot to kill those running away will also be missing. 

Even at that, the comparison ignores a crucial fact. To be a genuine equivalent, the US’ fence would need to serve the purpose the Iron Curtain had. In this case, the US’ effort would not be to keep people out but to prevent the flight of “illegal” Americans to Mexico. According to the last information available, the masses do not yet move in that direction. Perhaps, if the elections of 2012 turn out to be a mandate renewal, this might change. Between the need to keep ones people inside and preventing outsiders from entering, there remains a slight difference. It serves as an expression of the virtues and the failures of the systems behind such efforts.