Do Not Ask Western Leadership to Fix Anything IAN WELSH
http://www.ianwelsh.net/do-not-ask-western-leadership-to-fix-anything/
Why are people calling for Western leaders to “fight terrorism”?
Global deaths from terrorism:
2002: 725
2010: 13,186
2014: 32,727
Those attacks mostly weren’t hitting the West. Now, a tiny fraction are.
Next.
Without the US arming and organizing the Afghani Mujahideen in the eighties there is no Al-Qaeda.
Without the US and British invasion of Iraq, there is no ISIS.
Understand this: Widespread global terrorism exists because of the US’s actions specifically and the West’s generally.
Let us turn now to economics. Inequality has been increasing since the 1970s. It has become worse every decade, with only minor reversals. After the financial crisis, it became so bad that more than all the productivity gains in the environment went to the top three percent. This happened in large part due to various financial, economic, and legislative “reforms.”
It was deliberate, in other words. Inequality is a result of deliberate action by US leadership. Austerity is, likewise, the result of deliberate action by Western elites, generally. They decided to deliberately impoverish their citizens and have done so.
This is not unique to the West.
India claims much economic progress, but the average number of calories eaten per capita has gone down over the last thirty years. The average Indian is worse off than they were when India was run on frankly socialist principles.
The leadership classes are chosen for their ability and desire to become leaders. If that overlaps with an ability and desire to make their society good for the majority of the population, that’s great, but in most countries right now, that’s not how or why they are selected. These people are selected by oligarchs, for oligarchs, and their skillset is pleasing oligarchs. This is done through a system that selects candidates before they get to voters, even primary voters or the equivalent. In most cases, you do not get a choice of a leader who will put ordinary people’s interests first... the job of modern politicians was to wrangle the masses for oligarchs... That is what they do. They are good at manipulating enough of the population, and they are good at giving money and power to those who already have both.
They are not good at anything else, and expecting them to do anything else is insane.
You do not want Hollande, Obama, and Cameron (let alone Erdogan) trying to fix the Middle East. You do not want the people who report to them trying to do so. You do not want western militaries trying to do so.
At least not if you want a reduction, rather than an increase, in terrorism.
The first rule of holes applies...If you live in the West, the great danger to your life, health, and prosperity is your leadership. It is how your society is run. This is cold, hard, and true.
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