copyright paul kane 2007 all rights reserved
I based this image on a picture by Honore Daumier that I've always liked:
http://www.abcgaller...
Honore Daumier. Gargantua. 1831. Lithography. State 2. Bibliotheque Nationale de France, Paris, France.
I didn't realize until I looked up the Daumier picture on the internet how similar my picture was! I had tried the same theme earlier, in a different way.
copyright paul kane 2007 all rights reserved
When I look at the world, or at the US, what I see is the operation of a financial elite (military/industrial/financial/energy/political complex) determined to gobble up the rest of us. It seems to me that the New World Order, prepared by Reagan (among others), trumpeted by H. Bush (amongst others), enabled by Clinton (amongst others) and brought to a crescendo by W. Bush (amongst others) bases its grandiose claim to historical finality on two 'great' achievements that I find dubious.
One is the 'great' victory of Capitalism over Communism in the Cold War. At best, the US' 'victory' in the Cold War (which arguably the US did a lot to start and perpetuate, though that's not the dogma) looks like two punched out fighters in a ring, one of whom finally falls over, leaving the other one to proclaim 'victory'.
It's bizarre to hear folks like Cheney tongue lashing Americans for their lack of will in Iraq. You want to look at the power and endurance of will in times of war? Look at Russia beating back the Germans in WW2. Now THAT was a triumph of National Will. And it was a magnificent demonstration that legitimacy DOES matter in war, that defensive war can be sustained and invasive war cannot. Sooner or later, the invaders retreat. Now Russia is rising in power again (not a very pretty sight) while the US is diminishing. So much for 'victory'.
The other is the rise of China and the reduction of poverty there. According to the numbers I've looked at (eg. http://web.worldbank... ), if you took the numbers from China and East Asia out of the mix, world poverty would be worse, if anything, over the last few decades in which the New World Order has held sway. And, I'm sorry, but I don't trust the numbers out of China, or - in general - the numbers prepared by organizations such as the World Bank, and by countries such as China and America, which have a very strong interest in justifying the New World Order.
We know that our own government fudges the numbers in various ways, and EVEN SO the numbers here in America show diminishing or barely rising real income for most, and grotesquely rising inequality.
Several years ago, China allowed a report to be published which challenged it's own image of success against poverty: http://www.telegraph...
Maybe that was published out of a self-abnegating excess of candor in China, but I tend to suspect that they massage their numbers more than we do ours, if anything. As someone I read put it, China seems to have gone from shared poverty to unshared prosperity. I would ask the proponents of the New World Order, how do you have community if you don't have sharing?
My guess is that the New World Order has an ugly brutality that should astound us. I heard a guy on the radio saying that, for relatively little money, we could set up basic clinics in every poor area in the world and that these would dramatically affect world health. Instead we have this:
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), low- and middle-income countries suffer 90 percent of the world's disease burden but account for only 11 percent of its health care spending.
http://www.brookings...
As an Oxfam sponsored lecture put it,
Northern governments often respond to our criticisms of the WTO by issuing stern warnings about the consequences of a collapse of the rules-based system governing world trade. The alternative, they remind us, is a law of the jungle under which the weakest will suffer. They are right - up to a point. Poor countries - and poor people - need a functioning, rules-based multilateral system if they are to share in the benefits of global integration. What they do not need are rules dictated by the rich and powerful. To extend the `law of the jungle' analogy, if you are a Thomson's gazelle you do not want representatives of the lions dictating the rules of hunting.
http://www.oxfam.org...
Not surprisingly:
the gap between the rich and the poor has doubled in the last three decades - fifteen years ago the lowest 20 per cent of global population received 2.5 per cent of global wealth whereas at present, the share has been reduced to less than 1.3 per cent. For example, the 1999 UNDP Human Development Report records that the gap between the rich and the poor among nations as well as within nations has widened.
http://www.religion-...
For me, the Iraq war and the administration's apparent ongoing plot to attack Iran are the true face of the New World Order. If you are sitting over a vital resource - watch your 8ss. Watch the gigantic teeth looming over the horizon.
copyright paul kane 2007 all rights reserved
We don't see what is being done in our names. I guess that is partly because it is being done to us too. The economic inequality, the growing prison system, the social and political power increasingly concentrated in the hands of the few - we too face these challenges to our empowerment - and then there is the denial of information. As I understand it, in Iraq, reporters have two choices. They can embed with the US military, at the price of submitting their stories to the military for approval, or they can take their life in their hands. I think it's easy to see how that alone could suppress the flow information, and thus understanding.
http://www.aclu.org/...
Update - 5/2/7 - Thom Hartmann commented today that back in 1984 health care in China was paid for by the gvt., whereas today medical care is paid for out of one's pocket.
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Tomorrow at 10 AM, eastern, Storm Bear will host Saturday Morning Political Cartoon with a bunch of comic strips and even a panel!
graphic by Storm Bear