Doug wrote:
> We could debate this point forever, but as far as I and many better-
> informed people would tell you, yes the Bush admin was indeed very
> stupid and really had no fucking idea what they were getting into.
> They put 25-year-olds in charge of privatization, to take one random
> example. They wouldn't listen to anyone who knew anything about Iraq,
> because anyone who knew anything about Iraq would have told them that
> things would turn out pretty much as they did.
So, to be clear, they deliberately refused to hear from those who told them not to do what they were planning, because it was obvious what would happen. Now why would they have done this? Am I supposed to defer to the assumption of better-informed people that it was purely accidental that this led to a direct hit of billions of dollars for the energy sector, while also creating precisely the kind of weakened state that the US prefers to deal with? (Take as your example Colonel Mobutu, if you like). What am I, a coincidence theorist?
> Policy was made by a
> small cabal of arrogant provincials. Quite a few of them really
> believe you don't need a state when you let the market run free. If a
> cynical master like Kissinger were running things, I'd agree with
> this perspective, but he wasn't. Dick Cheney was.
Then why did they drive a huge increase in state investment in the US economy? Why the military Keynesianism? They aren't victims of some esoteric philosophy: they are against such state involvement as harms their class, while approving that which supports that segment of their class most allied with their interests. They don't privatise because orthodoxy says they gotta: they do so because it means transferring huge amounts of publicly owned wealth to the ruling class.
I don't doubt that the Bush administration is capable of all manner of fecklessness and stupidity, but they know their interests. And so far, because people keep underestimating them, they keep getting away with it: as will the Dems. _________________________________________________________________ Be one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=5d21c51a-b161-4314-9b0e-4911fb2b2e6d