So tired... I need to rant a bit to get into shape. Not only did the new Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie suck big time. So depressing! I also did the mistake to read a couple of columns written by Johan Norberg and Johan Stael von Holstein - Swedens own Neo Liberal Dynamic Duo.
Johan Norberg seems to consider everyone who has the slightest doubt about the righteousness of the US invation of Iraq and the future of the Iraqi "democracy" prejudiced or even rascist (DN Debatt, 3 May, 2005)! His point is that if you doubt, and maybe even believe there's a risk for civil war, then you doubt the Iraqi people and its capability to create and uphold democracy and therefore you have to be a prejudiced rascist. Simple! He sees South Africa as the perfect example for the future developement in Iraq. I understand why. The comparison to Northern Ireland, Lebanon, Rwanda, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Somalia etc etc doesn't really help his case. There's not much that supports Norbergs positive views of the situation in Iraq and his comparison between Iraq and South Africa. There are at least four major differences between Iraq and South Africa:
-the lack of a strong liberation movement like the ANC in Iraq during the Saddam Hussein dictatorship.
-the lack of an obvious and popular alternative leader like Nelson Mandela to unite the people after the removal of the old regime.
-the amount of violence after the removal of the old regime. Johan could try one of Google News 629 links to different news media telling the story about the almost 400 Iraqis who have been killed in guerilla attacks since the new government was unveiled two weeks ago.
-the South Africans changed their country themselves without the intervention of foreign powers.
Even in a small place like Fisksätra you can hear Iraqis talking about their fear of a civil war. It's not only evil lefties that have doubts. The Iraqi Sunni minority distrusts the Shia majority and fear that they will join with the arch enemy Iran. That and the fact that the conflict between Sunni and Shia is more than a thousand years old must be absolutely clear to Johan Norberg. But for him the neo liberal spin is much more important than the truth. You could just as well turn it the other way around - Johan Norberg and his friends are the rascists because they did not believe that the Iraqi people themselves were capable of changing their destiny. They needed the superior help of Team America.
Enough about that, let's move on to his much less talented sidekick Stael von Holstein. He has this column in Metro. To make it easy for himself he uses the same text all the time. It's a long rant about entrepreneur this and salesmanship that. The entrepreneur is a hero, everyone should be an entrepreneur and everyone should worship the entrepreneur - especially the greatest and most misunderstod entrepreneur of them all - Johan Stael von Holstein himself. In his last column he wanted all students to be forced to become entrepreneurs! Everyone have to be cloned into small Stael von Holsteins. Neo Liberals, Scientific Communists - not that big difference really. They just have different ideologies to hide behind but their goals are just the same - to force everyone else into conformity. They are know-it-all's with the right answer to everything. Lucky bastards! Back in the seventies they just had a different set of buzzwords. Instead of entrepreneurs and salesmanship there were workers and class struggle. I don't want to be forced to become a worker, entrepreneur, farmer, servant, teacher, artist or anything else. I want to be free to make my own choices.
End of rant. I feel so much happier now.
So Long, and Thanks For All the Falafels!
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
So Long, and Thanks For All the Falafels 1.1
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5 comments:
Some info, who knows, maybe there is a bit of truth in the poll even though its conducted by cnn...
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2004-04-28-gallup-iraq-findings.htm
3. and 23. is interesting.
/A
Well I can see the reason for worship of the entrepreneur as well as I can see it for the worker. But I think the entrepreneur is taking more responsibility in a society by providing him/herself a workplace as well as being able to provide it for other people. As a worker you expect someone else to do it for you. So you demand that someone else become an entrepreneur. It maybe one person, a group or a state, but the entrepreneurial responsibility is there nonetheless. And of course an entrepreneur in most cases needs workers to be able to expand his business. So I dont mean that there is a hostile relation in any way. Just that entrepreneurs can exists on their own. But workers can not. And why should it be a right to expect someone else to provide a workplace for you?
Thanx A for the link. Very interesting. I'm not surprised that so few Iraqis miss Saddam. But it must be disturbing for the so called coalition that 52% of the Sunnis answer the question (23) "Thinking about any hardships you might have suffered since the US/British invasion, do you personally think that ousting Saddam Hussein was worth it or not?" with a "Not worth it". It must also be disturbing for the coalition that 80% of both Shiites and Sunnis answer the question (14) "Do you think now of Coalition forces mostly as occupiers or mostly as liberators?" with a "Occupiers". But at least 97% of the Kurds sees them as "Liberators". But is a free Kurdistan something that the US will support? I don't think so.
Well, there's no reason to worship neither the entrepreneur nor the worker but you can respect them both. We all have smaller or bigger parts of them both in ourselves.
"As a worker you expect someone else to do it for you."
You could also say that as a worker you provide a much needed service. Some would maybe say that as an entrepreneur you demand that other people should help you out when needed and then accept getting screwed by you at any moment you choose.
"And why should it be a right to expect someone else to provide a workplace for you?"
Well, if you as a worker provide the service to try to attain certain skills that the society, including the entrepreneurs, has said is needed on the labour market I think you actually should have some rights. Maybe not always to the first workplace of your choice but you should at least have the right to a decent life without constant fear of poverty just because the cheap and greedy entrepreneurs wants to keep the wages low. Read some history - riots caused by poverty and hunger were not good for business. That's for sure. Why did the financial and social elite back in late 19th and early 20th century US and Europe accept the change in society? I'm sure they thought they had something to gain from it.
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