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May,2000



The IMMF: Insane Miami Market Fanatics?



The mental instability in global affairs should  make advocates of
change  hopeful , even as they worry. A disappearance  of  some
artificial riches gained on Wall Street  - trillions of dollars gone in
a “ market correction” - may be a sign that political economic  madness
is on borrowed time. But we still have a long journey to  reach social
sanity .

The disgraceful episode of the Cuban child held hostage in Miami seemed
near a sane conclusion, after months of madness . But, at the time of
this writing, the fanatic clan in Florida, their zealotry fed by the
Gusanos in Washington, have spit in the face of government, and
succeeded . A  nation which, with impunity,  bombs cities and starves
children , seems to quake in fear of a band of  disturbed sociopaths in
Florida.

The eventual outcome may be that the  zealots of Miami  suffer their
greatest setback. Finally revealed as cynics at best, and  deranged at
worst, they have incurred the disgust of a majority of Americans . Only
some politicians and other fanatics are not repulsed by the  cruel
manipulation of this child’s emotions.  The  idea that Elian would live
better in Miami than in Havana must be based on the fact that only in
the USA can a six year old bring a gun to school and kill a classmate.
He’d never have that freedom under Castro’s tyranny.

Cynical  politicians  have played along with this Miami movement for
too long. Greedy search for political capital and  spineless concession
to Castro demonology have ruled American politics for more than forty
years. We may finally see a turning of the American political worms, if
not those who only became brave once they  ran away from Cuba , the way
Tories “escaped” the American revolution.

But perhaps the  most telling sign of  mental breakdown is the ruling
class reaction to  growing criticism of international capitalism. The
thousands who demonstrated against the WTO in Seattle last year were not
a flash in the pan. That movement made itself prominent again in
Washington demonstrations focused on the major forces of global capital:
the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

This new movement represents a coalition of forces , an operational
structure and a decency of purpose  that really threatens  the
anti-democratic international system .  The profiteers of global
poverty, social  injustice and environmentally destructive economics
are very nervous.

It is significant that as Castro is demonized by the Miami-Washington
clan , he helps lead the  Group of 77 - representing an international
majority  - in their criticism of the global system, and their support
for the DC demonstrators. The  economic arrangement lauded by the
ruling  G7 powers is the curse of the rest of humanity, including most
of the people of those seven nations.

The old order of  global usury that places a  majority in the perpetual
bondage  of poverty, debt, or both,  is finally facing an international
movement, united across borders of geography, culture and even class.

The growing  teamwork among students, environmentalists and organized
labor  has struck  panic into the hearts of capital’s global gluttons.
They depict themselves as saviors to humanity, helping the poor and
workers of the world with their policies of expanding debt, contracting
wealth and advancing the destruction of natural life.

The truth is that the rich get richer while the poor get poorer, and
this has not  changed with modern the institutions of global capital. Of
the top 24 rich nations of the world in 1900, 23 are still tops in the
year 2000. Progress? Meanwhile, those in  opposition to this unjust
economic idiocy are portrayed as products of ignorance and pampered
wealth  who would  lead us all into a future of  despair. Sure.


Never before have so many joined in actions against the foundation of
economic and political power in the USA and the world. The C word is
usually used only in conjunction with the modifier “corporate”, but the
members of this movement might as well wave red flags, since the power
structure sees them as what they are: threats to  capitalism.

Globalization groupies  were in a tizzy after Seattle, and they are even
more perturbed after Washington. Some  pundits are losing their grip ,
with commentary  beginning to make them sound like the mental cases of
Miami .

A  government report says 20% of Americans have suffered mental illness.
Citizens might think this group was composed  exclusively of those  who
are riding highest in the economy.  Despite their financial success ,
they, or at least their spokespeople, seem to be in need of a massive
prozac transfusion.


The Miami fanatics  are  almost lucid, compared to the  fundamentalists
of  globalization. These types see the market as a god, to be dealt with
only by  the high priests of  wealth, international business and
obedient government. Democracy is as alien a concept to this market cult
as it was to Hitler . Or Batista, the fascist so loved by the  Miami
mob. When he ruled, communists were hung from lamp posts and peasants
suffered their miserable lives in silence. Now, the communists run Cuba
and the uppity peasants are educated and healthy.  The Horror!

We  need to understand that fascism , along with its repression  of
dissent, always follows the economic line of free market capitalism.

During the Viet Nam era,  anti-war demonstrators  chanted “hey hey LBJ,
how many kids did you kill today”. In Washington, demonstrators
chanted “IMF, what do you say, how many kids did you kill today”.  In a
leap of awareness, critics have moved from demonizing individuals  to
demonizing institutions. They even talk about putting people before
profits. Whew! When their chants begin to clearly identify a system,
the reaction  by rulers of the global insane asylum may make the Miami
loonies look rational by comparison. Be prepared.

Copyright (c) 2000 by Frank Scott. All rights reserved.

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frank scott
http://www.marin.cc.ca.us/~frank
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