We must realize that it is very hard to save a civilization when its hour has come to fall beneath the power of demagogues. For the demagogue has been the great strangler of civilization....(One) is not a demagogue simply because he stands up and shouts at a crowd...The real demagogy..is rooted in...irresponsibility toward... ideas...Demagogy is a form of intellectual degeneration.
-- Jose Ortega y Gasset, History as a System
World oil markets may be tight, but evidently the world has an inexhaustible supply of ethnic and religious enmity
-- and not only in the Middle East. If we are looking for a sustainable
alternative energy source, perhaps we should start here.
Just
this week, at least five more Palestinian "terrorists" -- or "freedom
fighters" and "martyrs," as many Palestinians regard them -- were shot
dead by Israeli paramilitaries in the West Bank. Seven US soldiers were
blown to bits in Iraq, more than 165 Iraqis perished in fighting
between Sunnis and Shiites, and at least 100 Nigerians died in
conflicts that were aggravated by Denmark's gratuitous Muslim-baiting cartoons.
Meanwhile, back on the center stage of Western democracy, many of
our best-known Congressional Democrats and Republicans -- including Senators Hillary Clinton (D), Charles Schumer (D), Bill Frist (R), Richard Shelby (R), and George Allen (R),
as well as many media pundits -- were focusing on the Bush
Administration's decision to approve the acquisition of a P&O
Ports, a leading British ports services company, by DP World, a Dubai
government-owned ports services company that already operates 22
container terminals in 15 countries.
On closer inspection, that opposition amounted to little more than a combination of knee-jerk prejudice, dubious economics, even more gratuitous Muslim-baiting, and the worst form of political pandering. 
If
recent experiences with similar port licensing conflicts in the US are
any guide, it is likely that the Dubai company will eventually get its
way.
Unfortunately, given President Bush's weak political position and the paucity of principled statemanship and wisdom in both of our two leading "cartel-like" parties, we are likely to see much more of this kind of demagogy in the next few years.
(c) SubmergingMarkets, 2006.
Comments