I would really like to be able to offer an English transcript, or even a complete, lucid description, of yesterday’s video The Criminal Order of the World, but it is too large a job for a recreational blog. I will therefore provide a few random bullets from and on it.
1. One blogger said this about it, in an Andalusian accent, por lo visto:
Y supremo, transformador y fin de velada televisiva difícil de olvidar, ha sido llegar a media edición al programa EN PORTADA en TV2 con título EL ORDEN CRIMINAL DEL MUNDO donde Eduardo Galeano, Jean Ziegler y Ernesto Sabato, entre otros. Se ha encargao lo escuchado de sus sentires sociales, de pegarle un toque tremendo a mi sensibilidad humanista, en proceso formativo continuo, al describir como activistas comprometidos las miserias del sistema universal de poder donde una minoría manda y la mayoría obedece a las leyes del mercado salvaje, los ganadores como queriendo ser felices y los perdedores, quizás ya no tienen ni mal futuro. La cultura del miedo global a cuentos contados por mentirosos, y la aportación sobre las estrategias del capitalismo que mata, roba y debora, me han dejao como anonadado. Tanta claridad, humanidad, concreción y sabiduría hablando en libertad sobre la libertad que estamos perdiendo, me ha superao.
2. One major topic of the video is the ongoing and permanent displacement or dislocation of peoples, due to the ravages of the globalized economy. This is a good point for Americans to keep in mind, as “immigration” here is often understood to mean “Mexicans.” But there are great numbers of people worldwide who have been, and continue to be displaced due to globalization.
3. One of Galeano’s major topics is the fear which has been inculcated in one and all by the economic instability of the current world, and of course by the opinion-makers and feelings-mongers employed by the global elites employ to keep as many people as possible misinformed, as well as overburdened and distracted. He has one of those vivid Galeano sentences: “Fear permeates everything, like a paralyzing gas.”
Fear of losing one’s job, and of not getting another, is something he emphasized. I found myself thinking, wait, isn’t job loss a normal possibility? I then realized that I too have internalized a number of the 21st century fears which Galeano insists are not natural or universal, but rather specific symptoms of our time.
4. Jean Ziegler says that we will see the end of democratic rights. As labor rights are sacrificed to the much-worshipped market, Europe will be for all intents and purposes just another Third World country.
5. Current policies of the business elites now running the world – in significant part via the government of the United States, where they have appointees like Dick Cheney – are a “machine to exteminate rights.” Workers are converted into beggars (begging for work, you understand).
6. In the past it has been said that a world which generates poverty is an unjust world. This is no longer said. Poverty is seen as a well deserved punishment for “inefficiency.”
7. There is a new set of code words. The “international community,” for instance, now means global business elites.
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 