I really should write something serious today, but it’ll have to come later. Instead, I want to indulge you in some politics.
I was woken by the World Service1 this morning, with this gem, a politician talking about
“companies in industries such as gems and timber that exploit the labour of the downtrodden Burmese people but enrich only the generals”
Companies enriching the elite by exploiting the labour of the downtrodden people? That’s straight out of Marxist (Karl, not Groucho) rhetoric. So it should be easy to guess who said this…
Yep, George W. Bush. I wonder if he’s been talking to Fidel Castro.
I’m sure there a serious analysis of this could be made, asking whether this is cynical rhetoric or whether Bush has genuine empathy with the proletariat. But I’m not going to provide it here – I prefer to be amused by trivialities.
fn. 1 Actually it was by The Beast wanting to purr loudly whilst sitting on me, but I managed to doze off again.
You beat me to it, Bob, but I was going to enlighten you with that famous French graffito – Je Suis Marxiste (tendence Groucho).
You’ll have to get up early to beat me. Of course, being 2hrs further east, and so far north that in the summer the sun rises before the cat has become starving (rather than just hungry) helps.
For most politicians, it would be better if they were tendence Harpo. Both main candidates to be mayor of London have had that wished upon them by their own leaders, at various times.
Tendence Zeppo might be safest.
Bush’s do this as they enter the waning days of their political life. Perhaps you’lll recall that his father, in a pique of humanitarianess, invaded Somalia.
But have no fear, dear friends. The world hasn’t turned upside-down just yet. Our suddenly socialist president is merely concerned because the country in question probably refused to open up their gem and timber resources to western exploitation.
“He may look like an idiot and talk like an idiot, but don’t let that fool you. He really is an idiot.”
Hmmmm. You say Bush sounds socialist. But why assume that he thought “exploit the labour of the downtrodden” to “enrich only the generals” is a bad thing?
Brigadier Moulton – the context (freezing the assets of the generals’ accounts) suggests he thinks it’s a bad thing. Although he didn’t say who was going to get the money…