In Burma, economic engagement enriches the regime, as the economy is controlled by the regime. Economic engagement benefits this elite, not ordinary people. The money is spent on the military, stolen by the elite.
The European Union is effectively a union dominated by the German political and economic elite. Its main function is to serve as a nucleus for financial capitalism and to ease the road for that capitalism. The other functions just irritate everyone: it's undemocratic; decisions are not made by parliament; the European Parliament is not sovereign.
I think Syriza and Podemos are very, very different from Sinn Féin in many ways, and so I wouldn't put all three together. I would say that Syriza and Podemos are movements which have come out of mass struggles. In the case of Podemos, directly out of tariqaliextremehuge mass movements in Spain, which started with the occupation of the square. In Greece, as a response to what the EU was doing there, punishing it endlessly, for the sins of its ruling elite.
The Syrian people do not recognize themselves in the elite politics of the Muslim Brotherhood or the left, each of which is looking for an external power rather than the people's own self-activity.
When people stop some film from being shot or burn a book, it's not just that they are saying, this is against Indian culture. They are also saying, you Westernized, elite, English-speaking people are having too much of a good time. It's a very interesting phenomenon.
The idea that people should be allowed to decide something about their own fate is just anathema to European elites.
Plainly elites in America don't want democracy. And why should they? Democracy is always harmful to elite interests. Almost by definition.
There was a free election in Palestine, but it came out the wrong way. So instantly, the United States and Israel with Europe tagging along, moved to punish the Palestinian people, and punish them harshly, because they voted the wrong way in a free election. That's accepted here in the West as perfectly normal. That illustrates the deep hatred and contempt for democracy among western elites, so deep-seated they can't even perceive it when it's in front of their eyes. You punish people severely if they vote the wrong way in a free election.
All technological breakthroughs start with a small "elite". Think about cellphones, for example. Now just about everyone has one. The same will happen to innovations such as Twitter.
I feel engaged with young people in Pakistan. But that said, it's still a small minority that reads novels, literary fiction. But it isn't necessarily a small minority of the wealthy elite in the city of Lahore. It can often be and I often do meet at literary festivals students who've ridden a bus 12 hours from a very small town just to hear some of their favorite writers come and speak.
I think there are different kinds of elites. I think there are venal elites, and self-interested elites, and selfish elites, and I think there are visionary elites.
There are elites that are real leaders and role models. There are elites that are really selfish and want to pull up the ladder once they've reached the roof.
It's easy to kind of say it's the elite that's putting you down. Well, it wasn't really the elite, technology will do that.
The Arab world had a big problem of frankly venal elites. That is why these revolutions happen, because people didn't think the opportunities were being shared fairly.
I just think we all distrust people and institutions much more than we once did. And we tend to think elites run everything and are looking out for themselves at our expense. Add it up and you get LOTS more conspiracy theorists.
The American people, I think, are tired of being told. They're tired of being told this is as good as it gets. They're tired of being told, like Ronald Reagan used to say, that little intellectual elite in a far distant capital can plan our lives better for us than we can plan them for ourselves.
The Bank and the media continue to propagate the story that the global elite wishes to be told: that the number of poor has declined by 24 percent in those 15 years [1990-2005].
When you are dealing with a mass movement, as opposed to a quote-unquote "elite," you are talking to people who don't have time to read long research papers. You have to communicate with them in sound bites, around every other thing they are doing. So it takes a long time to shift people from one message to the next, especially if your foundational narrative was, "The only one thing in the entire world you should be paying attention to is Darfur."
Too often we think about the green economy as an elite market niche, one in which affluent people spend more money to consume greener and cleaner products.
In attempting to understand 9/11, the first question asked by the world's elites - as exemplified by leading media and academics - was, 'What did America do to provoke such hatred?' Ten years later, the same people are still asking the same question. And it is as morally repulsive now as it was then. It was always on par with 'What did the Jews do to antagonize the Germans? Or 'What did blacks do to enrage lynch mobs?'
American firms are beginning to reproduce nonsustainable systems, to force the elite of India to become energy consumers of the kind that the U.S. has become. Thats what globalization is about: Find markets where you can.
Amory Lovins has said that the only reason Americans look efficient is that each has 300 energy slaves. Those 300 energy slaves will now be reproduced among the elite of India.
European and American companies companies do create jobs for some people but what they're mainly going to do is make an already wealthy elite wealthier, and increase its greed and strong desire to hang on to power. So immediately and in the long run, these companies - harm the democratic process a great deal.
I can say with absolute confidence that the general public of Burma would be very little affected, if at all, by sanctions. So far, the kind of investments that have come in have benefited the public very little indeed. If you have been in Burma long enough, you will be aware of the fact that a small elite has developed that is extremely wealthy. Perhaps they would be affected, but my concern is not with them but with the general public.
The interesting point is that the polarization is not so much among the public, although there's some of that. The polarization on the immigration issue is really between the elites and the public. In other words, this is not so much a right-left issue, which it is partly.
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