Thursday, September 07, 2006

Democracy ~= Doing Stuff "We" Like

I really don't understand what drives this way of thinking. When I met with Mark Warner he seemed to think we should be worried about Bolivia. Most people, I imagine, don't worry too much about Bolivia and that's probably pretty much the correct posture. I don't know enough about the policies Evo Morales to know if they appeal to my inner Sensible Technocrat, but I do know that there's basically nothing Evo Morales can do which will negatively impact me.

The point is not that I'd never get behind a humanitarian intervention of some kind, but instead that our Sensible Technocrats seem to get unduly upset when the rights of US business interests to do whatever they want around the world are curtailed. I don't really give a shit about that, and nor should most of us.


...and, adding, defaulting on debt was a stupendously smart thing for Argentina to do. There's a big racket which involves international lending institutions lending money at high interest rates to "risky" countries and then trying to convince those countries that defaulting on debt is the equivalent of setting off a nuke in their nation's capital, but that of course is ridiculous. Risky countries will default at times - that's why they're risky - and Argentina is bouncing back from their Sensible Technocrat encouraged crisis nicely.