I shouldn’t have thought there are many people who do not know the story of the boy who cried wolf, there are bound to be cultural varients but the basic premise is sound enough and likely to be one of those sorts of tales that is culturally-agnostic. The moral is laregely to do with liars not being believed more than the first couple of times, that whilst people may listen to begin with if you keep on talking without substance they will stop listening and when you do have something valid to say no-one will hear it. So it is with the G8 summit.
I could be heartened by the fact that Geldof has finally caught up with the rest of us on the proper left but I’m afraid it is too little, too late. Geldof has failed both consistently and comprehensively to see the root cause of the problem and seeks to pussyfoot around on the surface in a way that is the equivalent of putting an umbrella up to guard against a tsunami. In 2005 not only did St. Bob derail the Make Poverty History march in Edinburgh, a march that despite his efforts to cram people into stadia for a chance for all the bleeding heart liberal popstars to vanish up their own arses a little more, nonetheless became the largest mass protest in Scotland’s history. But to add insult to injury he was then pictured with his head coyly on the shoulder of a man who far from preventing poverty has been instrumental in the carpet bombing of the empoverished populations of 2 countries. The hypocrisy of the G8 2005 was something I went into at length in my G8 diaries which you can read if you wish (Scroll down and start at the bottom and work up if you want to be authentic about it!).
That Geldof should then feel empowered to berate us, we who went through the endless shite put up by the police to march on the Gleneagles Estate to say that promises were bollocks if not carried out, pledges are not bank transfers or debt relief was callous, offensive, misguided and sick. I am no Professor of History or Social Policy or Politics or Economics and yet I foresaw in 2005 that the debt relief and aid for Africa was a vacuous sham put on for the cameras. I ought to point out that I am not an oracle or a prophet either. You cannot realistically thaink for a moment that the eight richest sovereign nation states are going to sit around and plan their own obsolescence and to expect them to do so is either naive or complicit.
I do not know if Geldof is merely seeking to extracate himself from the tainted rhetoric of toadyism that characterised him in 2005. If so then praising the warmongering, lying lap-dog Tony Blair is not an especially good way to go about doing it. Apparently Geldof felt sorry for Bliar for not being able to obtain any legacy for himself during the summit in Rostock. Sorry Bob but Tony’s legacy was decided years ago when he decided, unlike Harold Wilson with Vietnam, to allow British troops to be a subservient force to US imperialist enterprises. British soldiers and Afghan and Iraqi civilians die whilst American corporate pigdogs get rich on the projects and the rape and pillaging of the oil resources. It is a scandal and a disgrace and THAT is what Blair will be remembered for.
Yet Geldof still expresses his admiration for Blair and Brown “In this issue, he [Bono] and I and all the other thousands of people wouldn’t have got very far if Blair and Brown hadn’t been doing their thing for the last few years.” No, perhaps Bob is correct here, if Blair and Brown and those like them hadn’t been such a hinderance to world peace and poverty perhaps he would have had less chance to shine in the spotlight. I am at a loss to explain just what he thinks Blair and Brown have been doing. If, as he has himself finally admitted, the G8 have failed comprehensively to deliver on even their own very modest targets, then just who does he think is at fault and what is he doing about naming and shaming them? Or is Sir Bob just another forelock-tugging tosser, an Irishman who has sold out to become part of the establishment, and that of a system that still brutalises and discriminates against his own countrymen.
Britain is one of the richest countries in the world and yet it carps on about taking in economic migrants, it donates a tiny percentage of its wealth to the 3rd world and it cannot even be bothered to house, clothe and feed its own people. So who does Sir Bob think is responsible for that if not Blair and Brown?
When it comes to Africa the G8 could have dropped the debt completely for poorer countries years ago, but to do so would only have had meaning if in conjunction with a system that did not allow the banks to go straight back in and offer loans and ridiculous interest rates again. It is also only applicable provided these countries are not going to be subjected to the mindless economic idiocy of the IMF and World Bank and their rabid free marketering policies which would wreck the countries entirely for the indigenous populations but make a mint for those western concerns buying up recently privatised utilities. There is certainly an irony that the countries who are responsible for helping Africa get clean and accessible drinking water are the very same ones that are making it more and more difficult for their own citizens to afford it in their own countries.
The arrogance of these leaders seemingly knows no bounds. In a summary published by Germany on behalf of the G8 leaders they say:
Peace and Security
We discussed with our African partners questions relating to long-term peace-building and the prevention of violent conflicts.
We affirmed that military solutions alone cannot secure peace in the long term. Instead, the political, economic and social conditions needed for promoting human security and stability would have to be aimed for.
Sorry that’s a joke yeah? I can just imagine President Mbeki’s response “Yes Mr Bush we will heed your precipitous words, oh wise one. Military solutions are not the way forward, after all you have the first hand experience that this is the case.”
It is impossible to see the G8 as anything other than a talking shop for the megalomaniacal and perhaps its only useful function is to serve as a rallying call to the dissolutioned to go and protest. Do not go there with hopes they’ll listen to you, with hopes that they’ll change something, that they’ll suddenly wake up and realise that they haven’t been being very nice recently. Go there and meet your comrades, talk to those who have come from far and wide because enough is enough. Sit down in roads, storm fences, resist the Filth, make your voices heard and one day, just maybe we’ll actually get in and hold them all to account. They did it at the Bastille, they did it at the Winter Palace but the next one is the big one. Question is, will you be there and stand shoulder to shoulder with the anarchists, the communists, the socialists, the environmentalists? Bob Geldof won’t. Every cloud…
Song Of The Day ~ Little Glitches – Sudden Moment Of Clarity
RED BARON'S WORDS 