The financial crisis is important in its own right, but political storms are brewing. Contrary to popular opinion, socialism is not dead. The socialist way is so tempting that even the U.S. government – under a Republican administration – appears pink and bloated. State intervention is the preferred solution to the crisis. Let the market work? Never! Whatever damage is done, the market will be blamed. Behind the façade of social democracy the militant left prepares its revolution. The theories of Marx and Engels, the strategies of Lenin and Stalin, are ready for a comeback. The specter that once haunted Europe has long haunted the West’s universities, feeding off the intellectual bankruptcy that long ago foreshadowed our financial bankruptcy. We pretend that Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez is a populist loudmouth, that KGB Officer Putin is our friend, that the Chinese leaders are capitalists. Self-deception triumphs because we are too busy shopping and having fun. We suffered propaganda to be our educator, and disinformation conquered us.

Even when a more realistic analysis of China’s Strategic Modernization recently appeared, the jangle of alarm-bells startled no one. A strong word of warning, today, is self-discrediting. The “neo-conservative” warmongers are blamed, cast aside, and heard no more. How many times have we read about a secret plan to bomb Iran? President Bush, we are told, learns nothing. It is convenient, as well, that his critics don’t have to learn anything, since they are ever wise and frequently clairvoyant. Who needs a Tarot Card reader when you have a Bush critic? How many times have the pundits said that Iran would be bombed? The danger, they say, is President Bush. He is an aggressive maniac. By comparison the dictators and mullahs of Asia are kindly men, disposed to the ways of peace. Ask Michael Moore. Bush is the most unpopular American president in history. Even at the moment of his resignation, Richard Nixon was more beloved by the people. George W. Bush annoyed us with two wars while we were shopping.

http://www.financialsense.com/stormw...