Slashdot Mirror
Washington Post: Criticizing Leaders is Wrong
Dazan writes: "The Washington Post has an interesting op-ed piece on its website today, Mr. Wolfowitz and the Bank. The Post, a popular liberal paper, says that now that Paul Wolfowitz is heading the World Bank, 'People... should think carefully before they damage [the Bank] by attacking its new boss,' and that bringing up Wolfowitz's record is unhealthy. Of course it doesn't hurt for us all to watch what we say, expecially our newspapers. What does the Slashdot community think?"
Long Answer: Yes.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
The Cold War is over, one hero lies dying, one monster is elevated to a position to restrict the flow of aid to countries which don't fall into line. Call a Spade a Spade. That's what the 1st Amendment is really for.
Be near me when my light is low,
When the blood creeps, and the nerves prick
And tingle; and the heart is sick,
And all the wheels of Being slow. -Tennyson
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
...but "liberal" newspapers often have conservative stuff show up on their op-ed page -- witness David Brooks @ NYT.
The Slashdot community really, really wishes that the Slashdot management would stop posting flamebait stories to drive up page views.
"What does the Slashdot community think?"
Well, at the speed new stories are being posted, this one will scroll off the main page before anyon...
Car dealerships are appealing the decision.
Paul Wolfowitz, the guy who messed up Iraq, becoming the head of the World Bank? Good thing this is a April Fools joke.
....Oh crap...
It has to be.
The fact that you have a right to say something doesn't mean that it's right to say that thing. There's such a thing as restraint, you know?
Reasonable people can differ on what things it's okay to say. But all people should be able to agree that restraint is a virtue.
The submitter seemed to read what seemed to fit his view. The quote with context:
To be more precise, the article (for those of you who haven't read it) says that Wolfowitz should not be prematurely criticized because of his role in the Iraq war.
All the Washington Post's editors are saying is that we should criticize him for the work he does at the World Bank, not for past deeds.
-David Ziegler
-
... wait a minute ... it isn't
Two thoughts:
#1 What a sublime joke from the Slashdot editors, slipping in a real news article among the obvious jokes. A NASA paper airplane is far more believable than thinking the Washington Post editoralizing like Pravda. I was suitably misled.
#2 Be afraid for our nation. Be very afraid.
The article doesn't suggest that criticising leaders is wrong in any way. What it does suggest is that perhaps Europeans were somewhat hypocritical in their objections to Wolfowitz.
Once again we're forced to recognise that 'there are no good guys' in government -- either American or European.
Yes it is wrong for the Europeans to be *more* critical of Wolfowitz than any other European candidate (as European selection processes and motivations are no more or less egalitarian than America's). But what we should (and by 'we' I mean Europeans and Americans) all be doing is being more critical of leadership in general.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
I'm officially sick of april fool's day.
I don't believe that skeleton autopsies will matter much considering the menagerie we currently have at the UN from all countries.
...?
Dialog at this point is best limited to the following:
o What is your agenda in solving this problem with
o What mistakes will you try to avoid in your new role?
o How will you build consensus with other world players?
o How will make the results of your department visible to the world and insure that all transactions are on the up-and-up?
o To what special interests are you beholden to?
o Under what circumstances/conflicts would you resign to protect the World Bank?
(Yes I am being blisfully ignorant of his past.)
(Perhaps this would be snowballed into a Slashdot Interview.B=)
The Roman Rule: The one who says it cannot be done shall not interrupt the one who is doing it.
No, this is not April Fools. This is just the Post's slow descent into a government propaganda organ, which has been going on for at least a decade.
The only joke is the part about the Post being a liberal paper.
Personally, I think its quite shoddy journalism.
"Most people agree that the World Bank is necessary."
I'm sure most people are unaware of what exactly the World Bank does, and i think a fair number would be unaware of its existence. People might approve of it in the general context of the status quo, but this does not amount to the same thing.
The article is rather presumptive and un-critical. It mentions dam building and $20 billion but, for an opinion piece, it seems rather short on opinion. There's no analysis of the methods the bank uses, or how the money is spent. It seems to be arguing that, if the money's there don't knock it. Deciding to hold fire on spending money on ecological destructive constructions is not the same as "running away from hard projects".
Personally, I do not support the work of the World Bank. It seems so driven by advancing the cause of world capitalism, that it is blind to the plight of the people that it is ostensibly supposed to benifit. I am not much of a fan of Mr. Wolfowitz either, and it seems likely that someone so deeply tied to the politics of the Bush administration is going to have something of a biased agenda in performing his duty.
> What does the Slashdot community think?
Well I can't claim to speak for the Slashdot community as most of them are currently busy in their basment fortresses constructing weapons of mass destruction to aim at the editors for todays piss poor "April Fools" edition. So I guess I'll have to speak for myself.
"Fuck off Wolfowitz you cunt"
After all you're an old man and Thoth will shortly be weighing your heart against a certain feather. It will be found wanting.
Sky subscribers are morons. They pay to be advertised at !
Oh, and don't forget: the World Bank is for us, too (speaking as a Westerner).
Dude, the World Bank isn't like a bank that nations use to keep a checking account and get free pens.
The World Bank is for fighting poverty in third world nations.
So if the guy's a dangerous, unprincipled hack, with a history of putting corporate profit ahead of human rights and life, we should just ignore all the past evidence of that and wait and see what happens when he runs the freaking World Bank?!
Freedom: "I won't!"
Umm, we don't always give people a pass. For convicted child molestors and rapists, the US generally has registries. Thing here is to decide if Wolfie warrents a pass or not. Since he played a very big role in starting a war that has killed 100,000s, I think not.
"Fighting Poverty" -- yeah, by lending money to governments whose officials then waste it/parcel it out to cronies/squirrel it away in offshore accounts, and then future generations of those nations' poor can be enslaved as these debtor nations go grovelling back to the World Bank to get more loans just to pay the INTEREST on what they got before. That's fighting poverty, all right!
We will obviously see what all this is about in the coming years.
At this point is smacks of the war on Doha Accord. US believes they will benefit more from bilateral and multilateral trade agreements as oposed to one global same-for-all agreement. The main benefit is, of course, the power that comes from selective trade agreements - there is allways a third side that is at a loss from a bilateral agreement. Take recent US-Chile agreement which has hit Brazil hard. These agreements are controversial because they often divert trade as opposed to creating new trade (some regional agreements excluded).
US has maintained control over the world bank from the very beggining, but there is not much to argue about there - US based investors are the large majority.
Washington Post fails to ask the right questions.
Mr. Wolfowitz's critics, domestic as well as international, should now get beyond their dislike of his role in the Iraq war and give him a chance to succeed at one of the world's hardest jobs.
Why should he be given the chance? Are there no real professionals who can run this enterprise without controversy?
In fact, the real question is why Wolfowitz? One must immediatelly note the amount of work and political credits that have been put into this appointment. It is not only the 'old' Europe who were appaled by the choice. Mr Wolfowitz has travelled the world and among others, spoke to Bono from U2, apparently getting his blessing. Why? Why does he want to do this job so much?
My answer is that Wolfowitz is the best candidate to establish control over increasingly important part of the world trade and delay the Doha accord as far as possible. As a master of spin he has already excelled in convincing US and satellites into a perpetual bloody war. All while it is universally obvious that those resources could be put to a better use for dealing with real problems we are facing - environment and poverty. You can expect to see many ex-world bank employees and many new ones as well...
sosumi
Bush may be a moron, but his administration isn't stupid. When they appoint people like Wolfowitz or Bolton to participate in international organizations, they know full well what the consequences are inevitably going to be.
If people acquiesce like the WP suggests, then you just let these people get away with murder. If you speak up and expose these people for what they are, then you do indeed risk of damaging those organizations, but if people like those can come to power in those organizations, then maybe there is something fundamentally wrong with the way those organizations are set up, and maybe those organizations should be replaced.
you must be thinking of a different world bank. The World Bank always has been an instrument of US Power Projection and nothing more. It has worked well to suck what remaining economic life remains from developing nations. Only developing countries who rejected the World bank's Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs) have prospered at all. Those who followed the SAPs got right royally fucked in the ass; just as they were supposed to. Wofi is the natural best choice for the world bank and is sure to advance their already well developed program for strip mining the rest of the planet.
I used to have a better sig than this, but I got tired of it
Pre-emptive war is ok, but pre-emptive criticism is bad?!