Thursday, May 19, 2011

When Rape Becomes Irony



The IMF had roamed far an wide through African and Latin American states in the 80's and 90's, almost always leaving the predictable debris of Freidman planning in their wake.  In more recent decades the IMF has "engineered" the "austerity" programs for "news covered" places such as Egypt, Greece, Ireland and Portugal.

The resulting street riots are apparently acceptable collateral damage when viewed from the "cloud city" of IMF headquarters.  (The story is told that all these greedy poor people and workers in the street had "sucked the country dry."  Actually, all the "missing" money could generally be found in the pockets of the local oligarchs.)

Let's just say that this long, grisly list of IMF actions -- most recently led by DSK -- amounted to little more than international "gang rape."  For any MeanMesa visitor who suspects such psycho-sexual hyperbole to be an exaggeration, Google away.

Well, now the lip licking "captain" of the "rape squad" has apparently shown his true colors.




 

The IMF Chief’s Rape Charge: 

Metaphor for the IMF’s Abuse of Power


I don’t like using the word rape as a metaphor, but the charge against the head of the International Monetary Fund is almost a perfect metaphor for the IMF’s role in the world.

IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn is accused of attempted rape against an African maid in a luxury hotel in New York City.

And while the truth of this allegation remains for the legal system to sort out, screwing helpless people over in the Third World (and Eastern Europe: see Naomi Klein’s “The Shock Doctrine”) is what the IMF is all about.

For decades now, the International Monetary Fund — this instrument of the U.S. Treasury and global capitalism — has required developing countries that are in financial trouble to devalue their currency, slash employment in the public sector, and slash government subsidies for such essentials as food and fuel.

If the countries refuse to follow this advice, they don’t get the IMF’s bailout money and their economies continue to go down the drain.

This is coercion of the worst sort.

It results in drastic cuts in the living standards of millions of people literally overnight. It leads to mass unemployment— and often to food riots.

And while the IMF twists the arms of these developing countries, it also demands that they open up their economies to multinational corporations and banks, which imperils their sovereignty.

The IMF abuses power to get its way.

And that’s what the IMF’s chief is accused of doing, too.

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