High Tory Gerald Warner: On a deluded pursuit of democracy and the IMF playing master of the universe

Liberal democracy is part of the "accepted political landscape"? Accepted by whom? By China, which occupies a not inconsiderable portion of the landscape? Increasingly it is viewed with scepticism in the developed world which spawned it. Yet Western "statesmen" are still trying to market this flawed commodity abroad. Last week's state visit by Barack Obama and the G8 meeting that followed demonstrated the delusions of what passes for a leadership in the Western world. The litmus test was Libya. At his joint press conference with David Cameron, Obama deployed all the usual rhetoric; but although Barack supplied the mouth music it was left to Dave to furnish the Apache helicopters - as already announced over his head by France.

Libya is Dave's war. He has never been happy with Afghanistan: that was a hand-me-down conflict. Dave wants his own piece of action and Libya is it. That suits Barack: he would like to sit out this dance. When Barack Obama displays a better grasp of reality than yourself, you are in a bad way. That is Dave's situation: even Obama now knows when to come in out of the rain. He has taken terrible punishment in his foreign policy initiatives. All the post-inauguration "outreach", hug-a-mullah naivety blew up in his face.

Read the rest here.

And...

International capitalism these days is perfectly happy to embrace socialism when, as with Strauss-Kahn, it comes with $3,000-a-night hotel suites, a starting salary of £260,000 a year, an annual living allowance of £45,000 and a severance package of £154,000. The IMF should have been abolished years ago. It is a phantom survivor of the Bretton Woods agreement marinated in Keynesian delusion. Whenever a country has been living beyond its means the IMF thrusts a large loan upon it, then imposes conditions such as inflated tax rates that prevent genuine recovery.

Read the rest here.

HT: The Monarchist