Sunday, December 03, 2006

The Court Historian

Niall Ferguson How can a Harvard University history professor write an essay about demagogic political leaders around the globe and forget to mention George W. Bush, Tony Blair, John Howard or Stephen Harper? If I were an official at such an esteemed university, I’d have second thoughts about employing an academic who would make such glaring omissions.

Professor Niall Ferguson spends his entire essay in the Dec. 3 Washington Post attempting to equate Hugo Chavez, Evo Morales and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with fascist leaders, including Adolf Hitler, who rose to prominence in Europe between the two world wars. He fails to mention that the world’s biggest demagogue today, George W. Bush, is not just talking the talk of Hitler and the other European fascists but is walking their walk.

Ferguson worries about Iran’s current leader threatening “to wipe the state of Israel from the map” but doesn’t mention how the United States’ client state, Israel, is far along in the process in its own brand of genocide by wiping the Palestinians and their society from the map.

What Ferguson is really concerned about is that the world’s “new demagogues” could weaken—even if it’s ever so slightly—the economic and military hegemony of the United States. The actions of these “new demagogues” are indeed a threat to the United States and Europe. But they are actions that could affect the livelihood of the economic elite in these countries, not the rest of us. When Ferguson and his ilk grow concerned about “new demagogues,” we should welcome the fact that there are at least some political leaders out there brave enough to confront the American empire.

Comments (3)

Printer Friendly Format | Tell-a-Friend

Next: The Immunity of Empire -->

<-- Previous: Worst of the Worst

Support Press Action