In my final blog entry I would like to take some time and have a final bash at the Washington Consensus. After watching this documentary (thanks to Diego Duque's fb postings), I am more and more compelled to see the world of high finance crumble, be tortured and live in complete turmoil and despair; not unlike the victims of their modernized manifest destiny schemes.
The war in Iraq is just the most recent, most expensive and most blatant example of profit-seeking at the expense of the world's poor and powerless. More and more I am embarassed to be an United Statesian as many or our international figures are known for the destruction, upheaval and public outcry they have caused.
The scarier part is clearly, that poor people (read: those who can't afford to insulate themselves from natural or man-made disasters) have become institutionally accepted as necessary, even beneficial. Oh wait, I just remembered the scariest part; schools like Columbia, Harvard and the University of Chicago not only partake in the academic backing that legitimizes otherwise completely destructive policy, but even signs off on documents that will later lead to the destruction of communities, economies and nations.
When people ask me "why international work?" I have only recently realized it may be for practice. Because the US' problems seem to be insulated by a long and timely barricade of bureacratic armour. And Obama had provided us little change in that department, much to my and many others disappointment.
I now realize, after a year in Wagner, many policy discussions fueled by spirits and/or exhaustion and Naomi Klien's prompting, is that we are the only people who can catalyze this change. UNtil we demand our rights and re-establish institutions that do not incentivize greed and corruption, then we will remain in a percieved bubble of freedom and humanity that will burst just like the stock markets...
DOWN WITH THE WASHINGTON CONSENSUS!! ANTHROPOLOGISTS IN THE WHITE HOUSE!!!
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