Fantasyland By The Hudson Gets More Fantastic

Once upon a time Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann was a Roman Catholic priest. He was smitten by a very seductive idea--liberation theology. So, the priest became a Left Socialist. Well, actually he became a Castro-leaning Communist. Fr (perhaps Sr would be more appropriate) Brockmann joined the Sandinistas of Nicaragua.

Along with the Ortega brothers Sr Brockmann was a noted adversary of the US during the years of the Reagan presidency. From the perspective of Washington the priest turned Sandinista was a bete noir of the darkest sort. We wanted him dead.

The Reagan Administration did not get its wish. Sr Brockman survived the years of the Contras. He weathered the period of political isolation which followed the end of the nasty little Contra War and the election of an anti-Sandinista government

Proving once again that the Lord works in mysterious ways, the Sandinistas came to power finally in an election that met the usual criteria of seeming to be open, fair and free. Sr Brockmann became Foreign Minister. As such he pursued policies which were not closely aligned with those of the US.

Be that as it may, US administrations had changed. The Soviet Union was of interest only to historians. Communism (and history, but not historians for which the Geek is thankful) was declared dead by American academics and others of the chattering class. Sr Brockmann was neither hated nor desired dead by the denizens living inside the Beltway. Even the neocons had bigger fish to catch and fry in the Mideast.

Now the whims and winds of democratic process have made Sr Brockmann the new President of the UN General Assembly. The priest turned Foreign Minister offered his maiden speech the other day. He proved two things.

You can take the man out of the cassock, but you can't remove the priestly from the man.

Communism may be officially dead, but lambasting capitalist Western pigs (and Israel) is alive, well and a crowd pleaser. Lest you think the Geek gets it wrong, the transcript is available at the UN site. (http://www.un.org/ga/president/63/statements/160908opening63.shtml)

Sr Brockmann makes his sentiments clear and unmistakable. Compared to the new GA President, Senator Obama frankly hates the poor and wretched of the earth.

I am aware of the great expectations which the vast majority of the dispossessed inhabitants of our threatened planet have placed in the United Nations to bring them peace, security and to defend their right to life and to full development. We must not fail them. It was most of all for the dispossessed of the world that I took up the challenge of presiding over this sixty-third session of the General Assembly. It is to them — to all our sisters and brothers on this Earth — that I dedicate my presidency. We must unite our efforts, with all the seriousness that the task requires, to meet their expectations. I trust that I can count on all of you to give me your most generous cooperation. On behalf of Nicaragua and the entire Latin American and Caribbean region, my extended homeland, I thank you for your confidence.

When you hear words like this the time has come to hang on to your wallet--with both hands.

When Fr/Sr Brockmann gets on a roll he rolls ever faster. Here is one specific case. Food.

At the root of the problem of world hunger is the unequal distribution of purchasing power within and between countries. Rather than concentrate on increasing food production as the single solution, the central focus of our efforts should be on the reduction of the inequalities in our world’s food production system.

Apparently Brockmann has a an old-school Marxist conspiracy theory view of global economics or at least the farming part of it.

Not convinced that the new GA president mouths the same slogans of long dead Kremlin Commissars? Try this. Brockmann's view of two critical internatinal institutions.

Both the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank are basically controlled by the United States and Europe. Both institutions have been and continue to be used as instruments of domination. The world resents this and this situation must change. The necessary democratization of these international financial institutions requires a change in the share system and the system for electing the respective Boards of Directors.

You bet. Let's see now. Hmm. (Snap fingers.) Why not let the recipient nations control the Boards. That way those greedy donor nations won't be able to be so damn controlling.

Brockman lets go with one barrage of Marxist or quasi-Marxist rhetoric after another. Climate change. Fresh water. Making the UN more "democratic." Assure that the will of "We the Peoples" cannot be ignored by sovereign states. Ya da. Ya da. Ya da.

Then the one time guerrilla fighter cuts to the chase. Terrorism. He has a take on the subject that would have warmed the heart of the Soviets and Castro back in the good ole days.

Terrorism and human rights. Any act of terrorism, whether or not it is committed by a Government, engenders more terrorism. Initiatives to stop this vicious cycle must begin at the level of State terrorism. Otherwise, the official struggle against terrorism perpetrated by individuals or organizations will lack moral authority and will never succeed in curbing what some see as nothing more than a defensive, albeit equally reprehensible, form of terrorism on the part of civil society. The question is how to overcome this vicious cycle of violence; towards that end, terrorism by powerful States against relatively weak States must stop.

There it is. The US, the West, Israel are the true terrorists. Unless and until these evil actors stop whatever it is they do that the Brockmanns of the world disapprove of there can be no effective "official struggle" against non-state actors.

Just in case the assembled Assembly didn't get his point, the priestly ex-guerrilla spelled it out.

No State should appropriate the right to decide on its own which States are terrorists, or sponsors of terrorism, and which are not. Less still should States that are guilty of wars of aggression, the worst form of terrorism imaginable, presume to arrogate that right unto themselves, and further, to unilaterally take action against those it has stigmatized.

All together now: Spell U-S-A.

Brockmann decompresses with some of the usual dabba-dabba-do about disarmament and the horrors of the nuclear arsenals now in existence. He neglects to say a word concerning the nuclear weapons being sought but as yet still unmade. Such as the Mahdi Bomb.

After genuflecting before the totems of gender equality and saving the children of the world, Miguel ends on a note that must seem reassuringly familiar to at least some Americans: "Change — real, credible change — is the watchword of the day."

No session of the UN General Assembly has been pleasant for Americans unless they are remarkably masochistic in their high mindedness for a mort of years. This one promises to be not only more of the same but a further descent into the recycled muck of the Cold War, the America-as-Evil-Empire rhetoric of the Sixties, Seventies and Eighties.

Come to think of it, those were Sr Brockmann's years of glory and ambition.

A further thought just struck the Geek. The sentiment of a realpoliker from the Italian Renaissance who wrote, "leave behind no wounded enemy."

It seems like the Reagan Administration did.