Witness the limits of a world-class education: the World Bank had a meeting to discuss the recent riots and revolutions in the Middle East. "Mon dieu!" they cried. "Poverty matters after all. And this whole time we have just been worrying about the overall economic growth. Those anti-World Bank protesters were right!"
Of course, during this meeting no World Bank employee mentioned the Battle of Seattle and the thousands of people who screamed the same idea at them over the course of a weekend. But, never mind. At the top, these things don't matter.
The topic of the meeting was economic policies that were within the purview of the World Bank, which naturally excluded the United States, as we are seen as not needing help from others. That is incorrect, but it save U.S. politicians the embarrassment of being called to account by onlookers.
The Huffington Post article did not connect the dots between the realization by policy-makers that on-the-ground poverty is just as problematic in the Middle East as it is here in the United States. And the natural inference that the kinds of political tumult being seen now in Egypt can also be seen here in the United States if the situation doesn't change.
The U.S. has always been branded as a very stable country, politically and economically. But, bit by bit, we have been sold a bill of goods dreaming about the original United States in a way that couldn't possibly have been the case. The result is more money for the powerful, more corruption, and less security for almost all Americans. The usefulness of this situation is that Americans must tolerate all kinds of inequities in the workplace, as we are desperate to keep our jobs. Not useful to us, of course. Useful to the corporate interests that own the media we all listen to in assessing the state of our lives.
Still, the party won't last. Americans can get angry, too. And they will.
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