I received this invitation today from Joseph Gerson, president of NGO Campaign for Peace Disarmament and Common Security, inviting me to attend this online seminar concerning the risks of an “Asia-Pacific NATO” that is being held on July 4.
I have spoken with Mr. Gerson on the phone and corresponded with him on several occasions and he made it clear that his organization did not want to meet with me or have any interaction with me. I was grateful, however, that he returned my emails and also was willing to talk to me on the phone. Our relationship was not bad, just distant.
But when I saw the bankrupt lineup for this seminar I must say that my little jaw dropped.
I do not know the Australian diplomat Alison Broinowski, but the others I know well.
Victor Gao of the Center for China and Globalization has consistently advocated that the solution for conflicts between the United States and China should take the form of economic interactions between multinational corporations and he has completely written over the need for discussions between citizens, or even intellectuals, about the horrific concentration of wealth and power in both nations that is the cause of current conflicts. Presenting him as a representative of China is ludicrous in the extreme.
I have had frequent interactions with Chung-In Moon of Yonsei University who was a central figure for US-Korea relations in the Moon Jae-in Presidency (unrelated). Professor Moon is a genius for raising funds from corporations to support his toothless peace proposals and most skillful at promoting himself all over the world as an international Korean who speaks fluent English. Like Gao, Moon represents powerful financial interests in Korea and he has essentially no interest or concern for the actual lives of ordinary people.
But Jeffery Sachs is the undisputed master of the game. An overpaid professor and narcissistic public intellectual who soaks up money from corporations to push a soft and fuzzy kinder and gentler globalization run efficiently by big business, papering over social contradictions like a pro, Sachs has become the dominant figure in the Chinese corporate media pushing a vision of peace between the US and China that completely ignores economic contradictions, class conflicts, overproduction, the militarization of the US (and Chinese) economies, and a host of other indicators of how the global elite are setting us up for war in order to line their nests.
Sachs cannot describe the manner in which billionaires in the US and China are playing footsie in an effort to destroy the lives of working people in both countries because those billionaires and their henchmen are what guarantee him media exposure and a beautiful office at Columbia University.
Over the last twenty years numerous well-meaning friends have suggested that I reach out to Jeffery Sachs as he is so concerned about conflicts with China. I discovered, however, when I wrote to him that Professor Sachs is not accessible to little people and he does not lift a finger for anyone without some benefit for his various well-funded projects.
I would love to attend this even which I am absolutely sure they will never let me participate in (even though I speak Japanese, Chinese and Korean and have written about the topic at length) because they do not want to consider the possibility that the drive for war is caused not by bad apples in the government, by ignorant Republican populists, nor by cultural misunderstandings and historical issues, but rather by a corrupt economic system that requires waste to survive and that is forced increasingly to depend on a military build up to create the demand required by multinationals in the US, South Korea, Japan and, yes, in the People’s Republic of China.
WEBINAR - July 4, 2023, 10:00 P.M. EDT
An Asia-Pacific NATO: Fanning the Flames of War
Friends,
CPDCS is privileged to be partnering with SHAPE, the immodestly named initiative (Save Humanity and Planet Earth) initiated by the world renowned scholars Richard Falk, Chandra Muzaffar, and Joseph Camilleri. I have been invited to serve on their council and look forward to continued learning from them and members of their network.
As a first venture in cooperation, CPDCS will co-sponsor SHAPE’s webinar “An Asia-Pacific NATO: Fanning the Flames of War” with four very prominent experts:
Originating from Australia on their July 5, it will reach U.S. East Coast computer screens at 10 p.m. on July 4, just after fireworks displays.
Please plan to join if you can. We’ll send a link to the recording when it becomes available.
Sandra I think they spent tens of millions to create Sachs as a heroic figure. He appeals to a different demographic than Trump (oppressed working class whites) or Bernie Sanders (frustrated youth who are not ready to confront the deep contractions within their own society that make them miserable). Sachs is very popular in the corporate media of China as the American that understands Chinese and who wants peace. But he might as well be working for Lockheed Martin in my opinion, granted his failure to address how corporations systematically made up all these problems in the first place.
"Sachs cannot describe the manner in which billionaires in the US and China are playing footsie in an effort to destroy the lives of working people in both countries because those billionaires and their henchmen are what guarantee him media exposure and a beautiful office at Columbia University."
Btw, wasn't Jeffrey Sachs, the creator of “shock therapy” capitalism and participated in the looting of Russia in the 1990s.