I received 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.
