Of the World Bank and Washington Parties

Last evening and this afternoon I was in Washington, D.C.  That would be an unremarkable statement, since I work in Washington.  But I am not often there in the evening and even less often on a Saturday afternoon.  I was in Washington at those unusual times because my son, I’ll call him Peter, was participating in a choral program at a church in the city.

I write this to explain why in the world I would be in Washington not only on a Friday night and a Saturday afternoon, but of all weekends, on the weekend when the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are having their annual meetings.  Two out of every three years they hold their joint meetings in the capital of the Free World, the third year somewhere else.  They like holding their meetings in the capital of the Free World because they are very much interested in the capital of the Free World.

Finance ministers, government economic development experts, and related hangers on from all over the globe gather to talk about poverty and economic hardship in the poor countries and how the rich countries have an obligation to channel more money in the direction of the poor countries.  They have been doing this for something over 65 years.  And yet, with a few exceptions, the poor countries seem to remain poor, the most notable growth being in the number of poor countries.

Early in my career in Washington, back in the early 1980s, these meetings used to be a lot of fun.  The world’s largest commercial banks would hold lavish parties.  In those days the big banks, encouraged by the IMF, the World Bank, and their own governments, were big into lending money to the poor countries, billions and billions of dollars.  That money was supposed to fuel economic growth by funding big projects that politicians could take credit for and where they could have their pictures taken at elaborate ribbon cutting ceremonies.  The projects were started, some of them built, but very little economic development resulted.  The poor nations were not very good at paying back the loans.  In the mid-1980s it almost destroyed the banks.  Since then, they have gotten out of that business.  They stopped holding the parties, too.

Walking through Washington last night and this afternoon I could see nevertheless that lavish parties were still going on.  I am not sure who was hosting them.  I think that at least some were sponsored by non-profit groups.  But they were still lavish.  It was very difficult getting past the fanciest hotels and restaurants and some of the popular museums.  Stretch limos were packed in as the financial leaders of these poor countries were climbing out and milling around, dressed in tuxedos, evening dresses, and pricey jewelry, to hear speeches from well-paid development experts, delivering their latest reports on the tough financial times and their clever theories about the obligations of rich nations like the United States to send more money to the poor nations.

This afternoon we walked by Lafayette Square, within earshot of a group of protesters in front of the White House.  Somebody was bellowing through a bullhorn.  I could not quite make out what he was chanting.  I think it had something to do with the World Bank and IMF not giving poor nations enough money.  As I say, I could not quite make it out.  My son said it sounded all the world like,

No more pencils,
No more books,
No more teachers’
Dirty looks.

Of the Spirit of America and the Spirit of Tyranny

Last week I experienced two memorable events, each in its own way pointing to the spirit of America. One, appropriately enough, was called “The Spirit of America,” the annual presentation of the U.S. Army’s Old Guard, headquartered at Fort Myer, in Arlington, Virginia. The program chronicled the history of the Army from its first days in the War of Independence to the present.

There is no reliance upon hyperbole in saying that the U.S. Army has been one of the most effective instruments in the history of mankind for the promotion of freedom. Without the Army, independence would not have been achieved and very likely not even attempted (the Army came into being a full year before the Declaration of Independence).

The very existence of the United States has been a beacon and stimulus to people around the world to strive for and obtain freedom. Would the colonies of Latin America have sought liberty without the successful example of the United States? How significant was the example of America to the struggles of the peoples of Europe to cast off their monarchies? To what extent did Great Britain learn from its painful mistakes administered by the citizens and Army of the United States and provide for a gentler path to liberty for its many colonies around the globe? The Army has been a reliable and effective protector of that beacon of American freedom.

With direct action, the U.S. Army became the essential element that gave force to Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. Without the victories of the U.S. Army over the rebels who rose up against freedom and constitutional government Lincoln’s Proclamation would have been a scorned piece of paper that offered false hopes to millions laboring in slavery.

In the Twentieth Century the U.S. Army helped bring World War I to its end, the western republics triumphing over the central monarchies. It was the U.S. Army that not only played the central role in defeating the dictators of central Europe and Japan in World War II, but wherever it went the U.S. Army left free republics in its wake, including among the vanquished nations. Again in Korea, Viet Nam, Grenada, and Panama the U.S. Army fought for freedom and against tyranny. Throughout the Cold War the Army—together with the other important branches of the armed services, equally effective instruments of freedom—remained strong and active to protect the free world against totalitarian communism.

This idea did not originate with me. Our grandfathers knew these things. They were commonly understood until recent generations witnessed the armed services and even national defense itself become open questions with left-wing academics seeking to reintroduce into America, and dress in pseudo-intellectual clothes, the exploded Old World programs of tyranny and rule by elites. That the idea of the liberating role of the American military can seem fresh and insightful is a mark of how much the religions of tyranny have found a place in popular media and even in the education supplied in many government schools.

By contrast the spirit of America silhouetted the other event to which I referred. This was the speech of President Barack Obama before a joint session of Congress, outlining his latest plan to restore job creation that has been so effectively undermined by his economic policies. If you reach through the cloud of rhetoric, President Obama’s proposal does not rise above expanding the size of government and raising taxes on successful people and entrepreneurs. That is not the spirit of America.

That is the spirit of the old nations of Europe and Asia from which our forefathers fled to found something entirely different in the New World. That is the spirit where people get ahead by the favor of those in power, and the people in power take what does not belong to them to reward their supporters and hangers on. A leading news story of this week is the scandal of a bankrupt “green” factory that was awarded nearly half a billion dollars by the Obama Administration and used as a television backdrop to announce how government subsidies to “green” industry would pave the road to national prosperity. That idea is today just as bankrupt as the business. It seems that what made this business green was the color of the money that Washington elites poured into it from the U.S. Treasury.

Together the two events demonstrate what the spirit of America is and what it is not. The first is a legacy of personal sacrifice by free soldiers for the freedom of others. The second, the spirit of tyranny, would sacrifice other people for the expansion of government and the power of Washington elites.