GlobalSpin/Time.
The spectacle of some of the most powerful leaders in the world
gathering at Camp David on Friday for the G-8 summit, and then for this
weekend’s NATO anniversary in Chicago, won’t disguise the fact that
things seem to be gradually falling apart. These once-mighty symbols of
international leadership appear almost paralyzed before the tides of
economic, financial and political change. The opening of William Butler
Yeats’ 1921 poem that found the best devoid of conviction and the worst
filled with passionate intensity reads as if crafted as an elegant
introduction to an analysis of the global political moment.
The G-8
convenes as the eurozone is threatening to unravel, most immediately in
the showdown over Germany’s insistence that Greece either swallow the
toxic austerity medicine that could kill its economy, or see it be
banished from the eurozone, potentially triggering global financial losses of the order of $1 trillion. But
the forum is unlikely to settle the fate of Greece, much less the
underlying tension over policies of austerity to cut spending debt, and
stimulus policies to revive growth.
