Do the Rich Own the Truth?
And separately, 1968 vs 2024: Inside the Columbia Student Gaza Encampment protests
Corruption in one form or another is as old as civilization.
As soon as there were governmental authorities, private business people have always found ways to bribe decisionmakers to get preferential deals. So what is different in our era of Global Enduring Disorder? might it be the speed with which Kazakh, Uzbek, and Nepali money passes through the city of London and into shell companies in the Caribbean, then ends up in Swiss bank accounts and then that same money re-emerges as political donations back in London. Is the speed and globality the novelty? Or that deals that happen in Kathmandu have reverberations in Timbuktu and in Chipping Norton? If so, then the novelty is the financial interconnections among multinational corporations, unsavory regimes, and western governments all allow the looting of vast resources from the non-democratic world at the same time as they have profoundly altered democratic politics and accountability. It is these interconnections btw corrupt business deals struck over there and money whizzing around the globe that facilitates changes to our political life here at home which is a key feature of the Global Enduring Disorder and something I’d like to delve deeper into on Disorder.
We looked at this phenomenon in episode seven with Tena Prelec and Peter Geogoghan in that episode and in this two part-er (with Tom Burgis) we focused on how the legal aspects of Britain’s financial system has meant that corruption which takes place elsewhere begets money laundering and reputation washing back in London which has particularly outsize consequences for british politics due to London’s role as butler to the world’s kleptocrats and how british politics is unique permissive to ill-gotten gains.
This week and next we are going to look at the life and times of one extremely representative example of how the Global Enduring Disorder connects bribery in Kazakhstan and Kathmandu with Brexit, the Ukraine war, and british royal family… the telecom impresario and Tory megadonor Mohamed Amersi… we will investigate the telecoms boom of the early 2000s and some of the biggest corruption cases in history involving central Asian potentates and Scandanavian telecoms and how this complex story has affected Tory party donations, who has access to the british royal family, and fundamentally who owns the truth.
To take us on this wild journey I am joined by:
Tom Burgis: Tom Burgis is a bestselling author and award-winning investigative reporter.
Listen to Tom, here.
His latest book, published in February 2024, is Cuckooland: Where the rich own the truth. It delves deeply into the nexus of corrupt deals in Kathmandu and Astana and contributions to the Tory party and conservative party affiliated institutions that I have worked with like CMEC. His previous book, Kleptopia: How dirty money is conquering the world, was published in 2020 and became an international bestseller. It exposes the hidden connections that link a massacre on the Kazakh steppe and a stolen election in Zimbabwe to the City of London and the White House. I found the synergies among Kazakh moneymen, Chechen Thugs, and London spin doctors quite amazing. In fact, some of the stuff is so wild that it is rather difficult to believe itis not made up.
Get Tom’s book Cuckooland: Where the Rich Own the Truth https://tomburgis.com/cuckooland
Read the New Stateman’s, ‘Britain’s new oligarchy: Tom Burgis’s Cuckooland shows how the power to shape our politics is available to the highest bidder.’ https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/book-of-the-day/2024/03/britain-new-oligarchy-tom-burgis-cuckooland
Grappling with the Resonances from 1968 amid today’s Columbia Student protests.
This morning I was amazed to get an article from a close backgammon friend of mine Blake Fleetwood sharing his article in The Hill (which I link to here ) in which he expertly sketch the resonances of the 2024 Columbia protests with those of 1968. I respect both Blake’s writing and his backgammon. We went to Georgia together for the journalists backgammon tournament like a hundred years ago.
This issue of the Columbia protests is however very close to my heart and I've formed my own opinions about them: My parents were also Columbia students during 1968 and I have grown up hearing about them. I believe that generation have a lot to be proud of.
Your protests were not implicitly or structurally helping the Viet Cong or making compromise or win-win solutions in South East Asia or over Civil Rights more difficulty.
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