Sunday, August 12, 2012

The Plagiarism Charge and Fareed Zakaria as International Elitist

By Eric Zuesse

When Fareed Zakaria was suspended on Friday from Time and CNN, for plagiarism, this wasn't merely justice, it was poetic justice: it rhymed.

What it rhymed with was his own lifelong devotion to the global economic star system that he, as a born aristocrat in India, who has always been loyal to the aristocracy, inherited and has always helped to advance, at the expense of the public in every nation.

He was suspended because, as a born aristocrat, who is a long-time member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission, the Bilderberg Group, and many other of the global aristocracy's primary organizations, he is so well-connected that his writing-commissions are more than any one person can possibly handle, and he consequently cannot possibly actually write all that is attributed to him. He certainly cannot research it all.

Like many "writing" stars, he has a staff perform much of the research and maybe even actual writing for him, and many in his situation are actually more editors than they are writers; but, regardless, he cannot let the public know that this is the way things are, because this is simply the way that the star system works in the "writing" fields, and because the public is supposed to think that these stars in the writing fields are writers, more than editors.

And, it's a very profitable system for such stars. As Paul Starobin said, headlining "Money Talks," in the March 2012 Columbia Journalism Review, Zakaria's speaking fee is $75,000, and "he has been retained for speeches by numerous financial firms, including Baker Capital, Catterton Partners, Dreihaus Capital Management, ING, Merrill Lynch, Oak Investment Partners, Charles Schwab, and T. Rowe Price."

So, he's clearly a very busy man, with a considerable staff; he can't possibly do everything himself.

But he needs to appear as if he does. He needs to present everything "he" does, as "his."

Most of the top-paid people in the media are "writers" whom the public are deceived to believe do all the researching and writing of "their" material. The actual writers (usually called "research assistants," or sometimes just "interns"), unlike these bosses, lack the connections to be able to succeed "on their own," and are therefore obscure workers for these aristocrats -- the writing-stars who make the big incomes. If one of these workers bows down sufficiently to his boss so as to be plucked by him to become a star "on his own," then that lucky acolyte will almost certainly share the existing hierarchical values of his boss, and so may become a new aristocrat in the full sense, and go on to produce his own reputation, and perhaps even dynasty. But the others will never win the connections and thus the money.

This is the world Fareed Zakaria has actually lived in all of his adult life, and even before that -- it was the world he saw around him when his father was a politician with the Indian National Congress, and his mother was the editor of the Sunday Times of India. He knew how corruption works, because he was surrounded by it, all the time.

Fareed Zakaria knows the way it works. So, he cannot afford to admit when he is being credited with the work of his employees. Far less damaging to him is to admit that he has done plagiarism himself, as he has admitted in this particular case -- regardless whether it's true.

Read the rest here.

8 comments:

  1. Wenzel:

    I read that whole piece. First I was shocked there was something bad mouthing the like of Fareed (who I always knew as slime, just those gut feelings one can have) in those kind of terms. But by the end of it I figured out how delusional the author is. He has everything phrased as if we live in a world where democrats are the only people that know how to fix things and they are not in anyway controlled by the elite (he describes them as aristocracy).

    Seriously what planet do these people live on? He went on and on about inequality in pay between CEO and workers. I assume I am supposed cheer "yea f the CEO"? Then I presume some bureaucrat will come marauding to steal from the rich and give to the poor. I gather once we all have equal incomes based on our creative out put and not who we know the world can finally be a place where we are all happy. Because there would never be any cronyism in his system of income equality (wink wink).

    BUT THE PART I REALLY THINK YOU LOOKED OVER WAS
    "Then, as conservatives, such CEOs blame the government for the resulting increases in the numbers of people on food stamps, etc. -- always blame the victims. This viewpoint is also called "libertarianism," and it's very popular with aristocrats. It says to them: A person's worth is measured by his wealth, which means that the aristocrat is superior to people who are not."

    Obviously we are dealing with an idiot, but did he really just write "blame the government[...] ---always blame the victim?" I know there is so much fail in that paragraph, but I can't pass this up. It absolutely sounds like he is saying the government is the victim in food stamps. Oh that is right he actually believes in that whole "we the people" myth.

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    Replies
    1. Your comment is so poorly written I have no idea what you're trying to say.

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  2. This seems like a strange article to be posted here. Yes, it reveals why Zakaria could wind up as a plagiarist, but it also attacks libertarianism and blames the real estate meltdown on de-regulation.

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  3. Well ol' Eric started out well enough, and had me nodding in agreement, but when I continued reading the piece at HuffPo, he starts crapping on "libertarians" saying we only want liberty for aristocrats , yadda yadda, yadda yadda...
    What a bunch of tired old Marxist crap.
    I have enjoyed the spectacle of Demo statists and Repub statists having at it. It's quite a circus. Murray would love it.

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  4. Am I allowed two comments in a row?
    It occurred to me after my first comment, that Zuesse's rant against "aristocrats" is on a site founded by and named after ARIANA HUFFINGTON!!!!
    Ironic ain't innit...

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  5. The author equates libertarianism with republicanism with crony capitalism in view of zakaria story. Only substantial point is that zakaria may not have written the article at all but one of his intern might have done the copying. Speaks quite a bit about journalism today. But on the other hand this is nothing new. You dont have to be an aristocrat to start using writers. Rest of the article is a hot mess.

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  6. Later the article goes on to say, "Then, as conservatives, such CEOs blame the government for the resulting increases in the numbers of people on food stamps, etc. -- always blame the victims. This viewpoint is also called "libertarianism," and it's very popular with aristocrats. It says to them: A person's worth is measured by his wealth, which means that the aristocrat is superior to people who are not."

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  7. Fareed knew who to suck up to:

    http://peureport.blogspot.com/2012/01/carlyle-group-fareeds-founder-fawning.html

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