Dead Dictator Hailed As Great Man By Western Media

Longtime Singaporean autocrat Lee Kuan Yew is finally dead at age 91. (Some years ago, he passed on his official positions of power to his son.) This capitalist oppressor, who created a regime in the city-state he ruled where people get caned for chewing gum or spitting, is seen as an exemplar of a Good and Wise ruler.

The BBC's “World Service” broadcast this line around the world. The U.S. media never met a capitalist dictator it didn't love. (To be sure, the New York Times, in an editorial, gave him a mixed review- an A for economic policy, and a Needs Improvement for civil rights. They even called him an “autocrat.” Fancy that.)

Unmentioned in the paeans to Lee's alleged economic fabulousness is the fact that for MOST Singaporeans, life is a struggle. Most of the wealth and economic “growth” has gone and goes to a tiny elite.

Which is why Forbes magazine functioned as a fanzine for Lee. (One of the magazine's branding slogans: “Forbes: Capitalist Tool.” That's a snarky, “ironic” appropriation of Bolshevik invective, of course. “Hell YES we're Capitalist Tools, and Proud OF it too!”)