The Anti-Putin Racket

I've been curious about this for quite a long time.

Russia and the United States have a long and complex history with one another, on the one hand putative enemies due to differing value systems, on the other friendly rivals, and on yet another level, close allies to overcome existential political, economic, social, or power threats.

When I was a child, of course, I was indoctrinated with all the anti-Communist/anti-Soviet propaganda everyone else was. We lived through endless iterations of the looming nuclear annihilation game, the repetitive duck and cover drills, the frequent measurements between our happy homes and likely targets for ICBMs and long range bombers. Of course, the enemy du jour was Joe Stalin and after he died, it was still Stalin until the Kremlin sorted out its power structure and Nikita Khrushchev got to the top of the heap.

That was a bit disorienting because we'd been taught to believe Stalin was the Devil, and Khrushchev just didn't seem to be all that threatening. More like a somewhat crazed uncle.

And the stories we were told about the appalling conditions in the Soviet Union either lacked context or were outright false. For some reason, I don't recall how it happened, I became aware of the falsehood of the anti-Soviet propaganda we young were indoctrinated with very early on. I'd like to think it was through anti-anti-Soviet propaganda organs like "Soviet Life" which was distributed fairly widely in the late Fifties, but I can't recall seeing it before my eyes were opened to the fact that we were being fed fabrications and lies.

I may have learned of the propaganda and lies through a teacher instead. Mr. Beeson was my fifth grade teacher, and I recall he was being "investigated" for God knows what, but I think it was for "Communist Sympathies" among other things. He was gone from the classroom for several days, perhaps weeks, and when he came back, he was very subdued. But I think he was the one who clued us to the fact that propaganda of any kind wasn't "fact," it was meant to sway our minds and build up loyalty and patriotism toward our own country and animosity and hatred toward -- THEM. It was perhaps my first lesson in critical thinking.

I see many echoes of that indoctrination in the New Hitler/Boogeyman, anti-Putin, anti-Russian propaganda we're being flooded with these days. Putin-The-Devil is everywhere, inescapable, and yet I see very little that even makes sense, let alone has any sort of evidence to back it up or factual basis whatever.

But even if there were concrete facts to back the propaganda -- there aren't -- the correct approach is skeptical disinterest, a "so what?" rather than the increasingly shrill and belligerent demands and ultimatums.

What's really going on here, in other words?

The Official CT (if you can call it that) is being driven by the same internal government faction that drove the drumbeats that led to the Iraq invasion and the subsequent catastrophe, and the demonization of Putin, the Otherization of Russia and its people, is right out of the neocon playbook which has been known for almost 20 years (Project for the New American Century, etc.) The point being to establish the USofA as the unrivaled global hegemon by destroying or absorbing any and all rivals.

Including the Russian Federation (aka "New Soviet Empire") and China. The destruction of the Middle East and Arab North Africa fit right in to the Plan as it was announced years and years ago.

It's an Anglo-American-Israeli plot to Rule the World for ever and ever, rAmen.

These people are relentless, they don't give up, and they will have their way by hook or by crook. Hillary is fully on board with their evil plans, according to the common CT understanding, whereas Trump, for all his many faults, is not.

OK.

I don't buy that Trump is not on board, but that's a side issue.

The issue for me is that this faction within the government (and those who own said government) is playing with fire, and it seems to have a Bourbon level inability to learn from mistakes or even to acknowledge them. Iraq was a great success according to them; the ruin of Syria is going according to plan; the rise of rebel jihadist groups and their terrorist accompaniment is useful to keep domestic populations in line and uncomplaining; the flattening of Yemen is necessary for the Saudi regional hegemony and to teach a lesson to anyone who would challenge the mighty-might of the Empire;
periodic Gaza flattening likewise.

India and Pakistan going at it is part and parcel of the Imperial Project; the chaos in much of Africa is meant to be. The economic turmoil in China is a precursor of Imperial Will to Power. It's all been gamed out, and the Hegemonic Axis of Anglo-American-Israeli power always comes out the winner.

Except when it doesn't. Which apparently the military has found is the case in any direct conflict with a fully engaged major or minor power. In other words, the Imperial Axis can't win against, say, Iran or Russia, or even a determined group of rebels unconnected with a nation-state. Thus the current efforts at subversion and undermining such states and rebel groups, much like the Color Revolutions of the 80s and 90s or the more recent Arab Spring/Maidan uprisings.

It's all part of the Imperial Project.

It's disturbing to say the least.

There is much hoo-hah over the likelihood of a nuclear exchange with Russia should The Hag assume the Mantle of the Presidency. I don't think it will happen. More likely in my view is a "non-aggression pact" between the two supposed Super Powers. In other words, some imitation of what has long been going on between US and Russian/Soviet rivals. Russia will bluster but back down in the end, and the US will step back from the brink. Nevertheless, it's a dangerous and a fool's game that shouldn't be played at all. Easy for me to say, right?

Of course, Russia is no longer a "super-power" and is unlikely to use its stockpile of nuclear weapons except in defensive extremity. Despite the propaganda barrage, things haven't deteriorated that far. Not yet, anyway.

And too, it's all a racket, meant to enhance the power and authority of a certain bloodthirsty faction among Our Rulers -- and theirs (the Russian ruling elite)  as well, it would seem. For profit. For gain. For ultimate glory.

It's sick.

But it's built in to the way our government and its owners believe and act. There is little or nothing one can do about it from outside. Not much the other factions can or will do from inside.

We're fucked no matter which way we turn, much as was the case during the previous anti-Soviet  churn.

Bah.

Summer Slaughter Season

Map of Europe, c. 1940. The Summer Slaughter Season was under way and wouldn't end for years to come...

[Note: I found the map above in my collection of maps and atlases a couple of weeks ago. The map is in a Rand-McNally Atlas that was published in 1936, but the interesting thing to me was that the owner of the Atlas had taken a pink colored pencil to it and shaded in the then-current conquests of Nazi Germany. They include Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Denmark, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and Norway. Albania had been invaded and occupied by Italy in 1939, and it is included in the conquests. Also indicated as partially absorbed into the Fatherland are Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia and Finland... We know that the Axis wasn't by any means satisfied... Don't forget Spain and Portugal...]

The sharks are in the water. Have you noticed?

The Summer Slaughter Season is upon us, and the various conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere are in full swing. Bloodlust is catching.

Of course the slaughter in Gaza rivets the attention of many among us -- partly because it is so telegenic, what with the constant exploding shells, the running, screaming Arabs, holding the broken bodies that once were their children, and of course the breathless "terror" of the Israelis dashing to their shelters if by chance one of the Gazan "missiles" gets through the protective Iron Dome. (Actually, according to statistics I've seen, most get through. It's just that they land and explode -- or not -- where they have no effect.)

It's telegenic, too, because of the massive propaganda campaign Israelis undertake when they go to slaughter Arabs, a campaign that has only been matched recently by the coup-regime run by the Freaks in Kiev (h/t Saker) as they go to slaughter in the Donbass and along the Black Sea coast, committing atrocity after atrocity, but none as telegenic recently as the slaughter of Arabs in Gaza.

What became of this Ukrainian slaughter? It's still going on, with sieges under way, villages destroyed, hundreds then thousands of dead, millions made refugees. But the news is practically nil. The businesses that bring us the "news" are almost entirely focused on the slaughter in Gaza, for that's where the real action is.

Word has it that the ethnic cleansing an extermination campaign in Ukraine is perhaps going better than planned -- assuming it was planned, and I'm not sure it was -- partly because "Putin blinked" and refused in the end to send more than token assistance (if that) to his Russian/Russian speaking comrades in the Donbass and southeast. The rebels are on their own.

And so, recognizing that they cannot hold out indefinitely, and there's probably no profit in trying to do so, many residents, targets of the coup-regime run by the Freaks in Kiev, are leaving. By the tens of thousands.

Slaviansk fell to the Kiev coup-regime last week, and reports from there have practically ceased. We don't know how many executions there have been, in other words, but given previous indications, we can rest assured that the wet work is proceeding with all due diligence and speed. The armed rebel faction may have abandoned the city, but their collaborators are everywhere within it, no? And how does a bogus government like the Kiev coup-regime establish its authority over resistant areas and peoples? By killing rebels and their collaborators on a massive scale.

See the coup-regime in Cairo for a not-too-long past example.

The killing goes on in Syria unabated, and now the Syrian slaughter -- they say -- has spread to Iraq with the conquests of the ISIS Caliphate which has abolished the border between Syria and Iraq, and is -- they say -- intent on reestablishing the historic rule of the Caliph from Baghdad where once he held forth.

It's an interesting idea. No, really.

There was a time of relative peace and prosperity throughout Araby. It was much more recent than the Caliphate. It was during Ottoman times. Barely a century ago, within the historical memories of most of those in Arab lands today. Anglo-Euro-Americans have no memories of it, because in their histories, they created the Arab nations out of nothing at all; the Ottoman period barely registers.

The arrangements the Ottomans made among the various Arab peoples (and with the Jews too) seemed to work out fairly well all in all, limiting tribal conflict, resolving disputes, providing a reliable sense of security and safety throughout the region for peoples to do pretty much as they wished.

If that or something like it is what the ISIS Caliphate party is trying to re-establish, who am I to say "no?" Except, from reports, it's not. The Ottomans were progressives compared to the Caliphate. Or so we're told. The Caliphate would be going backwards a thousand years, and it would be terrible for the well-being of the people and the region. No, really.

 So we, or rather they, can't have that. Must be crushed. And so the anti-ISIS campaign is supposedly under way to re-take the various cities in Iraq that have fallen...

Deja-vu all over again.

We've done this before, haven't we? Wait, wait. We've been on this road so many times.

Fascism/Nazi-ism back in the day was a means of coordinating/uniting fractious Europe's elites and common herd to oppose the Dreaded Communists of the Soviet Union. A rightist form of populism, if you will, intended to do physical battle with the Soviet Bear, which it did with not a lot to show for it.

The Soviet Union dissolved on its own decades after the disaster of the Fascist/Nazi expansion period (with a nudge or two, to be sure).

But now we're in a political/ideological situation where it seems Our Betters believe that the Fascists and Nazis were too advanced, too progressive. Too organized.

Disruption and chaos are now the operative principles of global elites. Disruption in the Middle East and South Asia has been going on for many years, the idea apparently being to prevent any sort of comprehensive -- or even localized -- organization among the Arabs and to disrupt/dismantle any organization among the non-Arabs (such as Persians, Afghanis, and so forth).

Chaos and disruption serve the interests of the High and Mighty, but they cannot do so permanently. At least not historically. At some point, a new status quo has to settle in, but for some reason that is not allowed to happen in the Middle East and adjacent lands.

The current slaughter in Gaza is part of Israel's ongoing attempts to maintain chaos and disruption in its almost-conquered dependencies of Gaza and the West Bank. To what object is the question. How are Israeli interests served by such tactics?

But we can ask the same questions about Iraq or Syria or Libya or Ukraine or pretty much anywhere chaos and disruption -- and slaughter -- are the current ruling principles. How is anyone's interest served more than temporarily, indeed more than momentarily?

There have been more than a few suggestions that the ISIS advance in Iraq is a false flag engineered by the United States in order to disrupt/overthrow the corrupt regime of al-Maliki who was previously installed by the US. That would be par for the course given the way the Great Game has been played from the bunkers of the West for some time now, but there's no telling whether it's true -- or even relevant if it were true -- at this point.

The indications are that the Ukraine Thing was engineered by the US and EU over a long period, indeed over decades, and came to fruition by "accident" when Yanukovych said "no" to EU/IMF demands that would have caused domestic chaos and disruption in order meet them. Chaos and disruption ensued anyway.

Much the same can be said for Syria, Libya, and anywhere else the neo-imperial project is being implemented.

There is no escape apparently; there is no way to avoid the impositions and social/political/economic destruction that ensues.

Much the same was the case in Europe and the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere in prelude to the American entry into WWII.

While Americans were content to sit back and watch things spiral out of control in 1940 and '41-- at least until the attack on Pearl Harbor -- today, it appears the US Government, or a faction of it, is leading a global campaign of disruption and chaos.

We have become the enemy we once fought against...

300

When the death toll from the current Israeli killing spree reaches around 300, the operation should start to ratchet back. A 100 to one killing ratio seems to satisfy the Israeli bloodlust temporarily. 3 Israeli teens killed vs 300 Palestinians should just about do the trick.

For the time being.

Until the next round.

Crazy the fruits of imperialism. No?

Riding the Ukrainian Tiger

There's been little or no mainstream news coverage of Ukrainian matters for many weeks, as the so-called military operations of the Kiev coup-regime continue in the East and South, supplemented by all kinds of militia and "privat-armi" action, including the phenomena of death squads, so beloved of our own government's adventurism abroad.

So far as I can tell, the mayhem and chaos is confined to the "separatist" regions, but it is bloody and nasty and is meant to terrorize the locals into complying with the demands of the Freaks in Kiev -- whatever they may turn out to be. There is, after all, supposed to be a "national election" tomorrow that is intended to endorse and confirm the Kiev Freak-Regime in power, and to assert one or another of the "Western" oligarchs as President, probably the so-called Chocolate King, Poroshenko.

Someone the West can do business with at any rate.

It must be said that Russia has stayed pretty much out of this mess of growing proportions on its western border. Despite all the propaganda and hysteria about "Putin-Hitler" and "Putin-Stalin" and the nonsense about "reviving the Soviet Union" and all the constant baiting of the Kremlin by Anglo-American and EU interests, Putin and the Kremlin have remained remarkably calm and restrained. They have not intervened on behalf of their Russian-speaking Ukrainian brothers and sisters, in fact they seem to have shunted them away as the death and destruction from Kiev continues unabated.

So far as matters can be puzzled out from afar -- and the lack of "news" from the region is as telling as if there were actual news being reported in the mainstream -- the Kiev coup-regime is as freaky as The Saker makes them out to be. Though curried by Anglo-American and EU imperialists, they are massively incompetent to actually govern -- not that anyone else is on tap who might be better.

Since independence in 1991, Ukraine has been ruled by a succession of incompetents and kleptocrats, leaving little or nothing in their wake. I've been struck by the videos I've seen of various parts of Ukraine, from Kiev eastwards. Practically every building is a legacy of the Russian Empire or the Soviet Union. It appears that almost nothing has been built -- at least from Kiev eastwards -- since independence, and programs on the Vremya Odessa channel continuously highlight the deterioration of housing and other buildings from the Imperial and the Soviet eras -- which are almost the only buildings there are in any case.

The place is falling apart, at least those parts that are not being deliberately destroyed by the Freaks in Kiev and their henchmen.

Of course this civic deterioration and lack of infrastructure construction and maintenance activity is widespread throughout the West as well. In Ukraine, it's no surprise that a handful of kleptocrats, styled "oligarchs" hoovered up all of the valuable properties and industries as soon as they were offered by Kiev and that is a major reason why little or nothing is or has been done on behalf of the public interest, and nothing resembling a government of the people has ever taken root in Kiev. It can't so long as everything of value is in the hands of kleptocrats and oligarchs and everyone's deteriorating well-being is dependent upon them rather than on the will of the People themselves.

While the situation in Ukraine is far starker than what we see in the West, they mirror one another. Oligarchic control isn't as complete in the West, but it is getting there, the goal being more like the Ukraine (minus the civil unrest) than not.

It's dreadful.

But that's the world these global oligarchs and kleptocrats want for the rest of us; what they want for themselves is another matter.

The Ukraine is turning into another Yugoslavia or even (God forbid) another Libya, and this has got to put some fear into the minds and hearts (such as they are) of the oligarchs and kleptocrats and their servants. Profits can still be made, of course, if the situation deteriorates completely, as it did in the Former Yugoslavia and Libya, but the amounts extractable -- and on whose behalf -- are seriously diminished under such conditions than they would otherwise be.

Stability may not be a short term objective, however. More wealth can be looted faster under conditions of chaos and warlordism than under any stable regime, so if the short-term objective is to steal as much as possible from the Ukrainian people -- and to destroy what can't be stolen outright -- then maintaining the current conditions are much preferable to having an actual national government in Kiev. Note, for example, how the sham of national governance is maintained in Baghdad  while the wealth of the nation (such as remains after wars and occupations) is pillaged and what can't be taken is destroyed day in and day out...

Having an unstable Ukraine on the borders of Europe and Russia would not seem to be in the interests of either Russia or the EU over the long term, however. What's there now is a tiger that isn't being ridden very well by anyone, not the Freaks in Kiev, not the oligarchs and kleptocrats, not the Kremlin, and not by the sponsors of the coup.

The mess gets worse daily.

The Ukrainian people are being used and abused badly. Their attempts to take matters into their own hands are understandable, but as we've seen so often elsewhere, the people who are actually capable of taking control of the chaos are the rightists, the Fascists and the Nazis, not the socialists/communists and democrats. This is what happened in Europe during the interregnum between the World Wars, and in a sense, it's what's happened throughout the West and East during the Post - Soviet Era.

In other words, power has devolved since the expiration of the failed Soviet experiment into a re-animation and revision of the supposedly destroyed Fascist/Nazi experiments of the post-WWI era. Since the Soviet version of Communism and the Fascist/Nazi version of Capitalism were essentially mirror images of one another, both totalitarian and in competition with one another -- eventually at war with one another for supremacy (or survival as the case may be) -- the absence of the Soviet model together with the resurgence of the Fascist/Nazi model means gross imbalance at the very least. Specious claims that Putin-Russia are the mirror image of the Soviet Union, and thus the mirror image rivals of the West are ludicrous. Putin-Russia are integral aspects of the Western rightist resurgence. Compared to the EU, Russia today is more like Poland in comparison to Germany in 1937 or 39. Poland was just as Fascist as Germany at that time though not quite as dominance-minded. Their governance and economic regimes were practically the same.

So it is with Russia and the EU; they're hardly distinguishable.

Ukraine is a tiger being ridden by the EU and US, but without grace or skill, and Russia seems content to see it falter and even die.

Putin-Russia have the Crimea and that's sufficient unto the needs of the Kremlin.

There can be no sufficiency, though, in the eyes of the West under its current neo-Fascist/Nazi regime. It's either all or nothing.

"All" means the end of rivals like Russia and China. Not their incorporation into the Western Realm, their extinction.

India has just elected a Fascist government, interestingly enough. Perhaps that assures that India doesn't fall into the "rival" camp. I don't know, but could be. Meanwhile, China is declared a rival and indeed cyber-enemy. While name-calling the West and particularly the USofA "mincing rascals" is cute, I'm sure the Chinese know very well what is up and are taking appropriate steps to protect themselves.

Ukraine is not a rival, it's a resource to be exploited, nothing more or less, and what can't be exploited is to be destroyed. Depopulation is already under way -- has been a feature, not a bug, of Ukraine's independence from Soviet/Russian control.

Russia doesn't seem to be interested in participating in either the destruction or the exploitation of Ukraine and seems content to let the locals fight over the debris, and let the EU/US/NATO axis try to make something other than a giant mess of what's left.

And every time I see the claim that the West is "supporting" Nazis and Fascists in Ukraine, I shake my head and think, "No, the West IS Fascist and Nazi." The Anglo-American/EU Imperial Project isn't something "other than" Fascist/Nazi, it IS the Fascist/Nazi project made manifest once again.

Ukraine is Only a Piece of the Prize

I've been curious about why there's such an absolute rush -- particularly on the part of Europe, but no less so on the part of the United States -- to integrate and coordinate Ukraine into the EU Periphery. I've never seen the European Union move so swiftly on anything, and certainly the American involvement in the uprising that overthrew the Yanukovych government was quite open and obvious from the outset. Bringing uber-techocrat/bankster Arseniy Yatsenyuk to the White House mere days before the plebiscite scheduled in Crimea to vote on the future of that autonomous republic is a striking confirmation of US interest and involvement in the process of detaching Ukraine from the Russian Sphere and adding it to that of an Eastern-expansionist Europe.

In my research on the member-groups of "New Citizen", prompted by Mark Ames's disclosure that Pierre Omidyar had been funding the outfit to the tune of "hundred of thousands of dollars" (according to a communiqué from the Omidyar Network, the total funding for "New Citizen" and its member/parent "Center UA" is $1.105 million over two years, but who's counting, right?)  I saw a good deal of evidence that Ukraine is only a part of the Prize the EU seeks to capture.

They already have the Baltic States, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. and so far as I'm aware, the Kremlin is just as happy to see them struggling with their enormous economic problems on their own -- with the gentle loving kindness of the EU banksters/and technocrats to ease them through these difficult times with doses of austerity medicine.

It's what the EU does; it's an identity thing in Brussels. Viz: the treatment of the Near Periphery of Greece, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Ireland during the current economic unpleasantness. The EU/IMF/World Bank/Bank of Europe/NATO axis has little incentive than to do otherwise: embegger the Periphery in order that the Core continues to prosper.

But what are they to do when the Near Periphery is stripped clean? Well, obviously, expand into the Far Periphery (30 slide power point pdf), the nations of the Eastern Partnership:

Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine.

All of which, of course, were former republics of the Soviet Union which had been part of the Russian Empire prior to the establishment of the Soviet Union, and thus are still to some extent in the Russian orbit.

To detach them all and place them in the European orbit through strategy appears to have been the long term goal of the EU for decades. I call them the Eastern Territories rather than Partners, because the evidence shows a very definite Senior/Junior relationship focused on exploiting the resources of the "East" for the benefit of the Core (ie: Germany, France, Luxemburg, Belgium, Netherlands, Denmark, with the UK as a participant if not a member.)  We have the evidence from the experience of the Near Periphery under the tender mercies of Frau Merkel and Mme Lagard. Not a pretty picture, particularly for Greece, but other countries on the Periphery suffer too.

But have no fear. Apparently with the rushed inclusion of Ukraine into the EU as an "associate" rather than as a member, all will be well.

How this is supposed to work, I'm not quite sure, but if the past is any guide, Ukraine will be exploited for land and water resources and whatever other resources are found will be stripped away for the benefit of Germany first, and the rest of the Core in time. A relative few Ukrainians -- the technocrats and designated "stakeholders" will be lavished with rewards sufficient to keep them tame and in the government,  and everyone else will be impoverished, and many -- as in Greece -- will be left to die.

This is the New Reality in Europe and its Periphery, and we will see it play out very quickly in Ukraine if there is no intervention from Russia (likely there won't be, not as long as Russia cuts a deal with the makers of this plan of exploitation.) The Crimea will likely remain under nominal Ukrainian suzerainty while in control of its Russian speaking majority and Russian forces, no matter what the results of the March 16 plebiscite. The point of all this is not to overly rile up the Russian Bear too soon, after all.

Wouldn't want that.

Meanwhile, with the Ukrainian Thing settled (for now, if not for always), the EU can move on to its next target in the Eastern Territories, and from the signs and signals forthcoming from Vilnius last December, when Ukraine was supposed to sign the agreement to fall under EU control -- but didn't, which triggered the revolt in Kiev and elsewhere -- the next targets are Georgia and Moldova, to be followed by Azerbaijan, Armenia and finally Belarus. Of course, the order could change as events have a way of interfering with carefully laid plans, but that's the order that was laid out in Vilnius last December, and at least to my eye, the EU has shown a striking rigidity of thought, process and procedure throughout the recent era of economic unpleasantness and political turmoil.

In going through so much of the "New Citizen" membership list, it was clear and obvious to me, almost from the outset, that the primary purpose of it was to "educate" the Ukrainian people to accept their new European overlords without a peep, and so far, it looks like they will.

We can assume that the same process of "education" is going on in all the Eastern Territories. Whichever country falls next is open to some speculation, but all of the ones listed are targets.

Ultimately, I have little doubt that the Russian Federation itself is targeted for dismantlement and ultimate submission to the diktats of the EU. And the US seems happy to oblige whatever its European partners suggest or request.

Vladimir Putin has been called a lot of things during the recent turmoil over the integration of Ukraine into the EU's Periphery. Mostly the propaganda has pivoted on the notions that Putin is "crazy," "out of touch," "delusional," "desperate," and "trying to revive the Soviet Union," none of which has any remote basis in reality. From the stark evidence available -- though not easily so, to be sure -- Putin is responding to the aggression of the West. And make no mistake, what's happening is most certainly aggression against Russian interests -- and eventually against Russia itself.

Some of those who think about these matters urge caution or even not proceeding at all. Among them are Bob Gates and Henry Kissinger. But some of the more thoughtful ones include Jack Matlock and Jack Goldstone -- whose papers on Revolutionary Theory apparently are highly regarded among the rebels in Kiev.

Clearly Europe's governing class wants the East and apparently will stop at nothing to get it. The people matter not at all in this strategic game. They aren't even pawns, though they may be seen resources to be exploited and discarded. It's nasty business.

Observing it, even from afar, is sick-making.

The Nations and Their Future -- a continuacion

I've argued in the past that de-tribalization is a necessary per-requisite for the adoption and sustenance of nationalism. Tribal societies do not -- on their own -- become "nations" (though some American Indian tribes are called "nations" in both law and custom. The one I'm most familiar with is the Cherokee Nation, but that's another story for another time.)

My premise for this series is that what are known as nation-states today are a concept and construct of Imperialism, dating back at least to Rome, and probably to well before the advent of the Roman Empire. The purpose was to establish local/regional loyalty to the distant Palace or to the Crown. The Nations might begin as Imperial Provinces, but over time the Provinces assume quasi-autonomous status and eventually, if they aren't absorbed by another Empire, they become independent of the Imperial thrall, nation-states, yet they still may be loyal to the ideals of the former ruling power.

As the Western Roman Empire disintegrated, the ruling concepts were maintained in the East, and periodic revivals of the Roman Imperial idea would occur in the West. While the disintegration of Roman rule in the West opened Europe to invasion and conquest by tribalists who had been kept outside the gates, as it were, by Roman Legions, and thus opened Europe to de-nationalization, re-tribalization in many respects, the Roman idea was never actually lost. Many of the elites of the conquering hordes from the East had already been Romanized before the fall of the Imperial state, and most of the conquered peoples were as thoroughly Romanized as any in the Empire.  The Church, too, preserved, protected and defended the Roman ideals of governance, pomp and state.

Consequently, while re-tribalization did occur subsequent to the end of Roman rule in Western Europe, there was also a counter influence tending toward de-tribalization and nationalism -- a counter influence that eventually triumphed with the establishment of nation-states more or less derived from and patterned on Roman prototypes. Of course the hundreds of years that this process took meant that very little of the nationalism that emerged in Europe after the reintroduction of the nationalist concept (beginning, I would say, in the 16th century, but accelerating in the 18th and reaching a climax in the 19th century with the unification of Germany and Italy) looked like "Rome." And yet, without the influence of the Roman Empire, nationalism might not have taken root in Europe at all. For Europeans, it seems to me, are at root as naturally tribal a people as any on Earth.

But being de-tribalized, they could be and were subject to nationalism, which is a form of enforced loyalty to a nation-state rather than to a tribe, nationalism which under certain conditions can become an impetus toward Empire.  Which was certainly the case in Europe from the 16th Century to the 20th until the whole enterprise exploded in World War II.

It was the End of Empire(s), something that is still assumed to be under way today, but I suggest that we're seeing essentially the opposite today, a reversion to Empire, but it is perhaps taking place under such an unfamiliar guise that it goes unnoticed or is not seen for what it is.

The key to re-Imperialization has been the numerous trade agreements that basically subvert and in many cases eliminate the concept of national sovereignty except to the extent the nation-state is loyal to a distant legal framework -- in effect, loyalty to a Palace and Crown, only now we're not dealing with crowned heads and their governments, we're dealing with corporate heads and their boardrooms. Much of the initial thrust during former Imperial periods was, of course, a product of the same institutions: corporations and their boardrooms, supported and defended by the Palace and Crown. The nation-states that emerged from post-imperialism remain in place, not as independent and sovereign entities but as dependencies of the sovereign corporations which assume the positions of the Imperial Palaces and Crowns of yore. The nation-states are not simply dependencies, they are factories of loyalty to their corporate overlords as well, much as was the case during previous periods of Imperial ascendency.

We're not quite there yet, but that's the trend I see emerging, and just as former Empires were imposed on both willing as well as unwilling subjects, I see a remarkable and somewhat unseemly tendency among some of those who should know better to pledge their loyalty and encourage the loyalty of others to the emerging corporate empire(s). It is as if reversion and devolution has taken hold of their minds.

Of course, I realize that a big part of my view of these trends -- and my revulsion -- is due to my age and the fact that I was socialized during the Post War de-imperialization period. To see a younger generation adopting a re-imperialization framework, and to see it happen through corporate entities which control governments, and to see it passed off as a Good Thing, is disheartening at best.

A counter movement is under way, in opposition to this trend toward corporate imperialism, but at this point it seems incredibly weak and powerless. The anti-globalist movement is certainly large, but because its foundations are for the most part based in the "non-violence" teachings of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, it seems to be getting nowhere. Of course King and Gandhi didn't seem to be getting anywhere for a long time, either, so I don't put too much emphasis on the ultimate weakness or powerlessness of the anti-globalist movement. We can't say yet whether "people power" will be unable to thwart this new imperialism.

On the other hand, we might ask what are the positive goals of the anti-globalists; do they ultimately want to revert to a status quo ante, a return to nation-state sovereignty as it was conceived post World War II, or do they envision something else? If something else, what?

That's where I'd like to carry this consideration next time.

To be continued...

The Nations and Their Future

I've compared the period we've been living through for the last few decades to the transition of the Roman Republic to the Roman Empire.

The parallels are far from exact, of course, but my argument has basically been that the Republic of Our Founders has gone extinct. It is not revivable at this point, any more than the Roman Republic could be revived post-Augustus. Of course, the Republican forms continued long after the expiration of the substance of those forms. There was a Roman Senate (in Constantinople) eight hundred years after the advent of Augustus, and it would last in Rome itself almost as long. But it was an institutional survival with no useful function or -- more particularly -- no useable authority.

Elections continued to be held for Roman state and local officeholders, but they were meaningless as well. The Empire was run from the Palace based on the Palatine Hill in Rome, but it could be anywhere the Emperor designated and was moved periodically, by a large bureaucracy under the direction of the Emperor and whoever controlled him.

On the Potential Disintegration of the Republican Party

Ordinarily I don't comment on the Republican Party and its antics much because to do so -- as almost all the so-called "lefty" blogosphere has been doing for many long years, obsessively -- is to highlight their policies, programs and memes, and subconsciously to promote them. It's a very effective form of propaganda when your supposed opponents focus on almost nothing but what you and your party are doing. Markos, Arianna, Aravosis, Digby and Jane among others have long been pretty nearly totally obsessed with spreading the Republican Party message for as long as they have been on the intertubes. Strange, isn't it?

But recent events (oh, you know what they are) have led to the practically universal belief that the Republicans are splitting apart -- thanks to the TeaBaggers and their obsessions -- and that by this time some year soon, there won't be a Republican Party any more.

Years ago, I advocated for RICOing the bastards, because I saw the Rs as a criminal enterprise, bent on war and bloodshed around the world and pillage and plunder at home. Oh my, the reaction was fierce and fast:

"You can't DO that!!! The Republicans are NECESSARY!!!! If any political party should be destroyed it's the DEMOCRATS!!!!" Etc.

And this went on for quite some time. The issue was ultimately focused on that last bit: literally destroying the Democratic Party by infiltration, subversion, and when needed, scandal and prosecution.

The Roadblock

Interesting developments on the Syria Front. Indeed, it makes one wonder if there isn't some other game being played here than simply wars and distractions and palace intrigues.

The Obama campaign to send Sadda... erm, Assad a "message" ground to a halt as the week came to a close. The British Parliament had said "no" to Blighty involvement in the operation; Hollande in France said he was eager to participate, but the French People said "non!" The Saudis suddenly put on the brakes. Even the always belligerent Israelis were skeptical of a Syrian operation at this time...

Obama went before the cameras -- once the protestors were removed from beyond the West Wing of the White House -- and said he was still ever-so-firm and ever-so-resolute, and he would put the question of further actions against Sadda... err, Assad to a Congressional vote, and the Congressional leaders said, "OK, we'll get back to you after our vay-kay, mkay?"

Yeah. Right.

Something -- ooou my, what could it be -- occurred between the Kerry Speech on Thursday and the Obama Apparition in the Rose Garden on Friday Saturday. There was an intervention of some sort by someone.

The very kind of intervention, if I may be so bold, that I and many others longed for to put the brakes on the misbegotten Imperial adventures of the Bush/Cheney Regime. The very kind of intervention that never came.

But last week, at the last moment, Somebody Who Matters said, "No. We're not going to do this thing now, maybe not ever."

Huh.

Who'd a thunk?

Of course many sabers were being rattled during the run up to the Aktion. Among them were Russian and Iranian sabers, direct threats to our client states of Israel and Saudi Arabia. If we were to "do" Syria -- at this time at any rate -- then there would be more than Hell to Pay, capice? Of course it's gangster business, but we've known that all along. The whole world has become a gangster world, hasn't it? Maybe it always was one.

Someone must have said, "You know, this could be serious."

Yes. Well.

So are all these Imperial aggressions. So are they all.

I guess we can return our focus to the NSA now.

Carry on.

Surely there will be a good story about Greenwald any minute now...
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UPDATE:  This is what they're saying happened to forestall the Syrian Aktion. Make of it what you will.

Speaking of Privilege: Obama Addresses His Constituency

Right. I got this.

It can be interesting to watch and to parse Presidential Press Conferences especially as they have become rarer and rarer.

His Serenity doesn't much do the formal Press Conference routine, preferring appearances on teevee gabshows and one on one interviews to get his message across, no matter how imperfect, muddled or irrelevant that message may be.

I've long been of the opinion, of course, that His Serenity is the willing tool of others, particularly those who own his ass. Which means the banks and Wall Street together with a shadowy group of corporate execs and government "retirees."

For example, it was obvious that Obama became a tool of House Cheney right quick, as soon as Miz Liz started yapping about whatever it was her father was telling her to yap about. The clue was that Obama yielded almost instantly and has never deviated from his assigned course, for he is corrected promptly.

Exactly what command and control House Cheney has over The Government would be interesting to learn, especially what agencies they use to accomplish their nefarious ends (many say they operate directly through the CIA, which gives some perspective on the whole NSA Thing... but that's getting ahead of myself.)

Jeremy Scahill On The Dirty (Little) War

[Three Five Zero Zero...]

 

Jeremy has a lengthy post up over at The Nation detailing what he's learned of the covert -- and often overt -- acts of the Dirty War that's been under way against... terr-r...  for lo these many years now, focusing on the al-Awlakis, father and son, droned to death in separate actions two weeks apart in 2011 in the Yemen. It's a nasty business that's become normalized and seems to have become fetishized by  Our Rulers to the point where the extermination of various threats to the security of the High and Mighty has become a high-stakes game played by proxies on video terminals in Florida and Nevada and who knows where else, against... whoever the war-gamers decide are suspect, wherever in the world they may be. Including, potentially, right here at home, "against American citizens on American soil," though we are repeatedly assured that is not the case... for now. The High and the Mighty excitedly look on and direct the actions of their proxies, to kill and kill again from above, certain in their righteousness and glory.

The anguish over the use of drones in this endeavor seems a bit over the top to me; somehow the squads of murderers who would be -- and sometimes are -- deployed in the place of drones give me no comfort.

Perhaps the idea is that the murder squads would be able to employ more appropriate judgement and thus the number of collateral killings in pursuit of designated targets would be reduced. Perhaps. The problem is that when these squads were heavily utilized in places like Vietnam and Central America (by proxy), and currently in Iraq and Afghanistan and who knows wherever else in the world they are deployed, tens to hundreds of thousands were murdered most of whom had nothing to do with the supposed targets at all. They were either in the way or they were simply targets of opportunity. Why not murder them? Who would care? As long as it was no one who mattered, slaughter away. It's the way these things are done these days.

Jeremy has been one of the most vocal and consistent exposers and objectors to this New Model warfare by proxy and drone murder of any and all who fall under the gaze of the gamers. It is the cause, he thinks, of the very "terrorists" it is meant to exterminate. The more the murder by drone and death squads, the more the victims respond in kind.

Stop the drone wars, stop the murder squads, and who knows, mayhem in general, and particularly mayhem by "terrorists" might decline... You, the Rulers, will never exterminate them all... and by trying, you may well be producing something worse.

Some of what's been revealed about the Brothers Tsarnaev's motives -- at least as they are being presented in the "news" -- should come as a cautionary and warning to those who are so devoted to the game. Of course, they won't, but that's another issue.

Such motives of the brothers in Boston as have been suggested or revealed are what Jeremy has been getting at for years:  the slaughter -- euphemistically called "collateral damage" -- from the murder squads and drone wars in parts of the Muslim world radicalized the elder brother to the point where he believed he had to do something about it, something dramatic.

It had apparently nothing to do with the Chechen rebellion; it had to do with what the United States has been doing in the Muslim world for years and years now, targeting and murdering hundreds of innocents year in and year out, on no authority but "suspicion". Anybody who is in the way, too bad, so sad.

Apparently, the more he learned about what was going on, the more enraged and determined he became to do something about it. The resulting actions, bombing the Boston Marathon and various shootouts, seemed inexplicable and bizarre without some sort of manifesto or at least a YouTube of some sort, and thus seemed much more in line with typical domestic terrorist behavior than what we're used to in connection with the Global and Glorious War on Terror.

But no, apparently the bombings were motivated by stories -- such as Jeremy Scahill's -- of slaughter, murder and mayhem by Americans among the innocent Muslims of Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iraq (among other places where these tactics are utilized) .

It's a dirty little war that has become perpetual.

The logic of it -- if you want to call it that -- is completely circular and thus never-ending.

"They" did something terrible, "we" respond with something even more horrible, "they" then ramp up their terrible response, "we" in our wisdom then do likewise. These sorts of campaigns can go on seemingly forever without resolution, in part because they are relatively low-key compared to conventional warfare, and it serves the interests of Power to maintain them in perpetuity -- as long as there is a "threat" from above or wherever, the Power players are assured their supremacy indefinitely.

If there is to be a resolution, there has to be bold action to reverse the course of the endless struggle. With few exceptions, resolution comes -- if it comes -- from the unilateral stopping of the violence by the more powerful player in the game, followed by the resistance ceasing (most of) its violence against the more powerful player.

Certainly that was the case in Vietnam, and it seemed to work in Ireland and Northern Ireland, as well as in most of the rest of the colonial outposts in days of yore. The more powerful -- ie: the colonial power -- stopped.

I've said many times that the current wars and their resistance are mostly about restoring Empire, and part of that process is "getting right" some of the failed Imperial Projects of times gone by. That includes Iraq, Afghanistan (in spades), the Yemen, parts of Africa and the Middle East and eventually Persia/Iran.

That's why the British government are so keen to participate in the current Imperial crusade -- it was essentially their Empire that fell to pieces, and it is essentially their failed colonies where the new Anglo-American Imperial Project has been instituted.

There's an internet tradition that asserts we are living at the End of the Empire. America is in permanent decline from which there can be no recovery, the American Empire is nearly kaput, and so on and so forth, yadda yadda. To me, this meme if you will, is absurd and for all intents and purposes, it has things backwards. The Empire is fine, ever-expanding, and as Empires tend to be, it is very rapacious and cruel.

The American People are facing decline -- from which there is no apparent recovery -- as the Republic expires and the economy is looted (partially to fund the Empire) with speed and abandon. The same sort of thing happened domestically in Britain during the hey-day of their Empire. The British People faced untold hardship while their lords and ladies exploited not only colonial outposts but the domestic population as well. In the process, the People's rights and privileges were simply taken away. And for generations, protest against this state of affairs was ineffective.

The Empire flourished, while the People were en-miserated.

That's how these things go, and that's how it's going once again.

As is his way, Jeremy tends to be thorough and correct in his descriptions and assessments of American Imperial actions at home and abroad. His tales about the appalling things being done in our names can curl your hair. The story of the extermination of the al-Awlakis, father and son, in the Yemen, both of whom were American citizens, is -- or should be -- deeply disturbing, but of course, because they were officially designated targets for White House sanctioned murder, the best we can hope for right now is ambivalence. Before we can even become ambivalent, however, we need knowledge.

Knowledge of these things is so carefully controlled and manipulated from On High, however, that even when we "know" about something, we don't really know anything.

Jeremy has a book out, "Dirty Wars, the World is a Battlefield," and the movie is making the rounds.

There is much more to learn and understand. Go, see, read, learn.

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Jeremy Scahill on Democracy Now! today:

Enroning Iraq and America

Ten years on, yes. Ten years since the Bushevik invasion and aborted occupation of Iraq. The question raised in the aftermath should be: "Was it right?" Instead the question raised throughout the media, including most of the New Media, is: "Was it worth it?"

Ie: did the interests that rule the United States of America and its allies in the Mesopotamian Adventure gain from the exercise of Imperial power, and if so, was it enough to outweigh the losses? Let us examine the Balance Sheets of Empire.

There is no doubt the interests gained enormously, they gained by the trillions of dollars, and their risk in the adventure was practically nil. I remember back in the day that there was a single voice on the Internet, one Bartcop who some may recall, who was saying about the looming war, "This will mean trillions for the corporate interests," and he was right. He was I think the only one at the time who had a real and comprehensive understanding of what this adventure would cost (trillions), who would be paying (you and me) and who would benefit (the corporate powers that ruled us.)

It was obvious as sin to Bartcop because of Enron.

Nothing that's happened in domestic or world affairs since 2000 makes any sense without understanding the influence of Enron on changing the course of American and ultimately world events. Once that change was made, Enron could be made to go away. Poof! As if it never was. But like an incubus, its influence remained -- and remains -- as strong as ever. You could almost say it is a spiritual thing.

Ken Lay, after all, was a preacher's son who was always after the salvation of souls -- by robbing them, plundering the commons, and forcing people to believe in some clap-trap about "rewards" in the end.

Oh, there was much more clap-trap than that. Enron was built on a tissue of lies, fabrications, and fantasies of "rewards" that would come -- in the end -- from faith in the goodness of the Company and its leadership. It was no different in its own peculiar way than an evangelical church run by an entrepreneurial pastor -- of which the United States has been abundantly supplied from the get.

The Prime Directive of Enron was robbery. Fleecing of the sheep, if you will. In a way that the sheep like it and come back for more.

It worked like a charm -- for just as long as it was necessary. And then Enron... vanished. But it never really went away. Its Way became ingrained in the day to day ethics ("") and operations of the Highest of Our Mighty. Enron became the model. Surely someone should be able to make it work in perpetuity.

And I would argue that we are very close to that point now, if we haven't actually passed it.

As some wags have been able to fathom recently, the whole -- and really the only -- point of the Iraq invasion and occupation was for the money, not so much what could be stolen from the Iraqis (they didn't have that much after all), but for what could be pried out of the US Treasury -- all our pockets, individually and in toto -- for the sole and complete benefit of certain favored corporate interests. It worked like magic.

Within a few years, trillions and trillions were looted from the pockets and stored wealth of Americans, not to pay for the Imperial War of Aggression in Mesopotamia, but simply to take the money, to have (see), because it could be taken. The sheep were ripe for fleecing after the trauma of 9/11, and they willingly went to the shearing. Some, of course, went to the slaughter. That was the point.

The Imperial War of Aggression, still hasn't been paid for, and in realistic terms it never will be.

Was it worth it? For those who collected the riches and the rent, of course it was.

They never dreamed they could have such easy money so fast, money for nothing in many cases, and yea verily, all the chicks and cocaine they could consume at the same time. It was magic.

I've long been fascinated that the Imperial War of Aggression in Mesopotamia and the mindset -- as well as all the looting -- that went with it is almost never considered as a fundamental part of why the rest of us -- but not the Imperial Elite -- are in a permanent economic recession from which there appears to be no exit.

This disastrous war doesn't figure into the equations, apparently not at all, any yet it was and is fundamental. The economic tribulations most Americans (and many, many people around the world) are facing are supposedly the result of systemic financial collapse due to poor regulation, leading to real estate bubbles, and so on. Uh, there's more to it than that. Everything that led to the global financial collapse is to be found presaged at Enron, and the lies, the frauds, the violence, and the looting that was fundamental to Enron was played out on the battlefield that was Iraq.

It all links together. It's derived ultimately from cultic religious beliefs that require certain events be played out -- apparently in certain locations -- for the fulfillment of Prophecy.

One of the things that was so striking about the Iraq invasion and occupation was that the soldiers and the American people had no idea where this drama was unfolding and who the people were "we" were at war with. None whatsoever. Mesopotamia is not just some dusty corner of creation, after all. The whole of Iraq is filled with Biblical sites, from the Garden of Eden, to Ur of the Chaldees and Sumer/Shinar to Babylon and Nineveh and all the rest. The troops didn't know this (at least they didn't learn it from their leaders) and Americans by and large still don't know it. Mesopotamia was where civilization as we know it began; the people of Iraq are at least in part the descendants of the Sumerians, the Babylonians, Assyrians and so many of the others who were the very peoples of the Bible.

Even more striking to me was that there was -- and is -- absolutely no interest in learning any of this remarkable history, at least no interest by Americans. American troops set up camp outside the walls of Babylon, for example, with apparently no idea where they were, nor any interest in finding out, and during their stay, they destroyed a significant part of the archeological record without a concern in their heads. How much of the overall archaeological record in Iraq has been looted or destroyed as a consequence of the invasion and occupation is still being assessed, but it is not slight at all. When the museums were looted in Baghdad and elsewhere following the invasion, Americans -- led by Rummy -- simply shrugged. "Oh well!"

It was bizarre to witness this complete obliviousness to the people, the culture, and the history of Iraq during the American blitzkrieg and occupation -- that seemed to me to be more an echo of the German invasion of Poland than anything else -- and the murderous contempt with which the invading troops regarded the natives. It was shocking to learn of the casual way our valiant troops murdered Iraqi civilians with complete impunity simply because they were in the way, or as often happened, because the troops were... afraid. Even some of the troops were shocked at casual murder they witnessed, the utter disregard for the lives and property of the people they had conquered. Some knew deep in their souls that what was going on was wrong. Fundamentally wrong.

But as horrifying and disgusting as the behavior of the troops often was, it was matched and frequently exceeded by the behavior of the mercenaries brought in for "security." Casual murder and worse were the order of the day. And when the natives rebelled, the Death Squads were deployed, just as in Central America, and before that in Vietnam.

If there hadn't been a civil war before, the invaders made sure there would be one. The invaders' mindless cruelty made the horrors all that much worse.

The arrogance, the cruelty, the mind-numbing ignorance, and the greed that characterized the Iraq War and occupation can all be found in analog running like a river through Enron and all its projects and works. There is no way to separate the Busheviks -- and especially G W Bush himself -- from the corruption that was Enron.

Ten years on, our rulers have learned no positive lesson at all from either Enron or Iraq. The only lessons they've learned are negative: specifically how to manage the looting of the masses and Imperial Wars of Aggression with more finesse....

Surely these lessons can be put to the test with a nice and tidy obliteration of Iran, yes?

Meanwhile At the Imperial Display

His Serenity Sprach

"The State of the Union is Strong."

Whew!

On Secession and Secessionists

This Modern Secession Movement might become intriguing as more and more entities decide to press for secession from one another.

I'm told that there are now secession movements in all fifty states. But within the states, particularly Texas -- which got the ball rolling, after all, with some of the more intemperate statements of its brain-addled governor quite some time ago -- there have arisen plenty of internal secession movements seeking to withdraw this or that city from the grip of the Other Secessionists. Well now. What have we here?

For some time, I've been writing that the Problem With America is that it is too big. It's a Domestic  Imperial State where one really ought not to be. It's an anachronism built from the detritus of the British Empire, which itself was a criminal enterprise leading to untold suffering and misery around the world. Basically, as brilliant as many of the Founding Fathers were, their underlying premise was that they could do this Continental Imperial Project better than the British, and they wanted the power and authority to engage in it without interference from London. They were prepared to take that power from London and did so.

Their Original Sins, of course, were slavery and genocide, both necessary for the Imperial Project to succeed. The political efforts to curb the excesses of these sins led to the Civil War and a temporary break up of the Union to discover whether the future of America would be corporate-Imperial or plantation/mercantile-imperial. The corporate side won.

And here we are.

Of course it's not that simple, not at all, but the outline is strong, and the problem continues to be the fact that the country is a domestic Empire that's just too damn big. The solution is to break it up.

Ah. I can already hear the screams of Imperialists: "Balkanization!" Yes, well.

The United States is really an uncomfortable amalgam of a number of culture and geographic areas into an unwieldy and nigh on ungovernable mish-mash of a nation served by an ever more remote and disconnected national government and a descending series of ever more impoverished state and local governments.

Given my druthers, the rest of the country should secede from the Old South rather than the other way around, since the South really runs this pop stand and isn't about to let go of it any time soon. So, drop kick them. I'd go farther, though, and abolish the states as well, since they are all artificial creations with no natural existence either culturally or geographically at all.

Instead, what's now the United States should be divided into affinity/geographic regions, perhaps ten of them outside the Old South. Each independent. For a time I thought that there was some merit in preserving the national existence, but now I'm not so sure.

The idea of domestic empire has become an anachronism in any case.

It's time to ponder something else again.

A real secession movement would be founded outside the South and would have as its objective freeing the People from the illiberality of the Old South. Real secessionists would want to see the chains of the Old Southern mindset broken, and our governments liberated from control by Old Southern politicians and their cruelties.

I like the idea of turning the Modern Secession Movement inside out this way.

Heh.

The Problem With America

The American Empire and the Fourth World by Anthony J. Hall

Is that it is too big.

This has been the central problem of Empire from antiquity. Humans are hard wired to live in small-ish communities, and the nation-state, let alone mperial Grandeur, doesn't really fit the human psyche.

Empire seems to be the preference of certain predatory types, however (Alexander of Macedonia, anyone?) and their rise in the political realm leads to amalgamation of peoples and territories -- or their extinction -- which is the key component of the Imperial Idea. You make the Outer Darkness go away by bringing it inside; absorbing it, in other words, and bringing Light.

Or something like that.

The United States was an Imperial project from the beginning of European conquest and settlement, and its independence from Britain did not in any way disturb the Imperial nature of the American government and much of its society. In fact, independence broadened and enhanced the Imperial interests of the Americans -- which the British had been keeping in check. Consequently, upon independence, the Americans set out immediately to dispossess and exterminate the Indians and seize ever more land for their own settlement and prosperity.

The American idea was to establish a continent-spanning domestic empire, pushing out or killing off any who got in the way of it, then expand across the seas, wherever need and desire and opportunity allowed and required.

The Domestic Empire was established by the time of the Civil War. Alaska was acquired soon thereafter. The frontier "closed" just about the time there were probes into the overseas projects -- which included ultimately seizing Hawaii and the remnants of the Spanish Empire, establishing bases in China, and asserting primal authority over the independent nations of Central and South America.

Canada and Mexico, of course, were thought of as dependencies and reliable resources for personnel and materiel.

The notion of having a large domestic empire, comparable to that of China or Russia, was built on the idea of  what would later be called lebenstraum -- literally, "living room;" having enough available real estate, in other words, for the yeomen of yore to live free and/or die. Americans have long romanticized the Westward Expansion, but it was no picnic for those who tried it. It was, however, a way for those who would otherwise have been discontent -- and likely troublesome -- in more established communities and societies (ie: Back East) to set out on their own and be quasi-independent. To boldly go and to Pioneer.

This is something that was not possible in most of Europe and the opportunity presented by the possibility of doing so in America was one of the many reasons so many people left Europe to settle in America. They could do things in America they couldn't do in Europe, and one of them was to become a nearly independent lord of creation.

It's still possible in the United States, at least to some degree, at least in the fantasy way of Wall Street speculation. But the result has been a fractious population, numberless unsustainable towns and cities, rape of the environment -- oh, and that aforementioned genocide of those who came before.

The result, in other words, is too big.

Much as California has become all but ungovernable, the United States, as a domestic empire, is trending the same direction. Our anachronistic political and governance system is barely functional where it isn't creaking and disintegrating. A handful of very wealthy individuals and interests has essentially captured the key components of government and is operating them -- to the extent they still operate at all -- for their own benefit, bugger the rest of us. But the fact is, government as we've known it has been falling to pieces since the '80's, and to my mind, it can't be revived as it was formerly. Our Betters have known this for many years, and they have set out to put in place an alternative corporate state, a project that's pretty much complete.

The People are not even represented in that vision of the New America.

But the People were barely represented in pre-corporate America. Empires don't take into account the interests of the People. It's not in their nature. They are only concerned with the interests of the handful of individuals (and it is always very few compared to the populations under Imperial subjugation) who own, run and control the apparatus of Empire.

I believe it was Orwell who pointed out that there were barely a thousand British functionaries who ran the British Raj in India and thereby controlled populations of hundreds of millions.

It wasn't better in Britain itself during the heyday of the British Empire. And through most of the 19th Century and well into the 20th, life was hell for most of the British People. They didn't have it that much better than the jibbering Natives of Africa and India and elsewhere under the British Crown.

And it was unsustainable. The fluorescence of the  British Empire was quite a brief one, all things considered. The American Empire still has generations to run. I don't buy the conventional wisdom that the American Empire is In Decline. No, it is still in its growth phase, though continued growth overseas is problematic at best. Americans abroad have shown themselves, time and again, to be utter barbarians, and the most recent forays into Imperial conquest abroad haven't worked out so well. Americans, therefore, may not see any further expansion of their conquests abroad in the future. But if the Americans don't do it, someone else will.

Instead of overseas conquest we see an increasing level of domestic exploitation, led by those very few predators who own and control resources and the government and operate for their own benefit alone.

The People appear to be almost powerless against it, and part of the reason for their apparent powerlessness is the very size of the nation within which they are trying to assert their own interests.

The People cannot effectively resist -- or at least they haven't been able to.

If you're trying to resist the entire apparatus of exploitation and governance, of course the individual or any conceivable amalgamation of individuals has very little overt power (there are exceptions, but they don't really apply to the current circumstance.)

This is the chief advantage of national size for the predators and exploiters who rule.  The national entity is too large and too strong to take on as a whole.

But it's also too large to be sustained as it is.

It will have to fragment, and the real potential for resistance (should the People actually want to resist, and I've never been entirely sure they do) is to be found in encouraging, pioneering, or inducing that fragmentation. 

It will happen on its own, sooner or later.

But many Americans are already living as if it has taken place, and from those Americans, others can learn many lessons.

Once I have a bit more time, I'll try to expand on that thought...

[Final Moving Day is scheduled for next Wednesday.... yikes.]

The Latest Afghanistan Massacre -- and The Strange Ways of Propagandists

Interesting take on the latest Afghanistan Massacre in the mass media in this country. I was tooling around the MSNBC site, and it is really quite remarkable. (Note: I do not have cable teevee, and I have actually seen no teevee or video news at all on the Massacre. The information I'm using for this post is from MSNBC's website and other websites.)

The idea that American soldiers sometimes go berserk during our now endless wars of aggression overseas is not new by any means. There have been far too many cases of American soldiers and Marines exterminating this or that many civilians in foreign lands since the start of the Glorious Forever War on (Some) Terrorism. Massacre of civilians in combat zones has been far more frequent during most wars than many Americans realize, and in fact, from time to time in our long and bloody history, it has been policy.

Listen to an American Indian if you would like to know something about it.

Of course, the propaganda about these incidents generally devolves to two factors: 1) The gibbering Natives deserved it; 2) The poor soldier(s) were under so much stress due to battle fatigue or what have you that they couldn't control themselves (implied: nor should they be expected to do so in the face of so much provocation from the gibbering Natives.)

And finally, of course, the excuse is that that This Is War! "Bad things happen in wars!"

Yes, well.

In this case, the propaganda machine was seemingly a little slow and balky out of the starting gate, for it seems that the initial reports of this incident actually came from Afghan sources in the villages in question.

They were decidedly ugly reports. A squad of soldiers from a nearby forward operating base apparently went wilding, the way they sometimes do, and slaughtered everyone and everything they came upon during a nighttime operation of some sort, breaking into houses and killing all inside, as well as killing animals and torching corpses, before they passed on to the next compound and did the same thing.

From these reports, the image I got was of a "punitive expedition" such as might be conducted under the British Crown during the Days of Empire if even one hair on one European head was mussed by a Native during the quest for Empire. For as we know, the Natives of Afghanistan have been restless as all heck lately, and several American troops (officers even) have been rather rudely shot in their offices or training camps (apparently) by uppity Natives since the Koran burning incident some weeks ago. Were such killings of Imperial troops to take place during the British Empire, or even defiance, as an example, there would be massacres. The British were not alone in following up Native insolence with mass murder. It was general Euro-American policy to do so. Teach those Wogs a lesson!

But once the propaganda machine was geared up, the story about this incident was that there was "one" soldier, now being held in custody, a staff sergeant from Fort Lewis, Washington no less, with a wife and kids, who is "suspected" of having gone "rogue" and engaged in this unfortunate killing spree. He must have snapped, you see, under the stress. Just one. Rogue. These things happen. So sad. Dontchaknow. "Bad things happen in War."

But there was something more to the propaganda that was quite remarkable, and I don't know where it is going to lead: while there is no remorse or regret, there is a growing media question over whether this Afghanistan aggression is "worth the cost," and whether a withdrawal is called for sooner rather than later.

Echoes of Vietnam, certainly.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Military discipline and the 'command climate' in Afghanistan comes into question after a U.S. soldier allegedly opened fire on sleeping civilians in Kandahar province. NBC's Jim Miklaszewski reports.

"These killings only serve to reinforce the mindset that the whole war is broken and that there's little we can do about it beyond trying to cut our losses and leave," said Joshua Foust, a security expert with the American Security Project.

Ordinarily, such fiercely negative commentary about our Imperial Adventures overseas would not appear in mainstream American media, and suggestions that we should perhaps consider leaving one or another satrapy in foreign lands would only be voiced in whispers in the halls of Power; we would rarely see such an open "debate" about such things in print and on the teevee.

What gives?

Obviously -- at least so it seems to me -- there is a strengthening contingent in those very halls of Power calling for an end to American military adventurism (again), and specifically for a quicker withdrawal from Afghanistan which is turning into yet another clusterfuck.

Of course, I take whatever appears in the mass media "news" to be propaganda, often on behalf of the Government (though not always) and always on behalf of the corporate entity that owns and controls the media outlet, essentially never on behalf of the American People, let alone the gibbering Natives overseas.

Thus, commentary such as appears in the "news" report linked from MSNBC is a calculated form of propaganda from "corporate" -- which has decided it is close to time, if not past time, to cut an run. They even post polls saying the American People some time ago decided this Afghanistan Adventure "wasn't worth it." They go so far as to suggest that allies are fleeing the fray.

And here and there on the web there is talk of "helicopters on the embassy roof..."

The departure of the Soviets from Afghanistan led to the eventual breakup of the Soviet Union itself. It was a world-changing event that we're all still stunned by and in some respects still paying for. The result was the catastrophic monopole of American Power that has led, once again, to disastrous Imperial Aggression overseas. So long as there was a Soviet Union, there was some sense of balance though far from perfect, to be sure. But now that the United States has become the sole global superpower, it's military might has become a more and more grotesque -- and rogue -- killing machine, with neither conscience nor higher purpose.

Massacres of unwary or uppity Natives have been far too commonplace since the revival of America's Imperial Juggernaut. Up to now, they have almost all been excused in the propaganda media as little more than aberrations or accidents. This time? No. This time it appears the propaganda is taking the massacre of Afghan civilians as a Sign and Portent.

Time to quit Afghanistan. But is it time for Americans to stand down?

The WTF? Department

One of the curiosities lo these many years of the American Imperial Adventure is that there has been essentially no popular interest in or information provided through popular media about the lands and peoples Our Valiant Troops have been trying to conquer.

Meh. Who cares? Destroy their homes, slaughter them, take their oil -- or whatever it is we want -- and go. Leave. Pack up and move on. To the next conquest.

That's basically how this Forever Global War of Imperial Aggression has long been sold to the masses, without the slightest acknowledgement of where and among whom these would-be conquests are being undertaken.

The public had far more information about Vietnam and the Vietnamese -- as well as the rest of Indochina and its peoples -- back in the day that we have now about Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and all the other places around the world where Our Valiant Ones are busy with their... work.

Of course, maybe knowing something about the places and the victims of American aggression makes it easier for Americans to resist the call to Empire, I don't know. But it is shocking to realize just how vacant the knowledge well is when it comes to the basic matters of history and geography and society in our far away satrapies.

So. Here comes this movie, "The Devil's Double," the only one I am aware of that presents a more or less contemporary (well... ) Iraqi story from a more or less Iraqi perspective (again, well... with plenty of caveats...) and look what it is: a violence and blood-soaked melodrama just like any other high-life American crime family melodrama. Oh, please. "Scarface of Arabia" my wrinkled white ass.

Is this the only way we (I say advisedly) can approach those we have tried to conquer? It really is appalling.

Does anyone in or serving our Land of the Free and Home of the Brave have any idea where Iraq is and what it is from a historical standpoint? You know, Garden of Eden, Birthplace of Civilization, Homeland of Abraham, Issac, Ishmael? Babylon? Ur of the Chaldees? Etc? Baghdad?

Nobody cares, at all. So nobody knows. When the Baghdad Museum was looted after the Invasion, all we got were shrugs. "Oh well, bad things happen."

The invasion and occupation of Iraq were extraordinarily brutal and destructive; in the contemporary history of Iraq there has been nothing even remotely like it -- not even Saddam at his worst.

If the story were ever told for an American audience from an Iraqi standpoint, Americans, by and large, would be absolutely horrified and disgusted.

But instead, we get sympathetic stories of Our Brave Ones facing inconceivable hazards and conditions in that ancient and disturbing land -- and... this. "The Devil's Double."

What struck me about the trailer -- the movie hasn't been released yet -- is that as awful as Uday and the whole situation is portrayed, the characters and their excesses seem no different, except perhaps in detail, than any set of the High and the Mighty you might choose to portray anywhere in the world, especially among American Masters of the Universe, The Very Gods Who Walk Among Us.

No different at all.

Which puts a different light on our Imperial Adventures, doesn't it?

One's Bliss

Isn't it funny that for many people, the concept of "bliss" is an empty green field where one is all alone, untroubled by any human or natural intrusion, often with visions of nearby alternate worlds one can easily escape to, at least in imagination if not in fact.

This is almost the Ur-Vision of "bliss" among Euro-Americans, and it underlies the constant impulse to spread "West" to new uncharted and supposedly uninhabited and unclaimed territory. And yet, the American Prairie -- which by all accounts was the realization of this vision of "bliss" -- literally terrified most of those Euro-Ams who encountered it in the early days.

It was what they thought they wanted, and it absolutely wasn't what they really wanted, not even on a bet.

Yet they kept heading out West, through thick and thin, no matter what, no matter how much they loathed their destinations, all to grab this piece of earthly Heaven -- before someone else did.

This Westering Urge -- toward some vision of Bliss -- was a constant driving force in Euro-American life from the beginning of European settlement in this vast and gorgeous land. The pretense that it was unoccupied and unclaimed was often made real by genocidal attacks on the Native Peoples and headlong slaughter of the animals that did occupy and claim it. This tactic proved highly successful, if somewhat morally suspect, in clearing the land for... "white"... settlement and future Progress and Prosperity. Only "whites" were thought to be capable of those things, and eventually it boiled down to a fine point: only Anglo-Saxon Whites, the pinnacle of Creation, were truly blessed with the wisdom and foresight that made Progress and Prosperity possible for anyone at all. The world was not just their oyster, it was their right and their bounden duty to claim and rule it in its entirety.

Bliss -- for a certain minority of a minority of a minority of Euro-Peoples.

Exterminate, liquidate, or confine the Natives, steal their stuff and claim their lands, call it Progress... and move on to the next conquest. Again and again, endlessly. For if this process ever came to an end the world might collapse in on itself, and that would be the End of Everything.

And as we know, the End of Everything is the opposite of Bliss. At least it is for those whose Bliss is found in the conquest and occupation -- alone -- of Other People's Places.

The wonder of it is that there is no one else -- at all -- in this Blissful World of the Individual Conqueror. An intruder in the scene above would simply ruin the Moment. Even a Beautiful Intruder. For the point of this kind of Bliss is to be absolutely alone -- King of All, King of None. In a world that never was and never will be.

Magicland.

If it hadn't been for the existence of all that Empty Land west of the Alleghenies and Appalachians (either already Empty or soon to be made Empty), I do believe Americans would have gone absolutely mad and exterminated one another well before the time of the Civil War in which so many "progressive and prosperous" Anglo-Saxons perished in the quest to end or preserve the peculiar institution of chattel slavery. Among other things.

We like to pretend that American History isn't what it is, but it is what it is, and still the Bliss of so many Americans, especially of "Anglo-Saxon" descent, is the vision above, an Empty and Green Paradise, for oneself alone.

We need a Better Vision.

Hating On Teh Government

As readers may know, I was a Federal employee for about 11 years and left to retire early because I was sick of what was going on, much of which I have mercifully blocked from my memory. It... wasn't pretty.

And this was well into the Obama Reign.

Strangely enough, during the Bush Regime, while matters were becoming more and more politicized and less professionalized, there was far less maneuvering and infighting in the agency, far more common interest in and devotion to duty.

Now why would that be?

There were of course plenty of signs of internal deterioration, but that dated back to the Clinton Era, when the Government was actually shut down several times. That, I'm convinced, did more to undermine government employee loyalty than just about anything else in recent memory, but the advent of -- and disappointment in -- the Obama Reign really did seem to change attitudes and actions to complete Survival Mode.

Leaving one to doubt there was any point in Public Service any more.

In discussing the situation with others, though, people who have much longer service than I do, it's clear enough that this situation -- especially the doubt in the value of Public Service -- is routine, comes and goes, and you work through it or you don't. Politicization of service comes and goes, "survivalism" is the usual state of bureaucratic institutions -- and therefore of their employees -- but not everyone is adapted to this frame of mind. Non-Survivalists, if that's an appropriate term, would probably be better off elsewhere.

In other words, I made the right decision. It's always gratifying to know you've done the right thing, isn't it?

Sure.

Having had experience "within the belly of the beast" as it were (and my experience with Government dates to long before I joined the Federal service, as I'd been contracting with and serving on local Government boards and agencies for many years) I sometimes find it amusing that so many people, particularly of a Libertarian bent, are shocked!, shocked I tell you! when they "discover" -- whether for the first time or over and over again -- the way Government operates.

Particularly are they astonished and outraged at the Hypocrisy of Electeds.

Good heavens! How can they be so unprincipled!? How can they not mean what they say!? I don't know. It is quite a trick, isn't it? So many of them get away with it, too, as they have since the origin of the Republic. Yet to discover that they still do, with bells on, continues to be a shock and surprise! Oh! My! Goodness!

I loved Senator DeMint's letter to Geithner and his determination that The Government would be Brought to Heel by his Manly Insistence that the Debt Ceiling not be raised unless all the cuts he and his cohorts demanded were enacted, in full, with interest, yadda yadda, and The Government could just pay interest on the Debt and not Default, what scare tactics the Other Side (ie: The Government) was employing, DeMint was not amused.

He prates on and on, waxing quite wroth, about The Government and what it has done and must do, and who is to blame and whatnot, never once acknowledging that he and his cohorts in Congress Assembled are part of this very Government he's waxing so wroth about, and so are the Courts and the President, and so on and so forth. And you can't separate them into The Government and Me-Not The Government.

But that's what clowns like him do, all the time, and those tactics appeal to a certain segment of the populi and so it goes.

Hilarity ensues.

Well, sometimes.

All I'm getting at is that Electeds behave the way they do because of the way Government and the Political System is arranged. The Government -- and the Political System that feeds it and is in fact part of it -- was set up for the protection of Privileged White Southern Gentlemen (many of whom got the notion that they "deserved to rule" therefore) and that is actually what it does and what it will continue to do. It has nothing at all to do with Principle.

Rand Paul, about as Privileged a White Southern Gentleman (well, White Male, at any rate) as there is discovered to his delight the other day that he could bring operations of the Senate to a screeching halt unless and until his Demands regarding the renewal of the PATRIOT Act were met. Those Demands were simple enough: a vote on his amendments, primarily one restricting The Government's ability to inquire about and investigate -- or even, gasp, refuse -- "terrorist" access to firearms. He dug in his heels, held the Senate hostage for three days, and he got his vote. His amendments were defeated. He was pleased.

Like many of his colleagues, he pretended that The Government he was holding hostage -- and whose actions he hated and despised -- did not include himself. It was instead some Alien Imposition on the Rights and Privileges of Citizens like Himself.

No, The Government, as flawed and faulty as it is, IS himself and all of his colleagues AND those who serve it, civilian and military alike. There is no "them/us." It is all of a piece, and he and his ilk are part of it.

But the pretense is as it has always been: The Government is by definition "alien" and an improper "imposition" on the Freedom of Citizens to... impose their personal and private authority on others.

In other words, Citizens banding together to Form a More Perfect Union is simply Usurpation of the Rights and Privileges of Individuals, particularly those of White Southern (Gentle)men such as the Pauls.

Therefore, ironically, the entire history of Constitutional Self-Government in this country is as Rand Paul's father -- and many of the Libertarian ilk -- have long claimed: deep in error, wrong from the get-go, and an intolerable usurpation of Individual Freedom.

The sole Principle involved is the individual (not Governmental, in other words) assertion of Authority over others -- and their lands, goods, and chattel.

That's it. Period.

Hating on the Government for interfering in this individual assertion of Authority is an ongoing theme in American Life.

There once was a time when American expansionism allowed plenty of physical space for individuals to assert their personal Authorities as they chose. But those days are long gone; now it is much more difficult for those with the urge to lord it over someone else or to form and rule some petty kingdom of his own -- without the regulation or imposition of The Government -- to do so.

So those who make their purpose in life the Individual Assertion of Authority can find themselves in a very difficult position. There is no unclaimed territory left for them to migrate to and assert themselves. The Frontier has long been closed.

What I'm seeing in response -- both from the inside and outside The Government -- is a concerted effort by a coalition of Libertarians and billionaires to literally dismantle The Government so as to ensure that it cannot interfere with their desire to impose their Authority without the interference of The Government. They are seeking to confine The Government entirely to the protection of their personal/private/corporate and individual interests, and to forbid The Government from serving the Public Interest -- which they don't believe in in any case.

They are winning, and they are using the deeply rooted flaws in our Constitution and the Political System to do so. And they are winning because they have almost no active opposition.

As I've said many times, we are witness to the End of the Republic, much as the Romans in times of yore witnessed the end of their Republic -- and Americans, like the Romans, are greeting it with a shrug.

Too bad that the replacement in both cases is... The Empire.