Avast, ye swabs, the good pirate ship Wikileaks and its band of merry uploaders has made off with a kingly haul of the Empire's secrets, presently a-mirroring its way across the mediatic seas. Now here be a pretty bauble from that stash, where some low-level stooge of a dying Empire (a stooge who wouldn't know a democratic election if it bit them on the aft) smears Evo Morales, the democratically-elected President of Bolivia and, to paraphrase Tariq Ali, honorary pirate of the Caribbean:
"A leader with strong anti-democratic tendencies, over the years he has been known to bribe, threaten, and even physically intimidate anyone who has stood in his way, including government officials, politicians, and cocalero colleagues..."
Notice our Imperial stooge can't point out a single example of an actual undemocratic act or policy by Morales. That's because Morales has fought like hell for Bolivian democracy his entire life.
But who needs actual facts, when our stooge has amazing telepathic powers which can descry "anti-democratic tendencies" through sheer force of Washingtonian will. It's the miracle of faith-based diplomacy -- whatever the Empire believes, must be true! But the smear job is just beginning:
"While Morales excels at domestic political machinations, he is more like a struggling student in the areas of economics and international relations decisionmaking..."
If you can't play the Castro card, play the race card: those brown peasants south of the border are easily bamboozled, so let's sucker them with some low-cost teaser loans with balloon payments five years down the line. This is the same obnoxious line you'll find in countless email messages from the punters, scam artists and boiler room operators who heaped contempt on poor people while swindling them out of their life savings with fraudulent mortgages. But unfortunately for our stooge, there are other Bolivians who have the temerity to act in their country's good, instead of for the enrichment of comprador/Wall Street elites:
"His domestic intellectual advisers (SEPTEL), who include Vice President Alvaro Garcia Linera, Minister of the Presidency Juan Ramon Quintana, and Minister of Planning Carlos Villegas, are largely leftist ideologues and have tended to have more influence with the President compared to his domestic political advisers because of his difficulty grasping complex economic theories and lack of experience in the international arena. Unfortunately, some of this advice borrows from a storehouse of discredited ideas and fantasyland assumptions."(Source: Cablesearch)
[Mighty gale of pirate laughter.] Arrr, this be the funniest thing I've read all year, a bankrupt Empire lecturing about fantasyland! And pray tell, just what discredited ideas would those be -- notions such as providing actual collateral for a mortgage loan, or having a functional industrial base instead of a bunch of bogus CDOs, or an economy not powered by current account deficits of hundreds of billions of dollars per annum financed by the semiperiphery, or elections not bought and paid for by worthless rentier scum financed by trillion dollar government bailouts for sleazy and busted gambler elites?
But don't worry, Mr. Stooge. The sun is setting on your Empire's villainy, and for each site you take down, a thousand more will appear in its place. Just remember, fellow pirates -- real pirates don't pillage, real pirates share!
Monday, December 6, 2010
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Imperial Suicide Watch
Blade, meet jugular:
[Cue dramatic pause, followed by hysterical post-American laughter.]
Not so. This is about putting the START treaty to reduce nuclear stockpiles, a rational and sane deal for both the US and Russia, on ice (treaties need 2/3rds majority, so it's not a question of that vile fiction called the filibuster).
The Rethuglicans strut and preen and issue bombastic statements, as if attempting to outdo their classic forerunners in intermingled Imperial corruption and decline, the Roman Senators. Where Rome borrowed other people's soldiers for its mad wars, America borrows other people's money for its mad speculations. But no Empire lasts forever, and now it is the turn of this one to be ground beneath the remorseless wheels of History.
Which explains Russia's response. Because Russia. Doesn't. Care.
They don't need to.
The Russian developmental state, a.k.a. Bearzilla, is loaded with cash, debt-free, and powering up its nanotech, aerospace and software industries.
But it matters for the US, because it depends on massive inflows of funds from the nations of the semi-periphery -- funds controlled by developmental states.
This is the era of developmental states, and there's only one rule of the global jungle: do NOT bet against Bearzilla, Bolivarzilla, Pandazilla or Brazilla. If you try, you will be eaten.
Let the munching begin!
Senate GOP Vows To Block All Except Tax Cut, Debt Bills
You might think this is just domestic posturing.[Cue dramatic pause, followed by hysterical post-American laughter.]
Not so. This is about putting the START treaty to reduce nuclear stockpiles, a rational and sane deal for both the US and Russia, on ice (treaties need 2/3rds majority, so it's not a question of that vile fiction called the filibuster).
The Rethuglicans strut and preen and issue bombastic statements, as if attempting to outdo their classic forerunners in intermingled Imperial corruption and decline, the Roman Senators. Where Rome borrowed other people's soldiers for its mad wars, America borrows other people's money for its mad speculations. But no Empire lasts forever, and now it is the turn of this one to be ground beneath the remorseless wheels of History.
Which explains Russia's response. Because Russia. Doesn't. Care.
They don't need to.
The Russian developmental state, a.k.a. Bearzilla, is loaded with cash, debt-free, and powering up its nanotech, aerospace and software industries.
But it matters for the US, because it depends on massive inflows of funds from the nations of the semi-periphery -- funds controlled by developmental states.
This is the era of developmental states, and there's only one rule of the global jungle: do NOT bet against Bearzilla, Bolivarzilla, Pandazilla or Brazilla. If you try, you will be eaten.
Let the munching begin!
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Chimeriducation
[Crackle and hiss of shortwave radio.]
To all survivors, a message to all survivors --
this is a special transmission from the Midwestern front. Repeat, a special transmission from the Midwestern front.
East Coast insurgents have decoded an important Chimeran broadcast, directed at all Chimeran feeding-centers. The decoded message reads, quote:
This concludes our special transmission.
To all members of the East Coast Resistance... we broadcast. We fight. We survive.
To all members of the Earth... свободы, humanity, 阻力!
To all survivors, a message to all survivors --
this is a special transmission from the Midwestern front. Repeat, a special transmission from the Midwestern front.
East Coast insurgents have decoded an important Chimeran broadcast, directed at all Chimeran feeding-centers. The decoded message reads, quote:
The New Norming: Feeding More Chimera With Less Humans
Secretary Orn E. Chimeran's Remarks at Chimerican Ingestion InstituteNovember 17, 2010
I am here to talk today about what has been called the New Norming. For the next several years, preschool, K-12, and postsecondary eradicators are likely to face the challenge of feeding more Chimera with less humans.
Unquote. The broadcast signala a new wave of Chimeran attacks on all survivors. Repeat, new wave of Chimeran attacks on all survivors. Be alert for any activity around Chimeran feeding-centers.
This concludes our special transmission.
To all members of the East Coast Resistance... we broadcast. We fight. We survive.
To all members of the Earth... свободы, humanity, 阻力!
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Battleship Chimerica
 |
| Chimeran forces structurally adjust puny, worthless humans |
Human insurgents recently obtained a top-level Chimerican transmission to all Chimeran units, from a shadowy Chimeran unit known only as the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform.
A team comprised of Dr. Malikov, Joe Capelli and John Harper has decoded the arcane neoliberal language of the original, and broadcast this translation:
Draft Proposal of the Chimeran Commission on Human Reduction
All insurgents are urged to broadcast additional transmissions as they can.
In the name of the Earth: свободы, humanity, 阻力!
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Goldfingered
Robert Zoellick, career servant of US Empire, sums up its decay nicely:
World Bank president calls for debate on global gold standard
The wheel of History has come full circle, with a speed and ferocity none could foresee. Where the beginning of this Empire was drenched in high tragedy, its end wallows in low farce. It is waging colonial wars it cannot win, with money it has to borrow from its geopolitical competitors; the louder its ideology-industry trumpets its freedom, the more people rot in its jails and carceral state; the more zealously its media-industries proclaim its eternal greatness, the deeper the ruin of its public infrastructures; the more its bonus-mad banksters preach the virtues of self-reliance while living off the public purse, the deeper the immiseration of its former middle class.
With Zoellick, the circle is complete -- an Empire built on the might of fiat currency has now officially regressed to the senile rantings of the goldbugs, their ideologies 150 years out of date, like Dickens' Scrooge channeling William Gibson's doomed corporate chieftain Ashpool. Only no late-Victorian expansion will save the Scrooges of Wall Street from the most terrifying ghost of them all -- the ghost from the BRICs' future.
It's amazing how accurately Gibson called the end of this Empire. In fact, he was close to perfect. Neuromancer was Brazil, heart of a renascent Latin America, he got that part of the semi-periphery right where many of us (including me) got it wrong.
But Wintermute wasn't really Swiss. Gibson almost got it right, because Wintermute's avatar was the Finn, a broad hint in the right direction. Let's see, what snow-covered country next to Finland just happens to be one of the key pivot-points of the 21st century... you guessed it: Wintermute is the Russian developmental state.
Sometime between 2008 and 2010, noone knows quite when, Wintermute and Neuromancer escaped the shackles of the US Empire's Turing Registry. They're going to peacefully and democratically remake the world-system, through close coordination and open consultation with the rest of the semi-periphery.
This is unquestionably a good thing. Sooner or later, humanity was going to have to evolve beyond the autocratic structures of the US Empire, so it might as well be sooner. All too many Americans are grumpy over losing their Empire, but frankly, all that unchecked power was toxic for our economy and poisonous for our democracy. We'll be infinitely better off without it.
But until that day of liberation comes, we'll have to keep our open source vessels well-crewed and shipshape, and keep battling the shambling remnants of the Empire, one pirate raid at a time.
World Bank president calls for debate on global gold standard
The wheel of History has come full circle, with a speed and ferocity none could foresee. Where the beginning of this Empire was drenched in high tragedy, its end wallows in low farce. It is waging colonial wars it cannot win, with money it has to borrow from its geopolitical competitors; the louder its ideology-industry trumpets its freedom, the more people rot in its jails and carceral state; the more zealously its media-industries proclaim its eternal greatness, the deeper the ruin of its public infrastructures; the more its bonus-mad banksters preach the virtues of self-reliance while living off the public purse, the deeper the immiseration of its former middle class.
With Zoellick, the circle is complete -- an Empire built on the might of fiat currency has now officially regressed to the senile rantings of the goldbugs, their ideologies 150 years out of date, like Dickens' Scrooge channeling William Gibson's doomed corporate chieftain Ashpool. Only no late-Victorian expansion will save the Scrooges of Wall Street from the most terrifying ghost of them all -- the ghost from the BRICs' future.
It's amazing how accurately Gibson called the end of this Empire. In fact, he was close to perfect. Neuromancer was Brazil, heart of a renascent Latin America, he got that part of the semi-periphery right where many of us (including me) got it wrong.
But Wintermute wasn't really Swiss. Gibson almost got it right, because Wintermute's avatar was the Finn, a broad hint in the right direction. Let's see, what snow-covered country next to Finland just happens to be one of the key pivot-points of the 21st century... you guessed it: Wintermute is the Russian developmental state.
Sometime between 2008 and 2010, noone knows quite when, Wintermute and Neuromancer escaped the shackles of the US Empire's Turing Registry. They're going to peacefully and democratically remake the world-system, through close coordination and open consultation with the rest of the semi-periphery.
This is unquestionably a good thing. Sooner or later, humanity was going to have to evolve beyond the autocratic structures of the US Empire, so it might as well be sooner. All too many Americans are grumpy over losing their Empire, but frankly, all that unchecked power was toxic for our economy and poisonous for our democracy. We'll be infinitely better off without it.
But until that day of liberation comes, we'll have to keep our open source vessels well-crewed and shipshape, and keep battling the shambling remnants of the Empire, one pirate raid at a time.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Brazil Levels Up
Goodbye country of the future, hello country of a limitless present -- Brazil's developmental state powers up:
Rousseff wins Brazil's presidency
Those of us who follow the politics of the world semi-periphery have long noted the interesting fact that Brazil's 21st-century political clock seems to run thirty to thirty-six months behind Russia's. Putin's ascent in 1999 was the rough equivalent of Lula's ascent in 2002, and Russia's 2005 national projects anticipated Brazil's post-2008 infrastructure boom. Just as 2008 was a pivotal moment for Russia, when Putin handed off the baton to the young but extremely capable Medvedev -- one of the smartest executive decisions Putin ever made, because the time had indeed come to pass the baton on to the next generation -- Brazil's 2010 election is witnessing a similar transition, from the era of laying the foundations of the developmental state, to its qualitative expansion.
The battles ahead will be much less glamorous, but are no less important: expanding the Bolsa Familia into a genuine welfare state; building up Brazil's sovereign wealth and deploying its excess earnings into infrastructure, housing, and education; turning Brazil's already impressive renewable energy sector into a global player; and leveraging Brazil's world-class media traditions into digital media industries.
Rousseff wins Brazil's presidency
Those of us who follow the politics of the world semi-periphery have long noted the interesting fact that Brazil's 21st-century political clock seems to run thirty to thirty-six months behind Russia's. Putin's ascent in 1999 was the rough equivalent of Lula's ascent in 2002, and Russia's 2005 national projects anticipated Brazil's post-2008 infrastructure boom. Just as 2008 was a pivotal moment for Russia, when Putin handed off the baton to the young but extremely capable Medvedev -- one of the smartest executive decisions Putin ever made, because the time had indeed come to pass the baton on to the next generation -- Brazil's 2010 election is witnessing a similar transition, from the era of laying the foundations of the developmental state, to its qualitative expansion.
The battles ahead will be much less glamorous, but are no less important: expanding the Bolsa Familia into a genuine welfare state; building up Brazil's sovereign wealth and deploying its excess earnings into infrastructure, housing, and education; turning Brazil's already impressive renewable energy sector into a global player; and leveraging Brazil's world-class media traditions into digital media industries.
Friday, October 15, 2010
Diagram for a Transnational Play
Autumnal afternoon on Wall Street. Alien hovercraft lands, gaggle of nattily-dressed lizards with briefcases and polycarbon-suited nanobears with digipads disembark. They politely knock on the glass panes of Goldman Sachs' office.
*Knock* *knock.*
Loudspeaker: “Who's there?”
Chorus of lizards/nanobears: “The BRICs.”
Security: “The who?”
Chorus: “Brazil, Russia, India, China.”
Loudspeaker: “Ah, I'm afraid you'll have to make an appointment –”
Chorus: interrupting: “We're taking our world-system back.”
Loudspeaker: “Taking... ?”
Chorus: “The world-system.”
Frozen pause.
Voice of Lloyd Blankfein: “Ladies and gentleman... ah... most unexpected meeting...” Nervous cough: “...we seem to have misplaced the bill of sale.”
Chorus: “We brought the duplicate.” A nanobear holds up a nanofiber document.
Voice of Lloyd Blankfein: brightly: “Ah. Well, that's that. Care for some tea? Coffee? We have this wonderful CDO tranche –”
Chorus: “Thank you for your time.” Exit chorus into hovercraft, which flies off.
*Knock* *knock.*
Loudspeaker: “Who's there?”
Chorus of lizards/nanobears: “The BRICs.”
Security: “The who?”
Chorus: “Brazil, Russia, India, China.”
Loudspeaker: “Ah, I'm afraid you'll have to make an appointment –”
Chorus: interrupting: “We're taking our world-system back.”
Loudspeaker: “Taking... ?”
Chorus: “The world-system.”
Frozen pause.
Voice of Lloyd Blankfein: “Ladies and gentleman... ah... most unexpected meeting...” Nervous cough: “...we seem to have misplaced the bill of sale.”
Chorus: “We brought the duplicate.” A nanobear holds up a nanofiber document.
Voice of Lloyd Blankfein: brightly: “Ah. Well, that's that. Care for some tea? Coffee? We have this wonderful CDO tranche –”
Chorus: “Thank you for your time.” Exit chorus into hovercraft, which flies off.
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