It 's not as if the parallels are any less evident, nor that our march to the end of empire isn't any less swift, It's that I'm tired and tired of writing about it: it may happen, anyway. Furthermore, as many of you have no doubt noticed, this website is becoming increasingly out of date, even if it is prescient.
I have not taken down dated pages, written in the heat of the 2008 campaign and even before. This website was first conceived about the time of the 2006 Congressional campaign, in some ways the obverse of what happened in 2010, which was the beginning of the overt counter-revolution.
The 'revolution,' you may have noticed, was limited, and terribly short.
Like many of you, I was optimistic then, that the parallels to the downfall of the Western Roman Empire would prove temporary, once we understood what was happening.
But it's happening. All you have to do is translate Roman Senator into multi-millionaire/billionaire (MMB), and voila! We don't have a Romney as President. Yet, we have the precursors to wealthy Senator Petronius Maximus (455), the first Senator to become Emperor (short-lived) after the Diocletian reforms. Now we have billionaires increasingly assertive of their money power attempting to control government, or to buy it.
We also have a strengthening political movement funded by the MMB class, which exhibits fundamental contempt for anyone not connected to what the Romans called the honestiores, the wealthy stars of the economic, cultural and social firmament. These are the few people who rub elbows, while enjoying more than half of the wealth the poor and wealthy nations of the world are tirelessly creating.
Ave, Atque Vale was what the gladiators are supposed to have said, before the Emperor, or his representative, as they were about to go into battle in the coliseums: I'm saying it in this roundabout way.
I've saved all the website pages, even the archived blogs, in one large word file. At some point, I may revive the website, updated, or dated, at another web-host. For now, I'm going to forego paying for all the bells and whistles, because I don't need them. And, as I wrote at the beginning: I'm tired, especially of writing about the declining American Empire.
I'm attempting again to write fiction. Writing Attila as Told To His Scribes and I, Zerco (both available as Amazon Kindle books) preceded this website, and writing other novels (I hope) will follow.
If I revive this website, an announcement will be posted on this blogspot companion site: http://roman-empire-america-now.blogspot.com/ I will keep this site simply to post, occasionally, about the state of affairs in the years going forward. I don't know how many more years I will have, since I'll be 75 in May, but my mother still can't let go at 101.
So, GOODBYE! But also, HELLO.
Showing posts with label Roman Empire. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Roman Empire. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 12, 2014
Monday, November 11, 2013
Veteran's Day 2013
I'm a vet!
I was part of the Cold War contingent, and while I'm counted as a "Vietnam Era" veteran, I was lucky to be separated from the Army before the major escalation in that mistaken war, in late 1964 (after LBJ's landslide election).
I was stationed in Turkey 1962-1963, which was the standard tour, since it was considered a "hardship post." I wrote a novel about my experience, but it's unavailable except for one printed manuscript copy I saved in our latest move. Unfortunately, none of my electronic files survived, since the technology has changed so much. I couldn’t find it in my small batch of large format floppy disks: I wrote it in the early 80's, a story incorporating my experiences in the early 60's--after my new wife and I returned to the scene: Sinop, on the Black Sea.
My role in the Cold War was minor. I was a Traffic Analyst in an Army Security Agency mission, in which we monitored the radio-control transmissions of the USSR's Tyuratam Missile Testing site in what is now Kazakhastan. We knew what they were developing as soon as they did. That included their failed attempt to develop Anti-Ballistic Missiles (ABM's). Sinop may be nearly Turkey's northernmost point along the Black Sea: Sinop Burun (nose, or peninsula) sticks out from the coast on a high headland. Our base was on its highest point.
The city of Sinop (Sinope) goes back before the 4th century BC, when Diogenes walked its streets looking for an honest man. Not true Turks, one Turk told me when speaking about Sinopians: most were converted Greeks.
I never thought about it until recently, but we were engaged in what NSA has now developed globally: surveillance of nearly everyone. I was trained at NSA before embarking for Turkey. It was surveillance that was easily justifiable: by international treaty, anyone could gain all the (unencrypted) data from another nation's rocket tests--if they knew when a test was going to happen: that's where we came in.
Later, when I was teaching in a maximum security prison, I had a student who had been a Soviet helicopter gunner: he had been stationed in the mountains east of the Black Sea. His unit was involved in attempting to control the restive inhabitants north of Afghanistan. His former empire was crumbling when I taught his Soviet Politics course in prison.
I wish ours were crumbling, too. Instead, it seems as if the American Empire will survive shutdowns and more, while Americans at home go without, to maintain our expensive military in over 100 nations abroad. We will impoverish ourselves, as Rome and other empires did before us. We continue to attempt to extend greater US control over the rest of the globe, even though we can no longer afford an expensive empire
I was part of the Cold War contingent, and while I'm counted as a "Vietnam Era" veteran, I was lucky to be separated from the Army before the major escalation in that mistaken war, in late 1964 (after LBJ's landslide election).
I was stationed in Turkey 1962-1963, which was the standard tour, since it was considered a "hardship post." I wrote a novel about my experience, but it's unavailable except for one printed manuscript copy I saved in our latest move. Unfortunately, none of my electronic files survived, since the technology has changed so much. I couldn’t find it in my small batch of large format floppy disks: I wrote it in the early 80's, a story incorporating my experiences in the early 60's--after my new wife and I returned to the scene: Sinop, on the Black Sea.
My role in the Cold War was minor. I was a Traffic Analyst in an Army Security Agency mission, in which we monitored the radio-control transmissions of the USSR's Tyuratam Missile Testing site in what is now Kazakhastan. We knew what they were developing as soon as they did. That included their failed attempt to develop Anti-Ballistic Missiles (ABM's). Sinop may be nearly Turkey's northernmost point along the Black Sea: Sinop Burun (nose, or peninsula) sticks out from the coast on a high headland. Our base was on its highest point.
The city of Sinop (Sinope) goes back before the 4th century BC, when Diogenes walked its streets looking for an honest man. Not true Turks, one Turk told me when speaking about Sinopians: most were converted Greeks.
I never thought about it until recently, but we were engaged in what NSA has now developed globally: surveillance of nearly everyone. I was trained at NSA before embarking for Turkey. It was surveillance that was easily justifiable: by international treaty, anyone could gain all the (unencrypted) data from another nation's rocket tests--if they knew when a test was going to happen: that's where we came in.
Later, when I was teaching in a maximum security prison, I had a student who had been a Soviet helicopter gunner: he had been stationed in the mountains east of the Black Sea. His unit was involved in attempting to control the restive inhabitants north of Afghanistan. His former empire was crumbling when I taught his Soviet Politics course in prison.
I wish ours were crumbling, too. Instead, it seems as if the American Empire will survive shutdowns and more, while Americans at home go without, to maintain our expensive military in over 100 nations abroad. We will impoverish ourselves, as Rome and other empires did before us. We continue to attempt to extend greater US control over the rest of the globe, even though we can no longer afford an expensive empire
Friday, February 15, 2013
Sequestration
Is a fancy word: it means, in the memorable phrase of Congressman, Sean Maloney, "Congress screwing up the economy for no reason."
It's true that the projected government deficit is over $1.1 trillion, a mind-boggling number, but cutting spending would make that number worse. Why? As the miniscule retreat in GDP last quarter demonstrated, when we cut government spending, the whole economy is negatively affected. We teeter between recovery and renewed recession. Further, the experience of European countries, demonstrates that austerity does not create prosperity; it created renewed recession in the UK (triple dip) and depression in Greece.
The "sequester" has the Republicans worrying about cuts to Defense, complaining that this will cost jobs (it will), but they're not worrying about, and want to increase cuts to domestic programs. The cuts already mandated would not only cost even more jobs (civilian programs create more jobs per dollar than defense), but they would hurt our most vulnerable, and our future prosperity.
Cuts to domestic programs will: cut 70,000 children from Headstart, deny treatment to 373,000 mentally ill (adults and children) and reduce small business loan guarantees by $540 million. In addition, the $85 billion in cuts on Mar 1, could include, according to Congresswoman Nita Lowey, "furloughs of air traffic controllers, food inspectors, border patrol, reduced investment in safe drinking water and medical research, diminished military readiness and embassy security."
Think about this logically: if you reduce expenditures March 1st by $85 billion, how is that going to help us recover from the Great Recession? It will cut that amount of money (US multiplier estimated at 1.29 to 1.73) from flowing into the economy, cutting jobs, cutting purchases--as well as needed services. It won't "grow" the economy; it will shrink it by at least $109 billion--in one month.
Greece, subjected to radical austerity, has seen tax receipts plummet with government cuts: its ability to pay back debts is reduced, not enhanced by austerity.
Austerity proponents speak as if "business confidence" will be restored by cuts, and prosperity and jobs will magically return. Why? If everyone, except for banksters and one-percenters, have less money, who's going to buy what businesses sell? The wealthy are too few to create enough demand, so there's no reason for businesses to hire more workers, or produce more goods, if austerity means everyone--except the wealthy--will buy less than they did before. So where are more jobs to come from?
The Roman Empire was in a centuries long depression before it collapsed; its gold standard prevented expansion of the money supply; further, when Senators hoarded gold, money contracted, deepening the depression. Today, the Federal Reserve can expand the money supply, as can the Federal government. When demand is lacking, Government should build demand, not cut it. Only during a full recovery, should long-term budget deficits be cut, by tax and health care reform and withdrawal from an empire the US can no longer afford.
It's true that the projected government deficit is over $1.1 trillion, a mind-boggling number, but cutting spending would make that number worse. Why? As the miniscule retreat in GDP last quarter demonstrated, when we cut government spending, the whole economy is negatively affected. We teeter between recovery and renewed recession. Further, the experience of European countries, demonstrates that austerity does not create prosperity; it created renewed recession in the UK (triple dip) and depression in Greece.
The "sequester" has the Republicans worrying about cuts to Defense, complaining that this will cost jobs (it will), but they're not worrying about, and want to increase cuts to domestic programs. The cuts already mandated would not only cost even more jobs (civilian programs create more jobs per dollar than defense), but they would hurt our most vulnerable, and our future prosperity.
Cuts to domestic programs will: cut 70,000 children from Headstart, deny treatment to 373,000 mentally ill (adults and children) and reduce small business loan guarantees by $540 million. In addition, the $85 billion in cuts on Mar 1, could include, according to Congresswoman Nita Lowey, "furloughs of air traffic controllers, food inspectors, border patrol, reduced investment in safe drinking water and medical research, diminished military readiness and embassy security."
Think about this logically: if you reduce expenditures March 1st by $85 billion, how is that going to help us recover from the Great Recession? It will cut that amount of money (US multiplier estimated at 1.29 to 1.73) from flowing into the economy, cutting jobs, cutting purchases--as well as needed services. It won't "grow" the economy; it will shrink it by at least $109 billion--in one month.
Greece, subjected to radical austerity, has seen tax receipts plummet with government cuts: its ability to pay back debts is reduced, not enhanced by austerity.
Austerity proponents speak as if "business confidence" will be restored by cuts, and prosperity and jobs will magically return. Why? If everyone, except for banksters and one-percenters, have less money, who's going to buy what businesses sell? The wealthy are too few to create enough demand, so there's no reason for businesses to hire more workers, or produce more goods, if austerity means everyone--except the wealthy--will buy less than they did before. So where are more jobs to come from?
The Roman Empire was in a centuries long depression before it collapsed; its gold standard prevented expansion of the money supply; further, when Senators hoarded gold, money contracted, deepening the depression. Today, the Federal Reserve can expand the money supply, as can the Federal government. When demand is lacking, Government should build demand, not cut it. Only during a full recovery, should long-term budget deficits be cut, by tax and health care reform and withdrawal from an empire the US can no longer afford.
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Indian Rapists, Arab Suicide Bombers
Yes, they do go together. In the case of the Indian rapists, like the horrible gang-rapists of Delhi last month, it's hardly about sexual expression or repression. It's about losing control and male domination at the hands of a modernity they can see but can't touch.
It's estimated that there are 200-300 million Indians, almost entirely in the cities, who have entered the global middle class. That's one of the reasons why international corporations will do almost anything to penetrate the growing Indian market: it has almost as many modern consumers as the US. They aren't the rapists.
But, India has a population that's well over a billion: that's at least 800 million who are NOT in the middle class. Rape expresses a barely repressed class war of the huge underclass, just beginning to awaken. What they see is an India they can hardly fathom and never reach, yet they see it daily on TV and in the Bollywood movies.
The traditional caste system repressed everyone, even a too numerous four-part aristocracy, but it was a stable society for almost 3500 years. Castes are still present, now, but the rules that bound them together, are not. Class often subsumes caste in "Modern India," and those left behind in India's scramble to the future are treated the way lower castes used to be. Yet, they are no longer submissive; they're rebellious, rejectionist, unmoored by tradition. Male violence against women is safer than outright revolution.
Sri Lanka's Tamils, to India's south, invented suicide bombing, which has become a signature of al Qaeda and its allies in the Middle East and North Africa. "Islamic militants," ironically, share the anger of (largely Hindu) Indian rapists; they take it out on their own people, especially women--with extreme purdah and stonings, as well as amputations and beheadings to keep the men in line. In both cases, it's the violent rejection of what they want, are terrified of and can't have: participation in modern secular society.
I don't pretend to know whether al Qaeda members are predominantly lower class, but they do have one thing in common: rejection of any trace of secular, i.e. modern, society. The savagery of al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and Ansar al Dine may not be just a will to destroy what their societies are becoming, but that's certainly a part of it; it's also an inexpensive means to control resisters.
What's happening now, globally, is the incipient rumblings of the left out, against the newly affluent, who are the new entrants to the global middle class. With climate change, the billions of surplus people aren't anchored to the Middle East, India, or China; eventually, they will flood lands with more moderate climates.
The angry masses could become the equivalent of the Germanic and Turkic hordes, barbarians who surged into the late Roman Empire, and finally, brought it down; Classical society fell with it.
It's estimated that there are 200-300 million Indians, almost entirely in the cities, who have entered the global middle class. That's one of the reasons why international corporations will do almost anything to penetrate the growing Indian market: it has almost as many modern consumers as the US. They aren't the rapists.
But, India has a population that's well over a billion: that's at least 800 million who are NOT in the middle class. Rape expresses a barely repressed class war of the huge underclass, just beginning to awaken. What they see is an India they can hardly fathom and never reach, yet they see it daily on TV and in the Bollywood movies.
The traditional caste system repressed everyone, even a too numerous four-part aristocracy, but it was a stable society for almost 3500 years. Castes are still present, now, but the rules that bound them together, are not. Class often subsumes caste in "Modern India," and those left behind in India's scramble to the future are treated the way lower castes used to be. Yet, they are no longer submissive; they're rebellious, rejectionist, unmoored by tradition. Male violence against women is safer than outright revolution.
Sri Lanka's Tamils, to India's south, invented suicide bombing, which has become a signature of al Qaeda and its allies in the Middle East and North Africa. "Islamic militants," ironically, share the anger of (largely Hindu) Indian rapists; they take it out on their own people, especially women--with extreme purdah and stonings, as well as amputations and beheadings to keep the men in line. In both cases, it's the violent rejection of what they want, are terrified of and can't have: participation in modern secular society.
I don't pretend to know whether al Qaeda members are predominantly lower class, but they do have one thing in common: rejection of any trace of secular, i.e. modern, society. The savagery of al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and Ansar al Dine may not be just a will to destroy what their societies are becoming, but that's certainly a part of it; it's also an inexpensive means to control resisters.
What's happening now, globally, is the incipient rumblings of the left out, against the newly affluent, who are the new entrants to the global middle class. With climate change, the billions of surplus people aren't anchored to the Middle East, India, or China; eventually, they will flood lands with more moderate climates.
The angry masses could become the equivalent of the Germanic and Turkic hordes, barbarians who surged into the late Roman Empire, and finally, brought it down; Classical society fell with it.
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
Inauguration-Coronation Vision
The Inauguration displayed history and unity: over 200 years worth, represented by 50 states, with an impressive backdrop for Obama's oath, his speech and the tradition he evoked.
Obama didn't present the soaring emotion of his first inaugural. I don't think it was one of his better speeches, except in the implied substance. After all, inaugural speeches are supposed to lay out a President's broad vision, not his legislative agenda. He said: "our country cannot succeed when a shrinking few do very well and a growing many barely make it," but he didn't lay out a tax and spending blueprint for righting this wrong--he couldn't have, unless he spoke for hours. Instead, he said, "But while the means will change, our purpose endures: a nation that rewards the effort and determination of every single American."
The general thrust of this part of his speech was an implicit rejection of the conservative creed of everyone for himself. Americans, he insisted, over and over, have to pull together.
Obama rejected the partisanship of the past four years, but instead of bipartisanship, he implied that it was the responsibility of Republicans, as well as Democrats, conservatives as well as liberals, to make government work for the good of all, rather than blocking its functions, like the previous Republican House and the Senate Republican minority.
He also addressed climate change, and how we had to confront its reality; he plugged for new, alternative forms of energy, urging that America lead rather than follow.
Obama became most emotional over his peroration for civil rights, evoking the dream of "a King," and then championing equal rights for women, and gays.
Instead of specifically naming gun control, he said our "journey is not complete until all our children, from the streets of Detroit to the hills of Appalachia to the quiet lanes of Newtown, know that they are cared for, and cherished, and always safe from harm."
Obama was following tradition. Inaugurals aren't the place for laying out an agenda, except in the broadest terms, But his vision: of peace, equal opportunity, caring and openness has potential--if he can translate this into concrete action and get it through Congress.
As the NY Times pointed out, it was a liberal vision.
Obama didn't talk about two important issues: the failed and destructive drug war that's been implicitly rejected outright by two states, and more indirectly by a handful more.
Nor did he mention his drone war, which appears to be expanding, not receding, as implied by his statement, "a decade of war is now ending." It's as if it was unmentionable: the American Empire advancing by covert means--hand in hand with his pledge to "support democracy" and peace, world-wide.
Does Obama's vision offer a chance that the US won't suffer the fate of the Roman Empire in 476? Perhaps: but only if Congress can return to its role as a functioning institution.
Obama didn't present the soaring emotion of his first inaugural. I don't think it was one of his better speeches, except in the implied substance. After all, inaugural speeches are supposed to lay out a President's broad vision, not his legislative agenda. He said: "our country cannot succeed when a shrinking few do very well and a growing many barely make it," but he didn't lay out a tax and spending blueprint for righting this wrong--he couldn't have, unless he spoke for hours. Instead, he said, "But while the means will change, our purpose endures: a nation that rewards the effort and determination of every single American."
The general thrust of this part of his speech was an implicit rejection of the conservative creed of everyone for himself. Americans, he insisted, over and over, have to pull together.
Obama rejected the partisanship of the past four years, but instead of bipartisanship, he implied that it was the responsibility of Republicans, as well as Democrats, conservatives as well as liberals, to make government work for the good of all, rather than blocking its functions, like the previous Republican House and the Senate Republican minority.
He also addressed climate change, and how we had to confront its reality; he plugged for new, alternative forms of energy, urging that America lead rather than follow.
Obama became most emotional over his peroration for civil rights, evoking the dream of "a King," and then championing equal rights for women, and gays.
Instead of specifically naming gun control, he said our "journey is not complete until all our children, from the streets of Detroit to the hills of Appalachia to the quiet lanes of Newtown, know that they are cared for, and cherished, and always safe from harm."
Obama was following tradition. Inaugurals aren't the place for laying out an agenda, except in the broadest terms, But his vision: of peace, equal opportunity, caring and openness has potential--if he can translate this into concrete action and get it through Congress.
As the NY Times pointed out, it was a liberal vision.
Obama didn't talk about two important issues: the failed and destructive drug war that's been implicitly rejected outright by two states, and more indirectly by a handful more.
Nor did he mention his drone war, which appears to be expanding, not receding, as implied by his statement, "a decade of war is now ending." It's as if it was unmentionable: the American Empire advancing by covert means--hand in hand with his pledge to "support democracy" and peace, world-wide.
Does Obama's vision offer a chance that the US won't suffer the fate of the Roman Empire in 476? Perhaps: but only if Congress can return to its role as a functioning institution.
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Columbus and a Deracinated Carib
Some of my present-day relatives, unknown to me, must mourn the coming of that man, whose name changed over time. He was never known to himself as Christopher Columbus.
Colon stumbled on the Americas. He didn't discover them, since whole societies had been there for thousands of years. The people Colon mistakenly landed amongst were not particularly happy that he did so; he kidnapped, enslaved and killed them. Essentially, Colon, and almost every European following him, until a few enlightened souls in the 19th and 20th centuries, saw the indigenous peoples as sub-humans to be subjugated, enslaved, or eradicated.
Unbeknownst to Colon and to most of his successors until very late, the diseases Europeans brought with them unknowingly were the most effective destroyers of the healthy indigenous peoples. Late, in the 19th century, smallpox-smeared blankets were distributed to the Plains Indians to accomplish one of the most horrendous acts of "ethnic cleansing" ever attempted, perhaps the first biological warfare.
Before Colon, indigenous Americans were about as numerous as people in Europe, according to recent archaeology, yet soon after him, Europeans saw the Americas as nearly empty continents ripe for the picking. The Europeans' diseases preceded them, probably because refugees fleeing each plague spread it everywhere, from the Europeans' common cold, to the flu to small pox to malaria. No one understood diseases, then, not Europeans, not First Americans.
Siphilis, America's contribution to global diseases, didn't kill off whole European populations, but did precipitate mass craziness, like the Inquisition.
Spanish Conquistadores in Florida, shortly after Colon, strung up murdered Indians' bodies, and fed them to their dogs. Even now in the US indigenous transsexuals need protection from whites.
None of my indigenous heritage has been acknowledged by my Venezuelan family, but all you had to do was look at my mother and uncle to see it: straight, coarse black hair, not-white skin (except when sheltered always from the sun, as my grandmother apparently did), high cheekbones and small stature. My grandmother's family couldn't afford to admit its heritage: they were prominent landowners, business people and, reputedly, owners of a pearl fishery off the small island where my mother was born. The Coello's, island people, were probably half-Carib for generations, until my grandfather, a "100% Spanish" Andino, married my grandmother.
Columbus didn't just "discover" America. He set in motion the destruction of a whole hemisphere's cultures and societies, and the reduction of its original inhabitants to genetic remnants; I am one small, deracinated part. He also launched Europe onto the world's stage, and the US extended European dominance with its huge new resources in the hastily emptied hemisphere.
But that is past. Despite Republican posturing, Pax Americana will be more fleeting than Pax Romanum; American resources are stretched thin. The American Empire cannot maintain itself militarily, but Republicans would try: until the last penny of the not-rich has been poured down war's rat-hole--and billionaires escape.
Colon stumbled on the Americas. He didn't discover them, since whole societies had been there for thousands of years. The people Colon mistakenly landed amongst were not particularly happy that he did so; he kidnapped, enslaved and killed them. Essentially, Colon, and almost every European following him, until a few enlightened souls in the 19th and 20th centuries, saw the indigenous peoples as sub-humans to be subjugated, enslaved, or eradicated.
Unbeknownst to Colon and to most of his successors until very late, the diseases Europeans brought with them unknowingly were the most effective destroyers of the healthy indigenous peoples. Late, in the 19th century, smallpox-smeared blankets were distributed to the Plains Indians to accomplish one of the most horrendous acts of "ethnic cleansing" ever attempted, perhaps the first biological warfare.
Before Colon, indigenous Americans were about as numerous as people in Europe, according to recent archaeology, yet soon after him, Europeans saw the Americas as nearly empty continents ripe for the picking. The Europeans' diseases preceded them, probably because refugees fleeing each plague spread it everywhere, from the Europeans' common cold, to the flu to small pox to malaria. No one understood diseases, then, not Europeans, not First Americans.
Siphilis, America's contribution to global diseases, didn't kill off whole European populations, but did precipitate mass craziness, like the Inquisition.
Spanish Conquistadores in Florida, shortly after Colon, strung up murdered Indians' bodies, and fed them to their dogs. Even now in the US indigenous transsexuals need protection from whites.
None of my indigenous heritage has been acknowledged by my Venezuelan family, but all you had to do was look at my mother and uncle to see it: straight, coarse black hair, not-white skin (except when sheltered always from the sun, as my grandmother apparently did), high cheekbones and small stature. My grandmother's family couldn't afford to admit its heritage: they were prominent landowners, business people and, reputedly, owners of a pearl fishery off the small island where my mother was born. The Coello's, island people, were probably half-Carib for generations, until my grandfather, a "100% Spanish" Andino, married my grandmother.
Columbus didn't just "discover" America. He set in motion the destruction of a whole hemisphere's cultures and societies, and the reduction of its original inhabitants to genetic remnants; I am one small, deracinated part. He also launched Europe onto the world's stage, and the US extended European dominance with its huge new resources in the hastily emptied hemisphere.
But that is past. Despite Republican posturing, Pax Americana will be more fleeting than Pax Romanum; American resources are stretched thin. The American Empire cannot maintain itself militarily, but Republicans would try: until the last penny of the not-rich has been poured down war's rat-hole--and billionaires escape.
Sunday, September 9, 2012
Do We Develop or Recover?
Romney says drill more; Obama says push oil, gas and alternative energies.
The differences between Economists Paul Krugman and Jeffrey Sachs come down to whether the above matters. Krugman stresses the need to increase demand, and advocates deficit spending--any deficit spending--in order to "grow" the economy. Sachs points out that what you spend the money on makes a difference.
Krugman would agree that spending on Defense, for example, is not going to increase the nation's long-term wealth the way spending on new technologies like alternative energy and infrastructure modernization would. Smart grids and high-speed trains would improve the economy, not just add to it.
One of the greatest barriers to recovery, however, is the huge amount of debt tied up in real estate that has lost value (28.6% of all mortgages owed by homeowners are underwater). Student loan debt is $914 billion, though credit card debt has fallen from over $800 billion last year to $626 billion now. The overhanging private debt deflates increases in demand created by the Fed, or government stimulus funds--regardless of public debt.
Sachs posits that in order for people to have more money, the economy can't just recover to what it was before, but must develop into something different, because the world economy has changed. People need new skills, businesses need new technologies and both need better infrastructure, from those smart grids and universal broadband, to better roads, rails and vehicles.
One of the unexpected growth spots in this otherwise slack economy is an old-fashioned oil and gas boom, unleashed by the environmentally damaging newish technology of fracking. Some of US growth is from cheap natural gas and (not cheap) domestic oil, not from burgeoning wind and solar power. (Oil isn't cheap, because prices are set in the world market, regardless of where it's pumped). Low natural gas prices make solar and wind less attractive.
It's an energy revival led by dinosaurs. The booms are not only environmentally destructive, they will delay necessary development needed for the US to lead as an advanced economy--unless the money they generate is taxed away to create incentives for alternative energies, smart grids and skills.
If we simply revel in the sudden abundance of fossil fuels, while Germany, China and Japan pursue alternative energies, we insure that global warming intensifies. We'll also fall behind technologically and in creating a sustainable future. We'll be like the Spanish Empire, which drowned in the gold and silver it extracted from the Americas, unable to make anything, able only to buy things--until the gold and silver so inflated the world's currencies that Spain became the poor man of Europe.
This also parallels the extractive conquest model of the Roman Empire. It ripped off the "known" world until it could expand no further. Impoverished by contraction, it finally "fell," when it could no longer swagger even down the Italian peninsula.
The differences between Economists Paul Krugman and Jeffrey Sachs come down to whether the above matters. Krugman stresses the need to increase demand, and advocates deficit spending--any deficit spending--in order to "grow" the economy. Sachs points out that what you spend the money on makes a difference.
Krugman would agree that spending on Defense, for example, is not going to increase the nation's long-term wealth the way spending on new technologies like alternative energy and infrastructure modernization would. Smart grids and high-speed trains would improve the economy, not just add to it.
One of the greatest barriers to recovery, however, is the huge amount of debt tied up in real estate that has lost value (28.6% of all mortgages owed by homeowners are underwater). Student loan debt is $914 billion, though credit card debt has fallen from over $800 billion last year to $626 billion now. The overhanging private debt deflates increases in demand created by the Fed, or government stimulus funds--regardless of public debt.
Sachs posits that in order for people to have more money, the economy can't just recover to what it was before, but must develop into something different, because the world economy has changed. People need new skills, businesses need new technologies and both need better infrastructure, from those smart grids and universal broadband, to better roads, rails and vehicles.
One of the unexpected growth spots in this otherwise slack economy is an old-fashioned oil and gas boom, unleashed by the environmentally damaging newish technology of fracking. Some of US growth is from cheap natural gas and (not cheap) domestic oil, not from burgeoning wind and solar power. (Oil isn't cheap, because prices are set in the world market, regardless of where it's pumped). Low natural gas prices make solar and wind less attractive.
It's an energy revival led by dinosaurs. The booms are not only environmentally destructive, they will delay necessary development needed for the US to lead as an advanced economy--unless the money they generate is taxed away to create incentives for alternative energies, smart grids and skills.
If we simply revel in the sudden abundance of fossil fuels, while Germany, China and Japan pursue alternative energies, we insure that global warming intensifies. We'll also fall behind technologically and in creating a sustainable future. We'll be like the Spanish Empire, which drowned in the gold and silver it extracted from the Americas, unable to make anything, able only to buy things--until the gold and silver so inflated the world's currencies that Spain became the poor man of Europe.
This also parallels the extractive conquest model of the Roman Empire. It ripped off the "known" world until it could expand no further. Impoverished by contraction, it finally "fell," when it could no longer swagger even down the Italian peninsula.
Sunday, September 2, 2012
Chaos
It's what happened in the Fifth Century, well ahead of the "fall" of Rome, and it can happen here, especially if Romney is elected. Even if he isn't, as long as this nation remains so polarized, it's almost inevitable: we'll have chaos, as in large segments of society no longer acting as if they belong to it.
One of the more poignant quotations coming down from the early Sixth Century: the monasteries reporting they had little time for learning, because of the omnipresence of "war bands," that ripped off whatever of value the monks and their neighbors had managed to gain.
As I've pointed out before, the dream of Grover Norquist is realized in Somalia. There is no government: "war bands" roam the countryside. Government was "drowned in a bathtub." Moreover, different war bands roam the seas: we call them 'Somali pirates.'
Seriously. If the obscenely wealthy gain even more power and wealth, by buying the election, or at least government stalemate, then the working class (which no one mentions anymore) will be even more desperate. The middle class will bifurcate into the few 'successful' and the many even more desperate than the working class--because children of the middle class don't expect to be poor.
I taught Revolution as a Political Science class. One of the leading theories for why revolutions emerge, and why some succeed: the leaders came from the disaffected, but highly educated, middle class. That's even true if their class is a small portion of society, like Mao's rich peasants and Castro's private school elite. Roman bandits came from this class.
Chaos will come if Romney is elected, because his policies make no sense: they'll generate a new depression. Even a new war with Iran would only make it worse, but the very rich will get even wealthier. Romney's tax plan, reportedly, would reduce his tax rate from his claimed (and outrageously low) 13% to 1%.
Okay, here's the recipe: depression, increasing misery, savage cuts to income maintenance programs like Food Stamps, skyrocketing medical costs, by repealing Obamacare, government support for breaking unions, cutting wages and raising taxes on everyone but the wealthy; the wealthy clearly flourish. What do you get?
Perhaps Syria is the model for our future. The peaceful reform movement there was brutally repressed, thereby stoking desperation and violence, which eventually led to civil war, maybe it will lead to revolution, once Assad is ejected.
Leftists, don't take heart. Not all revolutions are leftist: Hitler and Mussolini were revolutionaries. The US could go either way and given past history, Americans have tended to blunder right, not left. FDR and Lincoln were outliers.
So, chaos: even if Obama wins--unless he carries his party's progressives with a real mandate to slash unemployment, control the banks, and radically reduce inequality.
How likely is that? Well, maybe if Elizabeth Warren were the Democratic convention's keynoter, there could be cause for optimism. But she won't be.
Comments? See below and scroll down.
One of the more poignant quotations coming down from the early Sixth Century: the monasteries reporting they had little time for learning, because of the omnipresence of "war bands," that ripped off whatever of value the monks and their neighbors had managed to gain.
As I've pointed out before, the dream of Grover Norquist is realized in Somalia. There is no government: "war bands" roam the countryside. Government was "drowned in a bathtub." Moreover, different war bands roam the seas: we call them 'Somali pirates.'
Seriously. If the obscenely wealthy gain even more power and wealth, by buying the election, or at least government stalemate, then the working class (which no one mentions anymore) will be even more desperate. The middle class will bifurcate into the few 'successful' and the many even more desperate than the working class--because children of the middle class don't expect to be poor.
I taught Revolution as a Political Science class. One of the leading theories for why revolutions emerge, and why some succeed: the leaders came from the disaffected, but highly educated, middle class. That's even true if their class is a small portion of society, like Mao's rich peasants and Castro's private school elite. Roman bandits came from this class.
Chaos will come if Romney is elected, because his policies make no sense: they'll generate a new depression. Even a new war with Iran would only make it worse, but the very rich will get even wealthier. Romney's tax plan, reportedly, would reduce his tax rate from his claimed (and outrageously low) 13% to 1%.
Okay, here's the recipe: depression, increasing misery, savage cuts to income maintenance programs like Food Stamps, skyrocketing medical costs, by repealing Obamacare, government support for breaking unions, cutting wages and raising taxes on everyone but the wealthy; the wealthy clearly flourish. What do you get?
Perhaps Syria is the model for our future. The peaceful reform movement there was brutally repressed, thereby stoking desperation and violence, which eventually led to civil war, maybe it will lead to revolution, once Assad is ejected.
Leftists, don't take heart. Not all revolutions are leftist: Hitler and Mussolini were revolutionaries. The US could go either way and given past history, Americans have tended to blunder right, not left. FDR and Lincoln were outliers.
So, chaos: even if Obama wins--unless he carries his party's progressives with a real mandate to slash unemployment, control the banks, and radically reduce inequality.
How likely is that? Well, maybe if Elizabeth Warren were the Democratic convention's keynoter, there could be cause for optimism. But she won't be.
Comments? See below and scroll down.
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Attila as told to his Scribes
Attila the Hun, the most powerful man in Europe for almost a generation (circa 433-453), evolves in his account, from romantic young prince betrayed by his uncle, to ruthless conqueror. To his followers, he was famously generous, yet his stay in the Empire as a Roman hostage, he claims, taught him all he needed to know about cruelty and torture. His Roman interlude also motivated him to avenge his father, and to overcome all odds: he became the greatest king of all the Huns and war-leader of a huge confederation of steppe peoples.
This is a fictional autobiography--yes an autobiography …as told to his scribes: what he tells them, what they think, and what he thinks, or sees, when he's telling them. He's not a nice guy, although his tale (based on history and folktales) begins when he is an attractive boy on the cusp of manhood--when he witnesses his beloved father's murder. Attila is a lover and a megalomaniac, an attractive one--up to a point.
Sigidinum and Ravenna taught him to despise urban living; later, nothing pleased him quite so much as destroying Roman cities like Acquilea and Sigidinum (modern day Belgrade).
Of course, Attila's greatest weakness was his thirst for conquest. He was not an imperialist, like Alexander the Great, or Julius Caesar, nor like the conquistadors Cortez and Pissarro. Nor, like the Europeans and Americans after them. He was partly driven by a prophecy, only half remembered, from his youth. He wasn't interested in holding a piece of land; he only wanted to assert his will, and to carry off the wealth of settled lands. He believed (with some justification) that Roman wealth had been stolen already, anyway. He depopulated a whole region north of the Danube, and kept people out--a buffer for his people's protection, he claimed, but that gave him greater power over them, too. Paradoxically, he often wished he were on the open steppes, where he couldn't see a tent from one horizon to the next.
And, Attila had a weakness for women. He had numberless wives, who he justified as his way to cement ties with his allies and, later, with newly conquered tribes. It was, ultimately, a risky game and his first wife, his queen, Erekan, knew it. And so, finally, did his last scribe--and his last bride.
Attila as told to his scribes, will be out on Kindle soon. I will keep you posted.
This is a fictional autobiography--yes an autobiography …as told to his scribes: what he tells them, what they think, and what he thinks, or sees, when he's telling them. He's not a nice guy, although his tale (based on history and folktales) begins when he is an attractive boy on the cusp of manhood--when he witnesses his beloved father's murder. Attila is a lover and a megalomaniac, an attractive one--up to a point.
Sigidinum and Ravenna taught him to despise urban living; later, nothing pleased him quite so much as destroying Roman cities like Acquilea and Sigidinum (modern day Belgrade).
Of course, Attila's greatest weakness was his thirst for conquest. He was not an imperialist, like Alexander the Great, or Julius Caesar, nor like the conquistadors Cortez and Pissarro. Nor, like the Europeans and Americans after them. He was partly driven by a prophecy, only half remembered, from his youth. He wasn't interested in holding a piece of land; he only wanted to assert his will, and to carry off the wealth of settled lands. He believed (with some justification) that Roman wealth had been stolen already, anyway. He depopulated a whole region north of the Danube, and kept people out--a buffer for his people's protection, he claimed, but that gave him greater power over them, too. Paradoxically, he often wished he were on the open steppes, where he couldn't see a tent from one horizon to the next.
And, Attila had a weakness for women. He had numberless wives, who he justified as his way to cement ties with his allies and, later, with newly conquered tribes. It was, ultimately, a risky game and his first wife, his queen, Erekan, knew it. And so, finally, did his last scribe--and his last bride.
Attila as told to his scribes, will be out on Kindle soon. I will keep you posted.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
American Checkers, Persian Chess
Americans play checkers, the Persians play chess. In Middle East intrigue, Americans are outclassed. The Persians have been around for at least 5,000 years. Americans are johnnys-come-lately.
Americans in Afghanistan, as well as in Iraq, contend with Iranian influence in the governments they support. Nuri al Maliki, Iraq's PM, has long-established ties with Iran, and has recently worked out a coalition agreement with the Sadrist party, supported by Iran. What is the US to do? Maliki was supposed to be our man, nurtured and financed by the US.
Now, we find out that Hamid Karzai, Afghan President, our client in Kabul, has a chief of staff, Umar Daudzai, who is not only pro-Iranian, but Iran's conduit for illicit cash in the millions of Euros a month. His mission, it seems, is to poison Afghan-American relations.
The plot thickens: Daudzai and his friends were members of Hezb-i-Islami, a brutal, militant Islamist group led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who now lives in Iran, but has ties to the Taliban. Iran in the west, like Pakistan in the east, maintains ties and provides aid to the Taliban, as well as the government. The intelligence communities of both neighboring countries vie for influence among the Taliban, the President, and with his opponents in Afghan politics.
While Pakistan is our reluctant, or resistant ally, Iran is our rival for power in the region. Yet, both have interests in furthering Afghan stability as well as their own influence; chaos on their borders might provide opportunities to extend their power, but it also endangers their own governments.
Just as the US blundered into an age-old civil war in Iraq--between Shiite and Sunni--a game in which the Persians were deeply engaged, it has done something similar in Afghanistan. Except, the Afghan game is much more complicated. The civil war between the government we installed, and the Taliban, has been ongoing for generations, between Pathans and the peoples of the northern alliance: largely Tajik and Uzbek. Meanwhile, the nations to Afghanistan's east and west have been vying for power in Afghanistan for hundreds of years.
The British Empire marched into Afghanistan from India, and was routed. The Soviets occupied Afghanistan, but were driven out. Will the US leave more gracefully?
Afghanistan's neighbors use more subtle methods: cash bribes, safe refuges, training, and control through their intelligence services. They will outlast the crude Westerners, who think that power comes from more and better weapons. Effective weapons, as the Vietnamese and Iraqis demonstrated, can be stolen, or cobbled together from the wasteful and over-generous supplies of the invader.
Rome in its decline, abandoned its push east into Parthia: the East was too complicated. The US, also a declining empire, is baffled by the complex intricacies of the region. Which will come first: bankruptcy or defeat? Or will the US withdraw in time?
Americans in Afghanistan, as well as in Iraq, contend with Iranian influence in the governments they support. Nuri al Maliki, Iraq's PM, has long-established ties with Iran, and has recently worked out a coalition agreement with the Sadrist party, supported by Iran. What is the US to do? Maliki was supposed to be our man, nurtured and financed by the US.
Now, we find out that Hamid Karzai, Afghan President, our client in Kabul, has a chief of staff, Umar Daudzai, who is not only pro-Iranian, but Iran's conduit for illicit cash in the millions of Euros a month. His mission, it seems, is to poison Afghan-American relations.
The plot thickens: Daudzai and his friends were members of Hezb-i-Islami, a brutal, militant Islamist group led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who now lives in Iran, but has ties to the Taliban. Iran in the west, like Pakistan in the east, maintains ties and provides aid to the Taliban, as well as the government. The intelligence communities of both neighboring countries vie for influence among the Taliban, the President, and with his opponents in Afghan politics.
While Pakistan is our reluctant, or resistant ally, Iran is our rival for power in the region. Yet, both have interests in furthering Afghan stability as well as their own influence; chaos on their borders might provide opportunities to extend their power, but it also endangers their own governments.
Just as the US blundered into an age-old civil war in Iraq--between Shiite and Sunni--a game in which the Persians were deeply engaged, it has done something similar in Afghanistan. Except, the Afghan game is much more complicated. The civil war between the government we installed, and the Taliban, has been ongoing for generations, between Pathans and the peoples of the northern alliance: largely Tajik and Uzbek. Meanwhile, the nations to Afghanistan's east and west have been vying for power in Afghanistan for hundreds of years.
The British Empire marched into Afghanistan from India, and was routed. The Soviets occupied Afghanistan, but were driven out. Will the US leave more gracefully?
Afghanistan's neighbors use more subtle methods: cash bribes, safe refuges, training, and control through their intelligence services. They will outlast the crude Westerners, who think that power comes from more and better weapons. Effective weapons, as the Vietnamese and Iraqis demonstrated, can be stolen, or cobbled together from the wasteful and over-generous supplies of the invader.
Rome in its decline, abandoned its push east into Parthia: the East was too complicated. The US, also a declining empire, is baffled by the complex intricacies of the region. Which will come first: bankruptcy or defeat? Or will the US withdraw in time?
Thursday, October 7, 2010
An Awful Anniversary
Ten years ago today the US invaded Afghanistan: it's the longest war in our history, and in some ways, the worst. I think, in terms of outcomes, Afghanistan will rank as the worst, for us, for the Afghans.
The US will not win this war; if the best-case scenario prevails, the US will withdraw in a negotiated settlement (now in the works); the Taliban will re-enter Afghan politics with some caveats, like abjuring violence. They would be a strong presence, but perhaps not dominant, because the Taliban can't win the war, either--unless it goes on for another ten years.
But think of the cost for this minimal settlement! Afghanistan has so far cost us $352.9 billion; over 1000 American combatants killed, over 2,000 foreign troops and perhaps 25,000 Afghan civilians. But war isn't just about people getting killed; it disrupts society, people's lives are ripped apart, their families stressed, or driven to starvation, their homes destroyed, their jobs gone, infrastructure annihilated. War is about some people losing a lot, even if they survive. In Afghanistan, American forces, setting up forward bases, appropriate peasant land and start building. Whether, there are internal politics involved (determining whose land is taken), those people have had their livelihoods, and their whole social identity, taken from them.
In Turkey, people like that did our dirty laundry (I was in the Army, there, in 1962).
But to the brass, ten years isn't so momentous. They have already leaked hints they expect to be in Afghanistan until 2020, or later. From Woodward's reporting--how the military boxed Obama in on Afghanistan--it looks as if, for the military, continuous war is what they aim for; and they'll work to get it. Either we fight in Afghanistan, or we'll have to find another war. It's not that hard, with media outlets like Fox News and WaPo.
For the military brass, war, war all the time, is a good thing. Promotions come faster, budgets keep growing, their power increases, and they have an easier time keeping the troops happy--as long as not too many are being killed. Easier in wartime? We have a professional military. During wars, all of them fare better than in peacetime in terms of pay and benefits. Of course, during war, those below the rank of colonel can get shot at, or blown up, or forced to endure inferior living conditions. But even privates now get balanced meals and hot showers most of the time.
It's why the poor enlist: a steady, if somewhat risky, job. Like Roman Legionnaires.
But civilians pay the bills: between $880 billion and $1.03 trillion in fiscal year 2010.
Actually, we borrow it from the Chinese!
The US will not win this war; if the best-case scenario prevails, the US will withdraw in a negotiated settlement (now in the works); the Taliban will re-enter Afghan politics with some caveats, like abjuring violence. They would be a strong presence, but perhaps not dominant, because the Taliban can't win the war, either--unless it goes on for another ten years.
But think of the cost for this minimal settlement! Afghanistan has so far cost us $352.9 billion; over 1000 American combatants killed, over 2,000 foreign troops and perhaps 25,000 Afghan civilians. But war isn't just about people getting killed; it disrupts society, people's lives are ripped apart, their families stressed, or driven to starvation, their homes destroyed, their jobs gone, infrastructure annihilated. War is about some people losing a lot, even if they survive. In Afghanistan, American forces, setting up forward bases, appropriate peasant land and start building. Whether, there are internal politics involved (determining whose land is taken), those people have had their livelihoods, and their whole social identity, taken from them.
In Turkey, people like that did our dirty laundry (I was in the Army, there, in 1962).
But to the brass, ten years isn't so momentous. They have already leaked hints they expect to be in Afghanistan until 2020, or later. From Woodward's reporting--how the military boxed Obama in on Afghanistan--it looks as if, for the military, continuous war is what they aim for; and they'll work to get it. Either we fight in Afghanistan, or we'll have to find another war. It's not that hard, with media outlets like Fox News and WaPo.
For the military brass, war, war all the time, is a good thing. Promotions come faster, budgets keep growing, their power increases, and they have an easier time keeping the troops happy--as long as not too many are being killed. Easier in wartime? We have a professional military. During wars, all of them fare better than in peacetime in terms of pay and benefits. Of course, during war, those below the rank of colonel can get shot at, or blown up, or forced to endure inferior living conditions. But even privates now get balanced meals and hot showers most of the time.
It's why the poor enlist: a steady, if somewhat risky, job. Like Roman Legionnaires.
But civilians pay the bills: between $880 billion and $1.03 trillion in fiscal year 2010.
Actually, we borrow it from the Chinese!
Saturday, October 2, 2010
Full Spectrum Dominance
…is what the Pentagon insists on maintaining--globally! Dominance: on Land, Air, Sea and Space. Among professional American military, the "long war" is an assumption, not just a consensus. Talk about Global Empire!
American Generals don't think much about economics. America is "the greatest nation on earth," so it can afford endless war everywhere. For the Generals, Admirals, Colonels, Majors, Captains etc., it's a great deal. Back home, we may have to scrimp, or worry about losing jobs, or homes, but the more wars there are, the better for the officers and NCO's. Defense industries depend on it and profit handsomely, too. So what, if the rest of America has to cut Social Security and Medicare to pay for it!
Defense spending is the largest "discretionary" item in the US budget, always, war or no war. And since WWII, it has always gone up. Why?
Have dangers escalated? No. With the end of the Cold War, the Soviets, the only power that could annihilate large parts of the US, collapsed; it re-emerged as resource-rich Russia, with only regional ambitions. The Chinese were briefly our enemies, during the Korean War, but they also have only regional ambitions, and never had the Soviet's capability of destroying the US.
Media commentators express alarm that a growing and prosperous China is building up its military, but its budget is about one-tenth of ours, even though it is the second richest nation, and the one with the most money to squander: we have huge trade deficits, they have huge surpluses.
So, why does DOD's budget go up every year? Why are we still in Iraq, although we're supposedly no longer fighting, and in Afghanistan, building huge bases, although we're supposed to be "starting" withdrawal next summer?
Excerpts from Woodward's Obama's War indicate that it really isn't his war. It's Petraeus's, and the other Generals'. Obama insisted on an exit date, and Petraeus, and company, have been chipping away at that ever since: if the military has anything to say (unfortunately, it has the loudest voice), we'll be fighting in Afghanistan until at least 2020. And we'll find other enemies, too, even if only a few hundred "extremists" here and there.
In the 1930's, Japan had the trappings of democracy, but it was controlled by the military, using the charisma of the Emperor to rally the nation. Tojo, a General, became Prime Minister during WWII. The victorious allies hanged him. He could be Petraeus's model.
Look for Petraeus to run for President in 2012. If he wins, he'll lead the nation like Tojo, who was probably responsible for the Pearl Harbor bombing--and Japan's subsequent defeat.
The military was also dominant in the late Roman Empire. That didn't do Romans much good against their enemies, the "Barbarians," however--even when they hired Barbarians to protect Rome against other Barbarians: See page: The Fall of Rome.
American Generals don't think much about economics. America is "the greatest nation on earth," so it can afford endless war everywhere. For the Generals, Admirals, Colonels, Majors, Captains etc., it's a great deal. Back home, we may have to scrimp, or worry about losing jobs, or homes, but the more wars there are, the better for the officers and NCO's. Defense industries depend on it and profit handsomely, too. So what, if the rest of America has to cut Social Security and Medicare to pay for it!
Defense spending is the largest "discretionary" item in the US budget, always, war or no war. And since WWII, it has always gone up. Why?
Have dangers escalated? No. With the end of the Cold War, the Soviets, the only power that could annihilate large parts of the US, collapsed; it re-emerged as resource-rich Russia, with only regional ambitions. The Chinese were briefly our enemies, during the Korean War, but they also have only regional ambitions, and never had the Soviet's capability of destroying the US.
Media commentators express alarm that a growing and prosperous China is building up its military, but its budget is about one-tenth of ours, even though it is the second richest nation, and the one with the most money to squander: we have huge trade deficits, they have huge surpluses.
So, why does DOD's budget go up every year? Why are we still in Iraq, although we're supposedly no longer fighting, and in Afghanistan, building huge bases, although we're supposed to be "starting" withdrawal next summer?
Excerpts from Woodward's Obama's War indicate that it really isn't his war. It's Petraeus's, and the other Generals'. Obama insisted on an exit date, and Petraeus, and company, have been chipping away at that ever since: if the military has anything to say (unfortunately, it has the loudest voice), we'll be fighting in Afghanistan until at least 2020. And we'll find other enemies, too, even if only a few hundred "extremists" here and there.
In the 1930's, Japan had the trappings of democracy, but it was controlled by the military, using the charisma of the Emperor to rally the nation. Tojo, a General, became Prime Minister during WWII. The victorious allies hanged him. He could be Petraeus's model.
Look for Petraeus to run for President in 2012. If he wins, he'll lead the nation like Tojo, who was probably responsible for the Pearl Harbor bombing--and Japan's subsequent defeat.
The military was also dominant in the late Roman Empire. That didn't do Romans much good against their enemies, the "Barbarians," however--even when they hired Barbarians to protect Rome against other Barbarians: See page: The Fall of Rome.
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Small Business's #1 Worry?
A survey of small businessmen by the National Federation of Independent Business found: it's not taxes, and it's not credit. It's no customers.
So, the political dialogue about taxes or credit is less relevant to them than anything that would increase demand, like accelerating job creation. So, here are Democrats saying middle income tax cuts ought to be preserved, and Republicans insisting tax cuts for the wealthy not only must be maintained, but made permanent--at a cost of $700-800 billion to the debt--because, they insist some are small business proprietors--though few are). In addition, Democrats (with one Republican) have just passed similar bills in House and Senate, providing tax cuts and extended loans to small businesses: to spur hiring. But they probably won't have much effect.
What no one, either in the administration, or in either party, or either chamber, seems to get is this: people need jobs; business needs employed people; but businesses aren't employing them. So, what's the problem? Has government never acted as temporary employer of last resort before?
There are many areas where government could meet huge needs. The unemployed don't have to have jobs digging holes and filling them. We no longer allow heavy manual labor--we have machines for that, which costs more money and skills--but we could use clean up crews, teachers assistants, parking meter attendants, construction workers to repair and rebuild, and so on. Local governments could manage local projects.
If people are so concerned about illegal immigration, then they should go to work bringing in harvests, following crops northward; maybe the Feds could subsidize citizen workers.
The point is: what's holding up the recovery is a lack of jobs. Apparently, tinkering with loans, credits and taxes is not enough. Of course it isn't. Why would a business invest in higher output, by hiring more workers, or buying more machinery, when demand for the good or service they're trying to sell is so feeble and uncertain?
What are people thinking? The best and the brightest are pretty stupid.
When no one else creates jobs, government should be the employer of last resort. It can be. There are many things of lasting value that were built by the WPA, like the mural scenes in Post Offices, and the forest windbreaks planted by the CCC in the Great Plains; they stopped the dustbowl storms.
Yes, there would be a temporary hike to the deficit, but if there are no jobs, deficits will march off into the future--no jobs mean no taxes paid, and welfare or basic survival costs to pay for--or the costs of a repressive police state to keep down the growing, angry underclass, for whom there are no jobs.
The latter sounds a bit like the late Roman Empire: the wealthy got wealthier and enslaved everyone else, until the whole system collapsed in the face of the barbarians.
So, the political dialogue about taxes or credit is less relevant to them than anything that would increase demand, like accelerating job creation. So, here are Democrats saying middle income tax cuts ought to be preserved, and Republicans insisting tax cuts for the wealthy not only must be maintained, but made permanent--at a cost of $700-800 billion to the debt--because, they insist some are small business proprietors--though few are). In addition, Democrats (with one Republican) have just passed similar bills in House and Senate, providing tax cuts and extended loans to small businesses: to spur hiring. But they probably won't have much effect.
What no one, either in the administration, or in either party, or either chamber, seems to get is this: people need jobs; business needs employed people; but businesses aren't employing them. So, what's the problem? Has government never acted as temporary employer of last resort before?
There are many areas where government could meet huge needs. The unemployed don't have to have jobs digging holes and filling them. We no longer allow heavy manual labor--we have machines for that, which costs more money and skills--but we could use clean up crews, teachers assistants, parking meter attendants, construction workers to repair and rebuild, and so on. Local governments could manage local projects.
If people are so concerned about illegal immigration, then they should go to work bringing in harvests, following crops northward; maybe the Feds could subsidize citizen workers.
The point is: what's holding up the recovery is a lack of jobs. Apparently, tinkering with loans, credits and taxes is not enough. Of course it isn't. Why would a business invest in higher output, by hiring more workers, or buying more machinery, when demand for the good or service they're trying to sell is so feeble and uncertain?
What are people thinking? The best and the brightest are pretty stupid.
When no one else creates jobs, government should be the employer of last resort. It can be. There are many things of lasting value that were built by the WPA, like the mural scenes in Post Offices, and the forest windbreaks planted by the CCC in the Great Plains; they stopped the dustbowl storms.
Yes, there would be a temporary hike to the deficit, but if there are no jobs, deficits will march off into the future--no jobs mean no taxes paid, and welfare or basic survival costs to pay for--or the costs of a repressive police state to keep down the growing, angry underclass, for whom there are no jobs.
The latter sounds a bit like the late Roman Empire: the wealthy got wealthier and enslaved everyone else, until the whole system collapsed in the face of the barbarians.
Friday, May 7, 2010
An Anniversary We Should Learn From
What Dien Bien Phu meant, and what it means today.
The French air fortress established there to interdict supplies coming to the Vietminh through Laos, fell on May 7, 1954, after a protracted battle. It was a terrible defeat for the French, and not only mobilized the Vietnamese, but empowered those in France, who had campaigned to end the Indochina war.
The French withdrew from all of Indochina within a year, and although the US attempted to take up the slack in South Vietnam, well, we know the outcome. The significance of Dien Bien Phu is similar to the battle of Adrianople, in which Germanic (barbarian) cavalry overran the Roman army, and captured the ruling Emperor in 378. Colonial empires continued after 1954, and (in the American variant) do to this day, and the Roman Empire lasted for another 98 years in the West, after Adrianople. But both battles demonstrated that new powers were in the ascendancy, and the old were in retreat.
We still are.
In 476, a whole new order, less civilized, less technologically advanced, but more warlike, took formal control of all of Western Europe. After 1954, the French, British, Dutch, Belgians and Portuguese were slowly driven out of their "possessions," and the US attempted to take their place--in Vietnam, especially, and also, tragically, in the Middle East, in Iran.
Afghanistan could create another Dien Bien Phu, if we don't recognize that 'non-western' peoples will control their own fates, even if they have to overcome the incredible barbarism of some of their leaders, like Jalaluddin Haqqani and Mullah Omar.
We may not like what the Taliban stands for--extreme male chauvinism, brutality, fundamentalist Islam--but even if many Afghans hate the Taliban, they are a significant native force in their nation. The NATO and US forces are foreign. We are invaders, perhaps attempting to create a more humane Afghan society, but the inescapable fact is: we are foreigners. Many Afghans, even those who vehemently oppose the Taliban, fear that the US really wants to control their country, which resisted Imperial rule during the whole colonial era. Tragically, they may be at least partially right. American leaders want a "friendly" Afghanistan, meaning one that will bend to American interests.
The US cannot control the world, any more than the French could control Indochina, or the Romans could continue to control all of Europe.
It is because of America's attempt to maintain--and even expand--world hegemony (creating a new Africom, for example), that draws extremists to attack us as in 9/11, and as in the recent Times Square attempt.
The colonial era died at Dien Bien Phu. US imperialism has been attempting to ignore that ever since.
The French air fortress established there to interdict supplies coming to the Vietminh through Laos, fell on May 7, 1954, after a protracted battle. It was a terrible defeat for the French, and not only mobilized the Vietnamese, but empowered those in France, who had campaigned to end the Indochina war.
The French withdrew from all of Indochina within a year, and although the US attempted to take up the slack in South Vietnam, well, we know the outcome. The significance of Dien Bien Phu is similar to the battle of Adrianople, in which Germanic (barbarian) cavalry overran the Roman army, and captured the ruling Emperor in 378. Colonial empires continued after 1954, and (in the American variant) do to this day, and the Roman Empire lasted for another 98 years in the West, after Adrianople. But both battles demonstrated that new powers were in the ascendancy, and the old were in retreat.
We still are.
In 476, a whole new order, less civilized, less technologically advanced, but more warlike, took formal control of all of Western Europe. After 1954, the French, British, Dutch, Belgians and Portuguese were slowly driven out of their "possessions," and the US attempted to take their place--in Vietnam, especially, and also, tragically, in the Middle East, in Iran.
Afghanistan could create another Dien Bien Phu, if we don't recognize that 'non-western' peoples will control their own fates, even if they have to overcome the incredible barbarism of some of their leaders, like Jalaluddin Haqqani and Mullah Omar.
We may not like what the Taliban stands for--extreme male chauvinism, brutality, fundamentalist Islam--but even if many Afghans hate the Taliban, they are a significant native force in their nation. The NATO and US forces are foreign. We are invaders, perhaps attempting to create a more humane Afghan society, but the inescapable fact is: we are foreigners. Many Afghans, even those who vehemently oppose the Taliban, fear that the US really wants to control their country, which resisted Imperial rule during the whole colonial era. Tragically, they may be at least partially right. American leaders want a "friendly" Afghanistan, meaning one that will bend to American interests.
The US cannot control the world, any more than the French could control Indochina, or the Romans could continue to control all of Europe.
It is because of America's attempt to maintain--and even expand--world hegemony (creating a new Africom, for example), that draws extremists to attack us as in 9/11, and as in the recent Times Square attempt.
The colonial era died at Dien Bien Phu. US imperialism has been attempting to ignore that ever since.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Far-Left Socialist--Obama?
Ralph Reed's Faith & Freedom Coalition sent me a "survey" to "To Stop President Obama’s Far-Left Socialist Agenda for America." FFC announced that it was sending this out to five million "American taxpayers," to send a message, and to raise money. Their goal: $30 million.
The first two questions (on how Obama is doing his job, and what you perceive his ideology to be) might seem fairly standard, except that the second question's answers range from conservative to communist to fascist.
Then the "survey" gets down to its main business. Before question 3 there is an "issue summary" that creates an "issue" almost out of whole cloth: claiming Obama wants to impose a "fairness doctrine" on right-wing talk radio in order to shut it down. The question is then asked (Question 3), whether the respondent thinks Obama will succeed in shutting down Beck, Limbaugh, et al.
The next issue summary states that Obama is as hostile to anyone questioning his agenda as Soviet leaders, and that he marshaled "union thugs" to beat up opponents at Town Hall meetings on health care! Where does this stuff come from? So Question 4 asks: Do you think President Obama respects free speech, or did union thugs act on their own "without any coordination with the Obama political machine?"
After question 6, there is another "issue summary." It states as fact that Obama and Congressional Democrats are "determined" to "loosen up" the border with Mexico, to enroll millions of Mexicans as new citizens as fast as possible, "so as to increase their voter base and cement their hold on political power." The question: how concerned are you about this "development?"
This is Ralph Reed's latest vehicle for raising money from right-wing know-nothings, as well as propaganda--of the Goebbels variety: repeat big lies often enough: people will take them as truth.
Reed turns ("Anti-American Communist Dictator") Chavez's joke about "Comrade Obama" to the left even of Fidel Castro into a serious issue ("issue summary"): do you think Obama is an ally of theirs? How much danger do you think "liberty" faces with Obama's Socialist agenda: More serious than World War II? More serious than the threat from the Soviet Union in the Cold War? More serious than the Civil War? Respondent can check more than one.
Question 12 asks the respondent to pledge to vote in the Congressional election and to bring three friends. Question 13 asks for his email address!
And then he is supposed to send his "emergency freedom-saving donation," to the Faith & Freedom Coalition.
Americans actually think like this!
Most Romans did in the fifth century, because of Imperial propaganda at least as blatant. If the US really goes in this direction, if this kind of Right-wing wins, then I fear for any reality-based politics at all.
Then we can really have an Emperor!
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