"Once in a Century"

THE SKY IS FALLING! On some, on others... not so much. Many have debated whether or not there is a recession- in America, abroad or both. Certainly, after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and AIG this week many agree that there is a crisis of some sort. I am particularly fond of President Bush's choice of words: painful adjustments.

The choice of words is, I feel, very apt. Certainly, the sky will continue to float above. Certainly, the economy will persevere. Most importantly, crises are a great time to make a fortune and/or enact systemic "painful adjustments". The process may, quite reasonably, sound fearful. However, there is a long tradition of crisis driven change. One may argue that this is a reactionary approach, commentators on the current situation have referred to the management system as being "defensive". Realistically, or optimistically, we should regard this "once in a century" breakdown as an opportunity to put in place much needed reforms.

Our economic system, as leftist critics have justly observed for a long time, has been based around a non-productive consumerist paradigm. We, as a nation and state, have borrowed huge amounts of capital and invested it in artificial economic constructions that would provide short term profits through the speculation of market bubbles. Bubbles are indeed meant to be speculated, but not lived in. We know this from the long series of similar 'catastrophes' throughout our economic history. Having restructured our economy toward the fabled service-sector, we ceased to produce. When international loans are given to third-world economies those countries are expected, at times naively, to invest them in infrastructure and industry- sectors that are productive. In a period where blind consumerism has reached a critical point of environmental destruction and separation from the real world problems of other nations, it is only natural that there be an adjustment.

In Europe such adjustments have been part of the blueprinting process through the 90's. Cheap energy, recycling, so called "alternative lifestyles" are not eccentric attitudes but at least pursued goals and public policy if not concrete fact. European countries have had to deal with financial market restructuring due to the integration project. In America we act on the motto "don't fix what ain't broke" (if it's squeaky, buy a new one). Such as in the face of technological advancement, we waited for our Pearl Harbor in order to enact the Patriot Act to update our security systems (the appropriateness of this legislation is debatable regarding certain portions).

The trend has been to centralize authority, to increase regulatory authority and to heighten the Executive's role during the Bush Administration. The Financial Regulatory Reform project, begun in March of 2007, previewed one year later and enacted during the next administration is modeled partly on the UK's reforms and follows the above trend. Establishing a tripartite bureaucracy that would hold the reigns of American finances under control, in a manner most likely similar to our national defense organisms, it would have been unpalatable before this week. After a number of billions of dollars are lost, reform sounds rather tasty. So the Democrats revamp their cry for reform and regulation and the Republicans stumble between constituency key-words.

Palin's war-cry is "let's shake things up", a phrase patently stomach churning to anyone with a vested interest in order and prosperity during transitional eras. The populist message does not imply anything concrete, while McCain's own stance on market reform is confusing, thusly irrelevant. To our comfort, the bureaucracy has been working for at least a year on Financial Regulatory Reform and things will be settled. For now, heads are falling. This is progressive, because others are picking up the pieces, merging- and growing bigger. The US government has essentially nationalized a number of the country's largest financial institutions. While this sounds bad from the classical liberal standpoint, it isn't... necessarily.

We are once more in a period of Cold War. This time, the parties involved may be divided in between Authoritarian Capitalism and Corporate Democracies. Authoritarian Capitalism is exemplified by Putin's Russia and post-Nixon China (especially as experienced today). On a side-note, I might add that this term resembles the economic structure of Fascism, centrally coordinated/privately operated. The Corporate Democracy is a modern, capitalist reinvention of the Greek city-state. Based on functional efficiency, ruled by the landed-citizenry, representative of its component parts. Efficiency is profit, the parts are the stock-holders, the elite are the members of the board. This body is transnational with expansionist tendencies. These may seem like built-in self-destruct mechanisms, but at the dawn of the Green era there is the opportunity to reform the fundamental "greed" paradigms that have defined these organisms. A corporation that makes its profit from the existence of a river cannot, as an organism interested in its own survival, destroy the said river. We therefore are gaining the concept of "corporate responsibility". The business model will serve as a form of new self-governing entities, as cells of larger bodies (e.g. EU, NAFTA, ASEAN). I have no doubt that we will see 'corporate cities' within a few decades, similar in some ways to parts of Silicon Valley.

The death of the dinosaurs will allow for the birth of new reptiles. I am eager to observe the amount of foreign direct investment that will arrive at Wall Street's gates, in a fashion similar to that of Barclay's late and strategic acquisition of North American departments of Lehman Brothers. The nationalized elements (AIG, Sterns, McFannie) of the economy will, as has already been announced, be sold on the market. Will sovereign funds bite? The US dollar is low, assets are cheap. Who will become, even more, vested in the welfare of the American economy?

The game is afoot, my dear Watson.

Whence We Came, Where to Now: Rebirth or Awakening?

When not breathing the same air as those walking the halls of power, it is easy to forget exactly what privileges come with power. Amongst the most important perks is unrestrained access to information, analysis...

One of the errors in interpretation that we have been primed to make, over the past eight years, is that the Bush administration somehow fumbled the ball when it came to the war in Iraq. The reality is that our officials have access to vast arrays of think tanks; not to mention that many of our key decision makers are highly educated men who are fully capable of strategic thought. From this perspective, it becomes incrementally more difficult to believe that our errors were the result of intelligence failures or lack of adequate planning. The fundamental 'mistakes' made during the US occupation of Iraq, once catalogued, look far more like an intentional plan to destabilize the country on a long-term basis.

Just as a quick refresher:

Our attack strategy was analogous to that used in the Pacific theater against the Japanese during WWII. Certain islands were taken, while others were skipped in order to ultimately reach the center of power. This approach lead to the infamous insufficient amount of 'boots' on the ground in Iraq. In itself this was a foreseeable problem, noting that previous peace-keeping, peace enforcement or other 'stabilization' missions often required massive amounts of military presence on the ground in order to make up for the power vacuum left by the collapse of the previous regime. Arguably, it was this first 'miscalculation' that paved the way for the disaster that ensued. In the next few years we watched as artifacts belonging to the world's patrimony were plundered in the chaos following the invasion; undefended weapon depots were claimed by paramilitary entities; the Iraqi Army was dismissed leaving hundreds of thousands unemployed and disenchanted; de-Baathification followed, effectively disenfranchising Iraq's professionals-all those who would have been able to maintain or restore order were pushed aside. Clearly my little narrative is less than an incomplete picture of what happened, but it is enough to display the cornerstones of today's circus.

Since invading Iraq was not favorable in the early nineties because of the predicted course of events, what exactly changed that made the same American decision-makers believe that the same project would be worthwhile a decade later? The Russians, Chinese, Iranians, Israelis, Saudis? What is the fate of the world's second largest known oil reserve?

We will hold our elections, a new shiny bright and appologetic face will come to hold the land's highest office and sweet nothings will be whispered between ideological lovers . And then we will embark on a global PR campaign, attempting to rectify our image, explaining that the War-Hawks are gone- it was just a phase, a freak accident. Now we're different, we've learned, a different party is in power and our poster boy is picture perfect- oh, almost forgot, we brought this vintage bottle of Marshall plan-type aid!

We have a special relationship with Brown and Sarkozy and as a bonus: Berlusconi is back. The alignment of the European stars seems to be favorable to NATO intervention in Iraq. A few months need to pass, the all-new-bigger-better-wider President elect will announce a change of national tone, we will once more cooperate with the international community.

Maybe, if we're lucky, we'll allow UN electoral observers into our country in time for the 2012 elections.

Just in time for the end of the world ;)

On What is Folly in Times of Love and War

Entangled in a new abstract war, that was announced at its beginning to be an experiment in a new type of warfare, we in the West are left wandering and lost in the forest of our own rhetoric. This historical period's scare is Terrorism, or the Insurgent. But, who are the Insurgents, and why are they terrorizing? The US military defines an insurgency as an organized movement aimed at the overthrow of a constituted government through use of subversion and armed conflict. The Iraqi insurgency is being linked by the Bush Administration to Al Qaeda in order to tie it in to the worldwide "War on Terror". Accepting this proposed paradigm, we must assume that we are not dealing with an Iraqi Insurgency, but a Global Insurgency.
After the capitulation of Communism in the late 1980's we, perhaps naively, hoped that a new framework of international relations could replace Cold War polarities. Maybe our mistake was to buy into the concept of Pax Americana. As American citizens we often make two, optimistic but fundamentally mistaken, assumptions about our national historical patrimony. The first is the nostalgia for the lost American Isolationism- a preposterous idea, infirmed by everything from the extension of the thirteen colonies through Manifest Destiny to the Monroe Doctrine. The second is that if not we then at least our ancestors lived in the Land of Liberty, in Freedom. The reality is that like every other nation, ours too bathes in the blood and oppression of millions of human souls. We have massacred the indigenous population of the American continent, enslaved the people of Africa, burned witches, blacklisted artists and murdered progressive leaders, etc... The noble ideals enshrined in the common mythology of our foundation, as a People and Nation, are not declarations of fact but Goals that we aspire to achieve. The pyramid is left unfinished not because the laborers abandoned their work, but because their work is never ending. We are bound by our mortal weakness and can only be elevated by the breaking of our mental boundaries.
So while the post-Soviet Era may have lead into a global structure moved by a type of combustion engine (still not that efficient and rather volatile), Capitalism, we began thinking that, just maybe, we like Marx can speed up history provided we add some force to the existent inertia. We pushed aggressively, in all directions. Demanding that the Knight in Shining Armor be given Lord's Right over the Markets of all nations, our companies should have unrestricted access. We coupled business liberalism with a type of democratic proselytizing that bore resemblance to the Christian fundamentalist bombing of an abortion clinic. Is it surprising that segments of the human race feel threatened by these developments? No and sadly they may even be justified.
A core concept of the American philosophy and of Christian tradition is that one may and should lead through example. One should empower and perfect the self before attempting to transform the world. Looking at our society we must notice our mutual alienation, the abandoning of fundamental values in exchange for nominal gain, foods marketed toward the underprivileged sections of society that are more akin to poison than to nutrition. The permanent assault on the human brain through media. Social structures built around family descendance, tribal loyalty and religious faith cannot be expected to welcome the social model that we accept in Western society. This does not however mean that traditional societies have no place in Globalization, or even Capitalism.
While it is common to accuse Islam of intolerance, we must remember that their very conception of the self and world is being assaulted by our actions- we expect human rights, democracy, market-capitalism and justice to be uniformly modeled after our own style, and our investment and trade deals often underlie these political motifs. Fundamentally this attitude is counterproductive; different situations require different solutions, and different societies follow different paths to the peak of the mountain. 'Shock and awe' policies do not fulfill the promise of propaganda meant to win hearts and minds, our media war is completely eclipsed by the meat-grinder that was set up in Iraq. Instead of convincing the world's reactionaries that our values are positive, we prove through our actions that we are the true enemy. If your brother was abducted and tortured by the intelligence services of another state after a bomb was dropped on your grandmother's house, would you not dedicate your life to avenging the injustices perpetrated on your loved ones?
I often wonder, could we have bought Saddam out? Like, had given him 20 billion US dollars to leave and settle on a fantasy island. I feel like that would have been a capitalist solution. The US will have a new poster-child next year, we should use that PR coup to get back to what we do best: marketing lifestyles. Let's market Freedom, Democracy and Responsible Capitalism, to ourselves, our leaders and our enemies. We have let ourselves slip too far in the direction of a police state, just when we could finally reach closer to an ideal. Progress has given us the tools for a Utopia, but the dystopias of Orwell and Huxley are increasingly descriptive of our daily experience. Let's not waste 200 years of hard labor and suffering. Let our compassion and love bury our enemies and resurrect them as the closest of friends, this only will overwhelm the obstacles we place before us.