This week Narco-Sphere news drops another bomb shell. That is war funding in Iraq included a supplemental provision for funding the militarization of Mexican society and that the money will be used by groups like Blackwater.
Essentially setting up our own right-wing paramilitary group for Latin and Central America, and it will likely be used against all the normal countries we use this for: Cuba, Haiti, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Brazil.
This is combined with the fact that we have re-activated the American 4th fleet to dominate the naval lanes of the Caribbean and Latin America is very bad news.
As a descendant of a founder, and long line of naval officers, usually I'd say how happy I am, but in this case without a firm commitment to work with the other countries of the OAS to interdict right and left wing paramilitary drug cartels, I have no such enthusiasm.
Clearly this is being used to dominate naval lanes in the way the Athenian Navy did, as gunboat diplomacy, and while I am not averse to that in theory in practice it is NOT what the Americas need. We do not need a NORTHCOM, SOUTHCOM etc. We need diplomatic solutions for the problems of our hemisphere.
What a wonderful way to promote pan-Americanism.
This is clearly not the way to do it.
Mark Twain had a saying that "if all a man has is a big hammer, he sees every problem as a nail."
I would argue that our current over reliance on military technology and our under utilization of both traditional pan-Americanism and diplomacy are about to get our nation in big trouble as we are not adapting to a global world in the way that we need to- by creating a more diversified economic structure and productive development at home.
I think by not listening to the wisdom of the founders at this time is a critical mistake, we seem to listening to our newly rich commentators and those who tell us the comforting narrative we want to hear, and we always listen to the pragmatic voice of people who are ready to profit from misfortune.
By doing so we are essentially ensuring that our last efforts to control the world bankrupt the nation, its schools, strain its infrastructure and throw away its chances for internal and innovative development in cooperation with all the nations of this hemisphere.
It is a Military Keynesians most horrible paradox: there is always a need to find or create enemies and exaggerate their significance so that we find a huge military solution for human problems that demand a more realistic scope thereby creating the prospect for more wars on the promise of bringing everlasting peace.
Most importantly "it makes those who make the arms rich," in Aristotle's words.
No society that has adopted this policy has been very successful for long- much to the confusion of the intelligentsia who sit around promoting it based on their "experience" and who lack the vision necessary to maintain a nation and who are always perplexed and usually run to a safe place when it beings to show real cracks.
Where once we had a fanfare for the common man, now we seem to only yell our songs at each other without recognizing our own problems, and without really developing the dynamic solutions we need to thrive in this century.
I am feeling very uneasy about this development. This basically takes both Jefferson and Bolivar's dream of liberty for the Americas and throws it away. And I'll explain how it works using the economies of Athens and the Hellenistic world as a comparative example.
When we need a simple kind of sophistication we get a formalized NAFTA through cheapened values of our labor in North America by allowing entrance of more laborers into the market to drive down costs and lowering the North American standards of living and increasing competition, while increasing inflation, what happens?
Some people would say that this is a function of capitalism and naturally turn to a socialist economic structure to stop it, but it has nothing to do with Adam Smith's capitalism and everything to do with fascism.
As a function of this fascism driven by the cooperation between the government and private sector, inflation goes up, wages go down, food prices go up....meaningful and peaceful employment disappears.... paper investment becomes more important than the cooperation between labor and capital in every community..... what happens? I'll let you guess.
Around the world, this so called "liberal model" does one thing.
It lifts up a tiny global elite who never really shared and certainly does not believe in any of the values we espoused as Americans. As for those in the middle and bottom, they are left to fight it out in squalor. This has happened time and again from the 6th century BC through to today.
It is identical in its patterns and justifications, it is also as arbitrarily violent and brutal. But wait, when the value of labor decreases more and the human person is completely turned into a commodity, it gets much worse. It has happened so many times historically, I have actually lost count.
When we need understanding, communication and more OAS involvement, we get the fleet in the Americas and I guess around the world. When we need non-interference and building relationships of mutual trust, we are not getting the point of either a multi-polar world, or the hope to have a peaceful transition to it.
When we need to set out a clear vision of CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLICANISM, we get the extremes of Wiemar style liberal democracy or an increasingly authoritarian right-wing.
If we would mind our own business more, we would not have nearly as many problems; but by thinking of problems everywhere else in the world as "ours" and not thinking of our citizens we are putting ourselves in a precarious position and undermining true pan-Americanism in the process.
Why not try a new approach? The current one has been in place for the last fifty years and is not working in our national interest, it only seems to enrich the kids of foreign kleptocrats and multinational corporations and leaves the rest of us quite impoverished.
No matter what many historians say, it was exactly this phenomena that drove the nail in the Athenian coffin and destroyed the world's first democratic government. By following all Athens patterns and making all the same mistakes, indulging in all the same excesses, and using all the same excuses for our behavior, we are proving that the only lesson we have learned from history is that we never learn from history.
Or that we only learn and accept what we want to hear and what comforts us, and not the disquieting similarity between the all too human problems we face now and recognize that we should not be misled by the latest fashion or trend. We should listen to the wise voices that serve as warning for all governments on this path.
All of this means that the vigor and energy, of the Renaissance and enlightenment are over; much to rejoicing of all the neo-conservatives, fascists and other people who worship the irrational, violent and absurd.
If there is an angel who rides the whirlwind and directs this storm, I wish he would take pity on me and on all of us.
This is not good news for our hemisphere or anywhere else in the world.
Essentially setting up our own right-wing paramilitary group for Latin and Central America, and it will likely be used against all the normal countries we use this for: Cuba, Haiti, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Brazil.
This is combined with the fact that we have re-activated the American 4th fleet to dominate the naval lanes of the Caribbean and Latin America is very bad news.
As a descendant of a founder, and long line of naval officers, usually I'd say how happy I am, but in this case without a firm commitment to work with the other countries of the OAS to interdict right and left wing paramilitary drug cartels, I have no such enthusiasm.
Clearly this is being used to dominate naval lanes in the way the Athenian Navy did, as gunboat diplomacy, and while I am not averse to that in theory in practice it is NOT what the Americas need. We do not need a NORTHCOM, SOUTHCOM etc. We need diplomatic solutions for the problems of our hemisphere.
What a wonderful way to promote pan-Americanism.
This is clearly not the way to do it.
Mark Twain had a saying that "if all a man has is a big hammer, he sees every problem as a nail."
I would argue that our current over reliance on military technology and our under utilization of both traditional pan-Americanism and diplomacy are about to get our nation in big trouble as we are not adapting to a global world in the way that we need to- by creating a more diversified economic structure and productive development at home.
I think by not listening to the wisdom of the founders at this time is a critical mistake, we seem to listening to our newly rich commentators and those who tell us the comforting narrative we want to hear, and we always listen to the pragmatic voice of people who are ready to profit from misfortune.
By doing so we are essentially ensuring that our last efforts to control the world bankrupt the nation, its schools, strain its infrastructure and throw away its chances for internal and innovative development in cooperation with all the nations of this hemisphere.
It is a Military Keynesians most horrible paradox: there is always a need to find or create enemies and exaggerate their significance so that we find a huge military solution for human problems that demand a more realistic scope thereby creating the prospect for more wars on the promise of bringing everlasting peace.
Most importantly "it makes those who make the arms rich," in Aristotle's words.
No society that has adopted this policy has been very successful for long- much to the confusion of the intelligentsia who sit around promoting it based on their "experience" and who lack the vision necessary to maintain a nation and who are always perplexed and usually run to a safe place when it beings to show real cracks.
Where once we had a fanfare for the common man, now we seem to only yell our songs at each other without recognizing our own problems, and without really developing the dynamic solutions we need to thrive in this century.
I am feeling very uneasy about this development. This basically takes both Jefferson and Bolivar's dream of liberty for the Americas and throws it away. And I'll explain how it works using the economies of Athens and the Hellenistic world as a comparative example.
When we need a simple kind of sophistication we get a formalized NAFTA through cheapened values of our labor in North America by allowing entrance of more laborers into the market to drive down costs and lowering the North American standards of living and increasing competition, while increasing inflation, what happens?
Some people would say that this is a function of capitalism and naturally turn to a socialist economic structure to stop it, but it has nothing to do with Adam Smith's capitalism and everything to do with fascism.
As a function of this fascism driven by the cooperation between the government and private sector, inflation goes up, wages go down, food prices go up....meaningful and peaceful employment disappears.... paper investment becomes more important than the cooperation between labor and capital in every community..... what happens? I'll let you guess.
Around the world, this so called "liberal model" does one thing.
It lifts up a tiny global elite who never really shared and certainly does not believe in any of the values we espoused as Americans. As for those in the middle and bottom, they are left to fight it out in squalor. This has happened time and again from the 6th century BC through to today.
It is identical in its patterns and justifications, it is also as arbitrarily violent and brutal. But wait, when the value of labor decreases more and the human person is completely turned into a commodity, it gets much worse. It has happened so many times historically, I have actually lost count.
When we need understanding, communication and more OAS involvement, we get the fleet in the Americas and I guess around the world. When we need non-interference and building relationships of mutual trust, we are not getting the point of either a multi-polar world, or the hope to have a peaceful transition to it.
When we need to set out a clear vision of CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLICANISM, we get the extremes of Wiemar style liberal democracy or an increasingly authoritarian right-wing.
If we would mind our own business more, we would not have nearly as many problems; but by thinking of problems everywhere else in the world as "ours" and not thinking of our citizens we are putting ourselves in a precarious position and undermining true pan-Americanism in the process.
Why not try a new approach? The current one has been in place for the last fifty years and is not working in our national interest, it only seems to enrich the kids of foreign kleptocrats and multinational corporations and leaves the rest of us quite impoverished.
No matter what many historians say, it was exactly this phenomena that drove the nail in the Athenian coffin and destroyed the world's first democratic government. By following all Athens patterns and making all the same mistakes, indulging in all the same excesses, and using all the same excuses for our behavior, we are proving that the only lesson we have learned from history is that we never learn from history.
Or that we only learn and accept what we want to hear and what comforts us, and not the disquieting similarity between the all too human problems we face now and recognize that we should not be misled by the latest fashion or trend. We should listen to the wise voices that serve as warning for all governments on this path.
All of this means that the vigor and energy, of the Renaissance and enlightenment are over; much to rejoicing of all the neo-conservatives, fascists and other people who worship the irrational, violent and absurd.
If there is an angel who rides the whirlwind and directs this storm, I wish he would take pity on me and on all of us.
This is not good news for our hemisphere or anywhere else in the world.
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