Failure to communicate…
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In this latest edition the big stories are about Hugo Chavez coming to Belarus. He included a visit with his good friend Alexander Lukashenka along with two stops in Moscow and a stay in Iran.
Mr. Chavez is pretty much filthy, oil rich these days and has a sincere anti-American agenda. He brought his "Fight the Empire" rhetoric with him and had no problem taking potshots and what he feels is wrongful US involvement in South American politics.
- "The empire that has called us dictators aims, itself, to establish a global dictatorship. There few nations that are experiencing such a strong pressure from the empire as Belarus. Because Belarus is being subjected to such strong threats on the part of the empire, therefore we are brothers in this struggle. It is necessary to overcome many obstacles, especially those posed by the forces that are against us. If we have done so much within a year, imagine how much we'll do over the 20 years that we are yet to spend in power!"
Several blogs also covered the story and the general consensus there is that regardless of how much money is spent, the bottom line is that Venezuela is not strong enough to actually do battle with the united States military.
From Venezuela News and Facts
- What in hell is Venezuela going to do with 5 Russian submarines? Does any one seriously imagine that 5 Russian submarines, with 4 missiles each that can reach 250 miles target (if well managed, something that I truly think the Venezuelan Navy is unable to do) can stop a US invasion to Venezuela?
- "In the United States, they say my trip to Moscow and Beijing is a concern," Chavez said Saturday, accusing Washington of meddling where it doesn't belong. "These relations are highly strategic, and are tied up with our security, defense, and overall development," he said.
During Sunday's military parade, Chavez brandished a Russian-designed AK-47 assault rifle proclaiming: "If it weren't for Russia and China we'd be almost weaponless today. "We must recognize the Russian and Chinese governments bravery for not caving in to the pressures of the dying US empire that intended to disarm us all."
It is very easy to say that the argument at hand is capitalism vs communism (Your reactive mind reacts to this word by saying: Communism doesn't work) or socialism. Certainly if Marx or Lenin (now, according to newthink: a mass murderer) were still with us, they would go straight to this point and say that the entire deal is about the bourgeoisie refusing to the death to give up their property. And probably this is the bottom line.
But another way to look at it is in exactly the same was as we looked at the American Revolution. During those times, the main gripe on the part of the American founding fathers was over taxation without representation. In this case, the main gripe of the Russians, South Americans and Middle Easterners are that they do not wish to accept American and/or European rule without having any real say over their presence. From this perspective, it is the Americans who are the tyranny, Chavez is playing Patrick Henry and shouting "Give us liberty or give us death!" and probably, flying a couple of airplanes into the World Trade Center could be seen as sort of a Boston Tea party, the first shot of the next revolution.
The American counter argument is that the proletariat of these countries (forgive me, I couldn't help myself) needs to exist in some form more along the lines as the American/European voting populace sees themselves and their failure to do so therefore becomes an issue of national security. (Usually the American opinion from here on in refuses to see vastly different economic situations, but let's let that go for the moment.) As soon as we start talking "national security", from this point we get into needing lots of money for guns, bombs missiles and other weapons of mass destruction- which of course are needed by the Americans for that same national security but are forbidden to other countries for theirs. Usually the Americans clean up on this arms sale stuff but unfortunately, these days the Russians get richer off it too. To lovers of western style democracy the rulers of these countries are in error and need to be ousted. They are rogue states and need to be wiped out- uh, except for any import materials that couple possibly be of use.
Actually, yea, it probably is about communism vs capitalism.
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I think what needs to be said once and for all is that the people of the FS were communists and that this did not mean that they were really closet capitalists waiting to be freed, it meant that they were really, really, really communists (repeat again: Communism doesn't work). The reason I say this is that people in the west are completely misinterpreting what is going on because they are refusing to either understand this simple fact or listen to what is being said.
Ok, you might ask here what right I have for saying these things. Well, for one, I ride the busses with people here all the time and everybody I ever talk to likes to see it this way. And about Latin America, well, I used to live in Hamilton Heights in upper Manhattan (Pocito Santa Domingo) and they all agreed with this point as well!
All I am saying is that it is a real problem.
Yea, you can go about trying to win the enemy's hearts and minds, or you can just understand where they are coming from and work with that. I think Mr. Bush just wasted all of America's bank trying to BS his way through point number one and I think we would still have those two big ugly megaliths in New York if we would have done #2. And hey, don't believe me: Lukashenka got re-elected by a huge majority and he is very, very popular. Hugo Chavez is very popular in Venezuela and communism has a very strong following. I think it is time to deal wiith this in a way that does not lead to a great big boom...
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| Strother Martin, who played the "Captain" in the movie Cool Hand Luke, knew a little something about communications |
And in case you don't understand what Mr Chavez and Mr. Lukashenko are saying, they are only agreeing with this point and find it humorous that they were the one's with the solution to the problem all along.
At least, that's how their story goes…
More soon…
posted by BEING HAD at
10:14 PM
4 Comments:
Socialism and communism are 2 different issues. You can be socialist without being communist. I had written a few lines on this subject in the thread Reviewing an Edward Lucas review .
For me the main difference lies down in making a difference between private properties and helping the poor class. As a socialist, I also envisage nationalizations in strategic sectors only (nuclear for example, but also oil or gas ... etc). I never thought that the main revolution after socialism was communism, and I don't deny the possible existence of socialism intertwened inside capitalism on a theoretical level although practical examples are not that much numerous all over the world.
In the West, I was pretty much trained in international cooperation (economics, laws, MBA ... etc) but when I looked at what's going on in the world, capitalism under the smithsonian sense does not exist anymore. We are in a new era beyond capitalism, I don't know how we could call it, maybe fascist capitalism. In the oil market for example, the offer does not meet anymore the demand. Once you pay all the labors and investment the oil barrel costs only $20 and this price has been steady for the last 10 years (globalization means monopoly). I've never been able to explain that; besides on the market, the oil price between $45 and $65 a barrel does not have a significant impact at the pump, so it often leads me to think, since the offer and the demand does not obey anymore under such rules, I am enclined to dispute about the real existence of capitalism.
In the US capitalism had a very deep impact in the minds on their people, but they live in a society where everyday they have to do more than what was required a day before: competition, loyalty, productivity, excellence, perfection. In the long run, Americans - most of them, they are some exceptions though- are not able to make the difference between their private life and their work. So capitalism is not all good since people are not really free, it is a new form of slavery, modern days slavery for sure. I'm not interested in working overtime, or just living to make money, I'm more interested in overcoming my existence in doing different tasks, and it cannot be exclusively 40, sometimes 60 hours of work every week, and not enough vacations (5 days a year). Lots of people think that they can earn respect if they make more money, and if they stop working then it is the death of the brain.
I think you name the tactics pretty well. I remember having a conversation with a guy at the Vancouver film festival one time and his opinion was that the real result of the end of the Soviet Union was that there was nothing left to keep western capitalism in check. In the third quarter of the twentieth century, this the time before Reaganomics and real satellite communication and therefore a time when there was still belief that the Russians might slip us a fast one and actually with the war, there were a lot of very good laws about bank investiture and keeping the community chest full. This was a time when there was still humanities in the schools to be studied, g-d bless our souls.
But we don't do this any more and at the same time, this is exactly the same rhetoric that Chavez and Lukashenka and Putin and even Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (g-d damn his soul) like to push up as a populist platform. Even just today I got called to say a few words about tomorrow being Belarusian Independence Day (yea, I feel all independent) and how the USA is now seen as an enemy. But what can I do? I agree with the Belarusian side of the argument. I think the last decade and a half have been a great, big, stupid insincere game and the world has become so much worse off it is almost unexplainable. And apparently I still have to take shit because of my passport.
But basically, I am with you on your vision of things 100%. I think Americans don't understand how locked in they are. If anything, this lesson was so completely branded in my brain during the week or so after the 9/11 in New York. Regardless of the sweet words on the part of the politicians, the absolute, bottom line fact of life was that the $3,000 a month which was needed for the rent was still needed regardless of whether or not your cousin who worked in tower one was either crushed under a billion tons of rubble or became a charcoal briquette. Time for morning, ah, a day or so? And then it went back to show me the money.
This is what happens when the world becomes unipolar but it never lasts long enough, and some day we'll be back to a multipolar world within a few decades. But even on different sensitive geopolitical subjects lately, there is not a big stance against the US, even Putin seems to agree since his last meeting with Bush on the iranian question. It's just too bad the US spoiled its mark image in the human rights frame and it is really hard to forgive. With the Soviet Union at least the US was able to make a difference in Human Rights, and since there is no more foreign power, they feel like they can do everything they want, in the end it does not make us better, but as bad as the other ones.
I remember the war in Afghanistan during the 80s. History books forget to mention that the ISI (Pakistanese Secret Services) had misinformed the Soviet Union about a possibility that the CIA might be in Afghanistan, and this is how the Soviets felt into the afghan trap. This story was told in a french newspaper by an American NSA (Zrbriensky - it's a polish name). There has been lots of misinformation in the US that the problem of the Soviet-Union had been displaced in the Middle-East, because of the leftist ideologies of some countries. Truth of the matter the US has been in full force in the Middle-East after WWI (Europeans countries had more presence before WWI) and in order to sustain their hegemony against emerging world powers, they have to seize oilfields as many as possible. So basically the Soviet-Union was the only issue for the US in order to accomplish their goals. Now it would seem that a new problem emerged with "islamism" to justify a presence in the Middle-East. Once again I don't believe the US troops will ever withdraw from Iraq if they want to put pressure on Iran. A foreign occupation costs billions of dollars to the US and I don't think that China is eager to finance Tbonds to the US. If we can think about the goal of the US, it just does not make sense anymore. They need oilfields to finance their military operations so that they can get more oilfields to finance their military operations; we are in a vicious circle.
In Europe, we can't ignore Russia for many reasons. First we are just next to Russia with Poland now, secondly Europe is very dependent on oil/gas resources (there is a pipeline from Russia to Germany going through Belarus), and thirdly some Europeans would like to give Russia more responsibilities on the world state. If I have a good memory the idea of the WTO with Russia had been presented by the french Jacques Chirac.
I remember also that in Europe we were taught by this vision from Jean Monet that Europe starts in Brest (the city in France, not in Belarus) and goes all the way to Vladivostok. It's always been question to implement Russia in the European Union, but I don't think it is necessarly true since the war in Iraq, besides Russians are closer to Asia than Europe (Eurasia).
Steve, you win: You are linked!
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