Well, there it is... the alleged sexual assault case against former head of the International Monetary Fund and French Presidential candidate Dominique Strauss-Kahn is beginning to fall apart - less than a week after right-winger and pro-Chicago school Christine Lagarde is confirmed as his replacement at the IMF, and after his Chicago-school IMF deputy and former JP Morgan insider John Lipsky managed to force through the stiff "national asset confiscation" austerity plan on the hapless Greek people.
But what just happened? And why?
During his tenure at the IMF, Dominique Strauss-Kahn committed two cardinal boo-boos from the point of view of the world's corporate bankster cartels. First, he suggested that in the current climate of bailouts and endless money printing, perhaps it was wrong to expect the taxpayers of the world to lose their homes, savings, and jobs to pay off *all* the gambling debts of the big international banks themselves. Perhaps, he suggested, some of the bondholders of the banks should pay *some* of the cost, too. After all, this is capitalism, and it was they who'd decided to gamble their money, and the value of your investment may go down as well as up.
Well, that's not how the banksters see it. If the value of their investment goes up - hurrah! They're the masters of the universe, and they make shedloads of money and take massive bonuses for their great knowledge and talent. But if the value of their investment goes *down* - nooo! It's not their fault - they just lost a bet, why should they have to pay? No, in that case, the taxpayers of the world should have to borrow loads of money to pay off the banksters' debts now, then spend the next 20 or 30 years paying it off. If not - the banksters assured us - the sky would fall, and the world as we know it would come to an end. It's a classic gangster protection racket: "Give us your money, or the economy gets it!" That's what 21st century capitalism is!
So, strike one against DSK. You never, ever, tell the banksters they're going to lose money.
Second, DSK had begun to suggest - in response to cries of "foul!" from China, Russia, Brasil, India, and a host of other countries, that the IMF might be able to create a kind of "virtual world currency". The reason for this was that the Bush and Obama administrations, in introducing QE, or "quantitative easing", had been rapidly devaluing the *current* global reserve currency, the US dollar. This meant that all those nations (like China, Russia, Brasil, etc, etc) that kept lots of their money in dollars were losing out hand over fist - effectively they were footing the bill for the US dollar's devaluation. DSK was a firm supporter of what's called "Strategic Drawing Rights", or SDRs, which are a kind of virtual currency composed of a basket of other international currencies. If the rest of the world agreed to accept SDRs as a replacement for the US dollar to keep all their foreign reserves in, the US government (and the banksters) would be seriously compromised in their ability to devalue the dollar and force other nations to effectively pay off their debts.
Strike two. You never, ever, tell the US govt or the banksters the dollar is not the global reserve currency.
But what was the third strike?
This is where current French president Nicolas Sarkozy comes in. It's widely reported that Sarko's administration has a huge intelligence gathering network (paid for by French taxpayers) gathering dirt on his political opponents and often conducting smear campaigns against them - the recent bouts against both former French PM Dominique De Villepin *and* former French President Jacques Chirac are good examples of this. Dominique Strauss-Kahn was / is a popular, left-leaning member of the socialist party who was widely expected to oust Sarko and become French president in 2012. Over the weeks and months leading up to the DSK / IMF scandal, DSK himself indicated he was being targeted in smear campaigns by Sarko, and even warned that someone might try and ensnare him in a "honey trap" or sexual scandal.
Today, 1st July 2011, the case against DSK is starting to unravel. The political assassination hatchet job has been done: he has been removed from the IMF, and somebody *far more* compliant to the bankster pro-dollar lobby has been installed in his place. Christine Lagarde belongs to the "Chicago school" of economic thought, the same school whose proponents and ideas were largely responsible for the current economic collapse in the first place. She can be relied upon to give countries like Greece a hard time, and ensure that the IMF doesn't cause problems for the US dollar devaluation or bankster bailouts and widening austerity throughout the western world.
But there's still a window in the French presdential campaign. Theoretically, for the next 2 weeks, a released and acquitted DSK *could* conceivably still announce his candidacy for the French presidency. Remember that number: 2 weeks. After Bastille Day, the race is closed, no more bets, rien ne va plus.
Manuscripts Don't Burn believes this is where we see how much of a role Sarko played in the political assassination. If he's able to stall the case for another 2 weeks - keep DSK in the USA, even if released and bail returned - until 14th July, with a shadow hanging over him, then he'll be unable to run for the presidency. In that case, it's reasonable to conclude that Sarko has been a leading player in the assassination. If *not*, and DSK is released unconditionally in the next few days, all charges dropped, and is able to announce his candidacy, then Sarko hasn't been strong enough to call the shots, and it looks like the IMF lobby had the upper hand in the assassination.
We wouldn't like to put money on it.
Either way, the hatchet job is done. Greece is stuffed, the bankster riches are increasing hugely, and the rest of us are slated to foot the bill. Expect more of the same.
What a darker place the world has become over the past ten years. Those of us raised in the latter part of the 20th century still like to think of our governments and the authorities as benevolent and well-meaning. But we shouldn't forget: governments can change. Countries can change. And very quickly: in 1926, Weimar Germany was a vibrant, liberal society with a sparkling and progressive culture; by 1936, the darkness of Nazism was strangling the life out of the country. In 1912, Russia seemed to be moving towards liberal democracy; by 1922, it had been decimated by war, revolution, and civil war, and faced decades of totalitarianism.
Manuscripts Don't Burn imagines people in those countries didn't believe it could happen to them either.
Showing posts with label Paradigm Shift. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Paradigm Shift. Show all posts
Friday, 1 July 2011
Sunday, 20 December 2009
Global Consciousness Glimpsed From a Distance
A lot of what's happening in Copenhagen and elsewhere at the moment reminds Manuscripts Don't Burn of H.G. Wells' "The Shape of Things to Come", when a clumsy, ad hoc, and largely self-interested bunch of airplane flyers kick and scream and gradually drag the world towards a single government. The government they create isn't necessarily any good, and is eventually superceded by something a darn sight better after a period of dissatisfaction and revolution, but it *started* there, as the first sign of a nascent global consciousness appeared.
Manuscripts Don't Burn gets a similar vibe out of Copenhagen, the financial collapse (accidental or engineered), the post-Cold War struggle for who defines the New World Order, and the shenanigans following the collapse of the Berlin Wall. At the moment the Old Guard and the military-industrial-financial complex are still desperately trying to call the shots, and hold most of the cards, but institutions and concepts are being born at the moment which are radically different from what's gone before. We don't doubt that the corporate fascists would *love* a global government on their terms, but the very fact that political and economic action on a global scale is even conceivable speaks volumes.
We're not dewy-eyed and messianic about this. Like most times of great change this is going to be chaotic, violent, and dangerous. But it's interesting at least to see something potentially positive peeking through the cracks. Manuscripts Don't Burn has no doubt at all that we WON'T get our shit together to stave off the worst effects of the climatic instability facing us (regardless of whether we're responsible or not, it's still happening), and millions will starve, be rendered homeless, and so on. But possibly Copenhagen will mark the start of regular summits where the chaotic, disunited rabble of the global community can get together for regular rows, coercion, and chest-thumping - and maybe muddle-headedly navigate us through the turbulence ahead. Cause for optimism? Individually, no. Collectively... well, that's up to us all.
Manuscripts Don't Burn gets a similar vibe out of Copenhagen, the financial collapse (accidental or engineered), the post-Cold War struggle for who defines the New World Order, and the shenanigans following the collapse of the Berlin Wall. At the moment the Old Guard and the military-industrial-financial complex are still desperately trying to call the shots, and hold most of the cards, but institutions and concepts are being born at the moment which are radically different from what's gone before. We don't doubt that the corporate fascists would *love* a global government on their terms, but the very fact that political and economic action on a global scale is even conceivable speaks volumes.
We're not dewy-eyed and messianic about this. Like most times of great change this is going to be chaotic, violent, and dangerous. But it's interesting at least to see something potentially positive peeking through the cracks. Manuscripts Don't Burn has no doubt at all that we WON'T get our shit together to stave off the worst effects of the climatic instability facing us (regardless of whether we're responsible or not, it's still happening), and millions will starve, be rendered homeless, and so on. But possibly Copenhagen will mark the start of regular summits where the chaotic, disunited rabble of the global community can get together for regular rows, coercion, and chest-thumping - and maybe muddle-headedly navigate us through the turbulence ahead. Cause for optimism? Individually, no. Collectively... well, that's up to us all.
Monday, 14 December 2009
End of Days...
There's a strange mood about in the UK these days. A strange sense of denial, of "apres-moi-le-deluge", of hysterical ignoring of the thundering juggernaut about to crush everyday life in the UK beneath its feet.
In 2009 the slow-motion economic crash continued unabated. Pensions were destroyed, wages fell, and the UK economy entered a deflationary depressionary spiral as imports (oil, gas, food) prices inflated. Unemployment rose, taxes rose, public debt exploded out of control as more and more money was siphoned out of the economy and into the pockets of fat cats and corrupt corporate banksters. The wool continued to be pulled over the eyes of the public, bread and circuses on TV, artificial news in the media, blatant lies from the corporate government.
A sense of unreality often precedes pivotal events. The French revolution, the Russian revolution, the Nazi takeover, the Great Depression; and now the Long Depression, and likely collapse of the UK. Everywhere you look, wealth is being withdrawn from the UK. The signs of catastrophe are everywhere; the UK is worse than bankrupt, and there is nothing to bail it out with. The corrupt corporate government is conducting a scorched earth policy, hosing the public with impossible future debt and giving it all to their corporate chums, while lying to the people that it's all for their own good.
History will look back on this period and condemn us for our inactivity, our flagant stupidity right in the face of all evidence that we are being sold down the river.
Manuscripts Don't Burn increasingly sees in the blogosphere statements like "oh, please, just get it over with", "stop making it worse", "time to get a grip". In some ways, that would be wrong. This time, it looks like the UK will have to collapse completely, lose all its arrogance and hysterical self-deception, to be able to face up to the *massive* job of rebuilding which will have to be done. Tragically, by then the thieving bastards who caused this collapse will have made off scot-free, laughing with glee as the poor proles shoulder the burden for a generation or more.
2010 is going to be a very interesting year...
In 2009 the slow-motion economic crash continued unabated. Pensions were destroyed, wages fell, and the UK economy entered a deflationary depressionary spiral as imports (oil, gas, food) prices inflated. Unemployment rose, taxes rose, public debt exploded out of control as more and more money was siphoned out of the economy and into the pockets of fat cats and corrupt corporate banksters. The wool continued to be pulled over the eyes of the public, bread and circuses on TV, artificial news in the media, blatant lies from the corporate government.
A sense of unreality often precedes pivotal events. The French revolution, the Russian revolution, the Nazi takeover, the Great Depression; and now the Long Depression, and likely collapse of the UK. Everywhere you look, wealth is being withdrawn from the UK. The signs of catastrophe are everywhere; the UK is worse than bankrupt, and there is nothing to bail it out with. The corrupt corporate government is conducting a scorched earth policy, hosing the public with impossible future debt and giving it all to their corporate chums, while lying to the people that it's all for their own good.
History will look back on this period and condemn us for our inactivity, our flagant stupidity right in the face of all evidence that we are being sold down the river.
Manuscripts Don't Burn increasingly sees in the blogosphere statements like "oh, please, just get it over with", "stop making it worse", "time to get a grip". In some ways, that would be wrong. This time, it looks like the UK will have to collapse completely, lose all its arrogance and hysterical self-deception, to be able to face up to the *massive* job of rebuilding which will have to be done. Tragically, by then the thieving bastards who caused this collapse will have made off scot-free, laughing with glee as the poor proles shoulder the burden for a generation or more.
2010 is going to be a very interesting year...
Monday, 19 January 2009
Economic Collapse: Golem XIV summarises the situation again
On this historic day, Manuscripts Don't Burn would like to present Guardian commentator GolemXIV's excellent summary of the UK government's latest bailout plan. Thank you GolemXIV! The lunatics are indeed running the asylum; we see dark days of protest and bloodshed ahead.
*****
This could be the most expensive suicide note in history!
This plan is exchanging a possible run on the banks with a possible run on the whole country, its tax base, and its currency.
Let's be clear about what we are insuring. We are going to insure stuff that the insurance world refuses to insure. How great is that. Insurers such as AIG did insure this stuff. Only problem is AIG itself is bankrupt. Bailed out three times already for over $100B and still dropping like a stone.
We are going to insure securities and derivatives based on Mortgage and corporate debts. Very many, if not most, originated in the US. By definition all these debts are close to worthless. And yet we are going to guarantee to pay the morons who bought the assets - or derivatives based on the value of those assets - either the full price tey paid or something near to it.
Which raises the question - To what level are we insuring them? If it's up to the full face value then as a nation this is a suicide note. I can only hope the insurance is based on a much lower valuation of but shares. But my guess is that even if there is a lower valuation it will still be suicidally high. Only the higher value will please the 'markets'. AKA the people who created the mess in the first place.
Why are they doing this? The reasoning is that the banks are going to continue to take massive losses. They all know this. The governments don't want to have to pay huge lumps of cash to cover these losses before they have to. Cash injections are large lumps. Insurance is only paid as and when each 'asset' has to come to the market and be declare formally dead. So insuring means we don't have to make one vast lump payment.
The down side however, is that our potential losses are potentially unlimited.
I know Darling says they will look at the assets and declare a limit. Yeah fine. But in practical terms the insurance plan will only 'restore confidence' if it is seen to work over the long term going forward. Which means even if they declare a limit, when we reach that limit they will be force do t extend it. For if they don't then all the money spent up to that point will have been wasted. SO the government will tell us we can't waste all the money spent so far, we must 'see it through'.
I know they banks will 'pay' us a premium. But that premium will be paid with the cash we gave them 6 months ago. So they won't be paying anything.
We don't have any of the money we are pledging. And what is more we are not going to be able to borrow it. So we are going to print.
*****
*****
This could be the most expensive suicide note in history!
This plan is exchanging a possible run on the banks with a possible run on the whole country, its tax base, and its currency.
Let's be clear about what we are insuring. We are going to insure stuff that the insurance world refuses to insure. How great is that. Insurers such as AIG did insure this stuff. Only problem is AIG itself is bankrupt. Bailed out three times already for over $100B and still dropping like a stone.
We are going to insure securities and derivatives based on Mortgage and corporate debts. Very many, if not most, originated in the US. By definition all these debts are close to worthless. And yet we are going to guarantee to pay the morons who bought the assets - or derivatives based on the value of those assets - either the full price tey paid or something near to it.
Which raises the question - To what level are we insuring them? If it's up to the full face value then as a nation this is a suicide note. I can only hope the insurance is based on a much lower valuation of but shares. But my guess is that even if there is a lower valuation it will still be suicidally high. Only the higher value will please the 'markets'. AKA the people who created the mess in the first place.
Why are they doing this? The reasoning is that the banks are going to continue to take massive losses. They all know this. The governments don't want to have to pay huge lumps of cash to cover these losses before they have to. Cash injections are large lumps. Insurance is only paid as and when each 'asset' has to come to the market and be declare formally dead. So insuring means we don't have to make one vast lump payment.
The down side however, is that our potential losses are potentially unlimited.
I know Darling says they will look at the assets and declare a limit. Yeah fine. But in practical terms the insurance plan will only 'restore confidence' if it is seen to work over the long term going forward. Which means even if they declare a limit, when we reach that limit they will be force do t extend it. For if they don't then all the money spent up to that point will have been wasted. SO the government will tell us we can't waste all the money spent so far, we must 'see it through'.
I know they banks will 'pay' us a premium. But that premium will be paid with the cash we gave them 6 months ago. So they won't be paying anything.
We don't have any of the money we are pledging. And what is more we are not going to be able to borrow it. So we are going to print.
*****
The Great Depression Phase 2 - The Crash Quickens Pace
This morning, the British government announced its plans to insure all the crap debt the UK banking system has taken upon itself, effectively bankrupting the country. This is a historic moment: rather than a rapid, precipitous collapse, and a possible rebuilding in a 2-5 year timeframe, resulting in a new economic status quo where the reckless fat cats have gone to the wall in accordance with their beloved "market forces", our supine government has once again shown its loyalty is to big business, and not to the British electorate. It has elected to give unlimited guarantees to the debt-ridden financial sector, thereby turning a 2-5 recession into a Depression which will last a minimum of 10 years. The last time the UK took on a debt liability of this size was the Second World War: it took 50 years to pay that off. This at least is what we are looking at again.
Manuscripts Don't Burn has said this again and again: the biggest wealth transfer in history, from poor to rich, continues apace, reversing all the social egalitarian successes of the post-war era. When the dust settles, we will be back in 1910, with most of the population living as impoverished tenants working off indenture and grateful for the crumbs thrown from the tables of the rich.
But first - the collapse of sterling, hyperinflation, and national bankruptcy. Only now does the tip of the CDS iceberg begin to heave into view.
The fat cats are stuffing their pockets with what little is left of taxpayers' assets, and presumably leaving these shores like rats deserting a sinking ship. Manuscripts Don't Burn took its "assets" and left the UK years ago for saner climes - mene mene tekel upharsin being scrawled everywhere we looked.
And then, of course, the ship sinks. Sauve qui peut, because NOBODY else will.
Manuscripts Don't Burn has said this again and again: the biggest wealth transfer in history, from poor to rich, continues apace, reversing all the social egalitarian successes of the post-war era. When the dust settles, we will be back in 1910, with most of the population living as impoverished tenants working off indenture and grateful for the crumbs thrown from the tables of the rich.
But first - the collapse of sterling, hyperinflation, and national bankruptcy. Only now does the tip of the CDS iceberg begin to heave into view.
The fat cats are stuffing their pockets with what little is left of taxpayers' assets, and presumably leaving these shores like rats deserting a sinking ship. Manuscripts Don't Burn took its "assets" and left the UK years ago for saner climes - mene mene tekel upharsin being scrawled everywhere we looked.
And then, of course, the ship sinks. Sauve qui peut, because NOBODY else will.
Thursday, 1 January 2009
An Alternative New Year Message...
The media is awash with prognostication today, most drawing on some pre-war "all pull together" subtext either suggesting that everything's about to collapse and go to hell in a handcart, or that somehow, magically, a solution will appear if we all just knuckle under and do as we're told.
Manuscripts Don't Burn doesn't think any of this is anywhere near good enough. We have an emergent global civilization, enough technology and sophistication to resolve world poverty, hunger, destitution, and homelessness at a fraction of the cost of the cynical jobs-for-the-boys of the War on Turr, and instead we piss it all up against the wall and congratulate ourselves for being so liberal with our irrigational generosity.
We need a slap in the face, now more than ever. Just as our economic miracle is about to catapult us into poverty, civil unrest, and the danger of yet-another artificially instigated war (to wipe out the old surpluses and generate some REAL demand...), Manuscripts Don't Burn would just like to offer a lone voice, crying out amidst the censorship of cacophony that the modern world has become. In Kafka's The Trial, Josef K happens by "chance" into a cathedral, where a preacher is waiting for him in the pulpit. Josef K approaches, passive-aggressive, "what are you looking at", "I'm doing everything I can". The preacher leans over from the pulpit, his face an appalling picture of horror as though seeing a man walking blindly over a precipice, and cries "WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING?"
Manuscripts Don't Burn would like to offer this post in the same spirit.
The time is overdue for us to realise that all of us in Western Civilization are guilty of a singular failure of imagination. The levels of technology and sophistication we have achieved could - TODAY - be being used to ensure that basic food, shelter, utilities, education, and healthcare for the whole globe should be unconditionally free and a basic human right. To ensure that once these rudimentary basics of life are finally given free, gratis, for granted, we could all get on with the real business of life - personal development, societal improvement, evolving into what we believe we should be, rather than floundering in the muck.
We should be disgusted with ourselves, that instead of embracing this bright new future, we have voluntarily opted to remain in a stagnant late Capitalism where a bunch of cynical criminals are allowed to manipulate our societies with artificial war, conflict, and scarcity, so that all of our wealth- and livelihood-creation is syphoned off into their bottomless fat cat pockets, and the rest of us have to keep buggering about spending all of our pointless days scrabbling around for a roof over our heads and enough food for eat - when in reality there is of course already plenty to go round.
The time is long past for a collective decision that this IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH, and we finally have to pull our fingers out, take responsibility for our civilization, and do something about this absurd situation of self-imprisonment and self-impoverishment in the name of some dodgy outdated ideology.
Our civilization has the power to GET BRAVE AND CREATIVE AGAIN; the strength to say no to crapness and cynicism, to dare to dream to aim for something better.
Sometimes in history we reach turning points, when a brave hand and a willing imagination could take our civilization a quantum leap forward. We had one after the Second World War; the history of the past 30 years have been one of the retrenchment of the old guard to try and tear down those hard-won social and cultural achievements in the name of a divisive inequality. Here we are again; this time, the odds are stacked against us, and the reactionaries have their pockets wide open to receive the last few drops of blood they can squeeze out of us. Hands up who's prepared to keep assuming the position?
Manuscripts Don't Burn doesn't think any of this is anywhere near good enough. We have an emergent global civilization, enough technology and sophistication to resolve world poverty, hunger, destitution, and homelessness at a fraction of the cost of the cynical jobs-for-the-boys of the War on Turr, and instead we piss it all up against the wall and congratulate ourselves for being so liberal with our irrigational generosity.
We need a slap in the face, now more than ever. Just as our economic miracle is about to catapult us into poverty, civil unrest, and the danger of yet-another artificially instigated war (to wipe out the old surpluses and generate some REAL demand...), Manuscripts Don't Burn would just like to offer a lone voice, crying out amidst the censorship of cacophony that the modern world has become. In Kafka's The Trial, Josef K happens by "chance" into a cathedral, where a preacher is waiting for him in the pulpit. Josef K approaches, passive-aggressive, "what are you looking at", "I'm doing everything I can". The preacher leans over from the pulpit, his face an appalling picture of horror as though seeing a man walking blindly over a precipice, and cries "WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING?"
Manuscripts Don't Burn would like to offer this post in the same spirit.
The time is overdue for us to realise that all of us in Western Civilization are guilty of a singular failure of imagination. The levels of technology and sophistication we have achieved could - TODAY - be being used to ensure that basic food, shelter, utilities, education, and healthcare for the whole globe should be unconditionally free and a basic human right. To ensure that once these rudimentary basics of life are finally given free, gratis, for granted, we could all get on with the real business of life - personal development, societal improvement, evolving into what we believe we should be, rather than floundering in the muck.
We should be disgusted with ourselves, that instead of embracing this bright new future, we have voluntarily opted to remain in a stagnant late Capitalism where a bunch of cynical criminals are allowed to manipulate our societies with artificial war, conflict, and scarcity, so that all of our wealth- and livelihood-creation is syphoned off into their bottomless fat cat pockets, and the rest of us have to keep buggering about spending all of our pointless days scrabbling around for a roof over our heads and enough food for eat - when in reality there is of course already plenty to go round.
The time is long past for a collective decision that this IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH, and we finally have to pull our fingers out, take responsibility for our civilization, and do something about this absurd situation of self-imprisonment and self-impoverishment in the name of some dodgy outdated ideology.
Our civilization has the power to GET BRAVE AND CREATIVE AGAIN; the strength to say no to crapness and cynicism, to dare to dream to aim for something better.
Sometimes in history we reach turning points, when a brave hand and a willing imagination could take our civilization a quantum leap forward. We had one after the Second World War; the history of the past 30 years have been one of the retrenchment of the old guard to try and tear down those hard-won social and cultural achievements in the name of a divisive inequality. Here we are again; this time, the odds are stacked against us, and the reactionaries have their pockets wide open to receive the last few drops of blood they can squeeze out of us. Hands up who's prepared to keep assuming the position?
Sunday, 28 December 2008
Our Predictions for 2009...
In the spirit of "New Year Messages", divining from the entrails of the dead economy, and the general prognosticating fever of the end-year period, Manuscripts Don't Burn would like to indulge in a little lighthearted speculation about what the coming twelve months might hold in store for the UK.
In 2009, the media will become almost hysterical about how marvellous it is for everyone to tighten their belts, pull together, and learn to darn our own socks. Words like "tempered in the fires of adversity", "school of hard knocks", and "Dunkirk spirit" will turn most tabloids into soggy repetitive clones.
And all the while the newspapers and tv channels will be desperately trying to distract everyone's attention away from the huge, turd-bomb of an elephant in the room: that the UK is in the throes of economic collapse, and the rich bastards are desperately stuffing their pockets and getting the hell out like rats leaving a sinking ship. Bailouts will proliferate, funnelling public money into private hands at an ever-increasing rate. Banks will repossess willy-nilly, and there will be no recourse other than... another government bailout.
The ship probably won't sink in 2009 - that'll more likely be 2010-11, after a long period of near lawlessness, rationing, food queues, power shortages, utility breakdowns, hunger, disease outbreaks (which will never *actually* be found to be due to the uncollected rubbish piling up in the streets) and civil unrest, which will be dealt with EXTREMELY violently by the police and army and consistently blamed on "anarchists" and "terrorist sympathisers". Thousands of British, students, unemployed, and concerned subjects of her majesty will be locked up without trial during these grim days. Tasers will be used on anyone so much as waving a placard. "I've done nothing wrong so I've nothing to fear" will be exposed as the cowardly sham it is.
Finally, once all the wealth that can be extracted has been extracted and the corporate fascists are safely installed in their heavily-defended tax havens, the EU will be called in to mop up the whole sorry mess. Like with East Germany in the nineties, Europe, despite having suffered its own knocks in the global depression, will shoulder the immense debt burden of putting what's left of England back on its feet again.
The only remaining question will be: will the huge landowners in England, who basically "own" us all anyway, go peacefully, be bribed with new laws which let them keep their millions of tax-free acres behind gated compounds, or have to be strung up before they'll let the rest of us get on with rebuilding the country? That one remains to be seen.
Either way, next year is unpleasant. The year that everything starts to go to hell.
Oh - and "abroad": Israel, Iran, Pakistan, India, China, US... There'll be lots of emotive news programs on Sky TV telling us how we should feel about the citizens of country X getting blown up by country Y - horrified, justified, indignant, or just plain "it's all a long, long way away and doesn't affect me..." Likely we'll all be far too busy to care - same goes for climate change too.
The most terrifying thing about "abroad" will be the out-and-out refusal to engage productively with Russia, which will continue its slide towards aggressive national socialism, bashing everyone over the heads with threats to cut off the gas and eventually the oil. It's an unending irony that, just as following WW1 the victors hammered Germany into the ground rather than rebuilding and extending hands of cooperation, thereby reaping disaster two decades down the line, the international community, led by the nightmare BushCo, saw fit to avenge itself on the fallen giant of the Soviet Union in the 1990s and try to ruin and dismember it, rather than offering the hand of understanding and friendship. Now, once again, just at the moment when we should be really paying attention and engaging diplomatically, we'll leave the Russians to stew as they suffer their own "Consequences of the Wall Street Crash", and similar to Germany in the 1930s, we'll reap the whirlwind as their society lurches to a vengeful right-wing extreme government intent on restoring national pride, whatever the cost.
Historians will wonder how we were all so blind. But we weren't, were we? It's not rocket science. It's just that we didn't *do* anything about it, dithering tomnoddies blustering about bugger-all... The tragedy of humankind is that it is so easily induced to forget...
In 2009, the media will become almost hysterical about how marvellous it is for everyone to tighten their belts, pull together, and learn to darn our own socks. Words like "tempered in the fires of adversity", "school of hard knocks", and "Dunkirk spirit" will turn most tabloids into soggy repetitive clones.
And all the while the newspapers and tv channels will be desperately trying to distract everyone's attention away from the huge, turd-bomb of an elephant in the room: that the UK is in the throes of economic collapse, and the rich bastards are desperately stuffing their pockets and getting the hell out like rats leaving a sinking ship. Bailouts will proliferate, funnelling public money into private hands at an ever-increasing rate. Banks will repossess willy-nilly, and there will be no recourse other than... another government bailout.
The ship probably won't sink in 2009 - that'll more likely be 2010-11, after a long period of near lawlessness, rationing, food queues, power shortages, utility breakdowns, hunger, disease outbreaks (which will never *actually* be found to be due to the uncollected rubbish piling up in the streets) and civil unrest, which will be dealt with EXTREMELY violently by the police and army and consistently blamed on "anarchists" and "terrorist sympathisers". Thousands of British, students, unemployed, and concerned subjects of her majesty will be locked up without trial during these grim days. Tasers will be used on anyone so much as waving a placard. "I've done nothing wrong so I've nothing to fear" will be exposed as the cowardly sham it is.
Finally, once all the wealth that can be extracted has been extracted and the corporate fascists are safely installed in their heavily-defended tax havens, the EU will be called in to mop up the whole sorry mess. Like with East Germany in the nineties, Europe, despite having suffered its own knocks in the global depression, will shoulder the immense debt burden of putting what's left of England back on its feet again.
The only remaining question will be: will the huge landowners in England, who basically "own" us all anyway, go peacefully, be bribed with new laws which let them keep their millions of tax-free acres behind gated compounds, or have to be strung up before they'll let the rest of us get on with rebuilding the country? That one remains to be seen.
Either way, next year is unpleasant. The year that everything starts to go to hell.
Oh - and "abroad": Israel, Iran, Pakistan, India, China, US... There'll be lots of emotive news programs on Sky TV telling us how we should feel about the citizens of country X getting blown up by country Y - horrified, justified, indignant, or just plain "it's all a long, long way away and doesn't affect me..." Likely we'll all be far too busy to care - same goes for climate change too.
The most terrifying thing about "abroad" will be the out-and-out refusal to engage productively with Russia, which will continue its slide towards aggressive national socialism, bashing everyone over the heads with threats to cut off the gas and eventually the oil. It's an unending irony that, just as following WW1 the victors hammered Germany into the ground rather than rebuilding and extending hands of cooperation, thereby reaping disaster two decades down the line, the international community, led by the nightmare BushCo, saw fit to avenge itself on the fallen giant of the Soviet Union in the 1990s and try to ruin and dismember it, rather than offering the hand of understanding and friendship. Now, once again, just at the moment when we should be really paying attention and engaging diplomatically, we'll leave the Russians to stew as they suffer their own "Consequences of the Wall Street Crash", and similar to Germany in the 1930s, we'll reap the whirlwind as their society lurches to a vengeful right-wing extreme government intent on restoring national pride, whatever the cost.
Historians will wonder how we were all so blind. But we weren't, were we? It's not rocket science. It's just that we didn't *do* anything about it, dithering tomnoddies blustering about bugger-all... The tragedy of humankind is that it is so easily induced to forget...
Tuesday, 16 December 2008
Thanks to GolemXIV on the next wave of the crash...
Manuscripts Don't Burn hasn't posted here lately, as you'll doubtless be aware - but we'd like to post a copy of a fellow blogger, GolemXIV, from the Guardian website today. Thanks, GolemXIV!
"The point is there is nothing of any consequence the gov or the BoE can do about deflation. The deflationary forces are just too amssive.
Just take a look at the next wave appraoching the beach.
Next year, 09, we get the first spike of the next TWO classes of american mortgages to start defaulting. Sub-prime is almost all through by early 09 but Alt-A and the even more toxic Option ARMs will start to make the headlines.
Nearly 4 Million small businesses in the US have Alt-A and of them 1.2 Million are ALREADY 60 day delinquent. As for the ARMs you really don't want to even look.
For those who don't know ARMs are mortgages where for an introductory period you can CHOOSE how much to pay or not pay all the way down to pay nothing. WHat you don't pay gets added on to your mortgage up to 125% of the loan. Then this new HUGE amount gets put on to a MUCH higher rate.
The market expects massive default rates.
This will mean even more massive write downs. This is part of why the banks have been hoarding all the cash we gave them.
So cutting a percentage point or two or messing about with a couple of VAT points really is about as impressive as getting your todger out, thinking you'll piss on that forest fire inferno and show it who's boss."
Manuscripts Don't Burn has been reading GolemXIV's comments attentively throughout this historical crisis. So far, he's been spot on every time. Interesting times...
"The point is there is nothing of any consequence the gov or the BoE can do about deflation. The deflationary forces are just too amssive.
Just take a look at the next wave appraoching the beach.
Next year, 09, we get the first spike of the next TWO classes of american mortgages to start defaulting. Sub-prime is almost all through by early 09 but Alt-A and the even more toxic Option ARMs will start to make the headlines.
Nearly 4 Million small businesses in the US have Alt-A and of them 1.2 Million are ALREADY 60 day delinquent. As for the ARMs you really don't want to even look.
For those who don't know ARMs are mortgages where for an introductory period you can CHOOSE how much to pay or not pay all the way down to pay nothing. WHat you don't pay gets added on to your mortgage up to 125% of the loan. Then this new HUGE amount gets put on to a MUCH higher rate.
The market expects massive default rates.
This will mean even more massive write downs. This is part of why the banks have been hoarding all the cash we gave them.
So cutting a percentage point or two or messing about with a couple of VAT points really is about as impressive as getting your todger out, thinking you'll piss on that forest fire inferno and show it who's boss."
Manuscripts Don't Burn has been reading GolemXIV's comments attentively throughout this historical crisis. So far, he's been spot on every time. Interesting times...
Wednesday, 5 November 2008
US Elections: Dare we even hope...?
Manuscripts Don't Burn is going to shed its customary cynicism and world-weariness today. The times are too few when one can do so legitimately, and it would be wrong not to take this rare chance to talk about something which has become a very rare commodity in our political lives today. Hope.
Now, after the election, is the most difficult time. After 8 years of cynicism, we have the tiniest chance to dare to hope again.
Is Obama for real? Or is he just another puppet for the corporate feudalists? Will he let us down like the New Labor victory of Tony Blair in 1997 let the people of the UK down? They promised us a new age - and delivered a New World Order. It is no surprise we find it hard to dare to believe...
Will the neocons even let Obama serve? After JFK, RFK, Martin Luther King, after 911, Guantanamo, Abu-Ghraib, is it any wonder why we look for snipers in the shadows, grassy knolls, false flags? There are 11 weeks still to go before the inauguration... a lot can still happen. We are still holding our breaths.
To have hope back after so many years of cynical Machiavellian hopelessness and neocon PNAC warmongering, exploitation, and trashing of human rights and the constitution, is almost too much to bear.
But there you have it - hope is back on the agenda.
For once, Manuscripts Don't Burn will not stoop to pouring cynicism and scorn on this historic day. We will give him a chance. Over to you, Mr. President...
Now, after the election, is the most difficult time. After 8 years of cynicism, we have the tiniest chance to dare to hope again.
Is Obama for real? Or is he just another puppet for the corporate feudalists? Will he let us down like the New Labor victory of Tony Blair in 1997 let the people of the UK down? They promised us a new age - and delivered a New World Order. It is no surprise we find it hard to dare to believe...
Will the neocons even let Obama serve? After JFK, RFK, Martin Luther King, after 911, Guantanamo, Abu-Ghraib, is it any wonder why we look for snipers in the shadows, grassy knolls, false flags? There are 11 weeks still to go before the inauguration... a lot can still happen. We are still holding our breaths.
To have hope back after so many years of cynical Machiavellian hopelessness and neocon PNAC warmongering, exploitation, and trashing of human rights and the constitution, is almost too much to bear.
But there you have it - hope is back on the agenda.
For once, Manuscripts Don't Burn will not stoop to pouring cynicism and scorn on this historic day. We will give him a chance. Over to you, Mr. President...
Thursday, 23 October 2008
Growth Junkies: Why we are here in the first place
Manuscripts Don't Burn continues to pillage the Guardian website today as extremely sound analysis of the financial meltdown develops. Next, blogger SocialistMike, furthering GolemXIV's analysis of the CDO tsunami with an analysis of the relentless capitalist drive for growth - what got us into this insane situation in the first place.
SocialistMike:
"Golem is right about the CDS nightmare hanging over the financial system, but doesn't touch on why we are in the crisis.
"It is because of over-production of commodities and a resulting over-extension of commercial activity and credit. Profits are great in the upturn and it is all reinvested in more machines, more warehouses and transport, more commodities and yet more profit. Soon markets become saturated as the workers producing the goods, whose wages have been held down to boost profits (trickle down etc), can no longer afford to buy what they produce and have to turn to credit, supplied by the very same growing profits of production and retail.
"We have a circuit of capital: investment, consumption, profit, reinvestment. The more profit the more loan capital is available for more credit, both to producers, distributors and consumers. The more loan capital is available the harder it is to find profit from actual production so speculation in credit and future profits starts, based on the loans that producers give to sellers, that sellers give to consumers, on what commodities and assets are expected to return in the future, etc etc. Paper money (meaning bonds, shares, futures, commercial paper etc) comes to replace and equal real money in tradeable value producing more 'profits' that need to be reinvested but with nowhere to go except back into ever higher levels of abstracted speculation in paper. But suddenly the cracks in reality can no longer be covered up. There is a dawning realisation that most of this credit will not be paid back, that it alone is supporting the whole of production and comsumption. Panic ensues.
"Crises are always caused by the same thing - an unequal distribution of the proceeds leads to over production relative to consumption as each capitalist and investor seeks the hightest profit for themselves in a reducing sphere of opportunity.
"Capitalism forces all of us - bosses and workers - to dance to its tune. There is no choice for a capitalist in an upturn - they must competitively reinvest for greater profit or be eaten alive thereby bringing on the crisis - or a downturn - their capital is tied up in unsold commodities and credit is suddenly unavailable from the banks so there are firesales and firings, cutbacks and economies all contibuting furhter to the crisis.
"They must act as a herd; there is no room for reason and objectivity at any stage of the capitalist process of production for any of those involved in it, which is everyone."
*****
Manuscripts Don't Burn has constantly argued against our society being structured for the benefit of the economy (as a mathematical construct) rather than for the benefit of its members - which invariably leads to the nonsense we see today. As Gandhi famously said, what's so great about growth anyway? Growth is the mantra of late Imperialist capitalism, and it needs to be exposed for the hollow, inhuman dogma it is. In its drive for ever greater "efficiency", more and more people are laid off, fewer people are asked to do more work, prices are cut, and eventually no one can afford the goods they are producing. Hey presto - 2008, and people are buying their food on credit cards.
Manuscripts Don't Burn notes the increasing howls of anger and outrage from around the world as the powers that be stuff their pockets and jump the sinking ship whilst the rest of us are left to drown. We also note the increasing polarization into extreme left and extreme right in public opinion - so wearyingly familiar. Dumbing down the education system so that no one knows their history may make people easier to control, but it does mean we just keep on making the same old mistakes.
Manuscripts Don't Burn can see no option other than a re-creation of the labor movement, with all the government oppression, thuggery, and violence that entails. The labor movement and union power was not created because it was "just", "right" or "cool" - it was created because people were starving and the rich-sponsored police clubbed down anyone who complained. Tony Benn once lauded our system for being able to change government without there being blood on the streets: Manuscripts Don't Burn fears those days are over, and agitation and mobilization is the only way out. Every now and then it behoves a generation to fight for the lives of those still to come; Manuscripts Don't Burn had hoped to get through without it happening to us. Sadly, it doesn't look like that's going to happen.
SocialistMike:
"Golem is right about the CDS nightmare hanging over the financial system, but doesn't touch on why we are in the crisis.
"It is because of over-production of commodities and a resulting over-extension of commercial activity and credit. Profits are great in the upturn and it is all reinvested in more machines, more warehouses and transport, more commodities and yet more profit. Soon markets become saturated as the workers producing the goods, whose wages have been held down to boost profits (trickle down etc), can no longer afford to buy what they produce and have to turn to credit, supplied by the very same growing profits of production and retail.
"We have a circuit of capital: investment, consumption, profit, reinvestment. The more profit the more loan capital is available for more credit, both to producers, distributors and consumers. The more loan capital is available the harder it is to find profit from actual production so speculation in credit and future profits starts, based on the loans that producers give to sellers, that sellers give to consumers, on what commodities and assets are expected to return in the future, etc etc. Paper money (meaning bonds, shares, futures, commercial paper etc) comes to replace and equal real money in tradeable value producing more 'profits' that need to be reinvested but with nowhere to go except back into ever higher levels of abstracted speculation in paper. But suddenly the cracks in reality can no longer be covered up. There is a dawning realisation that most of this credit will not be paid back, that it alone is supporting the whole of production and comsumption. Panic ensues.
"Crises are always caused by the same thing - an unequal distribution of the proceeds leads to over production relative to consumption as each capitalist and investor seeks the hightest profit for themselves in a reducing sphere of opportunity.
"Capitalism forces all of us - bosses and workers - to dance to its tune. There is no choice for a capitalist in an upturn - they must competitively reinvest for greater profit or be eaten alive thereby bringing on the crisis - or a downturn - their capital is tied up in unsold commodities and credit is suddenly unavailable from the banks so there are firesales and firings, cutbacks and economies all contibuting furhter to the crisis.
"They must act as a herd; there is no room for reason and objectivity at any stage of the capitalist process of production for any of those involved in it, which is everyone."
*****
Manuscripts Don't Burn has constantly argued against our society being structured for the benefit of the economy (as a mathematical construct) rather than for the benefit of its members - which invariably leads to the nonsense we see today. As Gandhi famously said, what's so great about growth anyway? Growth is the mantra of late Imperialist capitalism, and it needs to be exposed for the hollow, inhuman dogma it is. In its drive for ever greater "efficiency", more and more people are laid off, fewer people are asked to do more work, prices are cut, and eventually no one can afford the goods they are producing. Hey presto - 2008, and people are buying their food on credit cards.
Manuscripts Don't Burn notes the increasing howls of anger and outrage from around the world as the powers that be stuff their pockets and jump the sinking ship whilst the rest of us are left to drown. We also note the increasing polarization into extreme left and extreme right in public opinion - so wearyingly familiar. Dumbing down the education system so that no one knows their history may make people easier to control, but it does mean we just keep on making the same old mistakes.
Manuscripts Don't Burn can see no option other than a re-creation of the labor movement, with all the government oppression, thuggery, and violence that entails. The labor movement and union power was not created because it was "just", "right" or "cool" - it was created because people were starving and the rich-sponsored police clubbed down anyone who complained. Tony Benn once lauded our system for being able to change government without there being blood on the streets: Manuscripts Don't Burn fears those days are over, and agitation and mobilization is the only way out. Every now and then it behoves a generation to fight for the lives of those still to come; Manuscripts Don't Burn had hoped to get through without it happening to us. Sadly, it doesn't look like that's going to happen.
Wednesday, 22 October 2008
Welcome to the Revolution...
Today our societies suffer from a massive disconnect between the world we *think* we live in, and the world we actually live in. Thanks to the propaganda fed to us every day of our lives, we think we live in a "modern" world of democracy, freedom of speech, and individual liberty. In actual fact we live in a world which is barely post-feudal, encumbered by Imperialist caste systems and hierarchies, and switching over from late Imperialism to proto-fascism (call it "corporate feudalism" if you will) during our lifetimes. Note the distinct lack of words like "freedom" and "democracy" in the above.
Marketing and window-dressing is all - the virtuosity of spin. Even in the Middle Ages, when people were chopping one another up on the flimsiest of pretexts and with alarming alacrity, the prevailing dogma was a Candidean "all for the best in the best of all possible worlds", that the state was structured "as God ordained it", and that the world was one of universal brotherhood and love. When of course nothing could be further than the truth. It should give all of us pause when we blather on about freedom and democracy - the West is a loose mercantile coalition of one party states masquerading as two party states. The reason the US elections pretty much fall 50/50 each time is because people vote pretty much randomly - there are no real issues to distinguish them. "What color chains do you want today?"
To paraphrase Orwell, revolution never comes from the "proles". Western history documents several so-called revolutions - English in the 17th century, American and French in the 18th century, a close call Europe-wide in 1848, the Russian in 1905-17, Chinese in 1949, etc, etc. In none of these were the leaders from the working class; quite the opposite, they were from the disgruntled mercantile classes, looking to remove the glass-ceilings of inherited privilege. And they worked - but only by recruiting the proles to their side by LOTS of egalitarian-sounding marketing.
We are facing a similar Revolution today. Twenty years ago the Cold War began to crumble. Since then, the old guard have struggled to stay in power - finding us a new Bogey Man (in a beard and turban this time) to drum up population-controlling fear, and desperately trying to keep the old oppositional us-and-them confrontation going to feed the military-industrial complex which drove 20th century history from start to finish. With the most Orwellian of irony, the old world order even tried to sell itself to us as the New World Order. Some people bought it; someone always does.
But there is a bunch of mitteltier rebels out there trying to break the NWO glass ceiling; and it's the merchants, again. There are resources *everywhere* available for exploitation today, and the corporate feudalists want to *get at them*! In every Western country over the past decade we've seen corporate interests and government interests gradually become the same - actually the definition of fascism - but in clear opposition (most of the time) to the OWO/NWO.
Hence today's Revolution. The OWO/NWO is collapsing under the weight of its own inertia; in its place, a much more agile corporacy, perhaps not quite global yet, but heading in that direction. As with most Revolutions, its going to be disturbing to the peace of all of us for a while, but, uniquely, perhaps, this time, our New Masters, the corporate feudalists, would like to keep us Consuming and Producing just as before - it's simply the agenda that's changed. There's been a coup d'etat in the West.
Tragically, the rest of us are left blinking in the rubble, clutching our smoke-and-mirrors dreams of a free modern world of liberty and fraternity in tatters to our chests. To quote Starship Troopers (!), the only freedom any of us ever really have is figuring things out for ourselves. Bitter comfort, when you may be losing your house and savings to "historical necessity".
The trouble with Marx is that Lenin gave us the idea we could shortcut the historical dialectic, somehow jumping from "post-feudal late Imperialism" to "socialism-building-communism" in one fell swoop, hurdling possibly centuries of social development in a single bound. The aftermath of the Russian revolution gave the lie to Leninism. But Marx is still in there - we inch one step forwards, as capitalism comes face-to-face with its own contradictions when placed on a global stage. Now we get to post-capitalism - a kind of managed version of what we had, with hopefully some greater social controls. But, dang, is this social progress thing ever a slow business...
HG Wells in "The Shape of Things to Come" predicted total economic collapse and a century of rigorous self re-education before our society could reach some form of sensible organization. Here at Manuscripts Don't Burn we think that's optimistic; last week the US spent TEN TIMES the sum it would take to deal with global hunger on a "bailout" of its banking system, so we have a way to go yet before the era of universal brotherhood dawns.
Perhaps this is the eternal paradox of the intellectual. The world *could* be a paradise, if only people were... well, different... not like they are... weren't people, basically... if only they were more like us here at Manuscripts Don't Burn... oh, bother... ;-)
In this hinterland of history at the tale end of the Middle Ages, we can offer only this advice, from a dear friend who happens to run a Swiss bank investment company in the City in London: Keep it local. Show, don't tell. Create functioning communities and networks *where you are*. Sidestep the corporacy and create your own alternative system. Rebel in small things; don't watch advertising; don't follow the demands of the herd to be "alternative" in acceptable ways. Keep smiling, and crack targeted jokes. Never just mumble and let another overt oppression take place.
As the ex-mayor of London said, if voting changed anything, they'd abolish it.
Cause for hope or despondency? Manuscripts Don't Burn votes for Hope - at the price of eternal vigilance. Our civilization has a long way to go yet before it reaches the place our propaganda tells us it's already at. But that's no reason not to keep heading in that direction. It *is* the right direction.
Marketing and window-dressing is all - the virtuosity of spin. Even in the Middle Ages, when people were chopping one another up on the flimsiest of pretexts and with alarming alacrity, the prevailing dogma was a Candidean "all for the best in the best of all possible worlds", that the state was structured "as God ordained it", and that the world was one of universal brotherhood and love. When of course nothing could be further than the truth. It should give all of us pause when we blather on about freedom and democracy - the West is a loose mercantile coalition of one party states masquerading as two party states. The reason the US elections pretty much fall 50/50 each time is because people vote pretty much randomly - there are no real issues to distinguish them. "What color chains do you want today?"
To paraphrase Orwell, revolution never comes from the "proles". Western history documents several so-called revolutions - English in the 17th century, American and French in the 18th century, a close call Europe-wide in 1848, the Russian in 1905-17, Chinese in 1949, etc, etc. In none of these were the leaders from the working class; quite the opposite, they were from the disgruntled mercantile classes, looking to remove the glass-ceilings of inherited privilege. And they worked - but only by recruiting the proles to their side by LOTS of egalitarian-sounding marketing.
We are facing a similar Revolution today. Twenty years ago the Cold War began to crumble. Since then, the old guard have struggled to stay in power - finding us a new Bogey Man (in a beard and turban this time) to drum up population-controlling fear, and desperately trying to keep the old oppositional us-and-them confrontation going to feed the military-industrial complex which drove 20th century history from start to finish. With the most Orwellian of irony, the old world order even tried to sell itself to us as the New World Order. Some people bought it; someone always does.
But there is a bunch of mitteltier rebels out there trying to break the NWO glass ceiling; and it's the merchants, again. There are resources *everywhere* available for exploitation today, and the corporate feudalists want to *get at them*! In every Western country over the past decade we've seen corporate interests and government interests gradually become the same - actually the definition of fascism - but in clear opposition (most of the time) to the OWO/NWO.
Hence today's Revolution. The OWO/NWO is collapsing under the weight of its own inertia; in its place, a much more agile corporacy, perhaps not quite global yet, but heading in that direction. As with most Revolutions, its going to be disturbing to the peace of all of us for a while, but, uniquely, perhaps, this time, our New Masters, the corporate feudalists, would like to keep us Consuming and Producing just as before - it's simply the agenda that's changed. There's been a coup d'etat in the West.
Tragically, the rest of us are left blinking in the rubble, clutching our smoke-and-mirrors dreams of a free modern world of liberty and fraternity in tatters to our chests. To quote Starship Troopers (!), the only freedom any of us ever really have is figuring things out for ourselves. Bitter comfort, when you may be losing your house and savings to "historical necessity".
The trouble with Marx is that Lenin gave us the idea we could shortcut the historical dialectic, somehow jumping from "post-feudal late Imperialism" to "socialism-building-communism" in one fell swoop, hurdling possibly centuries of social development in a single bound. The aftermath of the Russian revolution gave the lie to Leninism. But Marx is still in there - we inch one step forwards, as capitalism comes face-to-face with its own contradictions when placed on a global stage. Now we get to post-capitalism - a kind of managed version of what we had, with hopefully some greater social controls. But, dang, is this social progress thing ever a slow business...
HG Wells in "The Shape of Things to Come" predicted total economic collapse and a century of rigorous self re-education before our society could reach some form of sensible organization. Here at Manuscripts Don't Burn we think that's optimistic; last week the US spent TEN TIMES the sum it would take to deal with global hunger on a "bailout" of its banking system, so we have a way to go yet before the era of universal brotherhood dawns.
Perhaps this is the eternal paradox of the intellectual. The world *could* be a paradise, if only people were... well, different... not like they are... weren't people, basically... if only they were more like us here at Manuscripts Don't Burn... oh, bother... ;-)
In this hinterland of history at the tale end of the Middle Ages, we can offer only this advice, from a dear friend who happens to run a Swiss bank investment company in the City in London: Keep it local. Show, don't tell. Create functioning communities and networks *where you are*. Sidestep the corporacy and create your own alternative system. Rebel in small things; don't watch advertising; don't follow the demands of the herd to be "alternative" in acceptable ways. Keep smiling, and crack targeted jokes. Never just mumble and let another overt oppression take place.
As the ex-mayor of London said, if voting changed anything, they'd abolish it.
Cause for hope or despondency? Manuscripts Don't Burn votes for Hope - at the price of eternal vigilance. Our civilization has a long way to go yet before it reaches the place our propaganda tells us it's already at. But that's no reason not to keep heading in that direction. It *is* the right direction.
Wednesday, 28 May 2008
The Strip-tease of the Search for Life on Mars
The search for life on Mars has become such a drawn-out and elaborate strip-tease that many of us are forced to conclude that NASA (etc) are already sure they've found it, and are simply preparing the ground socially for the announcement. Now, even the Pope is pretty sanguine about ET, and has said it all fits into God's great plan, which should sort out the concern of a large chunk of the global population.
30 years ago, an announcement of alien life might have had unpredictable social consequences. Now, Manuscripts Don't Burn is pretty sure most Brits would barely register the news, as long as sports and soap opera broadcasts weren't interrupted.
The sad fact is that science is still a minority patronage game for governments, much as it has ever been, and has to scrabble for the leavings from the budgetary table. No matter how excited science enthusiasts may get, most people are just not bothered, and will simply parrot a number of socially-acceptable cliches to cover their lack of interest (to whit, the BBC HYS entries).
The end result is a painfully slow pace of research, and an equally slow uptake by the social consciousness, ideally with minimal social upheaval. Only the rapid spread of the internet has got out of control from this perspective - and now the world's governments are trying, with clumsy threats and propaganda, to persuade the world's people to agree to put the genie back in the bottle.
Manuscripts Don't Burn for one would be absolutely delighted to see yet more evidence of life on Mars. However, we are pretty much convinced it's already Out There, and lots of it, so it would just confirm what we already think...
The simple truth is that exploratory entrepreneurialism is not the traditional forte of governments. What we really need is a Bill Gates or Richard Branson to get on board and kick ass - we already have the know-how to be out there in the solar system right now, with bases all over the place and plenty of resource exploitation to pay for it.
Tho, with the obsessive secrecy of our governments, Manuscripts Don't Burn wouldn't be surprised if we were already doing it...
30 years ago, an announcement of alien life might have had unpredictable social consequences. Now, Manuscripts Don't Burn is pretty sure most Brits would barely register the news, as long as sports and soap opera broadcasts weren't interrupted.
The sad fact is that science is still a minority patronage game for governments, much as it has ever been, and has to scrabble for the leavings from the budgetary table. No matter how excited science enthusiasts may get, most people are just not bothered, and will simply parrot a number of socially-acceptable cliches to cover their lack of interest (to whit, the BBC HYS entries).
The end result is a painfully slow pace of research, and an equally slow uptake by the social consciousness, ideally with minimal social upheaval. Only the rapid spread of the internet has got out of control from this perspective - and now the world's governments are trying, with clumsy threats and propaganda, to persuade the world's people to agree to put the genie back in the bottle.
Manuscripts Don't Burn for one would be absolutely delighted to see yet more evidence of life on Mars. However, we are pretty much convinced it's already Out There, and lots of it, so it would just confirm what we already think...
The simple truth is that exploratory entrepreneurialism is not the traditional forte of governments. What we really need is a Bill Gates or Richard Branson to get on board and kick ass - we already have the know-how to be out there in the solar system right now, with bases all over the place and plenty of resource exploitation to pay for it.
Tho, with the obsessive secrecy of our governments, Manuscripts Don't Burn wouldn't be surprised if we were already doing it...
Sunday, 16 March 2008
Jim Rogers on CNBC: Abolish the Federal Reserve and Stop "Socialism for the Rich"
Interesting times bring strange bedfellows: Manuscripts Don't Burn today finds itself standing in solidarity next to straight-talking arch-capitalist Jim Rogers as he unequivocally condemns the appallingly corrupt bailout of Wall Street at the expense of the rest of us. It's clear now that the enormous capital transfer into the hands of the rich and the corporate is damaging the global economy and screwing up life for the rest of us for at least the coming decade, and we need top figures like Jim Rogers to point out the blindingly obvious - the Wall Street bailouts are not capitalism. Capitalism would let the investment banks go bankrupt, would let the recession in as the inevitable part of the economic cycle. The enormous Federal Bank bailouts we are seeing now simply postpone the recession, and exacerbate its intensity, and look like a mad scramble to bailout the rich and the incompetent with money which could otherwise be used to better effect before the shit finally hits the fan.
Strange bedfellows indeed. Manuscripts Don't Burn finds itself agreeing with Jim Rogers: abolish the Fed. Bernanke resign. Let these incompetent parasites go bankrupt. Clear out the dead wood and start with something more responsible - if these guys believe they are capitalists, then let the market deal with them. For the rest of us - the long-suffering public - give us some public banks who we can trust to look after our money.
No to corporate feudalism. No to socialism for the rich.
Sunday, 30 December 2007
Morality without Transcendent Authority? We don't think so...
This morning's Guardian is having a bit of a Sixth Form moment, and is unfortunately busy tying itself up in semantic knots trying to oppose Dawkins' latest populist ramblings against the world great thinkers in the field of morality with that tired old A-level question, "Is it possible to be moral without God?" Jeez...
As ever, this argument quickly gets bogged down in semantics.
Let's cut to the chase, and drop all references to "religion", they're just too loaded with obfuscating clutter to make this discussion workable. What we're talking about here is whether human moral codes require an appeal to some transcendent authority to function effectively, and Manuscripts Don't Burn for one believes absolutely that they do.
It doesn't matter whether that transcendent authority is "religious" (ie supernatural) or not: the point is that it is superindividual. Essentially it equates to "ideology". Whether one appeals to "God", or "the State", or "human nature", or "the ideal society", "the world we want to live in", "justice", "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness", whatever; the fact is simply that in order to have a functioning (ie shared) moral code you have to appeal to something other than a bunch of rough precepts grasped at by the individual. Indeed, it is precisely because they are superindividual that individuals have to take their tenets "on faith", as it were, and subordinate themselves to what is perceived to be the "greater good", "will of the people", etc. Fundamentally, this act of subordination involves the same act of faith whether it's a religious ideology or not.
The fact that Dawkins, a populist zoologist with a line in provocative aphorisms, sets himself up against Dostoevsky, Nietzsche, Sartre, Derrida, not to mention the enormous host of religious writers who've put pen to paper on this subject, should give us pause. The man's clutching at straws in a world where all the evidence points to a blindingly obvious answer.
The nearest ideology we've got to a Dawkins' form of moral authority is capitalism; indeed, after due deliberation and increasing suspicion extending back several years, Manuscripts Don't Burn is now beginning to suspect that the Good Mr. Dawkins is in fact little more than an apologist for a system which is condemning most of the population of the planet to poverty, rather than an innovative moral thinker he'd like to present himself as. Time and again his allegedly profound thinking comes up with the conclusion that we're pretty much doing what we should be doing right now, which, given the state of the world, should give us all pause. In the final analysis, Dawkins' thinking is just as relative as anyone else starting from his basic premises - and it is that weakness in his argumentation that bears the seeds of its own destruction.
As ever, this argument quickly gets bogged down in semantics.
Let's cut to the chase, and drop all references to "religion", they're just too loaded with obfuscating clutter to make this discussion workable. What we're talking about here is whether human moral codes require an appeal to some transcendent authority to function effectively, and Manuscripts Don't Burn for one believes absolutely that they do.
It doesn't matter whether that transcendent authority is "religious" (ie supernatural) or not: the point is that it is superindividual. Essentially it equates to "ideology". Whether one appeals to "God", or "the State", or "human nature", or "the ideal society", "the world we want to live in", "justice", "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness", whatever; the fact is simply that in order to have a functioning (ie shared) moral code you have to appeal to something other than a bunch of rough precepts grasped at by the individual. Indeed, it is precisely because they are superindividual that individuals have to take their tenets "on faith", as it were, and subordinate themselves to what is perceived to be the "greater good", "will of the people", etc. Fundamentally, this act of subordination involves the same act of faith whether it's a religious ideology or not.
The fact that Dawkins, a populist zoologist with a line in provocative aphorisms, sets himself up against Dostoevsky, Nietzsche, Sartre, Derrida, not to mention the enormous host of religious writers who've put pen to paper on this subject, should give us pause. The man's clutching at straws in a world where all the evidence points to a blindingly obvious answer.
The nearest ideology we've got to a Dawkins' form of moral authority is capitalism; indeed, after due deliberation and increasing suspicion extending back several years, Manuscripts Don't Burn is now beginning to suspect that the Good Mr. Dawkins is in fact little more than an apologist for a system which is condemning most of the population of the planet to poverty, rather than an innovative moral thinker he'd like to present himself as. Time and again his allegedly profound thinking comes up with the conclusion that we're pretty much doing what we should be doing right now, which, given the state of the world, should give us all pause. In the final analysis, Dawkins' thinking is just as relative as anyone else starting from his basic premises - and it is that weakness in his argumentation that bears the seeds of its own destruction.
Friday, 14 December 2007
The Rise Of Corporate Feudalism - Part 1
The world was so simple during the Cold War. We had a paradigm which no one doubted – Western capitalism had created a false and yet easy to understand dialectic between itself on the one hand, and an invented enemy on the other – the Soviet Union. Our ideology, our political structures, our military strategy, and our economy were all based on this assumed opposition – and for over forty years it provided us with a stable and peaceful basis on which to build our society. Never mind that it was a lie – most ideologies are; the fact is, it worked, it provided a concrete philosophy for many millions to live by, and it created jobs, and power. So much power.
The end of the Cold War was a shock to the people wielding that power. Sure, the goal of our Western ideology had been to bring down the Evil Empire of the Soviets, but it was dogma more than strategy; no one believed that it would happen, and certainly not with the speed it did. All the people in power, the economic structures and systems of production and consumption of the tools of war – the arms manufacturers and dealers - which depended absolutely on the perpetuation of this false, ideological dichotomy for their survival, were suddenly struck with fear that their very reason for existence was crumbling about them. They needed to preserve their painstakingly built status quo; they needed to maintain the fiction of their invented enemy. Without it, the future was unclear, unstable, a thing of chaos and unpredictability.
Viewed in hindsight, it’s hard not to feel some sympathy with their plight. They had a system which worked – never mind the fact that it was based on a lie. To step beyond that system required a courage and a capacity for dealing with uncertainty and change which was simply beyond them. They set about finding a new Great Enemy, a new target for their ideology of Fear and Loathing, with a vengeance. Within months of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, American and British forces were in Iraq, and a new enemy was being sold to us.
None of this should have been a surprise to us. The First World War was pretty much a gambit organised by the big arms manufacturers; the “straight-line” mapmakers who drew up the new borders of Africa and the Middle East likewise were careful to build in the seeds of conflict and disaffection with every border they drew, separating family from family, splitting nations down the middle, throwing warring communities together. It was a cynical game, but there was no time for subtlety.
So how have we been sold the New Enemy? How on earth is the tired old Cold War paradigm still alive and well today, with the same hackneyed clichés wheeled out to describe completely different realities with the same alarmingly sloppy brush strokes. How did we swallow this? Could it actually be that we no longer care? After the Cold War, a window of opportunity existed to settle upon a new paradigm for a real New World Order, and we missed it. Perhaps there is still time – but now, as we stand on the brink of social upheavals caused by climate change and economic collapse, it seems likely we no longer have the stomach for brave and responsible choices. How has it come to this?
The end of the Cold War was a shock to the people wielding that power. Sure, the goal of our Western ideology had been to bring down the Evil Empire of the Soviets, but it was dogma more than strategy; no one believed that it would happen, and certainly not with the speed it did. All the people in power, the economic structures and systems of production and consumption of the tools of war – the arms manufacturers and dealers - which depended absolutely on the perpetuation of this false, ideological dichotomy for their survival, were suddenly struck with fear that their very reason for existence was crumbling about them. They needed to preserve their painstakingly built status quo; they needed to maintain the fiction of their invented enemy. Without it, the future was unclear, unstable, a thing of chaos and unpredictability.
Viewed in hindsight, it’s hard not to feel some sympathy with their plight. They had a system which worked – never mind the fact that it was based on a lie. To step beyond that system required a courage and a capacity for dealing with uncertainty and change which was simply beyond them. They set about finding a new Great Enemy, a new target for their ideology of Fear and Loathing, with a vengeance. Within months of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, American and British forces were in Iraq, and a new enemy was being sold to us.
None of this should have been a surprise to us. The First World War was pretty much a gambit organised by the big arms manufacturers; the “straight-line” mapmakers who drew up the new borders of Africa and the Middle East likewise were careful to build in the seeds of conflict and disaffection with every border they drew, separating family from family, splitting nations down the middle, throwing warring communities together. It was a cynical game, but there was no time for subtlety.
So how have we been sold the New Enemy? How on earth is the tired old Cold War paradigm still alive and well today, with the same hackneyed clichés wheeled out to describe completely different realities with the same alarmingly sloppy brush strokes. How did we swallow this? Could it actually be that we no longer care? After the Cold War, a window of opportunity existed to settle upon a new paradigm for a real New World Order, and we missed it. Perhaps there is still time – but now, as we stand on the brink of social upheavals caused by climate change and economic collapse, it seems likely we no longer have the stomach for brave and responsible choices. How has it come to this?
Friday, 7 December 2007
Global Warming - Go To Sleep Everyone...
Does anyone else have the feeling we're just fiddling as Rome burns?
It's already too late, guys. Those of us debating here on CiF are the tiny, tiny minority of the planetary population who even think this thing is worth talking about. Most people don't give a damn - and half of those that do are so damn terrified they just stick their fingers in their ears and sing LA-LA-LA over and over again.
There is no "solution" which we have an earthly chance of getting in place in time. We can talk about them, but it's all just hot air (pun not intended), and the climate will continue to change as it already is. Food prices are already rocketing in this part of the world from the dismal harvest this year, caused by no winter, no summer, and now - 7 months of almost constant rain and counting. It's 15 degrees C in the middle of winter, the fields are full of weeds and the bugs ain't dying...
Governments are already in crisis management. The other day here in France the national TV station's weather report said the half year rain was great for the planet cos we need loads of water, and we shouldn't worry about the unseasonably warm temperatures cos it means we don't have to use our heating as much - and that is good for the planet. You have to grin - it keeps everybody's spirits up.
The simple fact is, if things continue the global climate is going to change in completely unpredictable ways. It's no good saying "hey, I live in Europe / North America / whatever so it's just going to get warmer / wetter / nicer and I'll be fine". No one knows how individual areas will be affected - it's effectively a complete lottery. The atlantic conveyor could shut down and Europe freeze; rain and sea level rises could turn your home into a swamp; drought and warming could make your country into a desert. We're just going to have to wait and see.
The one thing that appears certain is that we're heading for a period of tremendous uncertainty. That means instability. Which means violence, whether in the form of hugely restrictied civil liberties as governments struggle to cope with famine, disease, flood, whatever; or violence in the form of forced migrations, invasions, wars, the usual shebang.
Eventually, when things settled down again, and millions or billions of people have died, the human race will find those parts of the planet which are conducive to our survival. Who knows where they will be... could be more or less anywhere.
The main problem with all these shenanigans is the speed at which they're going to happen. They've already started, although we in the West have been largely insulated from them in our cosseted free speech zones, up till now at least. And they're going to get significantly worse in our lifetimes. On the plus side, as the effects of climate change kick in, it's likely to impact our ability to cause continued damage - cities will be flooded, countries will dry out or depopulate, populations will die - and our "carbon footprint" will dwindle quite nicely.
On a mathematical level, it's all very neat, really. Things will balance out. It's the human story behind the narrative where it's going to be shocking. At some point, this rather unpredictable game of Russian Roulette is going to require we all put the gun to our heads and see if we win or lose - the best we can do is to keep as aware and adaptable as possible to avoid being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Of course I could be talking bollocks. I really hope I am, actually, but having read the evidence, looked around me, and studied human history and our traditional response to large-scale problems, I'm not hopeful. The best response right now is to join the chorus of head-in-the-sand naysayers and scream "it's never gonna happen..."
Who knows, if we all shout loud enough, maybe whatever God is up there will take notice and have mercy... You never know...
Now where did I put that violin? ;-)
It's already too late, guys. Those of us debating here on CiF are the tiny, tiny minority of the planetary population who even think this thing is worth talking about. Most people don't give a damn - and half of those that do are so damn terrified they just stick their fingers in their ears and sing LA-LA-LA over and over again.
There is no "solution" which we have an earthly chance of getting in place in time. We can talk about them, but it's all just hot air (pun not intended), and the climate will continue to change as it already is. Food prices are already rocketing in this part of the world from the dismal harvest this year, caused by no winter, no summer, and now - 7 months of almost constant rain and counting. It's 15 degrees C in the middle of winter, the fields are full of weeds and the bugs ain't dying...
Governments are already in crisis management. The other day here in France the national TV station's weather report said the half year rain was great for the planet cos we need loads of water, and we shouldn't worry about the unseasonably warm temperatures cos it means we don't have to use our heating as much - and that is good for the planet. You have to grin - it keeps everybody's spirits up.
The simple fact is, if things continue the global climate is going to change in completely unpredictable ways. It's no good saying "hey, I live in Europe / North America / whatever so it's just going to get warmer / wetter / nicer and I'll be fine". No one knows how individual areas will be affected - it's effectively a complete lottery. The atlantic conveyor could shut down and Europe freeze; rain and sea level rises could turn your home into a swamp; drought and warming could make your country into a desert. We're just going to have to wait and see.
The one thing that appears certain is that we're heading for a period of tremendous uncertainty. That means instability. Which means violence, whether in the form of hugely restrictied civil liberties as governments struggle to cope with famine, disease, flood, whatever; or violence in the form of forced migrations, invasions, wars, the usual shebang.
Eventually, when things settled down again, and millions or billions of people have died, the human race will find those parts of the planet which are conducive to our survival. Who knows where they will be... could be more or less anywhere.
The main problem with all these shenanigans is the speed at which they're going to happen. They've already started, although we in the West have been largely insulated from them in our cosseted free speech zones, up till now at least. And they're going to get significantly worse in our lifetimes. On the plus side, as the effects of climate change kick in, it's likely to impact our ability to cause continued damage - cities will be flooded, countries will dry out or depopulate, populations will die - and our "carbon footprint" will dwindle quite nicely.
On a mathematical level, it's all very neat, really. Things will balance out. It's the human story behind the narrative where it's going to be shocking. At some point, this rather unpredictable game of Russian Roulette is going to require we all put the gun to our heads and see if we win or lose - the best we can do is to keep as aware and adaptable as possible to avoid being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Of course I could be talking bollocks. I really hope I am, actually, but having read the evidence, looked around me, and studied human history and our traditional response to large-scale problems, I'm not hopeful. The best response right now is to join the chorus of head-in-the-sand naysayers and scream "it's never gonna happen..."
Who knows, if we all shout loud enough, maybe whatever God is up there will take notice and have mercy... You never know...
Now where did I put that violin? ;-)
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