Saturday, March 21, 2015

read this and reflect on our own political situation...,


economic-undertow |  Many of the places that are suffering unrest and war were components of- or client states of the USSR during its heyday: Libya (client), Egypt (a Soviet client before becoming an American client), Somalia (client), Eritrea (client), Afghanistan (client) Yemen (client), Syria (long-term client), Iraq (client); Armenia, Azerbaijan, Chechnya, Georgia, Ukraine, Dagestan, Nagorno-Karabakh (all components of USSR); also Vietnam, Laos, Angola and North Korea (all Soviet clients but wars have ended in these countries) … also Russia itself. Seen from a long-term perspective, the end of the Soviet Union government turns out not to be the bloodless event as was advertised, the rotting empire still has some collapse left in it. 

One of the duties of the Economic Undertow is to turn conventional historic narratives on their heads, to where they begin make sense. What Americans have been fed about the demise of the Soviet Union is a self-serving, political/ideological fairy tale: that the United States under the direction of Ronald Reagan’s brilliant conservative leadership outspent the USSR in an arms race that eventually — along with collapsing oil prices caused by new oil on the markets from Prudhoe Bay and the North Sea — bankrupted the Communist government. Once the economic and ideological fault lines were revealed, the various client/satellite states that made up the Soviet empire peaceably went their own way without interference from Moscow. All of this ‘revealing’ and ‘peaceable-ness’ took place over a remarkably short period of time in the early 1990s: here today, gone the next. 

The more realistic narrative has Soviet intelligence agencies — perhaps collaborating with those of the West along with Western interests (banks) — gaining control over Russian assets, shifting them to well-connected insiders, with the decrepit- and ossified Communist government powerless to do anything about it. This process began before- or during the Brezhnev period with matters well underway by the time of Gorbachev … Perestroika being a (feeble) attempt on the part of the Communist establishment to regain both credibility and some measure of control. What happened in Russia was not reform and the end of communism was an accident: what actually took place was the greatest crime of the modern era, the theft of an empire by the country’s intelligence services and criminal associates.

This outcome was a natural consequence of the Soviet Union as a regimented national security state with outsized spy agencies … as well as the slow commercial opening with the West beginning during the Khrushchev era. Within the immense ganglia of the Soviet intelligence- and internal security apparatus there was a kind of singularity or dawning self-awareness … the managers grasped in an instant they had access to the levers of control outside the reach of the Party, the Politburo and the Red Army. The rise of the agencies’ power was a consequence of Stalin’s paranoia; the Stalinist Russia was built on a foundation of intrusive spying and control/liquidation of potential internal enemies. Stalin held the agencies in check by way of periodic purges, no group of operatives could become too comfortable or entrenched, they had to constantly look over their own shoulders. Once ‘Uncle Joe’ was gone there were no further checks on spy agency power, they could act with impunity and did: what occurred was a silent coup d’etat with the KGB state first emerging publicly under Yuri Andropov. Once the looting and undermining was well-established in the center it spread out and took hold among the clients with consequences that can be seen clearly today. 

At the same time, contact with the West, as tentative as it was, informed the Russian intelligence elite what was possible … that the Western standards for wealth and success were both qualitatively- and qualitatively superior to what was available under egalitarian communism. In 1975, to be wealthy and successful as a Swiss or Londoner far exceeded what was possible in Leningrad or Kiev.

Under this scenario, ‘Nemtsov the reformer’ was either a co-conspirator — or, more likely a tool of intelligence services and/or Western business interests; an operative within the looting scheme along with Gaidar, Chubais and others. Instead of being the heir to Stalin’s strongman legacy, Putin recedes to become the technocratic figurehead who serves to distract public attention as the Russian Mario Monti or Antonis Samaras … meanwhile, the stealing takes place in the background.

12 comments:

woodensplinter said...

Everywhere we look musical chairs is playing itself out in the neofeudal pattern on the deck of the TitanicThe real reason behind Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent anti-Iran speech to Congress had nothing to do with foreign policy, Paul Krugman opines in Monday’s column. Insulting the president is not the way to go about that. No, Netanyahu has a serious problem at home and polls suggest that he may well get the boot in Tuesday’s election. That problem might sound familiar—Israel has become almost as unequal as America, and there is widespread economic discontent in the country that once was built on the socialist ideals of the kibbutz syztem.

Economic happiness is not the usual mainstream story we hear about Israel. The country is a high-technology powerhouse and its economy has grown rapidly, barely affected by the worldwide recession starting in 2008. But the spoils of that growth have gone disproportionately to Israel’s own version of the one percent. According to Krugman, since the early 1990s, http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/03/paul-krugman-exposes-how-netanyahu-used-iran-to-conceal-israels-economic-disaster/

Ed Dunn said...

The paper presented does a great job separating prestige from dominance. What we see in minority modeled subcultures like African-Americans is the structuring of prestige, not dominance. However, the key point of the article is to explain how prestige has to be validated by others while dominance is based on others being fearful of repercussions. This is really the core issue here I myself had to identify.


Race-based like Black Enterprise magazine for example is focused on prestige - guys and gals dressing up, talking about their validation and acceptance stories and their numbers and rely on the greater black community to admire them. The COINTEL victim black nationalists also rely on prestige and being validated by liberal academic institutions to give them refugee to spout their alternative-reality Afrocentric love of their people and culture. Al Sharpton and Civil Rights organizations also operate on prestige and use a system of being liked and perceived as favored. But none of this is power, just perception.


Dominance is based on perception of force and threat and a mutual understanding to comply or be met with the force and threat being presented. This is how the cops work promoting violence and threats while the black community complies with "hands up don't shoot!" as their response. ISIS promotes dominance of their local area converting everybody locally to their system under the threat of violence and use of force.


So this goes back to the college fraternity/sorority paradigm we have here - are these kids or "future leaders" grooming themselves to seek prestige or seek dominance?

Ed Dunn said...

Could we argue the same drug dominance exist in urban America? Where the drug dealers donating school supplies, giving little boys running jobs to wear the latest shoes and hang out with the big dogs and threat of violence and force is in play?

For example - let's just cut to the chase in Ferguson and I'm not that sisssy Jason Capehart guy or whatever his name is...he was close but the truth is Ferguson is a gateway drug transport for middle America full of gangs who made sure Ferguson stayed shitty and the boys remain trap boyz and the black community remained docile. The only thing keeping the government from marching in is the fact they fear of dominance from the actual gang members who have been executing violence against the police and newscasters...

https://youtu.be/fM-olixD9yA

CNu said...

You could argue that, but I'm not convinced. KC and Chicago are the transportation hubs and I'll only speak for KC, it's just not that well organized in the black and brown areas. I think it's much better organized in the brown areas of Chicago and it's better organized in the brown (near northeast and kansas city kansas) than in the black (east of Troost) in KC.

Ed Dunn said...

I hear ya.. going back to the core, the pursuit of prestige caused self-marginalization more than any structural racism.

Yes I pledged Iota Phi Theta and looking back, I was being conditioned to pursue being pretigious not being dominant.

CNu said...

Brah..., you know Denmark Vesey daddy founded Iota Phi Theta? I had a great interpersonal rapport with that cat until I questioned his infatuation with LaRouchian burra-shit. Has he ever reached out to you there in the ATL, or vice versa? I asked him for some branding and marketing wisdom, in exchange for some IP perpetration technology. This kneegrow acted like I'd started talking to him in the Tsar's Russian.

At no point in time, no matter how nasty or negative the blogospheric nonsense eventually became, did I ever lose my high regard for that cat's personal and individual cleverness and artistry. Like yourself, my whole praxis is rooted in competence. If you're not fit to visit and hold forth on Wudan mountain, or the Shaolin Temple, then get the phuk out and step. Prestige outside the core culture of competence is a strictly secondary consideration, a potential but not necessary epiphenomenon of doing things correctly.,

I would literally choose death over voluntary submission to domination by another member of my species. Very curious to know how that relationship (if any) has gone for you. I see your kung fu as immune to adversity, still sharp and bold on the radar of what's possible, while my boy poor artsy DV has crashed and burned to a truly embarrassing level. Please hit me backchannel if this is not an appropriate context in which to discuss the local political.

Ed Dunn said...

I grew up in an environment where street corners and blocks had to be taken over and dominated with threats of fear and violence and making example out of a few to show business is meant. Only to come out into a greater African-American subculture that promotes prestige as a social order. I do not hold nothing against my fraternity - it is just honest and all our of greek organizations and other black organizations are the same - they pursue being prestigious.


My members of my fraternity simply try to ostracize me for wanting to be dominant and they wanted to take away "prestige" and "social acceptance" from me as if I valued it. I also see in my technology field, people who are coming around looking for prestige instead of being a class A world competitive hacker/programmer or information architect. You do not notice all the non-MIT black faces smiling in media claiming they built a mobile app in media nowadays? And contrast to African developers who are actually creating infrastructure technology solutions for African energy, trading and logistics challenges.


MSNBC facilitate the "prestigious" game by anointing talking heads who feel special to have a show to run their mouth and this been going on at the Rockefeller center for quite some time. CNN and Fox also. This is the problem but the paper provided some solutions on how to disrupt this "prestigious" and through the use of domination - I believe if we look at every major revolution from Castro regime to Liberia, we will see a circular pattern of domination takeover, their inheritors become prestigious, then a new batch become domination in revolt. That circle look like it is long past due in the African-American community.

CNu said...

And contrast to African developers who are actually creating
infrastructure technology solutions for African energy, trading and
logistics challenges.


and isn't it the cooperative focus on tangible and substantive projects that's always and everywhere the antidote to primitive dominance and deference games?

I'd say it's past time to look for a dominance-deference reversal within the black American subpopulation. Rather, it's time to drive at a dominance-deference reversal in America, period.

DD said...

Prestige is an open-carry gun...that's empty. Dominance is a sheathed sword. You do not need to show what everyone can see.

CNu said...

The Hon.Bro. Preznit was never a member of any fraternity, and declined alumni membership in any too. He studied and excelled in the law, he did his time in community service, he has been a shiningly upright husband and father, and he was selected and twice elected for the most prestigious public office in world. As commander of the ultimate instrumentality of dominance in human history https://youtu.be/jeKw_JtywH0 - he has never once shirked his obligation to keep imperial sausage-making activities rolling. Meanwhile, he has done historic yoeman's work to make healthcare more accessible, foreign affairs more sane and sensible, and he has brought the unparalleled power of the DOJ to bear on elucidating the last remaining coercive instrumentality of racist dominance in America. Far more impressed with this cat's even-handed exercise of all aspects of possible American power, most particularly, the corrective and ethical powers to make the American system do better.

President Obama has been the coolest world leader of all time. Global system of American supremacy. Accept no substitutes....,

BigDonOne said...

...Some perspective on First Fuzzy place in history... http://www.liveleak.com/ll_embed?f=51fe948515b4

BigDonOne said...

Polite society even gets to pay for this fiasco..... http://www.cbs12.com/news/top-stories/stories/vid_24273.shtml

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