http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_P._Huntington

on the one hand, it's kind of a simplistic assumption; on the other hand, i really like maps.

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0812/S00437.htm

i like this piece. he ultimately says the organic intellectual will do what he can to promote solutions to the problems of the majority without going through elite hierarchical channels - a kind of NGO-rhizome model incorporating alternative economic methods and non-violent resistance. fun!

For many decades, society has been indoctrinated with the belief that liberal democratic capitalism was the benevolent solution to all world problems. Through this model of society, hunger was going to be eradicated, wars would come to an end, the environment would be saved, and justice would be distributed equally amongst all members of the human species. Entering the new century, western society celebrated the new millennium with the euphoria of success, once and for all; we had entered the final face of existence, the one, which would bring upon the earth the mythical wonders of the Kingdom of Heaven. However, without having witnessed the passing of the first decade of the 21st century, this dogma has been broken and as many across the globe struggle for survival and society is marred by the continuous threat of revolving crisis, the time for the revolutionary transformation of the western ideal is upon us. Yet, the fundamental questions remain to be answered, how can we act? What can we do?

It is the role of the organic intellectual to answer these questions. If there are any left who have not yet awaken from their slumber, the time has come for them to abandon the petit bourgeois existence of the petty professor attending wine tasting events, the government bureaucrat justifying the wonders of his mind while working on the golf swing at the local country club, or the 1960s hippie, that after a stint in the Berkeley student movements went on to become a prosperous businessman. In today’s holistic global crisis, one which threatens every single aspect of our existence – from the food we eat, to the air we breath, and to the way we interact between each other – those who in their youth considered themselves conscious individuals fighting towards change, can no longer hide behind the mask of the liberal democratic ideal of a capitalist society striving towards justice, peace and prosperity. All of these having remained ideals, while a reality of extreme misery for the majority, coexists today with the growing prosperity of a shrinking minority capitalizing on the growing pains of humanity.

The global financial and economic system is in broad failure. Hoarding, at least among the wealthy and the corporate, is rampant. Trust has evaporated. Worse, western nation-states (from the US to Ireland to Russia) are following historical patterns of response -- massive bail-outs of the financial sector. Unfortunately, this crisis is ahistorical (a black swan). Why? The global financial system is much LARGER, FASTER, and MORE COMPLEX than the nation-states that are trying to bail them out. As a result, nation-state intervention won't return things to the status quo. What it will do, however, is tightly couple western nation-states to the now inevitable failure in the financial system (this is akin to lashing a dingy to the Titanic to prevent it from sinking). The rampant proliferation of bankrupt and hollow states is now likely inevitable. [+]

http://www.jeffvail.net/2008/02/hierarchy-must-grow-and-is-therefore.html

from J Vail's latest

This civilizational selection for growth manifests in many ways, but most recently it resulted in the rise of the modern financial system. As political entities became more conscious of this growth imperative, and their competition with other entities, they began to consciously build institutions to enhance their ability to grow. The earliest, and least intentional example is that of economic specialization and centralization. Since before the articulation of these principles by Adam Smith, it was understood that specialization was more efficient—when measured in terms of growth—than artesian craftsmanship, and that centralized production that leveraged economy of place better facilitated growth than did distributed production. It was not enough merely to specialize “a little,” because the yardstick was not growth per se, but growth in comparison to the growth of competitors. It was necessary to specialize and centralize ever more than competing polities in order to survive. As with previous systems of growth, the agricultural and industrial revolutions were self-reinforcing as nations competed in terms of the size of the infantry armies they could field, the amount of steel for battleships and cannon they could produce, etc. It wasn’t possible to reverse course—while it may have been possible for the land area of England, for example, to support its population via either centralized or decentralized agriculture, only centralized agriculture freed a large enough portion of the population to manufacture export goods, military materiel, and to serve in the armed forces.

Similarly, the expansion of credit accelerated the rate of growth—it was no longer necessary to save first buy later when first home loans, then car loans, then consumer credit cards became ever more prevalent, all accelerating at ever-faster rates thanks to the wizardry of complex credit derivatives. This was again a self-supporting cycle: while it is theoretically possible to revert from a buy-now-pay-later system to a save-then-buy system, the transition period would require a significant period of vastly reduced spending—something that would crush today’s highly leveraged economies. Not only is it necessary to maintain our current credit structure, but it is necessary to continually expand our ability to consume now and pay later—just as in the peer polity conflicts between stone-age tribes, credit providers race to provide more consumption for less buck in an effort to compete for market share and to create shareholder return. Corporate entities, while existing at least as early as Renaissance Venice, are yet another example of structural bias toward growth: corporate finance is based on attracting investment by promising greater return for shareholder risk than competing corporations, resulting in a structural drive toward the singular goal of growth. And modern systems of quarterly reporting and 24-hour news cycles only exacerbate the already short-term risk horizons of such enterprises.

We live on a finite planet, and it seems likely that we are nearing the limits of the Earth’s ability to support ongoing growth. Even if this limit is still decades or centuries away, there is serious moral hazard in the continuation of growth on a finite planet as it serves merely to push that problem on to our children or grandchildren. Growth cannot continue infinitely on a finite planet. This must seem obvious to many people, but I emphasize the point because we tend to overlook or ignore its significance: the basis of our civilization is fundamentally unsustainable. Our civilization seems to have a knack for pushing the envelope, for finding stop-gap measures to push growth beyond a sustainable level. This is also problematic because the further we are able to inflate this bubble beyond a level that is sustainable indefinitely, the farther we must ultimately fall to return to a sustainable world. This is Civilization’s sunk cost: there is serious doubt that our planet can sustain 6+ billion people over the long term, but by drawing a line in the sand, that “a solution that results in the death of millions or billions to return to a sustainable level” is fundamentally impermissible, we merely increase the number that must ultimately die off. Furthermore, while it is theoretically possible to reduce population, as well as other measures of impact on our planet, in a gradual and non-dramatic way (e.g. no die off), the window of opportunity to choose that route is closing. We don’t know how fast—but that uncertainty makes this a far more difficult risk management problem (and challenge to political will) than knowing that we have precisely 10, 100, or 1000 years.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/magazine/27world-t.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&pagewanted=all&oref=slogin

about how the 21st century will see the the EU and China join the US to create a G-3 of global superpowers, competing for influence across the "second world" of Latin America, the Middle East, Russia and South Asia.

The E.U.’s market is the world’s largest, European technologies more and more set the global standard and European countries give the most development assistance. And if America and China fight, the world’s money will be safely invested in European banks. Many Americans scoffed at the introduction of the euro, claiming it was an overreach that would bring the collapse of the European project. Yet today, Persian Gulf oil exporters are diversifying their currency holdings into euros, and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran has proposed that OPEC no longer price its oil in “worthless” dollars. President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela went on to suggest euros. It doesn’t help that Congress revealed its true protectionist colors by essentially blocking the Dubai ports deal in 2006. With London taking over (again) as the world’s financial capital for stock listing, it’s no surprise that China’s new state investment fund intends to locate its main Western offices there instead of New York. Meanwhile, America’s share of global exchange reserves has dropped to 65 percent. Gisele Bündchen demands to be paid in euros, while Jay-Z drowns in 500 euro notes in a recent video. American soft power seems on the wane even at home.

And Europe’s influence grows at America’s expense. While America fumbles at nation-building, Europe spends its money and political capital on locking peripheral countries into its orbit. Many poor regions of the world have realized that they want the European dream, not the American dream. Africa wants a real African Union like the E.U.; we offer no equivalent. Activists in the Middle East want parliamentary democracy like Europe’s, not American-style presidential strongman rule. Many of the foreign students we shunned after 9/11 are now in London and Berlin: twice as many Chinese study in Europe as in the U.S. We didn’t educate them, so we have no claims on their brains or loyalties as we have in decades past. More broadly, America controls legacy institutions few seem to want — like the International Monetary Fund — while Europe excels at building new and sophisticated ones modeled on itself. The U.S. has a hard time getting its way even when it dominates summit meetings — consider the ill-fated Free Trade Area of the Americas — let alone when it’s not even invited, as with the new East Asian Community, the region’s answer to America’s Apec.

The East Asian Community is but one example of how China is also too busy restoring its place as the world’s “Middle Kingdom” to be distracted by the Middle Eastern disturbances that so preoccupy the United States. In America’s own hemisphere, from Canada to Cuba to Chávez’s Venezuela, China is cutting massive resource and investment deals. Across the globe, it is deploying tens of thousands of its own engineers, aid workers, dam-builders and covert military personnel. In Africa, China is not only securing energy supplies; it is also making major strategic investments in the financial sector. The whole world is abetting China’s spectacular rise as evidenced by the ballooning share of trade in its gross domestic product — and China is exporting weapons at a rate reminiscent of the Soviet Union during the cold war, pinning America down while filling whatever power vacuums it can find. Every country in the world currently considered a rogue state by the U.S. now enjoys a diplomatic, economic or strategic lifeline from China, Iran being the most prominent example.

Without firing a shot, China is doing on its southern and western peripheries what Europe is achieving to its east and south. Aided by a 35 million-strong ethnic Chinese diaspora well placed around East Asia’s rising economies, a Greater Chinese Co-Prosperity Sphere has emerged. Like Europeans, Asians are insulating themselves from America’s economic uncertainties. Under Japanese sponsorship, they plan to launch their own regional monetary fund, while China has slashed tariffs and increased loans to its Southeast Asian neighbors. Trade within the India-Japan-Australia triangle — of which China sits at the center — has surpassed trade across the Pacific.

This war was entirely unnecessary, as testified to by your own reports. Among the most capable of those from your own side who speak to you on this topic is Noam Chomsky, who spoke sober words of advice prior to the war, but the leader of Texas doesn't like those who give advice. The entire world came out in unprecedented demonstrations to warn against waging the war and describe its true nature in eloquent terms like "no to spilling red blood for black oil," yet he paid them no heed.

It is time for humankind to know that talk of 'the rights of man' and 'freedom' are lies produced by the White House and its allies in Europe to deceive humans, take control of their destinies and subjugate them.

Among the things which catch the eye of the repercussions of your unjust war against Iraq is the failure of your democratic system, despite it raising of the slogans of 'justice, liberty, equality and humanitarianism'. It has not only failed to achieve these things, it has actually destroyed these and other concepts with its weapons - especially in Iraq and Afghanistan- in a brazen fashion, to replace them with fear, destruction, killing, hunger, illness, displacement and more than a million orphans in Baghdad alone, not to mention hundreds of thousands of widows. Americans statistics speak of the killing of more than 650,000 of the people of Iraq as a result of the war and its repercussions.

People of America: the people of the world have recently come to know that, after several years of the tragedies of this war, the vast majority of you want it stopped. Thus, you elected the Democratic Party for this purpose, but the Democrats haven't made a move worth mentioning. On the contrary, they continue to agree to the spending of tens of billions to continue the killing and war there, which has led to your disappointment.

And here is the gist of the matter, so one should pause, think and reflect: why have the Democrats failed to stop this war, despite them being the majority?

The answer to this question is: they are the same reasons which led to the failure of former president Kennedy to stop the Vietnam war. Those with real power and influence are those with the most capital. And since the democratic system permits major corporations to back candidates, be they presidential or congressional, there shouldn't be any cause for astonishment in the Democrats' failure to stop the war.

You're the ones who have the saying which goes, "Money talks." After the failure of your representatives in the Democratic Party to implement your desire to stop the war, you can still carry anti-war placards and spread out in the streets of major cities, then go back to your homes, but that will be of no use and will lead to the prolonging of the war.

It has now become clear to you and the entire world the impotence of your 'democratic' system and how it plays with the interests of the peoples and their blood by sacrificing soldiers and populations to achieve the interests of the major corporations.

It has become clear to all that they are the real tyrannical terrorists. In fact, the life of all of mankind is in danger because of the global warming resulting to a large degree from the emissions of the factories of the major corporations. Despite that, the representative of these corporations in the White House insists on not observing the Kyoto accord, with the knowledge that the statistic speaks of the resulting death and displacement of millions of human beings, especially in Africa. This greatest of plagues and most dangerous of threats to the lives of humans is taking place in an accelerating fashion as the world is being dominated by the 'democratic' capitalist system, which confirms its massive failure to protect humans and their interests from the greed and avarice of the major corporations and their representatives.

And despite this brazen attack on the people, the leaders of the West - especially Bush, Blair, Sarkozy and Brown- still talk about 'freedom' and 'human rights' with a flagrant disregard for the intellects of human beings. So is there a form of terrorism stronger, clearer and more dangerous? This is why I tell you: as you liberated yourselves before from the slavery of monks, kings, and feudalism, you should liberate yourselves from the deception, shackles and attrition of the capitalist system.

If you were to ponder it well, you would find that in the end, it is a system harsher and fiercer than your systems in the Middle Ages. The capitalist system seeks to turn the entire world into a fiefdom of the major corporations under the label of "globalization" in order to protect 'democracy'.

Iraq and Afghanistan and their tragedies; the reeling of many of you under the burden of interest-related debts, insane taxes and real estate mortgages; global warming and its woes; and the abject poverty and tragic hunger in Africa - all of this is but one side of the grim face of this global system.

So it is imperative that you free yourselves from all of that and search for an alternative, upright methodology in which it is not the business of any class of humanity to lay down its own laws to its own advantage at the expense of the other classes as is the case with you, since the essence of the laws under which you live is that they serve the interests of those with the capital and thus make the rich richer and the poor poorer. [+]

your latest dose of global analysis. first, a John Robb piece on globalized gangs, urban violence and biowarfare. then Ronfeldt and Arquilla on how the soft power of Noöpolitik could provide a balancing counterweight to the hard power of Realpolitik. or, to put it another way, the further integration of global civil society will be another non-governmental power in a more heavily interlinked world, along with megacorporations, world organizations and various transnational gangs.

http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_3_urban_terrorism.html

For the first time in history, announced researchers this May, a majority of the world’s population is living in urban environments. Cities-—efficient hubs connecting international flows of people, energy, communications, and capital—-are thriving in our global economy as never before. However, the same factors that make cities hubs of globalization also make them vulnerable to small-group terror and violence.

Over the last few years, small groups’ ability to conduct terrorism has shown radical improvements in productivity—their capacity to inflict economic, physical, and moral damage. These groups, motivated by everything from gang membership to religious extremism, have taken advantage of easy access to our global superinfrastructure, revenues from growing illicit commercial flows, and ubiquitously available new technologies to cross the threshold necessary to become terrible threats. September 11, 2001, marked their arrival at that threshold.

Unfortunately, the improvements in lethality that we have already seen are just the beginning. The arc of productivity growth that lets small groups terrorize at ever-higher levels of death and disruption stretches as far as the eye can see. Eventually, one man may even be able to wield the destructive power that only nation-states possess today. It is a perverse twist of history that this new threat arrives at the same moment that wars between states are receding into the past. Thanks to global interdependence, state-against-state warfare is far less likely than it used to be, and viable only against disconnected or powerless states. But the underlying processes of globalization have made us exceedingly vulnerable to nonstate enemies. The mechanisms of power and control that states once exerted will continue to weaken as global interconnectivity increases. Small groups of terrorists can already attack deep within any state, riding on the highways of interconnectivity, unconcerned about our porous borders and our nation-state militaries. These terrorists’ likeliest point of origin, and their likeliest destination, is the city.

http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue12_8/ronfeldt/index.html

The most abstract — and so far, least favored — of the terms is the noosphere. This term, from the Greek word noos for “the mind,” was coined by French theologian and scientist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin in 1925, and spread in posthumous publications in the 1950s and 1960s. In his view, the world first evolved a geosphere, and next a biosphere. Now that people are communing on global scales, the world is giving rise to a noosphere — what he variously describes as a globe–circling realm of “the mind,” a “thinking circuit,” a “stupendous thinking machine,” a “thinking envelope” full of fibers and networks, and a planetary “consciousness.” In the words of Julian Huxley, the noosphere is a “web of living thought.”

According to Teilhard, forces of the mind have been creating the noosphere for ages. Before long, a synthesis of its pieces will occur in which peoples from different nations, races, and cultures develop minds that are planetary in scope, without losing their personal identities. Fully realized, the noosphere will raise mankind to a high, new evolutionary plane, one driven by a collective devotion to moral and juridical principles. However, the transition may not be smooth; a global tremor and possibly an apocalypse may characterize the final fusion of the noosphere.

The noosphere concept thus encompasses cyberspace and the infosphere. It also relates to an organizational theme that has constantly figured in our own work about the information revolution: the rise of network forms of organization that strengthen civil–society actors. Few state or market actors, by themselves, seem likely to have much interest in fostering the construction of a global noosphere, except in limited areas having to do with international law, or political and economic ideology. The impetus for creating a global noosphere is more likely to emanate from activist NGOs, other civil–society actors (e.g., churches, schools), and individuals dedicated to freedom of information and communications and to the spread of ethical values and norms. We believe it is time for state actors to begin moving in this direction, too, particularly since power in the information age will stem, more than ever before, from the ability of state and market actors to work conjointly with civil–society actors.

http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/column?oid=oid%3A494048

China finances imperial war that hoses US; probably won't finance the aftermath.

The Washington Post (May 8, p.D1): "Joseph E. Stiglitz [Nobel winner in economics] ... co-authored a study that predicts the Iraq conflict alone will eventually cost taxpayers more than $1 trillion, counting military rebuilding and health care for wounded veterans." Incredibly, we haven't paid for any of this yet. The Post article noted, "The war bill is going directly on the nation's credit card." Foreign investors, especially China, have been paying for this war.

Now why would they do that? The answer: It's in their strategic interest to finance a war that drains America's financial, military, and leadership clout. They're paying for us to screw ourselves. It saves them the trouble. However, given the irresponsibility of America's military adventures and the equal irresponsibility of the American electorate in elevating someone like George W. Bush to power, why would China and the other investing nations finance the rebuilding of America's military might? How could that possibly be in their interest – especially now that the euro has overtaken the dollar as a viable medium for world exchange? Hence China and others are making obvious moves to invest differently. We're about to be left behind.

We're still important, a big economy, a player. We're still dangerous, with all our bombs and missiles. But we won't be fighting another ground war anytime soon, and everybody knows it. Financially and militarily, we're no superpower anymore – though no presidential candidate can say that. Whether we recede from center stage gracefully or destructively, we'll recede. We already have. It doesn't look that way on TV, but we already have.

http://rs65.rapidshare.com/files/36394893/Johan_Galtung_-_Decline_and_Fall_of_American_Empire.mp3

an hour-long alternative radio podcast featuring Johan Galtung. he predicted the decline of the Soviet empire within a decade in 1980, and predicts an end to the US Empire by 2020. he defines empire as having four components: economic domination, political supremacy, cultural influence and military power. none of this is particularly novel, but he does put out some interesting ideas. one being that the greatest beneficiary of the decline of American empire is the US Republic itself. he notes the distinction many world citizens make between loving the American Republic and hating the US Empire (i myself of course make that distinction). he makes the related point that criticizing the Empire is not un-American (i'd argue that supporting it is).

he gives a four-point plan for ending US Imperium:
1) stop the killing, withdraw military bases
2) stop extremely unjust international economic deals
3) join the world: give up "US as chosen people of God" idea
4) enter into dialogue with many countries, i.e. participate in a multipolar world

of course, even if these don't happen, the conjoined clusterfuck of peak oil, climate change, economic woes, negative international opinion and the accelerating death spiral of military and unconventional violence will take a toll eventually.

also, according to Galtung, the US is the #1 believer in Satan worldwide, which i thought was interesting. it's a pretty good talk. if you want even more detail, or just prefer reading to listening, there's a document detailing all the contradictions fatal to the Empire.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=3865

so the new Failed States Index is out. i think it's cool to see which countries are super-stable (i'm looking at you, Scandinavia) and which are decidedly over the brink of chaos. looking at this, the global stability situation as a whole doesn't seem all that great. the complete dataset is here.



It is an accepted axiom of the modern age that distance no longer matters. Sectarian carnage can sway stock markets on the other side of the planet. Anarchic cities that host open-air arms bazaars imperil the security of the world’s superpower. A hermit leader’s erratic behavior not only makes life miserable for the impoverished millions he rules but also upends the world’s nuclear nonproliferation regime. The threats of weak states, in other words, ripple far beyond their borders and endanger the development and security of nations that are their political and economic opposites.

Few encouraging signs emerged in 2006 to suggest the world is on a path to greater peace and stability. The year began with violent protests that erupted from Indonesia to Nigeria over the publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed. February brought the destruction of Samarra’s golden-domed mosque, one of Shiite Islam’s holiest shrines, unleashing a convulsion of violence across Iraq that continues unabated. After Hezbollah kidnapped two Israeli soldiers last July, southern Lebanon was bombarded for a month by air strikes, sending hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing into neighboring states. And in October, the repressive North Korean regime stormed its way into the world’s nuclear club.

What makes these alarming headlines all the more troubling is that their origins lie in weak and failing states. World leaders and the heads of multilateral institutions routinely take to lecterns to reiterate their commitment to pulling vulnerable states back from the brink, but it can be difficult to translate damage control into viable, long-term solutions that correct state weaknesses. Aid is often misspent. Reforms are too many or too few. Security needs overwhelm international peacekeepers, or chaos reigns in their absence.

http://anthropik.com/2007/06/neocolonialism-the-new-map/

this article presents a pretty compelling picture of the contemporary geopolitical/economic sitation and the factors that have lead up to it: the decline of the classical territorial empire (Britain), the shift from coal to oil, Western economic hegemony advanced by Western-backed dictators and warlords all over the global South, the emergence of multinational corporations and terrorist networks, etc.

If there is a common, uniting theme to the nightly news, it is the legacy of colonialism. Civil war often followed independence, as the arbitrary boundaries drawn by Europeans became sources of contention for the people living there. More often than not, Western-backed despots rose to power out of these civil wars and enforced the European order with brutal military regimes. From this pattern, we inherit the world we have today: mostly ruled by Western-backed despots and broiling with rebellion ruthlessly and continuously put down. The pattern is quite similar to that of ancient Rome, with peace and prosperity bought for the imperial core by exporting violence and poverty to the periphery.

The corporation is an entity created from economic relationships, without notions of political sovereignty or Cartesian territory, and as such, it poses a direct challenge to the traditional view of the state. Meanwhile, the constant failure of rebellions to unseat the Western-backed dictators that emerged from the deliberate post-colonial instability Western powers hoped to exploit has created a new breed of rebellion, typically labeled as "terrorists." They have adopted the same approach as corporations, favoring networks over territory, and have used these networks—most famously al-Qa'ida, or "the Base," a loose network of various localized efforts against various U.S.-backed dictators, most notably the Saudi regime—to challenge state power. However, as networks, they cannot offer an alternative to the state; rather, they create "hollow states."

http://www.exile.ru/2006-May-19/the_cold_war_timeline.html

this a pretty sweet article detailing US-Russian relations since 2001. what's interesting is that there is a sort of new cold war going on in central Asia, focusing on who gains political clout and therefore control of the region's vast oil reserves. he talks mostly about the two figures of Cheney and Putin: both viscious imperialist petrocrats weilding the force of their respective states to topple governments and grab the black gold. revolutions against dictators when it serves the interests of the "great game", revolutions to install them in the name of "democracy" as well.

"Democracy" isn't about giving people the right to vote, giving them a say in their lives and a sense of dignity. It's about serving America's interests. And serving America's interests, to the current regime, is defined as serving the interests of the oil oligarchs in Houston, where Cheney spent the previous ten years of his cartoon-villain life.

In fact, the definition of "democracy" is even more narrow than that. America's interests are Cheney's interests. Il est l'etat. In that sense, Putin is indeed a menace. And that's what makes this Cold War so different. Whereas the last one was a mortal struggle over two different systems, this is a struggle between two short, balding, bloodless men, and the oil - other people's oil - that made them as powerful as they are today.