China, the U.S. and Weltpolitik

When it comes to frolicking in negativity, undoubtedly the most prized jewel in the crown of fear mongering is the much heralded inevitable clash between a declining America and rising China.

If this sounds dramatic, that's because it is: the crescendo of fear has been thundering across the pacific for decades now, almost to the point of shutting out all other noise, save for the fiscal escapades of the EU. China holds dollar reserves, China is testing a stealth fighter, China shot down a satellite, America's empire of bases are threatened by Chinese missiles, America will not have enough submariness to fight the Chinese navy (sub gap, SUB GAP!!!), America's East Asian allies are not spending enough on their militaries, oxygen problems have put the F-22 out of commission and threatened America's air supremacy, etc.

If this sounds absurd, that's because it is: "oxygen problems" have clearly compromised the rationality of defence and security experts and put them out of commission. Let's consider this further: what exactly is the fucking point to spending all this time and resources on military hardware that get's limited use to begin with, discounting even how often said hardware suffers 'technical' problems? Furthermore, what is the fucking point to imagining said hardware to defend against imagined threats to security? Lastly, what is the fucking point to having hordes of experts (paid or unpaid) crank out article after article about the constant need to do even MORE against these imagined threats, while the physical deterrents currently in the inventory of most massive military arsenal on Earth collect dust?

Does any of this sound rational?

What's worse, said 'experts' routinely hoodwink the public over the nature of 'threats' for generally one shameless purpose: the general public can scarcely tell a drone apart from a stealth fighter, so how the hell will they understand the need to keep shunting precious financial resources into the construction of more hardware? If they don't really understand the difference between weapon systems underpinning an overall defensive or offensive strategy, then how will know the important difference between building super duper nuclear aircraft carriers vs. diesel submarines?

To be a little more blunt: they won't cut a defence budget if they're unsure of a threat, yet are at least lead to believe that there is at least a threat there to begin with. Just don't ask about the juicy details.

This was recently identified by one of the said 'experts,' correctly pointing out that another 'expect' was engaging in the defence of defence: no more cuts to the defence budget that is. However, the former 'expert' predictably went off on the rails and bemoaned that Asian allies don't do enough for their own defence and will continue to 'free ride' on American power and all the juicy benefits in terms of global security this provides.

I often wonder what colour the sky is in these people's worlds.

The 'expert' claims that the other 'expert' wasn't fearmongering at all and was instead laying out a very rational argument for the continued buttressing of American military dominance in the Asia-Pacific.

Bullshit. As soon as one writes the words 'increasing Chinese military power' or 'Chinese expansionism,' one is engaging in fearmongering. As soon as one writes an overly biased polemic about past 'Chinese military provocations,' one is engaging in fearmongering. As soon as one dares to imagine a potential situation where the P.R.C. and U.S.A. are engaged in warfare, while stressing how unlikely this might be yet still urging that we must still 'hedge' against this possibility by maintaining 'power projection capabilities,' one is engaged in fearmongering.

When one claims that 'long range strike systems, robust battle networks, attack submarines and a sizeable nuclear arsenal' are all essential to American predominance and therefore global security, one is engaged in fearmongering and far worse, justifying the continued need for hierarchical militarized global dominance.

And that is really what this is all about in the end: the inability to imagine a world without some form of hierarchical militarized dominance underpinning everything.

So instead of imaging peace, we get war. Instead of building schools, we get stealth fighters. Instead of cooperation, we get a zero-sum competition with all the major powers caught up in a mad Red Queen arms race to stay top dog. Instead of equality, we get entrenched elitism.

I can stress some good news: the past two decades have unarguably demonstrated that no single power can effectively dominate the world via militarized forms of power without overstretching resources and incurring the wrath of weaker powers, in a curious reversal of the Melian dialogue. However, elites and experts alike do not have appeared to have lost their appetite for negative zero-sum calculus and wanton destruction. It is up to the rest of us to continue to identify and challenge just how absurd some of these ideas are, lest the world as a whole be made to suffer from this 'oxygen problem.'

In other words, there's going to be no drama if we point out just how utterly insane and fucking stupid this whole idea of 'American Primacy vs. Chinese Threat' really is. It's not enough just to be optimistic, we all have to begin imaging alternatives to these silly ideas.

Thoughts on Decrying

Occupying Wall Street is another phrase for it or if you like, "huffing and puffing protesters". There's always a time and a place for critically engaging with the vomit inducing caricatures of these protesters by more "well respected" commentators the world over, but for now actually doing something constructive is the aim here.

In keeping with this, here's a few thoughts or at least as they would pertain to Canada (but why not the world?):

- One of the more common criticisms / things to sneer at when it comes to this whole occupy movement is it's perceived lack of... well demands. Neverminding the fact that we are demanding an end to the gross income inequality between robbers and robbed, as well as all the shifty things between the wealthy and government that this has entailed (which may in fact mean demanding the end of global capitalism itself, but hang on I'll get to that), here's something more specific: forgive ALL student loans.

Yes, that's right. ALL of them, from PhD students to recent University grads, Community College, WHATEVER. Forgive it all and take the millstone from around our necks already. You want young people to buy houses, cars, clothes, electronics, vacations, groceries, so we're generally talking CONSUME here, which of course will lead to DEMAND for things, which in turn allows a market economy to function... Ah ha. Overly simplistic? Hardly, a short sighted uber-rich elite class that is so caught up in expanding and preserving it's own wealth and power even if it means the destruction of the system itself sounds rather simplistic and yet, here we are.

So forgive the student debt already, education and opportunity is a right every person has, as opposed to being fettered to financial debt and an ideology of diminishing returns and little optimism when it comes to life itself.

- Tax the rich more. Aside from the fact that it is pure unsexy logic to tax someone more who earns more, especially astronomically more then everyone else, some level of equality between every human being is something all human societies should be aspiring to. The evidence is quite literally in many cases burning away right in front of our eyes everyday: a hierarchical socio-economic system that permits such gaps to dramatically emerge between rich and poor can't endure for long before it inevitably destroys itself. To use another cliche: it is truly unsustainable in every sense.

So tax them more, they don't deserve it and even if they did you have to ask yourself something: do you want to continue living in a socio-economic system that rewards these sorts of attitudes, that you're poor and a loser within this system because you want to be? This superficial Dr. Philesque ideological superstructure needs to hustle it's ass to the ashcan of history already. More tax for the rich, more equality between Canadians.

- It comes up vaguely every now and again, but it does seem like people are just afraid to have a serious discussion about it (aside from Marxists), that is: the continued legitimacy of capitalism. Or in other words: we need a new socio-economic system and we need to start discussing this issue seriously as it naturally effects ALL policies ranging from education, environmental, defence and healthcare reform. How could it not; our society is predicated on the (un)logic of a free market and the unfettered acquisition of material wealth.
Thinkers ranging from David Harvey to Sir Ken Robinson have been challenging these notion, so I'm not about to rehash all this. Nevertheless, challenging the logic of this system does not entail a return to dreary soldier goose stepping through the streets under a red flag past endless bread lines, read NOT a return to some sort of Orwellian 1984 Stalinist state. Over, done, put the McCarthyesque fear mongering aside and acknowledge that since at least 2008 it has been readily apparent that this system does not function anymore. Ideally this sort of serious discussion would open the door to all sorts of other discussions that should be taking place about the environmental impact of the oil sands in Alberta, our continued presence in Afghanistan, a return to Cold War strategic thinking in regards to China, how our welfare system will survive the onslaught of aging Baby Boomers, etc.

Dispute remains about what sort of system this should be, but this movement needs to make it clear that people no longer believe in the continued legitimacy of free market capitalism.

- Don't allow this movement to get hijacked or subverted by other interests be that Twitter, Tax Reform, Apple, Facebook, Concerned Citizens for the Reduction of Bureaucracy, WHATEVER. We can already begin to see this happening and in lieu of clearly articulated interests that need not be overly specific but CLEAR, this will happen and the "movement" in every sense of the term will stall when subverted and encompassed by some more recognizable and legitimate interest. Keep it in the streets and in people's eyes about some sort of power begins to sneer less and speak more seriously.

There's always more, but that's just some general thoughts for the moment which is badly needed before the moment passes us all by.

Optimist Primers

Economics and War are funny things: generally any study of them can be referred to as a 'dismal science.' In other words, depressing as fuck.

The two are ideologically more animated then anyone would dare admit, with the acolytes of various thinkers stubbornly defending their chosen messiahs of theory as the One True Word. From championing the efficacy of the Free Market to claiming the age of unconventional war is here and conventional warfare can hustle it's ass to the dustbin of history already, theory permeates all.

This latter point is particularly important because considerable amounts of bandiwidth (so at least the bloody trees are finally being spared) are being devoted to an all out clash of viewpoints, with the old cheesy cliche from the movie Highlander reverberating across the heavens: There can be only one! Well, one way of viewing things that is.

What could animate such a zero-sum no quarter given approach to what, in perhaps more civil times, would ideally be an unending series of productive dialogues between rational individuals?

Sadly the celebrated 'new weird' author China Mieville beat us all to the punch in his latest book Kraken. To badly paraphrase the tentacled text about apocalyptic cults, one of the characters makes an interesting observation that we currently live in an epoch of Ends; that is from Al-Qaeda vs. Global Warming to Kali Yuga vs. Ragnarock, every sort of belief system is vying against each other to prove just how correct their version of the End of the World is that's happening RIGHT NOW.

Depressing or absurdly piss your pants laughable? Either response would indicate a general mindset about a person: optimist or pessimist. Perhaps it is crudely simplistic to lump the current crux of global problems into two manichean camps, but the idea of optimism is certainly worth another look given the general theme of things lately. That is, the world is currently suffering from a chronic deficiency in optimism which rapidly pushing people into these zero-sum mindsets. Or more bluntly: the pie is only so big and worse still, it's getting smaller so cut me the biggest damn piece already and fuck everyone else!

Such mindsets can inevitable lead to arms races, currency devaluations, collapsing economies, entrenching of wealth and power, trade wars, environmental destruction, slashing of social budgets, fierce competition between advanced states or even outright war and just a general lack of belief that things really can get better, as opposed to just getting worse.

Listing other maladies currently plaguing global news outlets would be an endless and honestly pointless task. We're all familiar with them as they bombard our senses every single bloody day. Instead, it is worth returning to the original point about economics and warfare, daring to flip the two on their heads: instead of thinking in terms of winning the next war, thinking in terms of just how much hard work it takes in preserving peace; instead of forecasting economic downturns and recessions yet to happen, thinking in terms of just how we can get an economy or system functioning that can and consistently benefit people as a whole.

Diametrically opposed of course, but worth thinking about beyond crude stereotypes that would label and dismiss these ideas away as pure hippy nonsense. After all, that's the zero-sum mindset talking and proof in the pudding that the world is suffering a chronic deficiency in optimism, a lack of courage in daring to view anything in positive terms.