Surviving Capitalism (Not) : U.S. on Wrong Side of History

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Sunday, May 17, 2015

U.S. on Wrong Side of History

Click here to access article by Bruce K. Gagnon from OpEdNews.

If the old saying is true that you can judge a person by his friends and if we can apply this aphorism to national ruling elites, then our ruling class directorate are a bunch of scoundrels. These Middle Eastern anachronistic monarchies only exist because of the Empire's protection. We have armed and trained their armies against their own people (think Bahrain) in exchange for selling their oil only in US dollars, one of the main supports propping up the dollar's value. If this reminds you of a mafia-type protection racket, you wouldn't be far from the truth.

This is what it has all come down to.... the US and the corrupt, dictatorial Gulf monarchies meeting at Camp David Thursday and agreeing on a plan to flood the Middle East with 'missile defense' (MD) systems.

These Gulf monarchies are the essential allies of the US in the world now (in addition to a few other fascist-leaning nations). Together they are destabilizing and creating chaos in Syria, Yemen, Ukraine and beyond. This meeting is evidence of the desperation and the moral decay of the USA.

Obama announced that that he would streamline weapon sales and increase joint military exercises with Bahrain (home to US Navy Central Command and the Fifth Fleet), Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates....

And look how a court in another allied Middle East nation controlled by another favorite dictator of theirs has decided about the fate of an elected rival in this report entitled "Mohamed Morsi, Egypt's First Freely Elected President, Sentenced to Death".

However, the US Empire's interests do not always coincide with those of the Medieval monarchies, and the recent deal negotiated by the P5+1 with the Iran nuclear issue has very much upset the Saudi rulers and their cronies. As a result Empire leaders hosted them at a very recent meeting at Camp David, Maryland to soothe their angry feelings. Finian Cunningham, an excellent independent journalist, thinks that the Saudis are hoping to scuttle the deal by pursuing their war against Yemen and provoking Iran. He explains their primary concern with Iran:

What the Saudis and the other Arab monarchs fear as "Iranian destabilisation" is the destabilising effect of a relatively democratic government in Iran being able to pursue normal relations with the region, without being continually painted as a pariah. A nuclear deal at the P5+1 would give Iran space to develop normally in the region. But that dynamic is anathema to the Persian Gulf monarchies, who rule with an iron-fist over cowering subjects. Those subjects may be more inclined to agitate for the greater democratic freedoms that are available to Iranian citizens. This is the "destabilising" effect of Iran that the Saudi rulers and their Arab allies fear most, not the much-hyped concerns of "Iranian-inspired subversion".

This strengthens the argument made in yesterday's post entitled "Power and Vulnerability: Saudi Kingdom and its Troubles" in which the author argued that the gulf monarchies are very concerned about the stability of their rule.