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

Friday, June 3, 2016

New Silk Road or New World War for NATO Colonies?

Click here to access article by Matthew Ehret-Kump from Global Independent Analytics

The author reports on the efforts led by the Chinese strategy of "win-win", first advocated by Deng Xiaoping back in the late 1970s and now promoted by the current leader Xi Jinping, which has so far worked so well within China by raising the standard of living of everyone, developing China's infrastructure and economy, and bringing China to world power status in nearly every realm. As I understand it, the strategy is under the guidance of the Chinese Communist party which has allowed and promoted significant participation by both domestic and foreign capitalist corporations. One side benefit was to solve the political problems of China by a hyper-development of the economy and technology. For several years they have been trying, and succeeding to some extent, to export this model abroad. 

This win-win cooperation strategy is confronted by the US-led Empire's imperialist objective of dominating the world. The Canadian author gives his assessment on how the two strategies are competing and clashing throughout the world. While China is certainly gaining supporters, the Empire with its NATO armies is still in a dominant position; and as he and others have argued with substantial evidence, the Empire is meeting this challenge by preparing for another world war against both China and Russia. 

Could it be that the directors of the capitalist dominated Empire are looking for war both as a way to eliminating rivals to their dominance, but also as a way to re-charge their sluggish economies? War with its destruction of capital has always served to enrich capitalists by opening up many profitable opportunities for them to replace the destroyed capital as well as extending their control over new areas of the globe. Such thinking in this advanced nuclear-armed world is surely insane. This raises the question: have the Empire's directors become so hopelessly intoxicated and sickened with their drugs of profit and power that they have lost their grasp of reality?