ngos, neo-colonialism, and you

this 'attention economics' is a two-way business. while western societies become involved only if old colonial ties are still a factor or if a vital source of materials is affected, the local combatants in protracted wars gamble more and more on triggering mass poverty and refugee flows to spur the west into relief initiatives that can be fed back into the economy of violence." ____________________________________________________________________________ harald welzer. Climate wars:why people will be killed in the twenty-first century. ____________________________________________________________________________ "the manner in which humanitarian aid is given can also influence opportunities for corruption. aid given in the context of humanitarian relief can assume a number of forms. the current predominant model is that of direct project implementation by international agencies. this model has partly developed due to the perceived risks involved in transnational aid resources delivered to national actors...aid recipients have very few powers of sanction in relation to aid providers, while the latter can choose for themselves the level at which their work is subject to scrutiny." ___________________________________________________________________________ corruption in humanitarian aid. transparency international. ___________________________________________________________________________ so...ngos are hip to the "economy of violence" which is simply a variation of extortion in which unscrupulous elites wage war on some minor segment of their population to generate internally displaced persons and a humanitarian crisis that will draw aid agencies like flies and provide them with the means of making a decent living at the expense of the balance of their people...nothing new in that...capital has refined the mechanism to the point that violence is only necessary when they are faced with the threat of substantive change form below...then they simply declare the pursuit of change criminal and build more jails...nations in the southern hemisphere often lack the resources to enact this sort of subtlety and so are forced into the cruder methods discussed above...in an effort to curb this sort of thing ngos have developed a sort of neo-colonial approach well suited to the bureaucrats-in-waiting that those who staff then are..a sort of proxy for the "western societies" that have grown sensitive to the criticisms of their former subject peoples and the need to present an enlightened facade to the world while still finding a way to engage in exploitation..rather than turn the aid supplies over to omar al-bashir, sharif sheikh ahmend, or mahinda rajapaksa, they'll go in and set up their own little satrapy independent of any sort of local input or oversight and distribute aid to whomever they deem worthy of help...a sort of "thin red line" for the twenty-first century holding the carrot of humanitarian aid instead of the traditional musket ( this, of course, is still available for use if the area contains a resource that is "vital" or if it is in a position to impede access to said resource...these, rather than the conservative bugbear of "nation building" or the equally fatuous contention of "spreading democratic ideals", have been the driving force behind the imperial wars of the last decade...the empire is finding its extended borders more and more difficult to defend and the imminent financial collapse won't be simplifying the task of maintaining the empire's power base...the "american century" is truly over...reality simply eludes the knee-jerk reaction of the elite...give it time ) maintaining an old tradition of subjugation to the colonial master's needs with new methods...there may have been a time when i felt that the good groups like amnesty international and oxfam did outweighed my misgivings about, among other things , how much of my donation they applied to their ostensible "work" and how much they used to solicit further donations from me and anyone else that found their way onto their mailing lists...that view has fled screaming into the night...pretty soon oxfam will be a pentagon sub-contractor.

pundit plays catch-up

"all these tensions over land, water and food are telling us something. the arab awakening was driven not only by political and economic stresses, but, less visibly, by environmental, population, and climate stresses as well." thomas l friedman. n y times 4-8-2012 ____________________________________________________________________________ "in 'revolution and rebellion in the early modern world' university of california sociologist jack goldstone makes an excellent case for how the english revolution of 1640, the french revolution of 1789, the various revolutions in central europe in 1848, the jelali revolts in the ottoman empire, and rebellions in imperial china all emerged from the inability of regimes to deal with problems arising from sustained population growth and natural resource depletion." robert d kaplan. "the ends of the earth: a journey to the frontiers of anarchy." 1996. p.117 ____________________________________________________________________________ "elements of modernization and judicial dispute resolution, which were introduced in more peaceful times thirty or so years ago, swept away traditional strategies for problem solving or reconciliation without establishing new or functioning forms of regulation." harald welzer. "climate wars: why people will be killed in the 21st century" 2012 p.59 ___________________________________________________________________________ looks like old tom finally got around to reading bob's 1996 tome on the subject of the connection between resource depeletion and conflict...maybe he picked up a copy of the "post-carbon reader" or, better yet, read some richard heinberg...this bozo has been stumping for the globalitarian elite for decades folks and his sudden conversion is suspect in my eyes...it is the west's concept of "progress" that destroyed the traditional cultures in much of the world to benefit an economic elite that could then exploit the vacuum left behind as the displaced fled to urban slums ( see mike davis's book "planet of slums" for a detailed account of the destruction and subsequent "horizontal" proliferation of unholy slums around cities like lima and lagos ) and became cheap labor and fodder for anything you can do with expendable humans...the egyptians had a traditional culture that farmed the nile river valley for millenia tapping into the yearly deposit of rich silt delivered by the annual nile flood until old gamel dammed it up at aswan...now the delta is eroding and sinking...and how much chemical fertilizer do egyptian farmers now use and who sells it to them? seem my point? there's no whore like a reformed whore and if this isn't some sort of scam to increase the leverage of tom's economically well placed handlers i eat my hat with no salt...someone needs to kick tom in the nuts if for nothing other than being so far behind the curve on something i have been reading about for decades...maybe we could get bob kaplan or thomas homer-dixon to tutor the poor fool and get him up to speed...or get the n y times to banish him to the globe or the national enquirer where he belongs.

weimar 2.0?

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ "the u.s. government and the federal reserve have committed the system to its ultimate insolvency through the easy politics of a bottomless pocketbook, the service of big-moneyed special interests, gross mismanagement, and a deliberate and ongoing effort to debase the u.s. currency. yet the particularly egregious fiscal and monetary responses to economic and solvency crises of the past five years have exacerbated the governments solvency issues, bringing the great financial tempest close enough to making landfall that the hairs on the backs of investors' necks should be standing on end." http://www.shadowstats.com/article/no-414-hyperinflation-special-report-2012 _______________________________________________________________________ weimar? why not? the inter-war german republic was many things but it was never boring...might be good to unhinge the social moorings and see what we're really made of...the late republic is looking a little conservative to me and a swift kick to he nuts of social complacency might loosen things up...george grosz liked to take his old army rifle up on the rooftop of his berlin studio and "shoot pigeons...and other things"...blow off a few rounds to let off steam after a day of producing the "degenerate art" that joe geobbles said he hated but stashed in the bunker off whilhelm strasse when old herman goering wasn't looking ....a fine response to stress that hasn't lost its appeal in the ensuing decades...many prominent men are devotees of the pastime...dick cheney has been particularly fond of pounding back a few beers and letting the buckshot fly...here's hoping his health is on the mend and he can become a public danger again soon...the germans ( with the help of dr. hjalmar horace greely schacht[really that was his name...no kidding] one of the fraternity of economists )hyper-inflated their currency to write off a bunch of reparations slapped on them by the victorious allies in the first world war...so what if it led to all the bad noise after 1933? it got them off the hook didn't it? so how much do we owe the chinese? difficult economic times call for strong leadership and the krauts were chock full of omniscient leaders...why can't the richest and most powerful nation since rome do the same? some will doubtlessly call me overly negative, if not totally paranoid...i mean the economy is better, right? consumer spending picked up in february according to recently released government figures...all you had t do was go to the gas staion to scrounge some fuel to understand why...i'll be willing to bet march's numbers show some gains too, but i can't help but wonder exactly who it is that's doing the gaining...it's a fuzzy picture with a lot of politically expedient cooked numbers that reflect the growing pressures of an election year..the pollyannas among you will call me malthusian but old ozzie spengler had their number around a hundred years ago...there is no such thing as paranoia.