Friday, December 31, 2010

A Year of Revelations

It's become an annual tradition to reserve the last Antiwar.com article in December for a look back at the year that has passed. At least as far as the former Yugoslav lands are concerned, 2010 has not been a year of great upheavals - but it has been a year of revelations.

Many suspicions about the Empire have been confirmed by diplomatic dispatches published by Wikileaks. Those cables also confirmed many more suspicions - and introduced new ones - about the quisling regime in Belgrade. And of course, the mid-December Marty report to PACE exposed the mafia hellhole of Boss Snake, also known as the "Independent State of Kosovo" (ISK).

It is both entertaining and ghastly to watch as legions of Imperial and EU busybodies try to scrub off the stench of being "friends" with butchers. With even the Belgrade quislings helping, I would not be surprised if nothing much came of the entire affair. Being the Empire means never having to say you're sorry. Until it is far too late to do any good, anyway.

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. In 2010, the world has gained a lot of knowledge about the way Imperial "reality" really works. And it's not pretty. The question now is what, if anything, will be done with that knowledge. That's where 2011 comes in.

Cheers!

5 comments:

Eugene Costa said...

No doubt you have seen the Time Magazine essay which reads in part:

"'Holbrooke the Dove,' proclaimed Foreign Policy, the magazine Holbrooke once edited. Holbrooke's wife Kati Marton told one gathering of mourners that the best way to honor him 'is to press on with peace.'

There's every reason to believe that Holbrooke would endorse that sentiment, and there's no denying that Dayton is the most significant success in American diplomacy in the post–Cold War era."

Is there any doubt that Hubris, having reached its completion some time ago, now unfolds as Ate?

They are mad as hatters and delirious, as Deleuze and Guattari delinated years ago.

If you still refuse to take Lenin seriously on Capitalism and Imperialism, have you at least examined Sanguinetti or reconsidered Debord?

CubuCoko said...

I did hear something about a paean to Holbrooke appearing in TIME. If it is based on his "bombs for peace" approach, it should be trivial to take it apart in an afternoon. I may do it just as an intellectual exercise. Those who still take Holbrooke and the Empire seriously are immune to reason, and those who do not need no further argumentation, so.

As for Lenin, it isn't that I don't take his analysis of capitalism and imperialism seriously. It is both difficult and stupid to argue with observable facts. On the other hand, the solutions proposed by Marx and his followers (Lenin included) are wrong on principle, based on faulty premises, and have been proven wrong in practice as well, so I'm not sure what their value might be still, aside from an object lesson.

What we're dealing with today isn't capitalism, anyway.

Unknown said...

Nebojsa, you're absolutely right! There is no reason to waste time taking apart the TIME article; it is just standard propaganda that is to be expected. I just finished up at Berkeley and partook in many debates with professors and grad students alike, reason/logic/facts... these things don't mean a thing when it comes to discussing anything vis-à-vis Yugoslavia. One professor, who has admitted on many occasions to be anti-war, said (in a lecture mind you) about the war in Bosnia "the U.S. FINALLY entered the war" - translation: finally went in and bombed the Serbs! So much for staying objective! ...and anti-war for that matter.

Regarding the Marty report, I want to stay optimistic about it, and a part of me still can't believe that someone from the West has put their career (and life) on the line like this, but the U.S. has already gotten away with so much it is hard to imagine that they won't find away to make this all disappear. But at least it is something! Let's hope 2011 will bring more fruit from the labor of all those, who, like you, fight for the cause and only want truth and justice to finally triumph over the lies, cover-ups, and demonizing that have plagued the Serbs for almost two decades now.

Thanks,

Jovan Milojevich

Unknown said...

"What we're dealing with today isn't capitalism, anyway."

Try telling that Washington, London, Bruxelles and Paris.

Eugene Costa said...

Clearly it is Finance Capitalism, as delineated by Lenin, both in regard to nations like Britain, Germany, and Austria, and also, prophetically, in regard to the United States now.

It is more or less inevitable given certain mechanics.

That is the main disagreement between market utopian Libertarians and Marxist Leninists.

Marx, like Ricardo, whom he advanced, is brilliant analytically, less useful predictively or prescriptively, partly because of his overreliance on certain aspects of Hegel.

At any rate, the hilarious aspect is that the Finance Capitalists are equal opportunity destroyers--and they also destroy the Industrial Capitalists, as began happening in the US in the '80's especially.

One other thing to note--the Western Europeans who called themselves "socialist" are not socialist at all. They are "Capitalists with social welfare".

That includes Britain, Germany, and the Scandinavian countries, who remain as capitalist and imperialist as they were before.

And also as anti-Russian (and Serbian) as they were anti-Soviet.

That is also why, like Baathist Iraq, Yugoslavia was targeted by NATO and the Fascist, Imperialist, hyper-Capitalist Clinton.

At any rate, no Marxist Leninist has any difficulty at all with an honest broker like Paul Craig Roberts, who understands the mechanics of Finance Capitalism and calls the figures and the events as he sees them.