The Giant Totters and He Will Fall
Published in Berliner Umschau
(Germany) on 3 January 2011
by Karl Weiss (link to original)
There’s no escape for U.S. imperialism.
In part, U.S. imperialism has already begun thrashing wildly about, a sure sign of the inescapability of the situation in which the United States and its allies find themselves. Desperately, they falsify statistics in an attempt to hide the truth as much as possible. They threaten in every direction, but the dissidents can no longer be silenced.
The four South American nations that constitute the Southern Common Market — i.e., Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay — have recognized Palestine as a sovereign state with borders defined as they were in 1967. They did so despite a warning from the United States not to. But the decisive blow against the world superpower will come from its own economic system — capitalism.
American reaction to the WikiLeaks disclosures is a clear sign of how much the United States feels driven into a corner. Instead of merely ignoring the leaks or questioning their authenticity, they began wildly looking for scapegoats. They accused Julian Assange, responsible for leaking the materials, of espionage and branded him a “threat to U.S. security.” They even suggested he be assassinated, and they desperately pressured the Swedish government into reissuing the arrest warrant against Assange and expanding it to include all of Europe. All this served only to confirm the authenticity of the documents leaked. In so doing, the United States ran afoul of some of its allies – the Saudi Arabian king, for example – who immediately branded as lies the leaks showing he had recommended starting a war against Iran. Everyone then knew they were the truth. The Süddeutsche Zeitung journalist Leyendecker built his entire anti-WikiLeaks argument on the idea that trusting a single source was “bad journalism” because a “good journalist” always had two sources as backup and WikiLeaks had only one. When the WikiLeaks documents later proved to be true, that took the wind out of his sails. (If journalists always followed the “two source” rule, newspapers and television journalism would soon cease to exist and the Watergate case would still be unknown to this day).
But WikiLeaks is really just one inconsequential episode when it comes to showing the open wounds of a superpower so quick to say “ouch” every time it’s even barely touched.
South America, for well over a century thought of merely as America’s backyard, where the U.S. pulled the strings and gave orders, where they orchestrated military coups whenever the whim struck them and “trained” large portions of South America’s military personnel, has finally awakened from its slumber and is casting off its puppet strings. With the exception of Colombia, Peru and Chile, every South American nation today is relatively independent of the United States. Added to that are several Central American and Caribbean nations. Another indicator of the extent to which the U.S. has fallen into panic is the unbelievably absurd way the U.S. falsifies statistics. Month after month the U.S. puts out, in all seriousness, unemployment statistics showing about 10 million unemployed workers, while at the same time statistics also appear showing over 43 million Americans receiving food stamps which are available only to those without jobs. And month after month, the New York markets continue to report the more or less 10 million unemployed figure while never mentioning the other statistic. Is it possible that all stock traders are somewhat mentally challenged? Hardly. These are targeted statistics and news stories. Everyone knows what’s really happening: the economic crisis in the United States is worsening, unemployment figures continue to rise, new home construction is practically non-existent and no new jobs are being created. Most people are becoming poorer while a thin upper crust is awash in money.
These trends, by the way, are similar to those in Germany. Unemployment statistics are freely made up here as well. They’ll soon be telling us the number of Germans without work has sunk below the 2 million mark. At the same time, they’ll report the number of Hartz IV recipients has surpassed the 6 million mark and the tendency is currently upward toward 7 million. The Frankfurt stock markets, meanwhile, behave as though they really believe the economic recovery stories.
Another indicator of the difficulties U.S. imperialism finds itself in these days is America’s official position on Israel. Where previous U.S. presidents at least gave the impression they urged Israel to seek peace and were even successful in forging agreements such as the Oslo Accords, giving some the hope that the U.S. and Israel were really interested in a peaceful solution, they have since abandoned the charade. Israel continues to escalate its settlement-building activities in East Jerusalem and the occupied territories with America’s blessing. That has flushed away any possibility of Middle East peace as well as any Arab leaders in trouble because of their alliance with America, while the governments of Iran, Syria, Lebanon and the masses in Saudi Arabia appear more and more as role models. Israel seems bent on burning all its bridges and has officially stated, “We’re only doing to the Palestinians what the Americans did to the Indians.” Just so people know where they stand. It demands one to ask whether Zionism isn’t running the risk of having to pay a high price for announcing this sort of new Holocaust. It could not be worse for U.S. imperialism in the Middle East. After the last U.S. troops pull out of Iraq, the Shiite majority will take over and forge a powerful alliance with Iran. The practical considerations of a Kurdish state in Iraq forces Turkey further and further from joining the NATO alliance and out of any alliance with Israel, as well as precluding any serious initiatives to make Turkey part of the European Union. According to neutral observers, including those in the United States and Germany, NATO has lost the war in Afghanistan. It can certainly be dragged out for many years, but it can no longer be won.
Pakistan is a very dangerous ally. In brief, in an attempt to get the entire Middle East under its thumb, the United States made every mistake it was possible to make. And now America will reap what it has sown: Islam, and especially the extreme forms of Islam, will come out of its wars with the United States much more strengthened; the billions of dollars spent have achieved the opposite of what was intended or perhaps not intended.
America’s debt relative to its economic performance has grown so much – and continues to grow! – that it’s difficult to come to any other conclusion except that it can never be paid, certainly not by this United States of America. But if it must be so, one thing is certain: The United States will have to declare bankruptcy. It’s impossible to predict when that day will arrive because that depends on the good (or the bad) intentions of the speculators — the Japanese and the Chinese — who hold the majority of the U.S. foreign debt. But it will eventually happen, and then it won’t be an easy task to piece everything back together. The speculators, the rating agencies, the government officials and heads of reserve banks keep lying and lying. They talk about Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain, but the country where the economic figures (current account deficits, budget deficits and the ratio of public debt to economic output) are the worst – and by far the worst – is the United States of America. U.S. government bonds should have already received poor ratings and required additional interest percentage points for new bonds; the U.S. dollar exchange rate should have already fallen dramatically, but none of this has taken place. It’s business as usual, just as if no one has any idea about the real figures of the American economy.
This only shows the global fears of what U.S. bankruptcy would mean to the world economy, the financial system and the entire capitalistic system of economics. It’s correct to say that the system couldn’t shake off the effects of such a bankruptcy as easily as it did the bankruptcy of Argentina in 2001. Because the U.S. dollar is the world’s reserve currency, its failure would cause the entire financial system to implode. One need only imagine what would happen if all banks and governments that have major holdings of U.S. dollars had to be rescued, something that would be objectively impossible. Such a collapse would deepen the global economic crisis and call into question whether the machinations of capitalist leaders (bank presidents, business leaders and their political supporters) and the “laws of capitalism” (i.e., there’s always money there for the banks but never for the people) would survive. The popularity of socialism would grow by leaps and bounds, and it’s entirely possible that there would be a socialist world revolution following the riots in the wake of a global crash. It’s no wonder that when the rulers’ asses are on the line they already have made preparations for a terror state with absolute and total control. But we here in Germany are already familiar with that scenario: East Germany was a bourgeois-capitalist state where the leaders believed they could keep everything afloat by terrorizing and spying on its own citizens. We all know how quickly that can happen.
In part, U.S. imperialism has already begun thrashing wildly about, a sure sign of the inescapability of the situation in which the United States and its allies find themselves. Desperately, they falsify statistics in an attempt to hide the truth as much as possible. They threaten in every direction, but the dissidents can no longer be silenced.
The four South American nations that constitute the Southern Common Market — i.e., Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay — have recognized Palestine as a sovereign state with borders defined as they were in 1967. They did so despite a warning from the United States not to. But the decisive blow against the world superpower will come from its own economic system — capitalism.
American reaction to the WikiLeaks disclosures is a clear sign of how much the United States feels driven into a corner. Instead of merely ignoring the leaks or questioning their authenticity, they began wildly looking for scapegoats. They accused Julian Assange, responsible for leaking the materials, of espionage and branded him a “threat to U.S. security.” They even suggested he be assassinated, and they desperately pressured the Swedish government into reissuing the arrest warrant against Assange and expanding it to include all of Europe. All this served only to confirm the authenticity of the documents leaked. In so doing, the United States ran afoul of some of its allies – the Saudi Arabian king, for example – who immediately branded as lies the leaks showing he had recommended starting a war against Iran. Everyone then knew they were the truth. The Süddeutsche Zeitung journalist Leyendecker built his entire anti-WikiLeaks argument on the idea that trusting a single source was “bad journalism” because a “good journalist” always had two sources as backup and WikiLeaks had only one. When the WikiLeaks documents later proved to be true, that took the wind out of his sails. (If journalists always followed the “two source” rule, newspapers and television journalism would soon cease to exist and the Watergate case would still be unknown to this day).
But WikiLeaks is really just one inconsequential episode when it comes to showing the open wounds of a superpower so quick to say “ouch” every time it’s even barely touched.
South America, for well over a century thought of merely as America’s backyard, where the U.S. pulled the strings and gave orders, where they orchestrated military coups whenever the whim struck them and “trained” large portions of South America’s military personnel, has finally awakened from its slumber and is casting off its puppet strings. With the exception of Colombia, Peru and Chile, every South American nation today is relatively independent of the United States. Added to that are several Central American and Caribbean nations. Another indicator of the extent to which the U.S. has fallen into panic is the unbelievably absurd way the U.S. falsifies statistics. Month after month the U.S. puts out, in all seriousness, unemployment statistics showing about 10 million unemployed workers, while at the same time statistics also appear showing over 43 million Americans receiving food stamps which are available only to those without jobs. And month after month, the New York markets continue to report the more or less 10 million unemployed figure while never mentioning the other statistic. Is it possible that all stock traders are somewhat mentally challenged? Hardly. These are targeted statistics and news stories. Everyone knows what’s really happening: the economic crisis in the United States is worsening, unemployment figures continue to rise, new home construction is practically non-existent and no new jobs are being created. Most people are becoming poorer while a thin upper crust is awash in money.
These trends, by the way, are similar to those in Germany. Unemployment statistics are freely made up here as well. They’ll soon be telling us the number of Germans without work has sunk below the 2 million mark. At the same time, they’ll report the number of Hartz IV recipients has surpassed the 6 million mark and the tendency is currently upward toward 7 million. The Frankfurt stock markets, meanwhile, behave as though they really believe the economic recovery stories.
Another indicator of the difficulties U.S. imperialism finds itself in these days is America’s official position on Israel. Where previous U.S. presidents at least gave the impression they urged Israel to seek peace and were even successful in forging agreements such as the Oslo Accords, giving some the hope that the U.S. and Israel were really interested in a peaceful solution, they have since abandoned the charade. Israel continues to escalate its settlement-building activities in East Jerusalem and the occupied territories with America’s blessing. That has flushed away any possibility of Middle East peace as well as any Arab leaders in trouble because of their alliance with America, while the governments of Iran, Syria, Lebanon and the masses in Saudi Arabia appear more and more as role models. Israel seems bent on burning all its bridges and has officially stated, “We’re only doing to the Palestinians what the Americans did to the Indians.” Just so people know where they stand. It demands one to ask whether Zionism isn’t running the risk of having to pay a high price for announcing this sort of new Holocaust. It could not be worse for U.S. imperialism in the Middle East. After the last U.S. troops pull out of Iraq, the Shiite majority will take over and forge a powerful alliance with Iran. The practical considerations of a Kurdish state in Iraq forces Turkey further and further from joining the NATO alliance and out of any alliance with Israel, as well as precluding any serious initiatives to make Turkey part of the European Union. According to neutral observers, including those in the United States and Germany, NATO has lost the war in Afghanistan. It can certainly be dragged out for many years, but it can no longer be won.
Pakistan is a very dangerous ally. In brief, in an attempt to get the entire Middle East under its thumb, the United States made every mistake it was possible to make. And now America will reap what it has sown: Islam, and especially the extreme forms of Islam, will come out of its wars with the United States much more strengthened; the billions of dollars spent have achieved the opposite of what was intended or perhaps not intended.
America’s debt relative to its economic performance has grown so much – and continues to grow! – that it’s difficult to come to any other conclusion except that it can never be paid, certainly not by this United States of America. But if it must be so, one thing is certain: The United States will have to declare bankruptcy. It’s impossible to predict when that day will arrive because that depends on the good (or the bad) intentions of the speculators — the Japanese and the Chinese — who hold the majority of the U.S. foreign debt. But it will eventually happen, and then it won’t be an easy task to piece everything back together. The speculators, the rating agencies, the government officials and heads of reserve banks keep lying and lying. They talk about Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain, but the country where the economic figures (current account deficits, budget deficits and the ratio of public debt to economic output) are the worst – and by far the worst – is the United States of America. U.S. government bonds should have already received poor ratings and required additional interest percentage points for new bonds; the U.S. dollar exchange rate should have already fallen dramatically, but none of this has taken place. It’s business as usual, just as if no one has any idea about the real figures of the American economy.
This only shows the global fears of what U.S. bankruptcy would mean to the world economy, the financial system and the entire capitalistic system of economics. It’s correct to say that the system couldn’t shake off the effects of such a bankruptcy as easily as it did the bankruptcy of Argentina in 2001. Because the U.S. dollar is the world’s reserve currency, its failure would cause the entire financial system to implode. One need only imagine what would happen if all banks and governments that have major holdings of U.S. dollars had to be rescued, something that would be objectively impossible. Such a collapse would deepen the global economic crisis and call into question whether the machinations of capitalist leaders (bank presidents, business leaders and their political supporters) and the “laws of capitalism” (i.e., there’s always money there for the banks but never for the people) would survive. The popularity of socialism would grow by leaps and bounds, and it’s entirely possible that there would be a socialist world revolution following the riots in the wake of a global crash. It’s no wonder that when the rulers’ asses are on the line they already have made preparations for a terror state with absolute and total control. But we here in Germany are already familiar with that scenario: East Germany was a bourgeois-capitalist state where the leaders believed they could keep everything afloat by terrorizing and spying on its own citizens. We all know how quickly that can happen.
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