Free Trade

"Is that to say we are against Free Trade? No, we are for Free Trade, because by Free Trade all economical laws, with their most astounding contradictions, will act upon a larger scale, upon the territory of the whole earth; and because from the uniting of all these contradictions in a single group, where they will stand face to face, will result the struggle which will itself eventuate in the emancipation of the proletariat."

-Karl Marx (1847)

All I can say to that is we live in such an age, and despite the contradictions the show goes on. Considering what was done in the name of free trade during the 19th and 20th centuries it is a horryfying thought that this might not be the apogee. We must remember that people of the 19th century surely thought they were living through the triumph of free trade. After all during the late 1870's Britain systematically took advantage of a drought to starve an estimated 50 million people in China and India in order to create a market more suitable for land and resource acquisition. This led to one boisterous Englishmen to proclaim that "Free trade is Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ is free trade.". Free market needs also made it imperative that the entire country of Paraguay be slaughtered for the crime of having no foreign debt and a trade surplus (some estimates say as much as 70% of Paraguay's male population was killed). If one cuts through all the propaganda and deception it is fairly easy to see that all the wars of the past two centuries are free trade wars. After all, who would finance a war that didn't promise a profit?

The wars we see today are no different. Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and now Iran all made the same mistake; they didn't bend over to take their free market medicine when told to. The concept of free trade was something that those cunning Brits thought up after they had industrialized and wanted to ensure that no one would do the same. It was a masterful move that involved the elimination of China and India as the worlds biggest producers, shackled Latin America with endless debt and justified the sanguinary subjugation of all of Africa. This very same tried and true logic is why America can drop cluster bombs on cities and call it freedom. This is the world we live in and the sort of ethics that dominate our lives. I like how Antonio Gramsci put it, "The old world is dying away, and the new world struggles to come forth: now is the time of monsters."

America

I ask myself the same thing about American Politics that I ask about American television; do people really watch this shit? And if the answer is yes, then are we completely doomed to be destroyed by these robots? If a group of people can manage to ignore the blindingly brutal realities of our day and age, then I suppose it should come as no surprise that the same group of people are capable of being entertained by anything, so long as it has no basis in reality. This would seem to explain why anyone could possibly take politics in this country seriously. When one party is for potentially bombing Iran, and the other is definitely for bombing Iran, then Democracy is a joke. If both candidates are unabashedly indifferent to the end of the Constitution then what is the point in even taking such a spectacle seriously and how do they manage to make people do so? Like most good questions, there is a mountain of literature on the subject.

Guy Debord wrote about it extensively and it played a fundamental role in the Situationist Movement in France during the 1960's. He made some observations that are so striking in their prescience that it does much to convince me of the validity of what he had to say. For example, look at this: "With the destruction of history, contemporary events themselves retreat into a remote and fabulous realm of unverifiable stories, uncheckable statistics, unlikely explanations and untenable reasoning." This sounds like a succinct and accurate description of almost all the Americans I have ever known. They float in this 'fabulous realm' in which truth is banished and critical thought impossible. Just watch anything about politics in America and you know for a fact that the conversation is purely for show, for it contains nothing. He even said that terrorism was necessary for such a society in order to render some sort of other over which its superiority is unquestionable in comparison.

When Ron Paul tries to talk about serious issues he is ignored or denigrated, which he sadly doesn't realize is because this country is just simply too far gone in the 'fabulous realm' to listen to what he says and associate it with concrete reality. Too absurd to be believed but too powerful and violent to be ignored, that's the America I know and live in. I think this the high water mark of the 'society of the spectacle' that Debord commented on a lifetime ago. Whatever comes after this I am hoping it comes soon, for if things continue on their current route all will be lost.

My mind is awash with so many others who saw this coming and commented on this monstrosity long before I was born that it seems pointless to quote them. The one naive little hope I have personally is that there is a slim chance that one of these coming generations is going to suffer from such untreatable mental disorders that even our automatized plastic coated consumerism won't be able to handle them and thus will the madness end. Our era would then be told to children in years to come as a reminder of how they must always be on guard against the soul assassins.

thought shot

Lately I've been considering what I am. Seems like I've settled into being me and this will likely be who I'm dealing with from here on out. It's a good feeling to be comfortable in your own being, and one that I feel many people never truly enjoy in the modern world. To not only accept who you are but to also accept how everyone else will react to this. Being a human really isn't all that bad if you don't take it too seriously. This would be a lot easier I presume if there wasn't this colossal pile of cultural baggage from generations past that people seem to think is extra important.

I generally find people adorable and far too fragile to harbor any ill will towards. It is precisely this weakness and vulnerability which makes me love being human. I get to construct, at least partially intentionally, a life. In all its rambling randomness and funky familiarity I love it a lot, for it is mine and all I have to contribute. Even though their is a possibility of comprehensive societal collapse, World War III, environmental Armageddon and many other potential show enders for humanity, this doesn't really bother me much anymore. How can one get upset at the species one is part of? Love it or hate it, you're with these maniacal monkeys from cradle to grave with no where to run. My advice is to make of yourself something that you can be happy having gifted to the universe in return for it letting you lease some carbon. As for the others, don't worry about them, doomed or destined for more, it doesn't really matter as much as trying to be someone you want to be for your time here on earth.

Silent Sojourn

thoughts twinkle in this twilight of travels

neurons send and receive like wind in tree

all tension and concern gently unravels

only sweet acceptance is now in me

Why did I go, where I went, what was there?

All the questions that are bound to assail

I can merely smile, for I do not care

to take my experience to a verbal jail

The feelings are too fresh and unique

I refrain to explain what I cannot

silently it lays peacefully oblique

for in the telling I will have forgot

Downward Spiral

I can only say this about this world, it gives you something to think on. It took me a while to realize the bottomless depth of this world and that it is clearly beyond all comprehension. I admire it for this trait, it makes me feel that I can truly enjoy the impossibility of it all without having to feel too guilty about not taking it all that seriously. And how can you take it seriously? We live in a place that makes of contradictions and irony the very basis of our existence. Even my half-assed attempt at unlocking the riddles of reality has damn near driven me mad on several occasions, so those who really dig to the deeps must surely suffocate from lack of sanity.

Still, I have nothing else to do, so I give it a whirl and transcribe my thoughts in the hope that one day this brain that I have thrown down the infinite pit will strike the fabled bottom and I will hear the echo of its crash, smiling with satisfaction and wisdom. For now however, I just look at this place and think, 'what a bunch of silly, stupid shit'. The 1% making their billions off the demanding desire of the demented. The people who think they can sit in a park day after day in a city built by Capitalism, having been suckled at its teat their entire lives, and call it dissent. People fighting for freedom from dictatorship in Syria and Egypt hopelessly stranded in a geopolitical scene that sees no benefit in helping them and a tradition of violence that condemns them to brutal repression. All the while the business of providing goods to the world pillages and plunders a wounded planet to fill the countless freighters and trucks so this system of materialism can deliver the goods for just one more day.

I don't pretend that there has ever been a reason for anything humanity has done, but these days it's hard to see the purpose of holding out hope that we will ever figure out a way to change ourselves. This fantastical flurry of ferociousness doing all it can to render unto the multitude that is squirming and screaming for more is all we can expect. No sign of restraint nor hope for repentance. It's all too brutal to believe, but too clear to deny. Still I feel immense sorrow for every struggling soul out there trying to cope with things by challenging authority. The real goal should be to challenge ourselves to live in a manner that doesn't require us to depend upon anything or anyone but ourselves. In my mind, the most revolutionary act possible in our world is to not need or want anything that we cannot provide for ourselves. If we cannot accomplish this no amount of Occupying or toppling of autocratic governments can fundamentally alter the fact that we are dependent upon empowered others for our existence, and thus by definition not free.

"Don't let it bring you down, its only castles burning. "-Neil Young

"You cannot see the future with tears in your eyes." -Navajo Proverbs

Is anybody home?

"At length corruption, like a general flood

(So long by watchful ministers withstood)

Shall deluge all; and avarice, creeping on,

Spread like a low-born mist, and blot the sun"

-Alexander Pope

Curious is the fact that Capitalism has endured so long and proven so strong. Guess it isn't so shocking when one considers that cannibalism and child sacrifice went on for thousands of years. As a student of History I don't see much point in complaining too much about this system of economics. It just fits too well with the trajectory of our development and seems a natural consequence of centuries of Imperialist wars. Trying to criticize one of the most potent and pervasive movements to hit humans seems to me being in denial of what sort of species we have become.

It isn't that I don't have hope for a better breed of bipeds, I just think it won't come about without acknowledging our flaws. In my mind the biggest of these glitches is an amazing ability to willfully not learn from our mistakes in a timely fashion. I suppose Hegel's comment that "We learn from History that we do not learn from History" is an accurate assessment of mankind. Nato trying to conquer Afghanistan, people still acting surprised at the erratic cycles of Capitalism, tribal wars over power, destroying the environment... all these things are mistakes made many times. Probably the best excuse is that humans are habitual creatures and just because things don't work out well is no reason to change.

There is something rather fantastic about our careless abandon. It bespeaks of a profound apathy for anything beyond the present and not directly related to our individual lives. The level to which we have accepted this system is very telling. People speak more of the end of the world than the end of Capitalism, and surely they can imagine the former more than the latter. When you see a photo of the world at night one can't help but notice that the light has clearly been left on, but is anyone home?

"The slaves of custom and established mode,

With pack-horse constancy we keep the road

Crooked or straight, through quags or thorny dells,

True to the jingling of our leader's bells"

-William Cowper

Confoederatio Helvetica

"For many men, the acquisition of wealth does not end their troubles, it only changes them."

-Lucius Annaeus Seneca

As my weeks in Switzerland turn into months I am beginning to wonder about the nature of wealth and how it affects society. With the rest of the developed world going through its socio-economic menstrual cycle (every 20 years we bleed out our brains) hanging with the Swiss is an interesting place to observe this phenomenon. These people have their whole little fairy tale world running like a well oiled clock and observe a delightful policy of aloof apathy towards the rest of the privileged peoples problems. They seem satisfied with contributing humanitarian aid and profiting from the misery of the rest of planet through banking.

I like the special existence these people enjoy in this unconscionable world of ours. It truly is a species populating a planet too absurd to even analyze sometimes, but I'll make my attempt non the less. Those in the North are bordering on complete panic about the fact that their era of excess is being threatened once again by economics, reality, and the structural insanity of modern consumer capitalism. The proximal populations, such as those in Mexico, North Africa and South West Asia, are suffering from endemic violence and upheaval that results from a world order that has ordained them to forever be subservient to needs of their powerful neighbors to the north. Farther south and east the struggle continues in a fashion as old as the ages; the perennial struggle for enough calories to live one more year and praying that the terrible threesome of war, famine and plague don't once again visit them.

In such a nonsensical narrative the Swiss simply go on putting bells on all their cows, hiking in their mountains, and enjoying the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune that somehow bestowed upon them a serendipitous situation. At least they didn't have to colonize, conquer and kill to achieve it, which is something no other society on earth can claim. In a world that is increasingly a dark and devious nightmare who can blame these Swiss for living their gentle dream in their Alpine fortress of solitude.

"Fate is not an eagle, but creeps like a rate." -Elizabeth Bowen

Masochistic Mammals

The purpose of life has gotten lost in the waves of thought that swirl and swarm in our masochistic mammal minds. Luckily Consumer Capitalism conjures a cacophony of cultural calamity that is of such a similar structure that nothing gets lots, the nonsense is without beginning or end and thus flows like the sewage in our innumerable cities. Lately what gets passed off as news has been especially hysterical feces laced vomitus. Let us give a brief lay of the lunacy that has lately entered the annals of hopelessness human idiocy.

My favorite occurrence of late is the ingenious machinations of Ali Abdullah Saleh. This guy is my favorite Muslim Despot currently reigning, and he has not let me down. While other countries just shoot their unarmed people, this man has the balls to actually attack his own Hashid tribe, and break timeless regional traditions by attacking Sheiks who are trying to mediate. He has now pulled out of three different negotiations to step down, and engaged in some fantastic PR stunts such as sending people into the town of Zanjibar to pretend to be Al-Qaeda and then announce to the world that they are going to take over part of the country if he leaves office. Saleh and Qaddafi are the true BAMFs and have no problem instigating civil wars rather than deal with the silliness of civil disobedience. I think it is pretty clear at this point that the current economic structure has no tolerance for anything resembling legitimate social change, and thus in a way they are being practical by instead going the route of traditional tribal/regional warfare over power.

On another note, reports are now surfacing that Qaddafi is using the same multinational corporations that the US Military and Friends utilize to recruit mercenaries. Now war profiteering is the largest component in modern warfare, but this sort of development is fucking bananas. The fact that we helped arm Qaddafi, then claimed it would be immoral to arm the Benghazi based rebels was bad enough, but letting him tap into our mercenary market! Suppose it all comes down to the fact the west will always cherish any situation where brown people perish whilst making us money. It is also taking neoliberal economic policies to their logical extreme.

Meanwhile people in the Imperial hinterland are still bitching and moaning about financial problems. The irony of an IMF chief trying to literally rape an African whilst the IMF figuratively has been rapping Africa for decades is pretty rich. Just as Stalin purportedly once commented, "The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of a million is a statistic' I suppose the rap of one African is a crime, but the rape of millions is just good business. Further proof that the entire monolith of modern economics is just a giant herd of half-sentient cattle that care about nothing save their ability to continuously graze, the value of the Euro dropped as a result of the sexual assault charges being filed.

If it is any consolation to you however, it does seem to be getting a lot more violent in the colonies and so may yet have the chance to and privileged people might soon have to go through life without being able to contentedly chew the cud of Consumer Capistalisms until the edifice comes crashing down upon us all.

"Even if the whole world were to fall to pieces, the unity of the psyche would never be shattered. And the wider and more numerous the fissures on the surface, the more the unity is strengthened in the depths." Carl Jung Civilization in Trasition