Ukraine

"Nationalism... is like cheap cheap alcohol. First it makes you drunk, then it makes you blind, then it kills you"    -Dan Fried

What a media frenzy has surrounded the events of the past few months in Ukraine. I was recently asked by an elderly Russian man what I thought of this conflict, to which I could only reply that no one is ever all right, and no one is ever all wrong. In the following post I will try and explain the situation as best I can, with a conscious effort to be clear and concise.

As countries go, Ukraine doesn't have much history of being an actual nation or people. It has been slavic for a long time, but before that Scythian, Kazar and other nomadic stock from Central Asia. During the Russian Civil War/Revolution one of my favorite historical characters, Nestor Makhno, managed to make some serious headway against authoritarianism by setting up a free area in which no one was allowed to impose their ideology on anyone else.

Of course, the Red Army eventually overwhelmed them by sheer numbers and ruthlessness, and the area was turned into the Ukrainian SSR. When Stalin decided to experiment with agricultural production in the 1930's millions of Ukrainians died of starvation in what is known as the Holodomor. Things didn't get much better during the next decade with the Nazis rampaging throughout the region slaughtering more millions.

Once it was over though the Soviet shot callers in Moscow decided to make like old school Imperialists, get their pens out, and start drawing borders. The result was the country we now call Ukraine.



Starting with the Orange Revolution in 2004 the country has seen a lot of tension between the east and west. The east is relatively industrialized and does a lot of trade with Russia and the CIS countries, whereas the west is more agricultural and exports primarily to Europe. In addition to this division, the west speaks Ukrainian in addition to Russian and has lately seen a lot of nationalism based on this fact.

Now I feel like I can discuss what is currently happening.

The imprisoned Yulia Tymoshenko used her considerable wealth acquired during her time as Prime Minister to pay people to go into the Maiden and oppose the government of her foe, Viktor Yanukovych. The gambit worked, at least for her, and she was released.

What led Tymoshenko to believe that the moment to mobilize forces had come was that Yanukovych had decided to sign an economic deal with Russia that would have done a lot to relieve Ukraines ruinous economy. Unfortunately for him and Ukraine, the EU concluded that doing so meant that they couldn't have similar trade deals with them. Viktor, for all his many faults, made the logical economic choice and chose Russia over an IMF loan that would have led to austerity that would have ruined him politically.

He then decided to use force to drive out the people who were being used against him, which led to people voluntarily joining the protests and things spiralled out of control until he fled the country and an unelected Ukrainian nationalist government was installed with the blessing of the West and a lot of positive coverage in the press.

The first act of this government was to remove Russian as an official language, which is pretty stupid considering its the only language all Ukrainians can speak. Naturally a lot of Russian speaking people in the country took offense to this and with support from Russia have started to fragment the country in retaliation.

Due to some truly impressive corruption the once mighty military of the Ukraine has been reduced to a shadow of its former self and is in no position to oppose anything or anyone militarily. Add this to the fact that a fairly sizable contingent in the new government is openly Fascist and anti-semitic, you have yourself a proper political tinderbox.

Russia has put up with a lot of shit from the West since the end of the Soviet era (the bombing of Serbia, NATO expansion into Eastern Europe, the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq) but having a partially fascist government on its borders was too much.

Consequently, Putin did what most Russians thought was right and started taking action to topple the new government in Kiev. Then you got America once again getting involved in political feuds on the other side of the planet and things get even more volatile.

Where it will go from here is hard to predict. Best case scenario in my opinion is that the country will allow a plebiscite region by region, with those choosing Russia being allowed to peacefully integrate. Another option would be to hold snap elections and hope that some sort of a unity government is formed that is strong enough to weather the economic shitstorm that will be the foreseeable future of the country. If they are lucky Russia will still offer them the deal given to Yanukovych and the EU will stop being dicks about them having concurrent deals with them.

This is of course just all my opinion, and as such, is fundamentally the product of my own bias. I wish the people of the region the best possible outcome and hope that violence can be avoided.

Berlin

Way back in the 15th Century an ambitious bunch of megalomaniacs using the familial name Hohenzollern began to transform a series of towns into a city and raise armies in order to establish an Empire. They were a temperamental, organized and determined crew, but they fit in pretty well with the other inbred sadists masquerading as divinely ordained nobility of the day.

The city of Berlin that they founded and resided in for centuries has had a turbulent time during its five centuries. Some of the more dramatic phases were-

Losing half its population due to the horrendous war caused by the protestant reformation, seeing armies come and go for 30 blood drenched years.

Becoming a center of religious tolerance during a time when that wasn't common in Europe, leading to a mental blooming of brilliance on par with any other.

Prussian Armies marshaled here under the Hohenzollern banner unify Germany in a daring and dashing campaign that forged a nation; not to mention being the first modern military campaign.

The city was a cultural orgy during the Roaring 20's and at that time one of the largest cities earth had ever had on its surface.

As the epicenter of the Nazi Reich, the city saw many monumental building projects, most of which were promptly blown to smithereens.

The population was compelled to hide underground like moles for a few years as English speaking Valkyries perfected the murderous art of aerial bombing.

When the Russians finally made it to the gates of the city, an apocalyptic battle took place involving millions of men and thousands of tanks- arguably the biggest brouhaha of all time.

Following the devastation the city was divided militarily in half with the occasional tank standoff and soldier or civilian dying at the fortified border between east and west. Premier Khrushchev once said, "Berlin is the testicle of the West. When I want the West to scream, I squeeze Berlin."

Once all this drama was over the city of Berlin was a living breathing historical mutant. Too strange to be copied and too rare to ignore. Its most recent phase is decidedly less violent, but every bit as captivating.

Today Berlin has a staggering 890 square kilometers of urban forests, parks and other green space (they alone are almost 9 times the size of Paris), making it the least city like metropolis in the world. The late Kaisers hoped it would become the greatest city of all time and thus designed it on a plan that would theoretically accommodate 30 million people. This probably would have happened too if Wilhelm II and/or Adolf Hitler hadn't been such insatiable savages. I however am glad it only ended up housing a mere 3.4 million, for this has made it a spacious and livable place.

I ended up living in the 8th borough, Neukoelln, during most of my stay here. Ironically, this is firmly in what was once the American sector of the city, and today is half populated by people who are not ethnically German; primarily Turks, Arabs and Kurds. It is a lively and sometimes gritty, but also frequently peaceful and picturesque part of the city that I have learned to love in a way I never expected to love any urban setting.

I recently found out that the castle like fortress/barracks that I frequently ride my bike past once housed the armies of the Prussian Kaisers and then was the Gestapo headquarters in which the Final Solution was plotted and perpetrated. This happens to be right next to the decommissioned Tempelhof airport used in the Berlin Airlift and which is now the biggest park I've ever seen. In a typically Berlin drama the place was planned to be sold and developed after it was closed in 2008, then it was promptly squatted, then the city decided to open up to the public, when some developers talked them into letting them build some shit, the public got pissed off at this, and then the city voted to keep it as it is. 

For me it will always be the city that fostered the brains of Humboldt, Hegel and Marx. The streets that witnessed the dastardly murder of Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht and their Spartacist brethren. My neighborhood that once saw political street battles led by the likes of Olga Benario as Commuinsts desperately fought the spread of Fascism street by street and brain by brain.

A place of Anarchist squats, spectacular museums, utterly distinct neighborhoods, unsurpassed nightlife, more cultural diversity than you can shake a consciousness at and so much nature that you can easily forget concrete chaos any time you want. A city in which Communism and Capitalism smashed into each other at great historical velocity, and some how came out the better for it.

I think Jean Paul was right when he said some time ago that "Berlin is rather a part of the world than a city." David Bowie was perhaps even more correct when he commented that Berlin is "The greatest cultural extravaganza that one could imagine."

I feel truly honored to have been able to call it my home for part of my life and hope to return many times to see what this sprawling mosaic of humanity is up to. 

Downhill Struggle

I really love it when scientists weigh in on the little issue of our impending doom. Perhaps my pleasure in this arises from the fact that the dispassionate language that they use almost always seems like they really don't give a flying fuck personally, but they are obligated to say something from some sort of humanist sympathy for the unscientific masses. A recently published study funded by NASA gave me some seriously dark chuckles indeed (here is the article). 

It pretty much says what everyone not actively ignoring reality is already aware of, the only difference being that scientists are all about specifics. The primary conclusion of the research said that most historical collapses are the result of rapacious elites wanting to consume absurd amounts of resources. This multi-disciplinary grouping observed that this is certainly true of our current situation, with elites in developed countries being the most responsible for our imminent demise.

What they failed to mention is that people emulate elites as much as they can manage in our Capitalist system. Consumption is equated with status, status with quality of life and the power to control it. I think it is from this fact that the arrogance and careless abandon of the wealthy has been transmitted down through the classes to the point that as a whole, we are not concerned with any number of scenarios the study listed resulting in an 'irreversible societal collapse'. 

This state of apathy has rather brilliantly been achieved by the elites allotting only enough of the world's wealth to the masses to keep them servile, while telling them that any downturn in the economy will destroy their lives, and that taking comprehensive action to avert the disasters the scientists promise would invariably be economic suicide. Given our value system, who can be surprised that people seem to believe that half measures and a faith in technology (which has so far only increased per capita consumption) will save us in the 11th hour. 

People are selfish and myopic, or at least the society that they have formed is. How to change that is a tough nut to crack. The old anarchist dream that when this massive modern edifice collapses that we will close ranks and work voluntarily towards our collective survival is the best possible scenario I can imagine. Hell, I'm even down for the far more popular belief that Jesus will show up in the final act and fix it all up in a jiffy.

"The only hope is that our Civilization will collapse at a certain point, as always happens in history. Then, out of barbarity, a renaissance." -Pierre Schaeffer

Regurgitated thoughts half digested

So once again I sit down to my strange machine and try to regurgitate my mind onto this surreal space we call the internet. Why, might you ask. Because the unfathomable depths of absurdity that is this world we live in is something that I feel is worth contemplating.

For example, I read several articles glorifying the people who managed to overthrow their government in Ukraine, much of it saying that this was 'fulfilling the democratic aspirations of the people'. First of all, say what you will of Yanukovych, the man was elected, and overthrowing an elected leader because he is doing what those who voted for him desire is about as undemocratic as you can get. Add that to the fact that the oppositions goal of joining the EU is illogical considering the economic block has no interest in the Ukraine joining, that the only way their entire economy is even viable is with Russian help and you got yourself some people protesting reality as much as anything. Not that that isn't heroic in and of itself; and basically the premise of virtually all revolutions. Having said that, loyalty to democracy for democracy's sake is idiotic anyway. Hitler and Bush were both elected, and their respective citizens supported those two maniacs, so why not Yanukovych? I just can't get over the fact that people are so quick to sympathize with protesters even if they haven't got the foggiest idea why they are doing it.   

Now lets get to something a bit more important, the economic rise of China. People all over the place are getting all sorts of worked up about this, none more so than Americans. Lets consider for a moment that every country that industrialized to become a mover and shaker in the world did so through organized pillaging on a massive scale. This was inevitably done through the barrel of a gun and was the reason for a lot of the murder over the past 150 years. Now look at China, they did it without having to take anything from anyone; except maybe their own people's ability to see the sun or have political opinions. Now one would think that the other economically powerful countries that achieved that status by rather ruthlessly murdering, robbing and raping every damn corner of the globe for generations would have the cognizance to tip their hats to China's remarkable accomplishment. But NOOOOO, they have contracted a case of convenient historical amnesia and thus can go on about 'human rights issues' and not following trade rules. Pretty sure the millions of people (past, present and future) who had to die and suffer for Europe and North America to become developed would have something to say about human rights. 

Somehow its fanaticism when someone wants to enact Sharia law, but its totally different when we impose our made up ideals/hypocrisies upon other societies, often through the use of explosives that fly through the air and kill with the greatest of ease. We accuse China of censorship and then seek to imprison or kill those who dare publish the raw facts of how the American Empire is run. The public loves 'reality tv' but isn't interested in anything resembling fact based reporting on actual events. 

I wonder if the day will ever come when the world has the courage to look in the mirror and realize that all our societies, culture, religion, ideals and the rest is nothing but a bunch of clutter and that anyone who is willing to get excited over it is a hoarder of the most pernicious kind of crap. We are all people, the hour is late, we might be doomed already, can't we just accept that we need to stop judging each other as if we had a leg to stand on. If this hellacious clutter cluster fuck ever stops I suspect we all look around and within us, and realize that the whole shithouse need never have been built, and deep as the shit may be, we would be better off without it.

Age of Oblivion

What sort of era are we entering into?

Let us consider a few stories that will hopefully paint some pictures that might help us answer that question. 

During the midst of a massive demonstration in Kiev, Ukraine thousands of protesters received texts at the same moment from their government saying- "Dear subscriber, you are registered as a participant in a mass disturbance.". 

The Pentagon decided not issue a new medal to honor drone pilots  and cyber warriors after uproar over the decision to rank this decoration above some medals given to troops wounded or killed in battle.

Our planets newest country, South Sudan, descended into civil war when its two largest ethnic groups started attacking one another, making an already uncertain future look grim.

A member of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria blew himself and 21 of his comrades up when he mistakenly used real explosives during a training session at a training camp north of Baghdad. 

Regular Mexicans in Michoacan formed self defense groups and started waging war against the local drug cartel because it had been terrorizing the local population, the government responded by sending in federal forces to try and control these groups and prevent them from succeeding where the government has systematically failed. 

Members of the American media have citing an exceptionally cold winter as evidence that climate change isn't occurring because the phrase 'global warming' was used in the past by those raising the issue.

We live in odd times folks. An era so chock full of hypocrisy, contradiction and people that the earth, our mighty living home in vastness of space, seems to be revolting against our behavior. It's hard to imagine where things will go from here, and for that reason most people seem determined not to think about it. The Age of Oblivion, where you must focus entirely upon the present because the past is too full of horrifying warnings and the future is shrouded in too many terrible possibilities to consider. 

"We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age." -H.P. Lovecraft 1926

It would seem to me that rather than choosing one we have opted for going completely insane and plunging ourselves into a darker age than any of us can fathom. I think the saddest part is that the only positive answer I hear from anyone is that science and technology will save us... why not just believe in God if you are going to go that route?

Trust and Truth

"The great enemy of truth is very often not the lie, deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic." -JFK
It seems a tragic truth that the lie, or perhaps myth, has become more prevalent than the truth. This most recent revelation that the NSA is monitoring every human on earth that they feasibly can has hardly made a ripple in the placid sea of complacency that is the American psyche. I'm not sure if people still buy into the whole terrorism argument as a justification for spying on our own people to a level that makes Hitler and Stalin's governments look like amateurs, or if they are just too busy consuming to read or care. Part of me has to wonder if it isn't all just for marketing purposes that the people in charge have decided to abolish privacy.
Of course it is the machines that do almost all of the actual snooping, just as the they have started to do a good deal of the governments killing. Richard Brautigan once wrote:
"I like to think
(it has to be!)
of a cybernetic ecology
where we are free of our labors
and joined back to nature,
returned to our mammal
brothers and sisters,
and all watched over
by machines of loving grace."
I would claim that his vision of the future has proven to be the exact opposite of what is taking place. The environment is more fucked than ever, and fixing to get even more so at a compound rate. Our labors have not ended and set us free; in fact more people are enslaved than ever before. And worst of all, instead of machines of loving grace we have ones of omnipresent authority that watch and kill all according to the dictates of the Oligarchy.
Although it is a very small comfort that at least a few people are willing to ruin the rest of their lives in order to leak the truth about the workings of the Empire, the fact that perhaps a million people were in a position to do so and have remained silent is far more telling. Not only does our modern era breed alienation, it has spawned a dependence on government and technology that will lead us deeper and deeper into the horrifying darkness of Corporate Fascism. I don't think we were tricked, nor were we forced. It came solely from our preference for safety and comfort over all else. All we had to do was ask the question that Juvenile did almost 2,000 years ago-  QUIS CUSTODIET IPSOS CUSTODES - Who will guard the guards themselves? The answer in our era is apparently no one. And the creepiest part is that the guards are now robots created to control the servile masses.

"Machines were, it may be said, the weapon employed by the capitalists to quell the revolt of specialized labor"

-Marx

Society of the Spectacle

This summer I have had the pleasure of becoming unplugged to a large extent. Working for extended periods in areas where electricity does not flow and cell phone towers do no reach has become an odd luxury in my life. Up in the mountains the screaming spectacle of modernity seems far below and beyond understanding. It is in this setting that I find myself reading a book that has helped answer many questions concerning this strange society that spawned me.

The book is Society of the Spectacle and was written by Guy Debord in 1967. Despite being almost 50 years old, the book is prescient and prophetic. Written more in the style of Tao Te Ching, it presents of theory of modern capitalism that I find more convincing and articulate than any other I've read or heard. I really recommend it to anyone who is genuinely seeking a better understanding of this world of ours. Here are the opening lines-

"In societies where modern conditions of production prevail, all of life presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything that was directly lived has moved away into a representation."

Nothing too revolutionary yet, just an update of Marx's observations about alienation and the fetishization of products. This next section was the one that really started to get me pondering-

"The spectacle is not a collection of images, but a social relation among people, mediated by images."

This line blew my mind. All my childhood people had been staring at televisions, preoccupied by their next purchase, lost in a wilderness of desire of semi-conscious consumerism. It dawned on me that a lot of the people I had grown up around had substituted the spectacle for a life of actual experience. It was the realization of the old religion dream- be able to transcend the painful suffering for a better existence without pain and loss. The muted mindless madness of this society of the spectacle does seem to dull the pain, and the people seem to be standing in line for the opportunity join the show.

I think its safe to say that in the years since computers started conquering human consciousness this has become even more true. The internet is perhaps the ultimate manifestation of the spectacle. An entire reality conjured up to replace the harsh and savage truth of what sort of a civilization we got going here. By using images on a machine's screen for communication and information we have entered a world in which the majority of people we interact with exist not as living breathing hominids, but rather a series of spectacles. Even our military has enthusiastically used this advance to rain death and destruction without even needing to send some fate-fucked proles to do the deed. Now it can be a middle class consumer in Nevada who commutes to work, plops down at a computer and proceeds to carry out the Empires prerogatives whilst siting in a cubicle within a air conditioned room in the desert. If that isn't the incarnation of everything this society is working towards I don't know what is. 

Time to face the strange changes

"It's a little lonely in the desert..."
"It is a little lonely when you're around people too", said the snake
-Antoine Saint-Exupery The Little Prince

   There is a timeless serenity to the desert. Although a forest and mountain dweller my heart always feels especially clear when looking out over the starkly stoic landscape of the South West. It is a place that seems like it can swallow humanity whole and not even have any indigestion.
  As climate change is set to increase the desertification process substantially in the immediate future, I think it serves as a fitting reminder of how nature responds to mankind. So often it has been portrayed as 'environmental collapse' or the 'end of the world', but in a less dramatically anthropocentric view, its really just the living organism called Earth trying to find a solution to an invasive species. We rely on grain to survive, and we have used up almost all the space we can to produce food, eaten the oceans and killed off all the great herds, so when climate change results in chronic food shortages the problem will essentially be solved from a planetary perspective. Famine will sweep the globe, wars will certainly erupt in never before seen dimensions, disease will probably do its part as societies collapse and then ecosystems will slowly recover.
  The desolation we are all working towards will see much of the worlds farmland turn into a desert, which will no doubt seem like a tragedy to us humans, but other lifeforms will surely take it with less theatrics. The desert has always sustained an impressive amount of life for an arid area, and it also seems to make humans a bit more thoughtful and sustainable (Hopi, Kalahari Bushmen, Himba etc.).
  Speaking of the Hopi, they have a wonderful creation story. It is much like the others in that the world is created and destroyed multiple times until we got to the current era. The first time it was destroyed because a birdlike creature called the talker convinced people that there was differences between them, which caused conflict among the humans and led to the animals no longer trusting or associating with us. The second time it was a love of goods that resulted in trade that became more important than living in harmony with nature, and so this too was brought to oblivion. The third go round saw the rise of civilization with its swarms of people, who built flying machines and used them to wage war upon each other. This too was laid waste and those who had not lost their way were once again saved to make another attempt at life. They were told that this 4th world would not be as easy and beautiful as the others, and that they would have to live in a harsh landscape if they wanted to avoid the decadence and oblivion of the previous worlds, and so it is that the Hopi today live in the most desolate desert in the South West, keeping their traditions, waiting for the day that once again this world is destroyed and they are allowed to live because they have not lost their way.
   The Sufi poet Attar of Nishapur records the fable of a powerful king who asks assembled wise men to create a ring that will make him happy when he is sad, and vice versa. After deliberation the sages hand him a simple ring with the words "This too shall pass" etched on it, which has the desired effect. As we travel deeper into the desert of our own making, I think we would do well to remember these wise words, least we get too caught up in our madness.