Sunday, December 10, 2006
testing
posted by j9 8:19 AM
Thursday, February 03, 2005
I don't watch TV anymore, and I seldom listen to NPR news -- not since their weak-kneed coverage during the build-up to the Iraq War. Not much has changed in their editorial slant or coverage since then. I see the same unwillingness to ask challenging questions about BushCo policies and give voice to points of view significantly different from the Bush line.
The Lord of Misrule Hisself has, of course, striven for similar uniformity during His imperial administration -- similar to McDonald's in fact: "one taste, worldwide." No one inside this country is ever told how the rest of the the world feels about BushCo's sabor del mundo, which could best be summed up by vomiting. Inside the executive branch, no one, down to the lowliest clerk in the Dept of Ag is supposed to say anything to anybody that differs in tone or substance from what the puppet masters say, as demonstrated amply by the Valerie Plame affair.
Therefore imagine my surprise when Slate featured a report produced by the CIA's National Intelligence Council, which predicts the gradual erosion of the power of the United States, starting in about 15 years. By that time, a number of other nations, most notably India and China, will be of a size that they can exert strong influence in their area of the world, and lesser nations of those regions will look to India and China for security and prosperity, not to the US. The European Community, larger and further integrated, will surpass the US. As these nations prosper, they will flex their economic muscle to bring the US more into line with the rest of the world's nations. Other changes are coming. The work that is now done here will by that time have gone elsewhere, because labor costs here will be prohibitive. The US will not be able to sustain its military advantage, either. Its declining economic fortunes will see to that.
Because I have studied empires somewhat (Rome and Greece especially) during college, I know a bit about their course. That is, they rise, are ascendant for a while, decline, and fall, and something else eventually comes along to replace them. It amused me to no end that in the height of its hubris (is that really true -- I mean aren't they being more hubristic now? no matter) people inside BushCo were comparing America to Rome because we "made our own reality" now. I thought, surely if you're comparing yourself to Rome, or for that matter to the Thousand Year Reich, could you perhaps ask where those empires are now?
Here's the Slate piece:
Slate war stories
2020 Vision
A CIA report predicts that American global dominance could end in 15 years.
By Fred Kaplan
Posted Wednesday, Jan. 26, 2005, at 2:48 PM PT
Who will be the first politician brave enough to declare publicly that the United States is a declining power and that America's leaders must urgently discuss what to do about it? This prognosis of decline comes not (or not
only) from leftist scribes rooting for imperialism's downfall, but from the National Intelligence Council--the "center of strategic thinking" inside the U.S. intelligence community.
The NIC's conclusions are starkly presented in a new 119-page document, "Mapping the Global Future: Report of the National Intelligence Council's 2020 Project." It is unclassified and available on the CIA's Web site. The report has received modest press attention the past couple weeks, mainly for its prediction that, in the year 2020, "political Islam" will still be "a potent force." Only a few stories or columns have taken note of its central
conclusion:
The likely emergence of China and India ... as new major global players--similar to the advent of a united Germany in the 19th century and a powerful United States in the early 20th century--will transform the geopolitical landscape with impacts potentially as dramatic as those in the previous two centuries.
In this new world, a mere 15 years away, the United States will remain "an important shaper of the international order"--probably the single most powerful country--but its "relative power position" will have "eroded." The new "arriviste powers"--not only China and India, but also Brazil, Indonesia, and perhaps others--will accelerate this erosion by pursuing "strategies designed to exclude or isolate the United States" in order to "force or cajole" us into playing by their rules.
America's current foreign policy is encouraging this trend, the NIC concluded. "U.S. preoccupation with the war on terrorism is largely irrelevant to the security concerns of most Asians," the report states. The authors don't dismiss the importance of the terror war--far from it. But they do write that a "key question" for the future of America's power and influence is whether U.S. policy-makers "can offer Asian states an appealing vision of regional security and order that will rival and perhaps exceed that offered by China." If not, "U.S. disengagement from what matters to U.S. Asian allies would increase the likelihood that they will climb on Beijing's bandwagon and allow China to create its own regional security that excludes the United States."
To the extent that these new powers seek others to emulate, they may look to the European Union, not the United States, as "a model of global and regional governance."
This shift to a multipolar world "will not be painless," the report goes on, "and will hit the middle classes of the developed world in particular" with further outsourcing of jobs and outflow of capital investment. In short, the NIC's forecast involves not merely a recalibration in the balance of world power, but also--as these things do--a loss of wealth, income, and, in every sense of the word, security.
The trends should already be apparent to anyone who reads a newspaper. Not a day goes by without another story about how we're mortgaging our future to the central banks of China and Japan. The U.S. budget deficit, approaching a half-trillion dollars, is financed by their purchase of Treasury notes. The U.S. trade deficit--much of it amassed by the purchase of Chinese-made goods--now exceeds $3 trillion. Meanwhile, China is displacing the United States all across Asia--in trade, investment, education, culture, and tourism. It's also cutting into the trade markets of Latin America. (China is now Chile's No. 1 export market and Brazil's No. 2 trade partner.) Asian engineering students who might once have gone to MIT or Cal Tech are now going to universities in Beijing.
Meanwhile, as the European Union becomes a coherent entity, the dollar's value against the euro has fallen by one-third in the past two years (one-eighth just since September). As the dollar's rate of return declines, currency investors--including those who have been financing our deficit--begin to diversify their holdings. In China, Japan, Russia, and the Middle East, central bankers have been unloading dollars in favor of euros.
The Bush policies that have deepened our debt have endangered the dollar's status as the world's reserve currency.
What is the Bush administration doing to alter course or at least cushion the blow? It's hard to say. During Condoleezza Rice's confirmation hearings last week, Sen. Paul Sarbanes, D?Md., raised some questions about the nexus between international economics and political power. Rice referred him to the secretary of the treasury.
The NIC issued the report a few weeks before Bush's inaugural address, but it serves to dump still more cold water on the lofty fantasy of America delivering freedom to oppressed people everywhere. In Asia, the report states, "present and future leaders are agnostic on the issue of democracy and are more interested in developing what they perceive to be the most effective model of governance." If the president really wanted to spread freedom and democracy around the planet, he would (among other things) need to present America as that "model of governance"--to show the world, by its example, that free democracies are successful and worth emulating. Yet the NIC report paints a world where fewer and fewer people look to America as a model of anything. We can't sell freedom if we can't sell ourselves.
CIA Report:
http://www.foia.cia.gov/2020/2020.pdf
posted by stefan 7:10 PM
Wednesday, November 17, 2004
Adventures in Branding (again): Note that my previous post, lo these many months ago, was about something that might become a product name. Call it a hobby but I played at doing branding work (for pay) until about two years ago, and it's still of interest to me. The occasional work I did was for a Korean branding company. They reliably thrilled and frightened me with the product names they thought might be viable in the US and elsewhere, such as Millient (cigarettes) and Nebbis (a sports beverage). Usually, my job was to collect data in the form of attitude surveys and warn them away from obvious English-based dangers. Much depends of course on the the usual variables: product, target consumer, location. But somehow I don't think Nebbis will ever have much of a run in the US, at least in places where Yiddishisms are understood.
Today I came across this title in the Quality Paperback Book Club's mail solicitation:
The QPB Mammoth Book of Erotica
This being Northern California and all, I have witnessed the Constant Variety of Sexuality on a regular, but healthy, basis. Still, the co-occurrence of "mammoth" and "erotica" in the same noun phrase was a rare find in what is becoming an exhausted field.
The possibilities of this title are considerable, foremost the question of how one has erotic experiences with extinct animals. The few sites where frozen specimens are occasionally unearthed are hard to reach, evenby Land Rover. The Museum of Natural History offers some solace, but the guards must be bribed. There's also that wonderful dampening effect "mammoth" has on "erotica", like "laxative" or "petroleum" before "chocolate mousse". Or maybe I'm just out of it. As America gets bigger (and presumably dumber, such that an editor would let such a title go to press), as de rigeur tattoos and pubic coiffure fall by the way, "mammoth sex" might be the porn of tomorrow.
posted by stefan 6:38 PM
Friday, August 06, 2004
I am apparently perverse enough such that I make jokes out of anything.
Example: the recent ethnic cleansing of Sudanese civilians of the Darfur region by "janjaweed militias", apparently sent out to do their horrible work at the behest (or with the permission of) the Sudanese government I will link to some articles on this subject in the near future.
My humor is full of mis-hearings of words. In this case, we have, with only minor modifications, the Ganjaweed Militia, or Ganja Weed Militia. When the Ganjaweed Militia is sent out, they ride with great enthusiasm, but after a short while they forget their assignment: why were we sent out here? And this naturally devolves into a general discussion of, like, why they are there at all, man. What's it really all about?
I'll follow that clever joke with the following dreary notice:
With the publication of this blog entry, I hereby claim copyright to the phrases "Ganjaweed Militia" and "Ganja Weed Militia" for possible use in a commercial enterprise. If I do create some commerical enterprise, I promise to donate a percentage of the proceeds to a charity whose work is conducted in the Darfur region. This is to assure readers that I am not a (completely) heartless bastard.
posted by stefan 6:06 PM
Tuesday, August 26, 2003
Black and White Cat Elected California Governor Due to Punchcard Ballot Error
[Sacramento] Cats across the country are singing the praises of Governor Busto! After only 12 hours in office, Busto has already proclaimed the Mojave Desert a giant litter box. He has taken control of all fishing boats in California, requiring them to only catch Tuna, Salmon, Anchovies and mixed grill. He has signed into law a bill that prohibits people from picking up cats without their consent and he's considering his constituents' request for a bill prohibiting bells on collars. An unconfirmed report indicates Governor Busto is also trying to remove from the state constitution the provision for re-claw election, thus preventing unsuccessful candidates from trying to re-claw their way to the top.
For more information, see Governor Busto's campaign website.
posted by stefan 12:22 PM
Tuesday, June 24, 2003
Coming next fall on NBC:Law & Order: SUV
posted by j9 8:17 PM
Thursday, June 19, 2003
If you're ever in need of amusement (and would like to see current efficacy of machine translation), use Google's translate function. This little beauty comes from a search about the phrase "tanto gusto" (the source is Italian). To me, it sounds like dadaist poetry:For before the time I take risks in the world of the cereals... hatred the latte ones and until today I thought that never I would have begun my day just with one tazzona of cereals...
Turning for the shelves of the supermarket I have noticed the confection of the Muesli to the Cameo fruit and attracted from the idea of all those cakies bocconcini without not to think to us I have acquired.
And therefore the following morning is prepared me an amount exaggerated of muesli with yougurt the white man (but it is the optimal also with that one to frutta)... and great discovery: e' exquisite.
Large pieces of fruit and cereals, a profusione of uvette and tantissima energy for all the morning (I that of usual after 2 hours from the classic breakfast with biscotti throw on any thing understood to me to shooting). Task that of hour in then of it I will not make more less.
And hour a small suggestion: fairies to fuse of the caramellato chocolate (Mars type in order to mean to us), stirred the muesli and poured the all in one small tortiera. Left to cool and you will have one marenda gustosa for your children.
posted by stefan 8:05 PM
