Monday, January 23, 2012

Late Stage Corporate State Empire Decline - Pentagon Hires Hessian (Blackwater) Mercenaries To Run Latin American War On Drugs

I’m posting this on January 23 to honor John Nash, an incredibly brilliant contributor to gaming theory.(Pun intended.)  It has been years since we have written of this, but I wrote a few times five or so years ago that I believe the U.S. and China are in a Nash Equilibrium.  An unsustainable equilibrium that, when it breaks, will experience volatility representative of the scale of that equilibrium.   While we won’t be talking about the Nash Equilibrium in this post, we will be mentioning another important concept in gaming theory; sociological critical mass. 

Once again - “War is merely the continuation of politics by other means” – Carl von Clausewitz

This Blackwater announcement in the war on drugs and its implications are much deeper than the headlines.  Let’s take a look at the undercurrents of reality.  

First off, I want to make a point about this post.  This post is about real economics.  Economics is a social science.  Therefore, one must understand the workings of the human mind and how that applies to sociology and civilizations.  If someone really wants to know what is going on in the world of economics, one must rely on the qualitative interpretation of quantitative factors.   In other words, why has our debt skyrocketed?  Why are 46 million people on food stamps?  Why do the  majority of Americans have a net worth somewhere around zero?   Why is our true unemployment and underemployent rate  around 25-30%?  Why is there absolutely no money in the economy for most Americans while monetary aggregates are exploding higher?   These are but examples, but as we have noted countless times on here, debt, as an example, has absolutely nothing to do with this economic environment.  It is but a symptom.  Those squawking about debt and the need to tackle it have no idea what they are talking about.  The issue of debt in the U.S. is no different than why Greece has accumulated so much debt.  It is the human behavior of corruption; self-interest, power, control and greed in lieu of service to society, selflessness, the search for truth and community that is so foundational to a democratic and civilized society.   It’s that simple. 

Economics is not what some automaton in the offices of Goldman Sachs or the Federal Reserve reports regarding factors such as GDP, home sales or the Purchasing Manager’s Index.   Those are symptoms.  Automatons at Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, the Federal Reserve and similar bureaucracies are focusing on treating symptoms rather than the disease.  Therefore, the  disease continues to metastasize.  Economics as it is practices today is a failed ideology.  Its practitioners are wards of the state.   They have been institutionalized by corporate welfare and the government dole.   Therefore, they are intellectually-dishonest with themselves and deluded by their ego’s false belief systems.   

The interpretation of reality, just like all social sciences, is qualitative.  That is why people who think with their eyes (Goldman Sachs and Federal Reserve automatons staring at computer screen generated data.) and the status quo never get it.  They never understand that the world their eyes believe exists isn’t real.  And, so it is with this post. 

As we start this post, it is worth reminding readers that the British Empire hired  mercenaries throughout its reign of terror, including the Hessians (Blackwater)  used against colonists in the Revolutionary War.  For-profit wars are as old as the human desire for power and control.  Terrorism and empire go hand in hand.  Empire’s need to subvert the truth through control, viewed as terrorism by its oppressed, is then met with acts of terrorism by the oppressed against their oppressors.   Any historian on the topic of terrorism is well aware of this fact.   None of this is exactly rocket science if one opens their mind to reality.  

For every action, there is an equal but opposite reaction.  ie, It would be plausible to expect more acts of terrorism against the United States because of a failed policy that creates a self-fulfilling prophecy of unintended consequences the CIA accurately understands as blowback.  (And the CIA helps create.)  Blowback is a function of the war state and empire.  Violence begets violence.  Illegitimate violence.  It is a very unfortunate characteristic of a world that the state has created. 

The United States policies of attempted empire (control) around the world are creating guaranteed outcomes based on circular reasoning  and faulty logic.  As the empire engages in more and more acts of control to maintain itself, it creates a self-reinforcing and ever greater need for more empire resources to maintain that control.  This is one dynamic that has led to the enormity of bloat and corruption in the for-profit military-industrial complex in the U.S. today.  It is also a determining factor in why the U.S. must outsource much of its hegemony to for-profit Hessians or mercenaries, why much of the Iraq war, including logistics and support, was outsourced/privatized, why there are literally thousands of corporations serving Homeland Security and the national security state and why the United States is encouraging NATO to play a larger role in defending American empire.   In other words, if we look at this dynamic from a gaming theory standpoint, the United States empire/national security state needs greater and greater adoption of its ever-expanding hegemonic policies to maintain critical mass.  It therefore must demand greater corporate involvement.  It must demand greater NATO involvement.  It must outsource its policies to Hessians like Blackwater, KBR and others.  If it doesn’t, the critical mass of ever expanding control will never be achieved.  Or put another way, quite simply, the empire/national security state will collapse.  

You must understand this last paragraph and that last link to qualitatively understand the fundamental factors that clearly tell us that we have reached a stage of unsustainable dynamics in the U.S. empire.  The empire can no longer sustain itself and is, in fact, dying as I type this.  But, if you think with your eyes, you see the U.S. today is the most formidable military the world has ever seen and there are no forces on earth that represent any threat.  But, that is a false premise.  All empires collapse from within.  And, their collapse is often a result of what many would view as imperceptible perturbations.   As an example, we wrote that Wall Street was going to collapse more than a year before it did.  And, I wrote specifically how it would happen.  Politicians, Wall Street and the Federal Reserve, institutions of control, told us none of this was predictable.  Nonsense.  Similarly, just as there were many who saw the fall of the Soviet Union before it actually happened.  

These dynamics are really no different than existed in Rome, the British Empire, Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union.  The events were different.  The sociological factors were similar.  Most recently, SOPA, PIPA and the military’s desire to monitor and control the entire Internet are all simply extensions of this dynamic of critical mass.  And, as a result, all require greater corporate involvement and influence over our government.   SOPA and PIPA are simply extending the control of the national security state to now include corporate control.  There simply are not enough resource available top the state to control the interests of its corporate masters.  So, SOPA and PIPA and ever-increased military monitoring require the state to extend its empire of control into the corporate arena by outsourcing policing to pliant corporate bureaucrats who serve power and control.   SOPA and PIPA are no different than this Blackwater war on drugs announcement.   The reality is we already have the finest content protection laws on the books in this country.  Those rules can be used to maintain the rule of law on the Internet just as they do through other mediums.  SOPA and PIPA  laws are meant to extend  empire control through the use of Hessians; or in this case corporations seeking the passage of SOPA and PIPA. 

This never-ending circular reasoning and faulty logic behind the need for greater control then leads to another circular reasoning and faulty logic of creating an ever great need for more resources to support the victims of this tragic and flawed hegemony policy.  That is, as more money is spent on guns, hegemony and empire,  less money is spent on democracy.  This dynamic creates endless and systemic poverty, malnutrition, sickness, unemployment and the crumbling of democracy in the United States.  This perverted dynamic then leads to people supporting the status quo like Paul Krugman and Barack Obama to tell us that the government needs to spend more even money during this “recession”.  Even though government has often spent upwards of 70% of national income since the 2008 economic collapse.   Soon we will all work for the Soviet state.

The United States is starting to achieve similar state-based spending  levels of national income to that of the failed  Soviet Union.  Interestingly, U.S. government spending is starting to approach a level that is nearly 100% greater than countries like Sweden who provide national health care,  achievement-based  education with high literacy rates, liberal human development & social programs and many other expressions of democracy that its people have deemed important.  But, the difference is the United States has no resemblance to Sweden.  At nearly twice the level of government spending of Sweden, our economy and our society looks more like the Soviet Union.  But, in many ways, even worse.  It is a cesspool for corporate welfare, poverty, corruption, malnutrition, a completely failed primary educational system, shanty towns in once vibrant  cities  like Detroit, Buffalo, Cleveland and thousands of other cities, homelessness, unemployment, drug addiction, organized crime and other expressions of massive fraud and corruption associated with failed states.   This is what England’s society looked like near the peak of its empire.  That is, banksters, politicians and the wealthy elite looted society while everyone else experienced the social ills associated with empire. 

So should it really be any surprise that convicted war crimes thug and mass murderer Charles Taylor worked for the CIA any more than we have supported countless other failed-state thugs?   Could it be possible that  people in other countries are tired of constant attempts at control by the empire that often leaves them under the jack boot of puppet regimes?  That environment is now coming to an America near you courtesy of corporate efforts to help save the empire. 

As the circular logic of greater empire spending then leads to a self-reinforcing and ever greater need for more resources to support the victims of this effort, one of those classes of victims would be the American citizens and the other would be the foreign targets of hegemony.  The needs of foreign targets of hegemony are hidden from view from U.S. citizens.  Or, at least the consequences are often not attributed to hegemony but they exist.  The empire attempts to meet the needs of those foreign targets of hegemony by pumping tens of billions of dollars in aid into puppet governments like Egypt.   This benefits the empire’s for-profit corporations as thugs like Mubarak spend that aid with American corporations or grant exclusive access to specific corporations in return for said “aid”.   So, rather than creating democracy, or assisting in human development, empire “aid” is often used to feed the profits of American corporations employed by puppet governments as a form of circular corruption.  Then at home this circular reasoning of ever greater war spending leads to the never-ending increased reliance and dependence on transfer payments from the U.S. government to innocent Americans victims of empire and control.  We see that in a 700% increase in transfer payments from the government since the start of Reagan’s presidency.  That is, ever greater dependence on Medicaid, unemployment benefits, welfare, etc as money is sucked out of democracy and our economy to feed the ever-increasing needs of corruption and empire.  (And to now spy on Americans, target Americans for assassination and  hold them indefinitely without due process.)    Our democracy, the rule of law and self-rule must be restored.  This is not an issue resolved by politics or political compromising or electing a Dummycrat or a Republikaaner.  The system as we know it must be completely restored to act as it was originally designed to act.  Not how it has been twisted and rigged to act by politicians from both parties. 

Remember, I remarked on here long ago that empire was not compatible with democracy.  Clearly we are living the reality of that incompatibility in the United States today.  Collapse of society is, in large part, due to empire and the national security state.    Is there a lack of money available for the military-industrial complex, our corporate masters, entertainment for the ruling elites or lobbying or political campaigns?  There just isn’t any money to create domestic employment, fund entrepreneurs, pay for health insurance, provide a living wage, fund Social Security and feed & educate all of our children.

So, why does the United States hire mercenaries like Blackwater to do its bidding?  Well, there are really only three plausible reasons or combinations thereof.   One, the empire is overextended and realizes it would be political suicide to re-institute the draft to engage in endless acts of aggression needed to maintain its control throughout the world.  Or, two, the empire’s objectives are inconsistent with the United State Uniform Code of Military Justice.  In other words, the empire wishes to subvert the rule of law by engaging in military activities that would be illegal if engaged in by our democratic armed forces.  (Mercenaries like Blackwater are not subject to the United States Uniform Code of Military Justice as we found out in Iraq.  Iraqi officials wanted to bring charges against Blackwater for acts that would have landed American military personnel in prison.   But, they were unable to do so because Blackwater was not subject to the rule of law of the USUCMJ.  So Blackwater flipped the bird to the Iraqi government and their rule of law and left without consequence.)  Or, three, the political class is overtly profiting from war,  ie, This announcement of a for-profit mercenary force executing political policy is somehow enriching the pockets of the political class.   If we consider the social dynamic of critical mass linked to in a prior paragraph, we recognize that the primary motive for outsourcing to the Hessians is most likely that the empire is unable to achieve and maintain critical mass without doing so.    In other words, fascism in this country is a result of extended empire and the collapse of democracy in its wake.  Sound familiar?  It should.  It was the basis for Nazi Germany’s capitalist economy and its empire aspirations.   The United States is primarily a profit-driven, corporate capitalism-driven empire.  Many aspects of capitalism, especially corporate capitalism, are not consistent with democracy and need to be ameliorated or regulated to ensure the our economy remains aligned with our democracy.  Or, in the case of the United States today………..  We need an economic constitution.  We need an economic rule of law beyond the whims of man. 

What future acts will the empire take in an effort to save itself?  Is martial law possible?  A re-institution of the draft?   Greater attempts at corporate control like SOPA and PIPA?  Or will we awaken one morning to see the empire has simply fizzled without fanfare as happened in the Soviet Union?  I think a reasoned mind should be concerned as the need for greater control is necessary to subvert the truth.  The truth is the empire is failing.    And, as we wrote many years ago, that will leave vacuums of power around the globe that will be filled by someone.  Some will be filled by reason and the rule of law and some will be filled by unreasoned thugs.  All will contribute to greater future volatility; one of our major themes on here.

The world is unfolding exactly as we said it would years ago.  It’s simply in slow motion as illegitimacy around the world seeks to save itself by spending as much of other people’s money as it can loot. 

The world as we knew it is never to return.   46 million people on food stamps and by some estimates 80 million people actually qualified to receive them.  Entire communities and major cities decimated economically.  There is no economic recovery because this is not a recession.   It is a global economic and financial collapse just as we said would happen long before the 2008 bust. 

So, what happens to the S&P 500’s earnings if this system of corporate empire unwinds?  The future will not be divined by the reflection in the rear view mirror and it sure as hell won’t be divined by Goldman Sachs  lobbyist’s wishes.  We know that because the empire is more increasingly unable to achieve the critical mass needed to ensure Goldman Sachs can continue to rig the games of the corporate state in their favor(Now you understand why I have written numerous times that Goldman Sachs’ future as an economic concern is highly dubious.   Goldman Sachs is the poster child for rigging the rules of the corporate state in order to benefit from it.  And, once those rigged rules achieve critical mass, they mint money through the most morally-bankrupt of means.  That economic game is collapsing.  Forever. )

By the way, Blackwater’s founder has been accused of describing himself as a Christian crusader bent on destroying Islam by running a rogue corporation that uses murder to hide its many acts of terror.  And the accusations were made by some credible sources.  We never saw a public investigation of those charges.  Of course, the corporate state buried those accusations as it does to all others threatening its control.  Here and here.   Blackwater has changed its name numerous times because of its countless legal wranglings.  It is obviously some Orwellian public relations attempt to run from its past and its crimes.  They just changed their name again.  A pig is still a pig regardless of the color of its lipstick.

Pentagon Hires Mercenaries to Run Drug War

posted by TimingLogic at 2:39 PM