Aleksandr Herzen, speaking a century ago to a group of anarchists about how to overthrow the czar, reminded his listeners that it was not their job to save a dying system but to replace it: “We think we are the doctors. We are the disease.” All resistance must recognize that the body politic and global capitalism are dead. We should stop wasting energy trying to reform or appeal to it. This does not mean the end of resistance, but it does mean very different forms of resistance. It means turning our energies toward building sustainable communities to weather the coming crisis, since we will be unable to survive and resist without a cooperative effort.
These communities, if they retreat into a pure survivalist mode without linking themselves to the concentric circles of the wider community, the state and the planet, will become as morally and spiritually bankrupt as the corporate forces arrayed against us. All infrastructures we build, like the monasteries in the Middle Ages, should seek to keep alive the intellectual and artistic traditions that make a civil society, humanism and the common good possible. Access to parcels of agricultural land will be paramount. We will have to grasp, as the medieval monks did, that we cannot alter the larger culture around us, at least in the short term, but we may be able to retain the moral codes and culture for generations beyond ours. Resistance will be reduced to small, often imperceptible acts of defiance, as those who retained their integrity discovered in the long night of 20th-century fascism and communism.
We stand on the cusp of one of the bleakest periods in human history when the bright lights of a civilization blink out and we will descend for decades, if not centuries, into barbarity. The elites have successfully convinced us that we no longer have the capacity to understand the revealed truths presented before us or to fight back against the chaos caused by economic and environmental catastrophe. As long as the mass of bewildered and frightened people, fed images that permit them to perpetually hallucinate, exist in this state of barbarism, they may periodically strike out with a blind fury against increased state repression, widespread poverty and food shortages. But they will lack the ability and self-confidence to challenge in big and small ways the structures of control. The fantasy of widespread popular revolts and mass movements breaking the hegemony of the corporate state is just that a fantasy.
Hat tip–make that bow: Andrew G. Marshall Global Research, April 6, 2009
Introduction
Following the 2009 G20 summit, plans were announced for implementing the creation of a new global currency to replace the US dollar’s role as the world reserve currency. Point 19 of the communiqué released by the G20 at the end of the Summit stated, “We have agreed to support a general SDR allocation which will inject $250bn (£170bn) into the world economy and increase global liquidity.” SDRs, or Special Drawing Rights, are “a synthetic paper currency issued by the International Monetary Fund.” As the Telegraph reported, “the G20 leaders have activated the IMF’s power to create money and begin global “quantitative easing”. In doing so, they are putting a de facto world currency into play. It is outside the control of any sovereign body. Conspiracy theorists will love it.”[1]
The article continued in stating that, “There is now a world currency in waiting. In time, SDRs are likely to evolve into a parking place for the foreign holdings of central banks, led by the People’s Bank of China.” Further, “The creation of a Financial Stability Board looks like the first step towards a global financial regulator,” or, in other words, a global central bank.
It is important to take a closer look at these “solutions” being proposed and implemented in the midst of the current global financial crisis. These are not new suggestions, as they have been in the plans of the global elite for a long time. However, in the midst of the current crisis, the elite have fast-tracked their agenda of forging a New World Order in finance. It is important to address the background to these proposed and imposed “solutions” and what effects they will have on the International Monetary System (IMS) and the global political economy as a whole.
“Bill and Melinda Gates hate controversy, but the world’s top philanthropists do seem to be moving ever deeper into political lobbying. They’ve just given the Danforth plant science centre in St Louis $5.4m (£3.8m) to help them persuade African and other poor countries to “overcome regulatory hurdles” and allow the field testing of bio-fortified GM crops. So what is Danforth? Just a “charity” set up and funded by Monsanto.”
From Wikipedia:
“The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is a secure seedbank located on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen near the town of Longyearbyen in the remote ArcticSvalbardarchipelago. The facility was established to preserve a wide variety of plant seeds from locations worldwide in an underground cavern. The Seed Vault holds duplicate samples, or “spare” copies, of seeds held in genebanks worldwide. The Seed Vault will provide insurance against the loss of seeds in genebanks, as well as a refuge for seeds in the case of large scale regional or global crises. The island of Spitsbergen is about 1,120 kilometres (700 mi) from the North Pole.”
By José Miguel Alonso Trabanco Global Research
February 21, 2009
The financial and economic turmoil the world is currently experiencing will certainly have many serious consequences beyond those fields. Indeed, its geopolitical fallout could be far more serious than commonly acknowledged and it is an element that cannot be neglected by neither statesmen nor analysts.
Some scholars frequently hold that politics and economics are somehow separate. Such view is profoundly mistaken because politics and economics are strongly interlinked. Actually, political power and economic wealth cultivate one another. Likewise, economic trouble, more often than not, tends to lead to political trouble and the reverse is equally true.
Therefore, it is fairly reasonable to assert that this financial crisis will have a major impact on the international system’s balance of power. Some states (including Great Powers) could redefine their priorities. Other states are in a direr situation so they would have to make dramatic adjustments concerning their policies.
Take the case of the United States. Following the end of the Cold War, the US intended to establish a unipolar era in which its hegemonic position would remain unrivaled (the so called ‘Project for a New American Century’). However, Washington has had to deal with several setbacks and challenges like the rise of other great powers (China and Russia), the proliferation of anti-American regimes (Iran, Venezuela) as well as Washington’s military quagmires (Iraq and Afghanistan). Thus, the position of the US could be weakened as a result of the financial crisis.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s speech at the opening ceremony of the World Economic Forum Davos, Switzerland January 28, 2009
Good afternoon, colleagues, ladies and gentlemen,
I would like to thank the forum’s organizers for this opportunity to share my thoughts on global economic developments and to share our plans and proposals.
The world is now facing the first truly global economic crisis, which is continuing to develop at an unprecedented pace.
The current situation is often compared to the Great Depression of the late 1920s and the early 1930s. True, there are some similarities. However, there are also some basic differences. The crisis has affected everyone at this time of globalization. Regardless of their political or economic system, all nations have found themselves in the same boat.
There is a certain concept, called the perfect storm, which denotes a situation when Nature’s forces converge in one point of the ocean and increase their destructive potential many times over. It appears that the present-day crisis resembles such a perfect storm.
Responsible and knowledgeable people must prepare for it. Nevertheless, it always flares up unexpectedly.
The current situation is no exception either. Although the crisis was simply hanging in the air, the majority strove to get their share of the pie, be it one dollar or a billion, and did not want to notice the rising wave.
In the last few months, virtually every speech on this subject started with criticism of the United States. But I will do nothing of the kind.
I just want to remind you that, just a year ago, American delegates speaking from this rostrum emphasized the US economy’s fundamental stability and its cloudless prospects. Today, investment banks, the pride of Wall Street, have virtually ceased to exist. In just 12 months, they have posted losses exceeding the profits they made in the last 25 years. This example alone reflects the real situation better than any criticism.
The time for enlightenment has come. We must calmly, and without gloating, assess the root causes of this situation and try to peek into the future.
A few weeks ago, I warned in my website that the Dow would dive below 7,000 at the earliest by end of December 2008 and at the latest by the end of the first quarter 2009.
Any responsible central banker would want to control a downturn, preferably by a gradual slide of the market as opposed to a sharp hard landing.
But events and data have revealed that these financial handlers are not responsible and are hard core gamblers in their very soul.
Their mindset is that of the ultimate gambler and nothing in this world will change their behavior not even the thought that millions will starve and die and that national economies will be shattered. They are totally unconcerned as the devastating consequences of their actions. And anyone still having illusions about their altruistic aims will be disappointed.
The stock market and the derivative market is their ultimate casino. Fix this in your mind in the months to come. Then you will understand and agree with me and my conclusions in the next few paragraphs.
The financial crisis is deepening, with the risk of seriously disrupting the system of international payments.
This crisis is far more serious than the Great Depression. All major sectors of the global economy are affected. Recent reports suggest that the system of Letters of Credit as well as international shipping, which constitute the lifeline of the international trading system, are potentially in jeopardy.
The proposed bank “bailout” under the so-called Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) is not a “solution” to the crisis but the “cause” of further collapse.
The “bailout” contributes to a further process of destabilization of the financial architecture. It transfers large amounts of public money, at taxpayers expense, into the hands of private financiers. It leads to a spiraling public debt and an unprecedented centralization of banking power. Moreover, the bailout money is used by the financial giants to secure corporate acquisitions both in the financial sector and the real economy.
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