He argues that national economic figures are unreliable. In his words the government has "cooked the books" to produce an "unrealistic view of where the economy is." For example, the Govt pretends that the annual inflation rate (the rate at which prices increase/ the value of money declines) is in the 2-3 percent range. It does this by excluding the "volatile categories of food and energy" from the CPI (consumer price index- the basket of goods used to determine the rate of inflation.) He describes this methodology as "nonsense" designed to manufacture consent and camoflouge a broken economic system. In reality the actual rate is in the 6-9 percent range. That is, its in 1970s territory. This also creates this the illusion of GDP growth. When you factor in an accurate picture of inflation, the US economy has been in recession/ depression for over a decade.
Friday, May 9, 2008
Saturday, May 3, 2008
Conspiracy Theory
Hakim Bey: An Anarchists' perspective on the The Logic of Conspiracy Theory.
Bey may be on to something when he argues that historians must take conspiracy theories seriously -- virtually all regimes in the post-1945 Mid East came to power through conspiracy. But he is also right to remain attuned to chaos in the unfolding of historical processes- that is chaos theory probably brings us much closer to an accurate representation of the past than conspiracy theory. the question is, should the "vanguard" simplify for the "masses." I'm not so sure, it seems that a historian worth his salt should be able to capture the dialectic between conspiracy (the power of conscious intent) and chaos (the law of unintended consequences) -- Marx set the bar pretty high in this regard: "Men make history..."
Likewise, I am less optimistic regarding the prospects of conspiracy as an organizational form for the radical Left. its seems that a small group of activists operating in secret is relatively easy to smash. Whereas a broad based social movement operating in the open and making full use of modern communications technologies represents a much more formidable political force (not to mention that a broad based social movement is more prone to taking democratic form- its a pretty small leap from vanguardism to authoritarianism).
Iran and Central Asian Grand Strategy
Pepe Escobar offers his perspective on the the view of American Empire from Iran (TD). He describes a "Look East" (India, Pakistan, and China) Iranian foreign policy as a response to post-9/11 US military encirclement (new bases in Afghanistan, Iraq, Central Asia, and the Gulf).
C. Johnson and the "Intellectual" Origins of American Empire
Chalmers Johnson discusses the history and politics of the RAND corp at TD. Though he does not write in a Saidian vocabulary- Johnson's analysis of RAND as a handmaiden to American power dovetails quite nicely with Edward Said's legendary analysis of the relationship between power and knowledge in his 1978 book, Orientalism. However, Johnson is unwilling to concede that what RAND produces can actually granted the ontological status of "knowledge." For Johnson, what RAND produces is much more akin to propaganda for the powerful.
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