Almost Daily Rant

Boyd Loops

The central theme as we enter 2010 is our collective failure to form a cohesive and integrated understanding of what is really happening at a broader social, political and economic level. 2009 was the year that a general loss faith in the status quo accelerated beyond the traditional corridors into the mainstream: A wide swath across all segments of society beyond the greens proclaiming Gaia’s redemption on her abusing masters, or the Biblical focus on the culmination to ultimate clash between good and evil or the Marxists declaring the coming fall of the capitalistic Babel.

 

 

It was also a year marked a year of massive confusion in linking cause and effect, if the bantering of left-right bickering were any indicator. More importantly, with increased awareness that the status quo is broken and perhaps terminally ill, there is massive individual stress on how to best position ourselves in the coming years, aside from arrogant mystical claims by hucksters that they have all the answers...for a fee of course.

 

 

Confronted with infinite direct and indirect impacts of the broader trends, our response to each conforms to the theory of one of the most influential U.S. military strategists, John Boyd. Any confrontation can be deconstructed into a series of Boyd Loops: Observation, Orientation, Decision and Action. The Boyd loop applies in war, business, politics and everyday life:

 

 

· Someone confronts you on the street with a knife – what do you do?

· Your business is floundering in a world that has less to spend – what do you do?

· You’re Napoleon, you’ve just captured Moscow, but at great cost – what do you do?

· You lose your job and find your soft skills have been outsourced and undervalued– what do you do?

· You manage your company’s finances and see interest rates rising, the EU disintegrating, the coming China real estate collapse and a massive loss of faith in the financial system – what do you do?

 

 

As in war, the situation is fluid. Big Media presents you with disinformation at every angle, so cutting through the fog of war is difficult as the alternative viewpoints fragment into thousands of points of light. How do you reconstruct the narrative and take the best action for your individual circumstance?

 

 

In chaotic social and economic situations, most get crushed, but a small minority capitalizes beyond what would be possible in static conditions. The Soviet collapse two decades ago led to once-in-a lifetime arbitrage opportunities preyed upon by the oligarchs, organized crime rings and people in exploitable situations. While many suffered, somewhere a humble purchasing agent became rich buying materials and products at state-suppressed prices and resold them on the black markets of Eastern Europe.

 

2010 will continue to separate people and organizations that are able to quickly form an integrated understanding of what is really happening around them even as the “common sense” rules of the status quo fail them, apply the Boyd loop in infinitum and respond better and quicker than their opponents in war, politics, business and life.

BBC Covers the Myth of Al Qaeda

1-Year Anniversary of Operation Cast Lead

There is a direct link between Israel’s war crimes in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead, tens of billions of US tax dollars in military aid and the US political establishment parroting the words, "Israel has a right to defend itself."

The US should review its policy of unconditional support of Israel, stop providing Israel with military aid and maintain a position of objective neutrality.

Powerful Speech by a War Veteran

Our War President

I've linked an article below explaining why no one should be surprised by President “Juan Peron” Obama's military Keynesianism. It turns out our Nobel Peace Prize loving President outdoes Bush in the war department when you look at the numbers.

Slowly, the anti-war Progressives who voted for him realize they've been had by a cruel hoax: A much better pitchman for war's financiers. Remember, everyone's favorite Progressive, Woodrow Wilson plunged the US into WWI to ensure J.P. Morgan's bond repayments, after Wilson was elected as "the guy who kept us out of war".

Got change?

All the crying from the left about how Obama "the peace candidate" has now become "a war president" ... Whatever are they talking about? Here's what I wrote in this report in August 2008, during the election campaign:

We find Obama threatening, several times, to attack Iran if they don't do what the United States wants them to do nuclear-wise; threatening more than once to attack Pakistan if their anti-terrorist policies are not tough enough or if there would be a regime change in the nuclear-armed country not to his liking; calling for a large increase in US troops and tougher policies for Afghanistan; wholly and unequivocally embracing Israel as if it were the 51st state.

Why should anyone be surprised at Obama's foreign policy in the White House? He has not even banned torture, contrary to what his supporters would fervently have us believe. If further evidence were needed, we have the November 28 report in the Washington Post: "Two Afghan teenagers held in U.S. detention north of Kabul this year said they were beaten by American guards, photographed naked, deprived of sleep and held in solitary confinement in concrete cells for at least two weeks while undergoing daily interrogation about their alleged links to the Taliban." This is but the latest example of the continuance of torture under the new administration.

But the shortcomings of Barack Obama and the naiveté of his fans is not the important issue. The important issue is the continuation and escalation of the American war in Afghanistan, based on the myth that the individuals we label "Taliban" are indistinguishable from those who attacked the United States on September 11, 2001, whom we usually label "al Qaeda". "I am convinced," the president said in his speech at the United States Military Academy (West Point) on December 1, "that our security is at stake in Afghanistan and Pakistan. This is the epicenter of violent extremism practiced by al Qaeda. It is from here that we were attacked on 9/11, and it is from here that new attacks are being plotted as I speak."

Obama used one form or another of the word "extremist" eleven times in his half-hour talk. Young, impressionable minds must be carefully taught; a future generation of military leaders who will command America's never-ending wars must have no doubts that the bad guys are "extremists", that "extremists" are by definition bad guys, that "extremists" are beyond the pale and do not act from human, rational motivation like we do, that we — quintessential non-extremists, peace-loving moderates — are the good guys, forced into one war after another against our will. Sending robotic death machines flying over Afghanistan and Pakistan to drop powerful bombs on the top of wedding parties, funerals, and homes is of course not extremist behavior for human beings.

And the bad guys attacked the US "from here", Afghanistan. That's why the United States is "there", Afghanistan. But in fact the 9-11 attack was planned in Germany, Spain and the United States as much as in Afghanistan. It could have been planned in a single small room in Panama City, Taiwan, or Bucharest. What is needed to plot to buy airline tickets and take flying lessons in the United States? And the attack was carried out entirely in the United States. But Barack Obama has to maintain the fiction that Afghanistan was, and is, vital and indispensable to any attack on the United States, past or future. That gives him the right to occupy the country and kill the citizens as he sees fit. Robert Baer, former CIA officer with long involvement in that part of the world has noted: "The people that want their country liberated from the West have nothing to do with Al Qaeda. They simply want us gone because we're foreigners, and they're rallying behind the Taliban because the Taliban are experienced, effective fighters." (Full Article)

Paul Craig Roberts - US Joins Ranks of Failed States

Paul Craig Roberts, former Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury, pulls no punches.

The US has every characteristic of a failed state.

The US government’s current operating budget is dependent on foreign financing and money creation.

Too politically weak to be able to advance its interests through diplomacy, the US relies on terrorismand military aggression.

Costs are out of control, and priorities are skewed in the interest of rich organized interest groups at the expense of the vast majority of citizens. For example, war at all cost, which enriches the armaments industry, the officer corps and the financial firms that handle the war’s financing, takes precedence over the needs of American citizens. There is no money to provide the uninsured with health care, but Pentagon officials have told the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee in the House that every gallon of gasoline delivered to US troops in Afghanistan costs American taxpayers $400. (Read Full Article) 

Smells Like 2002

“The public will believe anything, so long as it is not founded on truth.“
-Edith Sitwell

As the media continues to beat the war drum for Iran, remember that Iran signed the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty (NPT) but Israel and India, which both actually have nuclear weapons have not.  

In exchange, the US is working a nuclear deal with India. The Neocons should be happy to see that Obama is picking up where Bush left off as steward of the War Party.

Obama’s Hell-Ride to War on Iran

Posted by Daniel McAdamson September 25, 2009 10:42 PM Faced with the uncomfortable and politically unacceptable reality that there exists no evidencethat Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapon, confirmed by his own intelligence community, President Obama has taken a page from the book of his predecessors FDR, LBJ, GWB, and so on: he simply made something really scary-sounding up to justify his push toward war.

This time it is the artificially manufactured hype around an Iranian uranium enrichment facility that is under construction. Keep in mind that as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Iran, under Article IVof said treaty, has every right to enrich uranium to its heart’s content.  The treaty clearly states: “Nothing in this Treaty shall be interpreted as affecting the inalienable right of all the Parties to the Treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination and in conformity with Articles I and II of this Treaty.”

Iran has, dutifully and ahead of required schedule, notified the International Atomic Energy Agency, tasked with monitoring adherence to the NPT, of its intent to bring this enrichment facility online in approximately 18 months. But where there is no smoking gun, lighter fluid must be ignited: to undercut the Five Plus One talks with Iran scheduled to begin on October first, the Obama administration has invented indignation over discovery of this plant while at the same time holding to the story that the US Intelligence Community has known about this facility, which Obama saysis “inconsistent with a peaceful (nuclear) program,” since 2006. As one administration official stated regarding the upcoming talks in light of his “discovery”: “Everybody’s been asking, ‘Where’s our leverage?’ Well, now we just got that leverage.” And right in the nick of time!

But hang on a minute: the US Intelligence Community has known since 2006 that Iran is building a facility to manufacture nuclear weapons but still in 2007 allowed a National Intelligence Estimateon Iran to conclude with “high confidence” that Iran was not pursuing a nuclear weapons program? Considering the discrepancy, one could be forgiven for concluding that either deception or incompetence is the order of the day in our enormously expensive Intelligence Community.

It is 2002 all over again, but worse: this time a good chunk of the antiwar movement will have been sidelined over its fatally wrong-headed decision to sign on with the pied pipers of the war party over the Iranian elections in June. By “going Green” (going pro-opposition instead of remaining neutral) much of the antiwar movement has been effectively silenced, its side-taking giving voice to one of the war party’s most critical claims: “any government that will cheat as horrifically as it did on these elections will certainly cheat on its IAEA reporting obligations.” No further proof needed. It is a refrain we have heard time and time again since June: “you mean you are going to believe them about their nuclear program? A regime that would cheat like that in its elections?” Antiwar movement: largely silenced. Credible proof of outcome-changing fraud: none. Coming cost in death and destruction: priceless (Original Article).

Ron Paul on IMF Bailouts

Here's the latest from Ron Paul on the war supplemental appropriations bill and IMF bailouts which punishes those it pretends to help through cut throat Keynesian policies.

John Maynard Keynes famously said, "in the long run we're all dead."

Perhaps he didn't realize how quickly his economic legacy would help that cause.   

Last week Congress passed the war supplemental appropriations bill. In an affront to all those who thought they voted for a peace candidate, the current president will be sending another $106 billion we don't have to continue the bloodshed in Afghanistan and Iraq, without a hint of a plan to bring our troops home.

Many of my colleagues who voted with me as I opposed every war supplemental request under the previous administration seem to have changed their tune. I maintain that a vote to fund the war is a vote in favor of the war. Congress exercises its constitutional prerogatives through the power of the purse, and as long as Congress continues to enable these dangerous interventions abroad, there is no end in sight, that is until we face total economic collapse.

From their spending habits, an economic collapse seems to be the goal of Congress and this administration. Washington spends with impunity domestically, bailing out and nationalizing everything they can get their hands on, and the foreign aid and IMF funding in this bill can rightly be called an international bailout!

As Americans struggle through the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, this emergency supplemental appropriations bill sends $660 million to Gaza, $555 million to Israel, $310 million to Egypt, $300 million to Jordan, and $420 million to Mexico. Some $889 million will be sent to the United Nations for so-called "peacekeeping" missions. Almost one billion dollars will be sent overseas to address the global financial crisis outside our borders. Nearly $8 billion will be spent to address a "potential pandemic flu" which could result in mandatory vaccinations for no discernable reason other than to enrich the pharmaceutical companies that make the vaccine.

Perhaps most outrageous is the $108 billion loan guarantee to the International Monetary Fund. These new loan guarantees will allow that destructive organization to continue spending taxpayer money to prop up corrupt leaders and promote harmful economic policies overseas.

Not only does sending American taxpayer money to the IMF hurt citizens here, evidence shows that it even hurts those it pretends to help. Along with IMF loans comes IMF required policy changes, called Structural Adjustment Programs, which amount to forced Keynesianism. This is the very fantasy-infused economic model that has brought our own country to its knees, and IMF loans act as the Trojan Horse to inflict it on others. Perhaps most troubling is the fact that leaders in recipient nations tend to become more concerned with the wishes of international elites than the wishes and needs of their own people. Argentina and Kenya are just two examples of countries that followed IMF mandates right off a cliff. The IMF frequently recommends currency devaluation to poorer nations, which has wiped out the already impoverished over and over. There is also a long list of brutal dictators the IMF happily supported and propped up with loans that left their oppressed populace in staggering amounts of debt with no economic progress to show for it.

We are buying nothing but evil and global oppression by sending your taxdollars to the IMF. Not to mention there is no Constitutional authority to do so. Our continued presence in Iraq and Afghanistan does not make us safer at home, but in fact undermines our national security. I vehemently opposed this Supplemental Appropriations Bill and was dismayed to see it pass so easily.

The Next 100 Years of Geopolitics

George Friedman, founder of Stratfor, published his latest book “The Next 100 Years, A Forecast of the 21st Century” which identifies the major geopolitical themes he foresees. That was such a bold undertaking that I had to pick up a copy since I’ve enjoyed his analysis for years, even though I was highly skeptical because of how badly most projects like this miss the mark.

As bad as it seems for the IOUS of A right now, with chorus cries that we’re going the way of Rome, teetering on socioeconomic collapse, going bankrupt, militarily overstretched and the idea of a Next American Century is heresy, he sees the relative power of the US actually increasing in the 21^st century.

After choking on my coffee, I started putting this into context and realized I didn’t disagree with some of the overall trends as much as my kneejerk reaction led me to believe. Was there a way to merge some of his geopolitical insight with the Panzers, Kunstlers, Bonners and Orlovs of the world? Was there a way to merge his vision with expectations that much of the developed world is tending towards 3^rd world status because of the onslaught of 21^st century crises?

Well to start with, for my money, I’ve never bought into China as being THE next superpower, doubt that market centers like the EU will act as true superpowers and suspect that Russia as a resource country will rise too high before falling again.

Then I put Friedman’s vision into the historical context of how countries can dominate other countries militarily, even while the average person within that country has a very low standard of living. The other major factor he hits on, and cites it as the most critical, is much slower global population growth which all but ensures the end of any illusions of global economic growth being the norm, which dooms some other conventional wisdom about ‘Chindia’.

As Friedman sees it, the US will continue to do what it’s done for years: Make sure no country dominates any region by backing opposing regions and intervening to ensure a balance of power. To put his predictions into the right context, it is important to consider the 5 key geopolitical goals of the US in order of increased magnitude and ambition:

· The complete dominance of North America by the US Army.

· The elimination of any threat to the US by any power in the Western Hemisphere.

· Complete control of the maritime approaches to the US by the Navy in order to preclude any possibility of invasion.

· Complete domination of the world’s oceans to further secure US physical safety and guarantee control over the international trading system.

· The prevention of any other nation from challenging US global naval power from militarily controlling the oceans.

Western Europe will continue to lose relevance, in large part because of an aging population. The entitlement programs which bind the EU aren’t sustainable and the EU will disintegrate due to economic realities and dormant historical riffs. Power will shift from Western Europe to Eastern Europe because of demographics and US-backing of Poland as a stop-gap for Russia which has historically pushed westward in order to create a land buffer (Think of Napoleon’s failed attempt to conquer Russia) . Germany will begin to feel a threat and a strained relationship with the US will result.

For the next decade or so, Russia will continue to emerge as a strong regional power and as the jihadist wars fade, proxy wars between the US and Russia will take a more center stage. But Russia’s economy, now dependent on resource exports, will collapse again by the 20 teens.

Friedman sees China as a paper tiger. Social stability there is dependent on unsustainable economic growth and China is essentially an island, surrounded by impassible terrain and wastelands that isolate it from the rest of the world. In the 19^th century, when the Europeans forced their way into an isolationist China, a huge wealth disparity developed between the wealthy coastal regions and poor interior regions, weakening the central government’s control over the coastal regions leading to instability. A similar trend is happening today. By 2020, China will crater economically and revert back to an isolationist period, never having emerged as the dominate world player many expect.  

Turkey will become the regional power in the Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean reclaiming the Ottoman Empire’s dominance pre-WWI. Japan will be the dominant power in Asia and begin to aggressively expand its sphere of influence in a near replay of the factors which lead up to the Pearl Harbor attacks in the 20^th century. Overtime, US interests will conflict with those of Japan and Turkey eventually leading to a war in 2050 which the US will reestablish global dominance and enjoy a period of 15-20 years of postwar prosperity as it did after WWII due to the emergence of new industries.

North American, not Eurasia, will be the global center of power and the US will dominate North America until a point in time late in the century it is challenged by Mexico when a stronger economy combined with demographics that ensure that Mexicans dominate a 200 mile band north of the present border combine to produce a situation that could result in Mexico emerging as a formidable power.

OK, so there you have it.

The 3rd Rail

How we think about reality impacts reality itself.

Its one thing to accept that in the physical realm, there is no true passive observation. Eighty years ago, Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle in quantum mechanics taught us that there is always some level of inherent uncertainty in physical measurements - specifically position and momentum – and by simply observing, you impact the results of what you are observing.

This idea of uncertainty knocked us off our Enlightenment era laurels, a place where we confidently felt we could measure, understand and control everything where real truth was waiting to be discovered like an acorn under a leaf. It’s debatable as to whether or not hard sciences ever fully recovered from the blow dealt to it by the certainty of uncertainty, but the impact in the soft sciences, where real people are involved has been more profound.

In the post modern era, we’ve swung far to the other side of the spectrum in relativism, where we put our faith in narratives – or filtered, interpreted versions of some reality through perspectives.

But we’ve never really come to grips with how our flawed thinking and imperfect knowledge impacts the world around us.

This subtlety seems to be at the root of the question, “What’s wrong with America”.

Sure the world has changed. Strains and cracks in the American Dream are everywhere. The problems are well-known and at this point, over-documented. A debt-based, over-consuming economy just isn’t sustainable in the world of diminishing fresh water, arable land, minerals and energy resources. Unless you’re a cornucopian, short on facts and long on wishful thinking, you see this. And yes, we spend more than we make and we’ve lost a lot of respect in the world because of our foreign policy. In some respects, we’ve certainly fell into the mistakes of so many empires past with military overstretch, debt and the allure of Mesopotamia.

Some events and cycles are inevitable or at least predictable like water running downhill.

But how we think is up to us, although that presents us with a huge challenge.

And how we think is at the core of George Soros’ book “The Age of Fallibility”, which has some extremely pointed insights into how we think. After fleeing Nazism in Hungary, Soros went on to make a fortune in the financial markets (he’s known as the guy who broke the Bank of England) and then has since used that money to promote open societies.

Soros writes a great deal about the differences between open and closed societies and dogmatic and critical thinking and how these relate to the American worldview. He’s spent much of his life defining open societies and the meaning is less political and more about how we know what we know: An open society is a reasonably stable society that holds itself open to innovation and improvement.

The perspective is worth a read, whether or not you agree with his politics and faith in civil society initiatives. He makes some very poignant points that summarize our predicament.

“If fear, uncertainty, and the deficiency of purpose that characterizes an open society become unbearable burdens, then a charismatic leader offering a dogmatic mode of thinking may appear as the salvation.”

The application of this in the post 9/11 world is very tangible when Bush cut through an infinitely complex world and offered us a simple choice: “You’re either with us or against us.”

There is of course reference to the well-known, and in some circles overdone, comparison to Weimar Germany where the pursuit of self-interest in self-indulgence to the detriment of morality and traditional values caused revulsion in both societies. In Germany, the humiliation of WW1 and hyperinflation were factors that caused National Socialism. In the United States, it formed around religious fundamentalism which consumed the Republican Party which then gained control of Congress and the Presidency. In the US, market fundamentalist and American supremacy or neoconservative schools of thought merged and forged with religious fundamentalism through, if nothing else, desire for political power and influence.

Without dipping into conspiracy theory realm, there are objectively similarities in how both governments came into being, though our current government is a far cry from totalitarian, in how they used the politics of fear (Reichstag Fire versus 9/11) and how Orwellian propaganda played a part.

But the real question is why are Americans clamoring to be deceived? Part of this willful deception is rooted in our value of success over truth. He doesn't mention the influence of pragmatism, but I do think William James, an influencial American philosopher ingrained pragmatism and the idea that truth was what is most useful, which implies knowledge for the sake of knowledge is entertaining but not really at the heart of what matters.

In any event, our understanding of reality is inherently flawed. Open societies understand this fallibility, but closed societies deny it. Soros puts sums it up by saying that America is an open society that does not understand the concept of open society.

"The truth can be manipulated but the extent to which the outcome will approximate our will depends on the extent to which our understanding approximates reality. We have been pursuing success without much concern for the truth. As a result, we have become a feel-good society, unwilling to confront unpleasant realities. We want our elected leaders to make us feel good instead of telling us the truth. The outcome endangers not only our open society but also our dominant position in the world…the extension of executive powers, infringement of civil liberties at home and violation of human rights abroad and the suspension of the critical process…”   

A case in point, is that when politicians discuss Iraq, the conversation is usually centered on how the war is going, not the pretense under which we are there. Few leaders have publically questioned the War on Terror, although a growing number of people understand the relationship between the War on Terror and the overstretch of Executive powers, fearing this would be perceived as unpatriotic, although is it reasonable is it to declare an indefinite war on an abstraction with no timelines, no boundaries and no measurable objectives?

“Yes, the terrorist attack was real and it required a strong (military) response, but the response chosen by the Bush administration carried the nation into a fantasy land created by a misrepresentation of reality…in reality terrorists are best dealt with by methods other than waging war.”

He charts out how we morphed into a feel-good society – a far cry from the Truman years – around the time Reagan was in office, attributing the transformation mainly to the rise of consumerism and the application of consumerism to politics.”

"Since 1980, the unwillingness to face reality has been exacerbated by globalization. A global economy based on the principles of market fundamentalism is full of uncertainties from which many people are eager to escape…Fundamentalist religion seems to avoid the soul-searching that has characterized Christian religions since the time of Jesus and appears to do everything to reward the faithful by making them feel good."

The challenge with critical thinking and open societies is that it puts the burden of deciding what is right or wrong, true or untrue on the individual. Since understanding is always going to be flawed and uncertainty is painful, the mind will go to great lengths to escape it.

Dogmatic thinking, where there is no need to consider alternatives because the interpretation of truth lies in some other source than the individual, is tempting and we’ve certainly taken some refuge there. The critical mode of thinking in a complex, interconnected world on the brink of so many flashpoints is very hard work but a requirement for an open society.