A world without Gadhafi

World leaders today are a boring bunch...technocrats often, or worse, ideologues. Gadhafi cannot be classified as either a technocrat or as an ideologue (that is for sure).

Gadhafi was the first postmodern leader. He altered his look and temper often, no doubt purposely, as part of his ruling style. These changes prevented enemies from grabbing hold of his image, fixing it as evil, mad, brilliant, stupid, or anything else in particular, thereby making it more difficult to target him. That's what will be missed...the lengths he went through to play with power and to dominate it (watch Berlusconi for some of the same moves).

What arises as a  serious question today is whether his pomo style was necessary to govern a place like Libya in modern times, whether it was a function of his own personality, or both? This is an important question because it is the question that Libya faces now.  

Occupy Wall Street: Fair play

What's it mean? I have not met them and cannot speak for them. But my take is that they saw Wall Street get a bailout and so, quite rightfully, they want a bailout too. They are 99% after all.

Wall Street banks not only got TARP from Congress/Presidents but the Fed Reserve secretly coughed up $3 Trillion for them. Don't believe me? Just check out the recent audit that Ron Paul forced from Bernanke and the Fed.

It's that simple.

So, since Wall Street has been such a great location for handouts why not wait there too for a big handout?

What Palestine at the UN means.

Well it means a lot of course. How do we know? Because it is being taken so seriously. The powers that be say that it will change nothing. But then why worry about it so much? It is because the Palestinians are about to win a great victory. It will not happen in the space of the real. That misery will continue unfortunately.

But the Palestinians have taken charge of the space of the symbolic. They own it and can do as they like. Israel and the US cannot do so...no one believes their gestures anymore. They can only fight and win (maybe) in the space of the real (which is why they say/hope that a new inttifadah will soon follow; that is the space of the real. They understand that and can work it. But the Palestinians have learned). But the other, symbolic space is out of their reach now, even for Obama, who is solid student of symbols.

The best play that the Palestinians can make now would be a purely symbolic one: go only to the UNSC and dare a veto. It is a game that they can win. (What effect that will have on the space of the real is another question but it may be substantial; what happens in the symbolic is more flexible than what can happen in the fixed space of the real. Think Virilio here: speedy politics wins).

There is no European crisis!

In keeping with the political axiom that nothing happens for long without someone making it or letting it happen, what is to be made of Europe today? For years Brussels has frankly been out of touch with the population. Now the EU leaders will use this (quite manageable) crisis to centralize their power further. The question is whether the people of Europe will take their politicians even less seriously than they already do, letting them spin off into orbit. That would be a wise citizenry indeed. Italy is the best example where the antics of the political class are pure theater for the Italian citizenry.

(Increasing power through crises is part of an obsolete trend discussed in political theory which centers on the outrageous work of Carl Schmitt and the state of exception).  

Obama's first campaign stump speech

The American Jobs Act proposed by Obama will not happen. It is DOA because the US House will never play along nor will McConnell unless it gets so watered down with Republican amendments as to be unrecognizable.

Obama knows this. Too wily not to. He has delivered a speech that has just enough meat in it for progressives and with enough pragmatics for independents. Welcome everyone to Campaign 2012.

Freedom must Endure

Fight on America! Is there any other choice for this land of liberty? Recent US military setbacks are difficult. The opportunity to free the Afghan people remains. There are problems with the execution of the strategy (which I could share with you) but the ideal is perfectly in keeping with US tradition. Senator Feinstein said the freedom of many Afghan citizens is at risk otherwise. So stride on and along the way find glory in the Hindu Kush.

The rich joined the rest of us today

Today is how the rich experience a recession/depression. The panic in stocks is the realization that profit growth and revenue growth is over and so too is return on capital. The rush for the exits this week is the signal of the big boys desperately seeking to preserve their capital. I read somewhere that the world's richest, Slim, is down $8-$12 billion this week. Gold cannot help...there is not enough to absorb all of the cash. Boon for the US Treasury however....a conspiracy theorist might wonder if this was not all a clever plan.