Western Reindustrialization: Science Cities

When certain countries rediscover the political will to engage in macro level high tech industry and infrastructure building, they should keep in mind a few simple things. Physical architecture to spur creativity and plug and play integrated chains from concept to industrial production.




Western elites have a short amount of time to jump start a new wave of industrialization (to avoid being humiliated at international conferences). DARPA and Naukograds provide hints of how this should be done in the 21st century.

It is well known that a creative mind works best in a novel cutting edge environment. Google has long provided offices that could fit in The Jetsons, Steve Jobs knew it with his spaceship office building design, and president Medvedev intends to rapidly construct a hybrid of silicon valley and MIT in Skolkovo (the way IKEA packages a complex table). Chinese authorities are already constructing scientific campuses with top notch imported factory assembly lines as built in extensions.

For Westerners to begin catching up rapidly, the science-factory cities need to be rethought from the bottom up. The effort should be as holistic as the Apollo program was since it would stimulate and push the best of the human herd's abilities. How would an even larger concentrated effort to churn out 21st century machines look like? The science-factory (SciFac) cities can take on a multitude of forms and sizes but the basic framework may take on this form:

1) Location: A brand new dedicated area to house up to 200,000 people has to be set up in a region that is not too polluted by toxins from prior industrial thrusts. The climate conditions should not be depressing, distracting, or prone to too many natural disasters. Scenery should be inspirational for those who get mental breakthroughs from activities like hiking. Elevation above sea level and air dryness are additional considerations. The SciFacs should not be in the suburbs of any old design city (even if this makes resource logistics more difficult and costly, it'll end up being a blessing in disguise). A right country can of course be a giant plus when it comes to rapidly acquiring the right machines for SciFac's functioning. One can of course visualize Germany or Japan and parts of United States as being good candidates.

2) Lay Out: The SciFac city is optimal if it has a shell within a shell within a shell Matryoshka doll set up. The city as a whole can be viewed as a giant biophysical assembly line. Even the working teams can be further arranged via "psychological assembly" and management to fully utilize abilities of different creative breeds.

__a) The inner most central "research-brain storm" core is a well known basic DARPA layout where fundamental science research is done to create a bridge between current breakthroughs and long term potential breakthroughs. Various fundamental science laboratory complexes are to be integrated with novel housing for quick foot travel and each lab complex to have an immediate proximity communal club area where egos of the researchers can play off each other meaningfully. Obviously both the labs and their attached clubs would be like spokes on a small wheel so interdisciplinary brain storming can be unleashed via individualized healthy one upsmanship and tapping into NT narcissism.

__b) The secondary "engineer and engineering research" shell would be a series of institutes for developing practical application of the fundamental research breakthroughs from the core. These institutes can be looked at as continuation of the spokes from the core. Same system of clubs and interdiscipline friendly architecture is present in this middle layer.

__c) Tertiary shell is to have a network of modular easily replaceable factory floors to build and test prototypes as well as tools to make these prototypes. Real working technologies conceived within the core (brief biking distance at this point) are to be made available to continually inspire the humans in the core and secondary layer.

__d) Supporting final shell where personnel that maintains the SciFac city lives and constructs needed supplies. This shell includes high tech automated vertical farm buildings, clothing factories, grooming item factories, security, raw material processing for tertiary layer assembly lines, etc. The reason why things like clothing, food, toothpaste, medicine are built/assembled on site is because it is incredibly easy to do so and because part of the tertiary prototype layer can actually continuously improve these facilities. In fact, a thin pizza slice of a given SciFac (extending almost to the core) can be tasked with just conceptualizing improvements and constructing augmentation of the actual SciFac itself.

This constant renewal is essential to avoid stagnation and to promote the efficiency, culture, and psycho-physical health of the residents. Modularization of the city's buildings and infrastructure aids in this. Additionally, a small city owning the means of production and distribution and providing for its own needs can rapidly become a role model even before first prototypes roll off the assembly lines. Everybody understands that human primates have essential needs like grooming and an automated small factory can easily stamp out enough haircombs, socks, hats, dental floss, slippers, toys, etc for 200,000+ residents. The SciFac can of course be given ownership rights by the public over certain regional mines and agricultural lands to ship the raw resources to itself and streamline the process. Vertical and horizontal integration would not be just for robber barons anymore. Industrial 3D printing even allows consumers within inner layers to design and order batches of unique goods (if a specialized nanolined jogging sweater helps somebody in the core think better by all means let the person have it).

3) Culture and governance: Obviously Soviet or Chinese style regimentation would be stifling for creativity and a substantial amount of social libertarianism is to be the norm. Compartments within each layer, each layer itself, and the city as a whole can easily have direct council democracy with today's communication technology. A scientific polis in action may be more inspiring for outside observers than any TED conference. As with DARPA, the red tape would not only be cut to the bone but scientifically reimagined. Non-hierarchal flat management structures and direct participatory democracy would of course further aid in psychological productivity by reducing damaging ego clashes, providing healthy feeling of autonomy, and even allowing invention of new more humane and efficient governance (within guiding limits naturally so the core city mission is not jeopardized by endless political infighting).

Besides helping in rapid reindustrialization of the Western world, the SciFac functions to groom future cadres of technocratic political leaders. The exclusivity of the SciFacs may seem elitist and scary (raising some people's fears of scientific dictatorship) but it is a definitive improvement over the current oligarchic/lawyer/playboy elitism and parasitic dictatorship of finance capital. It definitely creates much needed experimentation for a more meritocratic and progressive society during a time of great planetary transition and danger.

A properly constructed SciFac city of course can function in parallel with the old society rather than hatching an embryonic socioeconomic replacement but it may be a futile exercise to stop its role model leadership once it begins. Ecole Polytechniques of the world and profit/patent based silicon valley type constructions would pale in comparison if we get a small holistic bubble of the 21st century up and running. Yes, purposefully killing the patent culture within city limits will do wonders for brainstorming while reducing individual neuroticism and jealousy based interpersonal barriers. Out of 7 billion people on earth, staffing will not be a problem. Conceptualizing proper incentives to work within SciFac (besides getting to live there) is the easy part.

Conclusion:

Rather than a massive shake up of society or dictatorial large scale top down attempts at modernization, for some countries a SciFac City provides a rather benign foot in the door towards eventually rebooting the entire socioeconomic system. The public via state credit can easily set up a number of different highly automated relatively self sufficient SciFacs which share and learn from each other while keeping competition friendly.

The militaries of the world have engineer divisions that can quickly clear the needed areas and set up resource feeds for the SciFacs. The aesthetics and actual creativity inducing architecture are for the artistic breeds, organizational psychologists, and potential residents to decide upon. Soviets managed to rapidly catch up in technology and infrastructure using the shell within a shell compact living, researching, designing, and building Naukograd clusters. Dedicated Western power elite factions can do even better and overshoot rising competitors to the East when it comes to getting a top notch idea and getting it to the factory floor to take advantage of economies of scale. Of course SciFacs would function even better if they are international and cooperative in nature. In that case, China can aid in rapid construction of them in return for resource swaps as it has promised with high speed rail.

The public is hungry for state aided experimentation like this as the vacuum of ideas within elite circles becomes more noticeable by the day. The return on these investments stands to overshadow even the space race when it comes to ripple effects of emulation. Simple concepts like a city owning its own factories, farms, and energy sources to provide for basic resident needs (the way they provide police, the courts, and firefighting) will be revolutionary in terms of logistics and living efficiency. People will have a hard time believing it took this long and how they managed to live before such basic common sense practices.

Russian Legislative Election 2011: End of an Era

A now familiar scene in Northern Hemisphere

Since it has served its purpose of stabilizing and consolidating the 20 year old country, Putinism is officially on the decline. Its future, if it is to survive, is either coalition governance with communists or radical transformation towards long term construction of a post-scarcity societal model.





The ruling rich man's party in the Kremlin has just gotten badly egged in the face by suffering a 25% drop in the Duma. It is the first reversal for regime's party since a number of prominent robber barons created it in 1999 to support their macho puppet at the time (when Putin was successfully used to divert nation's attention from collapsing economy towards a secessionist terrorist threat). The history of United Russia's seats in 450 person Duma in 1999: 73, in 2003: 225, in 2007: 315, in 2011: 238.

It was to be expected that people would not go for a lukewarm quasi FDRist reactionary policy of United Russia during a paradigm shifting global economic downturn (some members of Putin's party have pictures of FDR on their walls for inspiration). Although survival and additional expenditures on welfare and social safety nets were enough to avoid Greek style riots, they were not nearly enough to maintain (much less gain) popularity.

While it may appear paradoxical that citizens may punish a regime that kept them afloat as some economies have imploded throughout Europe, it is not surprising given human psychology. Whenever the elites actually empower the wage slaves by growing the economic pie, the people get empowered (duh) to demand more and more (see 1960s United States and numerous blue collar worker strikes in China today). If there are sudden reversals that clash with ego expectations, the amounts of hatred released can be dramatic (note Beijing's fear of annual growth dropping to under 7.5%).

Thus the popular shift to the promises of a high tech welfare state that the Communist Party of Russian federation (CPRF) offers. Zyuganov's Communists expanded their delegation's representation in the legislative by a respectable 61%. It is no longer a secret that CPRF stopped being just a platform for nostalgic elderly. The youth are joining the party in droves out of genuine conviction as well as a protest vote. "Business as usual" within CPRF is changing by the month.

It is to be noted that the 3 main opposition parties (including CPRF) are only allowed to exist by the Kremlin in order to have an effective feedback mechanism from the people that wasn't present until 1991. This allows the financial and industrial cartels that rule the country to be relatively flexible, avoid stagnation, and respond to wage slave needs in a relatively timely manner.

If the emerging Chinese princeling leadership (comfortable soft children of the old guard) ever democratize towards party pluralism, it may be along these lines. Similar system of feed back also exists in Syria where pro-Assad party allows some minor friendly parties to openly express popular discontent within structured channels. Multi-party (more than 2) rich man's democracy may even come to places like United States in the years to come as it appears that the power elites in Washington DC have lost the ability to measure and comprehend the sheer levels of peasant hatred against them. One can imagine a controlled monkey like Kucinich being allowed a small political block so frustrations can be channeled and systematically co-opted.

Having said that, CPRF remains the most autonomous oppositional entity with greatest potential for unpredictable action especially if its aging leadership is suddenly replaced internally. Kremlin's strategists may find it necessary to dramatically increase or restructure their psychological, informational, and financial warfare and co-option approach towards CPRF. The leading theorist of Russian managed democracy and "brains behind the throne" Vladislav Surkov, already helped create a fake opposition center-left party Just Russia to try to drain votes from CPRF. The other fake opposition party Liberal Democrats (LDPR) does a marvelous job sucking in the less pleasant crypto-fascist and militarist elements of society (think a special party to catch and compartmentalize the Michele Bachman and Rudy Gulliani lovers).

Surkov's goal is to have one "steering" party rule for 30-50 years the way Sweden and Japan were in the second half of the 20th century. The tiny parties may even be allowed to become substantially more independent (if they continue to take small amount of seats that is..). This would allow implementation of 5,10,20, and 30 year economic plans. Unfortunately, some current long term plans are paper shuffling jokes (building financial center to rival London) rather than being tangible herd improving ones. An example of the latter is the Northern River Reversal water project which would really glue Central Asian and possibly Persian elites to Kremlin's leadership and provide enough regional jobs to neutralize the fires of Islamic radicalism being currently fanned by Anglo geopolitical strategists.

It will be interesting to see:

1) How Putin modifies his position before the presidential election in response to this pie on the face
2) If Medvedev will even stick around
3) Which one of the 3 smaller party gremlins the papa gremlin will choose to cooperate with the most.

There have already been signals that the militarist LDPR may be the ally of choice as Putin returns to foreign affairs duties next year. That is since there is the matter of taking advantage of shrinking perimeter of American empire and consolidating regional economic blocks (Eurasian NAFTA-esque entities) to help make Kremlin friendly corporations even more profit. When it comes to choosing allies for domestic policy however, things will get a lot more complicated as Internet literate population has sensed blood in the water after dealing Kremlin a broken nose.

Continuing decline of American influence may briefly boost the Kremlin for a short time. Ultimately however it would further and even more thoroughly discredit current form of Putinism which is basically intensely trying to copy what American empire did right in the 1950s-1970s period (vibrant soft power, incredibly cold and restrained diplomacy, attracting foreign investment, social democratic architecture, allowing sufficient democratic input to bypass oligarchs, becoming example for elites in poorer parts of the world, building cutting edge energy infrastructure, etc). CPRF as ruling coalition partner may be the only realistic choice for United Russia in the next few years as American neoliberal model continues to nosedive (occupy the Kremlin anyone?).

As much as some Western dissidents would like to see the desires of their own ruling imperialist Kleptocrats tempered by those in Beijing and Moscow, it is not the sort of strategy where the little people ultimately win. Imperialism from DC being replaced by economic imperialism from Berlin, Moscow, or Beijing is not what humanity needs to preserve social stability in the 21st century.

As of today, 4 political units stand out in terms of having the preconditions to provide leadership for the whole world. They are Germany and Japan (once they figure out a way to constructively end foreign occupations of their soil) and China and Russia. Japanese elites have the most high tech and egalitarian "human farm" to work with, China has the raw economies of scale to construct for large swaths of the world, Germany of course can lead in supranational integration, while Russia may be the first to demonstrate combination of democratic functioning and popular blatantly communist aspirations that are being rekindled daily. Those robber barons still buying London property (and thus political protection) understand this.

P.S. Once again, regional militarism born out of imperial power vacuum is to be avoided at all costs.

10 Signs That American Empire is Collapsing

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The imperial perimeter is shrinking and inevitably leaving power vacuums to be filled. As that occurs, actors outside the perimeter expand their force.  How can we tell?








1) Switzerland, one of the ablest money changers, has thrown its support behind the Eurozone by pegging the Swiss franc to the Euro. As explained previously, this may signal that E.U. is beginning to win the currency wars. Shorting the Euro has resulted in financial massacres as of late (hilarious considering talk of parity a year ago).

2) US abandons plans to extend presence of its troops in Iraq, thus ceding the country to the influence of much hated Tehran. Iraqi Shiite political coalition increases its autonomy having benefited from return to high oil prices. This occurs even as violence against US troops has increased this year compared to last (possibly stirred by Tehran).

3) Alexei Kudrin, one of the last and most entrenched neoliberals (ideological pro Anglo-Saxon cadres) in the Russian government, has been publicly fired by president Medvedev. This occurred after Kudrin criticized Russian Federation's plan to invest an unprecedented $700 billion to modernize its military over the next 10 years. Moscow is preparing to deal with possible instability within new power vacuums in central Asia and Europe. Putin's return to presidency (external affairs duty versus prime minister's internal affairs) next year goes well with this as he is familiar with key world leaders on a personal level.

4) Attempts to create tensions between Saudis and Persians via stories of ridiculous Tehranian "plots" in an effort to keep house of Saud under Washington's wing. Saudis no longer trust US to protect them (seeing wider Anglo-led attempts to create general instability in the region) and have began strategic autonomous dialogue with Pakistan and other players.

5) Irrational moves to prevent violence backed dollar from devaluation by starting more policing actions in weaker regions (Africa) to make up for disappearance of influence in relevant regions (like central Europe). This loss of influence is demonstrated by the defeats dealt in the Russo-Georgian conflict fiasco, cancellation of anti-ballistic missile installations in Poland, and Moscow feeling secure enough to increase pressure on its once regional ally Belarus for pure economic gain. As for Africa, besides the tragic murder of Libya, there's the hypocritical and superficial increase in policing deeper within Africa. Washington is engaging in laughable attempts to displace Libya as Africa's moral leader (after having destroyed one of the better competing socioeconomic guidebooks for the continent via siding with homicidal NTC "rebels").

6) Hugo Chavez's recent decision to pull the gold that Venezuelan central bank stores abroad from its storage in NYC and London vaults.

7) Signs of belligerence between supposed Washington allies in the Middle East. Turkey and Israel increasingly hostile to each other as they cut military cooperation over the murder of Turkish citizens during the raid on Gaza flotilla. This demonstrates inability and/or lack of resources to properly mediate by DC strategists.

8) Continuing sales of US bonds by Beijing and Moscow (centers of more efficient predatory capitalism). Expanding interest by non-BRIC countries to bilaterally deal in their own currencies. Fears of abandoning the dollar are gradually fading as NATO forces are showing logistical cracks in their operations. Regional economic summits are starting to lock out and not invite DC observers.

9) Increase in autonomy seeking behavior among key NATO allies. Although still occupied, Germany maintains non-participation in Washington backed military adventures abroad. Berlin is actually dramatically slashing its defense force expenditures. France's proactive role in continental affairs and the Libya fiasco as it tries to maneuver itself to better position within NATO decision making process. Rise in belligerence in British press towards the American empire shows possible desire to decouple London's parasitic relationship with Washington (in the beginning of 20th century, up to 40% of British foreign investments were in US industry and Britain successfully destroyed two major superpowers by pitting American empire against the Soviets in the 1950s).

10) Rise in calls for an "American perestroika" in major imperialist publications. There is worry among Washington's geopolitical theorists that the subject population in North America is becoming too malnourished and psychologically weak/unstable to continue energetically maintaining (much less expanding) the global force perimeter.

Demands of Occupy Wall Street Movement Protesters

Part 2: Dignity, respect, autonomy, living standards in line with what technology of second decade of the 21st century allows (or at the very least as good as those of an average Swede).







With the parabolic expansion of the OWS across the country (as of today, occupations in over 70 cities and hundreds of small towns), the powers that be are now attempting to co-opt the energy of OWS for Obama's re-election. The spike in media attention and sudden friendly non-condescending tone of rich man's mouthpieces like NYT and CNN is an indicator of this. Co-option appears to be the stage between ridicule and fight you stages. This may prove more difficult than was co-opting Ron Paul's people via building a corporate sponsored "tea party" (elderly obese peasant crypto-fascists on scooters) around them. Part of this process will be Obama proxies within the media, intelligence, and think tanks trying to channel the energy towards electing a gaggle of corporate democrats in the next election cycle. This means trying to entangle the protesters within a broken, draining, futile, and illegitimate political process and pitting them against an ocean of corporate advertising money.

The protesters need to understand that voting is used by the ruling oligarchic American regime (whether democratic or republican wing of finance capital) to bring itself legitimacy. In fellow oligarchic "democracies for the rich" like Russia, ruling parties always try to mobilize youth to vote for this reason. It is sign of rapidly increasing third worldification of the US when political parties feel compelled to also have artificially propped popular movements behind them. Perhaps Obama is jealous he doesn't have Putin's NASHI equivalent. As Latin America moves north, the protesters need to adopt tactics used by their comrades in the rest of the so called "developing world" (who exactly is developing around this planet?).

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Upon visiting the occupied park, the demands become crystal clear and in a pleasant surprise, they appear rather compatible with what The Pragmatist has been proposing. These demands fall into two categories of punishment and socioeconomic rebuilding which could be categorized as follows:




A) Stopping the looting on Titanic's upper deck.

1) Punishing and deconstructing ruling transnational financial cartels via Glass-Steagall, grand investigation, prosecution and arrest of thousands of banksters, and a Tobin tax on financial transactions to throw a wrench in the high frequency trading casino floor of Wall Street.

2) Bringing back 1950s style 90% tax on the ultra rich and steeply raising capital gains taxes to begin redistributing the wealth down across the ridiculously steep caste based pyramid.

3) Stripping corporations of legal personhood and nationalizing as needed. Reversing the process of privatization and corrupt public-private "partnerships" (a.k.a. peasant stompingships)

4) Creating a permanent awakening and class consciousness and thus the process of neverending push back against the desires of the ruling class, no longer venerating the oligarchs (or venerating abstract myths like "The Market"). In other words no longer licking the boots of the rich and kowtowing at every opportunity.

B) Slowing down the sinking of the Titanic and creating mechanisms to rescue the poorer passengers in the bottom decks. 

5)  W.P.A. 2.0 to engage in large scale infrastructure projects, technological modernization, and infrastructure development.

6) Providing cutting edge education to the largely illiterate peasant mass  (definition of illiteracy in the 21st century goes well beyond not being able to read or write). This will make it increasingly harder to swindle bottom castes out of their resources.

Eventually, as the OWS crowd socially polarizes, they will understand that the only language rich people understand is the language of the general strike and mass scale disobedience. That is, when business as usual and quarterly profits are interrupted. That is when the oligarchs start calling their butler/personal lawyer/puppy dog in congress to demand that business resume and they do something. When and if the radicalization reaches the level of mass desire for the general strike, a new set of better demands will emerge (better since they will present a lot more "radical" break from the rotten status quo and thus a halfway compromise will result resembling what's listed above).

The most hopeful thing one discovers is the increasing desire for a grand alliance between Ron Paul's people and the OWS umbrella for numerous other dissident groups. This will make it harder for a faction of ruling elites to make an alliance with OWS crowd first and will thus isolate the 1% further (put them under sudden siege which they aren't prepared for unlike elites in say, Latin America). An example of this fusionistic tendency is the federal reserve system increasingly becoming the target amongst many non-Ron Paul people in Liberty Plaza. Many countries around the world had to resort to a "popular front" of groups which normally hate each other but which have discovered a common enemy at the very top of the pyramid.

More to come as this develops.

Occupy Wall Street Movement

Part 1: Occupy Wall Street movement: The background of the spark to talk that millions have been waiting for





It has been 3 weeks already so time is ripe for a first report on this historic process (sorry Wisconsin). This well may turn into a few part series.

As explained in a January article Economic Development Alternatives for United States, the fusionistic groundswell of dissident movements will start shopping for ideas on moving forward. Ron Paul's 19th century reactionaries (and the oligarch backed crypto-fascist republican flavored tea party that co-opted and grew around them) obviously do not provide any real framework when it comes to replacing the current imperial regime of finance capital. Being against something is not being for and therefore it was only a matter of time until the youthful intelligentsia provided another tea party type movement (only from the "left" this time if you're helped by a reference to that dead paradigm).

A catalyst like September 17th gathering was a matter of time considering the amount of various fed up manifestos and declarations that came out last year from organizations that now deserted Obama's power coalition (as the last 3 years have radicalized them and brought them into fusionistic/synergestic contact with post-scarcity and post-capitalist dissident groups and opinion makers).

Occupation of Liberty Park (formerly Zuccotti park) represents a qualitative divergence in tactics. Unlike a typical ineffectual temporary protest (that could be ignored even if there's millions marching such as during the run up to the aggression against Iraqi people), an occupation of a piece of parasite landlord's property is a direct primal drawing of a political border between "us" and "them". One must not forget that the Brookfield Office Properties that owns the park also owns 20 billion dollars in other assets and is now having a self sacrificial energetic crowd lay indefinite trespass claim on one of its properties.

In this regard, the occupy wall street project is similar to those incidences of laid off workers taking over (and continuing to operate) factories in United States and managing to keep the police from dislodging them. A post-financial collapse country like Argentina demonstrates such occupations on a much larger scale. Of course there's also been numerous cases of Americans refusing to leave their fraudulently foreclosed homes and actually managing to beat the cops back via community neighbor support.

This is different.

Liberty Park is in the middle of intense tourist and yuppie traffic and is just a block from the Federal Reserve itself. It is not a factory or some commune on the edge of town that can be left alone by powers that be. It is located in a city of millions that is heavy in talented and disgruntled youth regardless whether it is technical talent, artistic, informational, etc. The city functions as a magnet for key breeds necessary for a revolutionary wave. The emotionally idealistic ENFPs, the entertaining and physical ESFPs, the aggressive and risk taking ESTPs, the pragmatic aggressive ENTPs, and all others who provide critical logistical organization. And cavalry in terms of human resources is still flooding into the city perimeter to escape the economic desperation of the heartland. Thus the Liberty Plaza can continuously draw upon cutting edge skills from an endless pool of the unemployed, underemployed, and otherwise pissed off New Yorkers. Only limitations to sleeping space are the limit which present interesting further possibilities.

The occupiers secured support from a few unions and there is now 50,000+ union members to count on for some form of logistical and legal help. The recent debacle and total humiliation for police commissioner during the arrest of hundreds on the Brooklyn bridge has even shown class based break downs in chain of command. The NYPD armed police force numbers roughly 35,000 members (with roughly 5,000 unarmed ready to help if needed). Most of them are the poorly paid "blue shirts" who've been migrating to other boroughs for better pay for years. Thus we saw the higher paid "watch me guard this park and get paid $60 an hour for it" "white shirt" management having to tackle the demonstrators. The blue shirts are in the force often out of poverty and desperation themselves and are not as vigilant and energetic when it comes to arresting fellow poor people (ranging from elderly to war veterans).

This week we heard about the numerous copycat occupations beginning. This means we'll now see numerous pundits and reporters try to frame and describe this "tea party with brains" (props to MarketWatch for taking the time out for carrying water for financial establishment to try to frame in such positive manner). We'll hear various reports from journalists that could be copy and pasted from their previous reports on Tea Party's early days (no message, too many mixed messages, just venting rage, no clear goal, blah blah blah. Shut up mainstream imperial press and go off into the night already, that includes you NYT, New Yorker, and The Atlantic). Interestingly enough, on the ignore you/ridicule you/fight you/ you win sequence, by week 3 the movement rapidly went to the establishment ridicule phase. Just watch the popularly despised CNN (Fox News with brunettes) take on it. It's a hoot and a holler when 1% rich TV pundits report on anything.

More Occupy Wall Street stories and picture series to come. Yours truly was on the scene trying to do gonzo journalistic research on this shindig like many others. I better get into this framing business early on eh friends? ;) We're the 99%.

21st Century Paradigm Shift and Vertical Farming

How vertical farms illustrate the emerging post-scarcity societal architecture






A very optimistic story emerges when one looks at statistics concerning material activity of historically influential countries in the world today. As can be seen in chart below, vast majority of humanity are being gradually liberated from heavy toil and will be allowed to dedicate their lives to self-actualization. Dramatic rise in individuals dedicated solely to self improvement will regionalize, nationalize, and then globalize the same atmosphere of creativity, other centered activism, and solidarity that only existed on elite college campuses in the past. Currently, middle and even some lower class youths throughout the world are approaching the same level of psychic development as existed among their brethren in Ivy League schools in the 1960s. This time around they have superior numbers within their age group and the silent minority will either have to zip it or secede.

In 20th century, there used to be a 1-2 generation developmental lag between the various classes but the speed with which this lag is closing is accelerating. For example, we can see how people partying it up in places like Bushwick are rather similar to children of the rich in the 1920s when it comes to mannerisms, diversity of tastes, sexual exploration, and relationship patterns. There is even emulation of the hideous decadent art that results from disenchantment with hedonism, lack of societal vision from above, and inability to deal with nihilism (just visit most galleries in NYC you'll see). The rate at which musical and party trends from underground venues in trend setting cities find their way to small cities around the world is rapidly becoming exponential.

The Internet allows the type of autodidactic learning that the leisurely aristocrats of old could only dream about. Since the brain can only develop so much, we'll increasingly see individuals from below the social hierarchy catch up and even overshoot those on top. Dramatically increased resource sharing will then have to be made to preserve social stability. New institutional frameworks (to streamline the budding noocracy) will emerge. Rising mass popularity of events like TED conferences are a hint of things to come. Conversely, if you're a pessimist watch this (UK and US will show other key nations what mistakes to avoid in the transition).

Agricultural Sector

Efficiency of American agricultural sector is incredible considering how much is left over for the export market. Once the biggest companies within this sector are taken over and properly managed by the public, they'll be able to provide oceans of high quality organic food at virtually zero cost while continuing to need less and less workers to operate. One need not even mention the reform of currently homicidal subsidies to not grow. Eventually, after sufficient automation, the global farmer population will dip to less than 1% of 7-9 billion humans (not counting amateurish micro-industry hobby farmers).

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Current popular trend of grass roots farm redecentralization and localism is the product of the economic crisis and decades of inefficiency within suburban living (that requires very long energy expensive transport and chemical saturation to mummify/preserve the food). Such decentralization can be accomplished from the top down with competent management. For instance, central regional or national governments can tackle such classic corporate villains like Monsanto and Dole Food Company by:

1) Having their various headquarters raided simultaneously and all their physical and financial assets frozen
2) All their employees kept in place, wages increased, cooperative profit/product sharing introduced, and flatter directly democratic worker management introduced (to maintain technical talent)
3) Splitting key hyperindustrialized mega farms into however many parts are desired, mass constructing new smaller farms near or within the cities, and putting the smaller farms under local city, county, or state management (see below)

Rather than most people fleeing the cities to escape oppression and becoming farmers (ex: Rome well into its decline), we'll eventually see large entities taking advantage of economies of scale and rapidly mass constructing vertical farms to localize food deep inside the urban zones. Skyscraper farms will be a service and a fixture under local popular control the way police stations and libraries are. One must remember that current agricultural tech is so advanced that it allows us to easily feed a population of 50 billion humans. In effect, food is and will be recognized as a "too cheap to meter" utility and its delivery will be akin to the post office.

Industrial Sector

Similarly, heavy industry leaders like Germany and Japan continue to export highest quality infrastructural components while their actual sectors "shrink". In reality of course (as agri monopolists show) a sector can and does expand greatly while requiring less operators (brief hiring boosts from inventions like cotton gin notwithstanding). A good illustration is North Korea whose industrial sector is vast majority of its economy, is even higher than China, yet is laughable in its production. Meanwhile leaders like Tokyo and Berlin are increasingly paying attention to robotic development. Success will be measured in ability of making bigger and bigger objects while requiring less primate caloric expenditures. For instance, if it used to take say, 10,000 primates to make 1 jumbo jet airplane, in the future 5,000 primates should be able to construct a super jumbo spaceship. Once again, the public must provide the guidance to this process.

We can now see that agricultural sector is about to be reclassified since its destiny is to be fully integrated into the industrial sector. The fascistic corporate kleptocracy that English speakers live under has given a bad name to industrialized farming the way North Korea gives bad name to socialism. One just has to compare the quality of product that highly mechanized Swedish farms make to food in a local Wall Mart. As mentioned above, high tech factories churning out hyper clean and organic food product within efficient 3 dimensional space is something to be embraced. No need to revert to subsistence peasant digging in the dirt to get quality food in the 21st century (I can't believe I actually had to type that sentence).

Now is a good time to clarify a prior article titled Post-industrial Society=Beyond Idiocy. The point of the article was not to deny that we're headed towards a civilization where less people are involved in industrial production. The point was to counter the current pathetic Western neo-Luddite anti industrial outlook that is emerging. As mentioned above, as majority of the young intelligentsia today are becoming similar (in psychology and ability) to the leaders of 1960s social movements, they are partially re-embracing the hatred of "large scary dirty factories". As they are about to re-discover Marxism (by some other name, possibly within the Zeitgeist movement framework or its spin offs), there is a danger of further slow down in heavy industry development and even rougher transition within Western space. One just has to look at how these people killed  the nuclear industry in North America. In a decent society, political leaders calling for infrastructural stagnation would be impeached.

Instead of thinking "hey lets replace 100 dirty factories making 100,000 tractors with 5 mega high tech fission reactor powered modular factories mass producing 500,000 super large terraforming electrical tractors that are recharged by an underground 21st century standard power line hooked into fission/fusion reactor grid" they are thinking "lets replace 100 dirty factories with our homemade bike production facility and lets ride around on a solar powered bike and grow our own food and make our own clothing, look we're retarded". Industrial progress = mass production = taking say, a half a million dollar car, inviting NASA to make it crash proof, making it electric, and then stamping it out on automated assembly lines in such numbers as to lower the price to 10 grand.

We can't allow this type of neo-luddite outlook to infect our politics for a second time since the result would be a sustainable high tech reservation existing in a supposed "equilibrium with nature" (whatever that means). The ultra rich would love a bunch of dorm style facebook cities where the youthful citizens exert their newly released creative energies to make/trade art and toys for the rich to amuse themselves with (as they gently direct, spy on everybody, and continue to live as before laughing it up in safety as the Swedish oligarchy does currently). Lets leave the practice of artificially created scarcity in the 20th century.

We're familiar with a phrase "don't put this or that on a pedestal". This must especially apply to nature. The so called "resource scarcity" and "energy shortages" are completely dependent on the level of technology within heavy industry. Primitive people 2,000 years ago also had fears of overpopulation and resource shortages. With sufficiently advanced technology and energy sources, we can literally create new nature where it hasn't existed before (Sahara desert turned into a rainforest) and colonize it with biodiversity. Minerals from deeper in the earth can be brought via powerful laser drilling, ocean floor can be tapped, asteroids brought into orbit and mined, etc. Yes it'd be big "scary" heavy machines but just as with farming, they can be hyper clean and not only compatible with a more humane civilization but essential to bring it about.

Conclusion

Vertical farms are a symbol of this emerging dynamic since they create a synergistic unity between city and country and various labor types. It appears that the future will not only have fusion of agriculture, industry, and services on a macro level but that this process would allow individuals resources ("art supplies") to become their own individualized micro producers. More on that later.

Human Herd Dynamics

The fields of psychology, sociology, and political science should be fused into the field of human herd dynamics (with biology and engineering serving auxiliary roles).

"A riot is the language of the unheard." Martin Luther King Jr.




The chaos engulfing London currently would not come as a surprise to anybody looking at human (domesticated primate) migration patterns. Until recently England had a colonial release valve for the aggressive intuitive humans on the home islands. They simply picked up and left to escape the intolerable, stifling, and pretentious exploitation by depraved hereditary mafia.

The more "cooperative" breeds, those physiologically predisposed to conservative status quo mindset (SJs) thus became a bit more represented in the population as they bred. They remained behind and further fortified the societal structure. Social pressure within bottom castes of the herd hierarchy was effectively and continuously relieved.

That is until the adventurous ENTJs/ENTPs/ENFPs/ESTPs from former colonies began to migrate to England in the second half of the 20th century. They bred and produced a couple of generations of children that were radicalizing and destabilizing by their very existence (much like sending a team of dog breeds deemed "disloyal" by their masters into a group of "loyal" breeds).

[sidenote: It is very well possible that experiment-prone, novelty seeking, intuitive, and aggressive breeds leaving acted as a brain drain for the lower and middle classes of 1880s-1960s England. Drawing mostly from the "posh" semi-inbred higher society for scientists and theorists may have contributed to technological and ideological stagnation in 20th century England. Not mentioning the social mobility rankings that are even worse than in US and Mexico.]

Why Human Herd Dynamics (HHD)?

None of this analysis would be possible without interdisciplinary integration of social-psychology and other fields. It is 2011 AD. The time is ripe to:

1) Do a dissective and pragmatic "audit" of various major soft science fields to see which deserve to exist at all
2) Strip away the fluff from those that should exist to make them easier to relate to each other in an interdisciplinary manner, "modularize" them
3) Fuse the reformed stripped fields into one field where possible

Lets do an opening shot in this long overdue process.

The field of economics should not exist anymore and should be replaced by engineering completely (president or prime minister having a panel of engineering advisors instead of economic ones). Engineering IS real economics. Additionally, engineering deals with expanding the material power of the herd (unlike the obsolete 20th century pseudo-science of economics). Finally, lets kick this worthless discipline while its down one more time and say that "auditing" economics will do a lot more good than auditing entities like the federal reserve. We'd be treating the root of the problem rather than the symptoms.

This brings us to dealing with another economy, the economy of power within the multiplicity of the human herd. This means a) political science (the science of perception creation/management, a sister field to marketing as it is known in eastern Europe), b) sociology (the healthy kind that studies the entire herd with focus on movers and shakers rather than current sociology which serves as a spying apparatus for power elites) and c) psychology (positive psychology aided by biology rather than the current corporate quackery that is negative psychology).

Perhaps our old friend Nietzsche can help us somewhat with this since he was one of the first to describe the social world in a purely physical and biological way. A couple quotes naturally:

"All unity is unity only as organization and co-operation--just as a human community is a unity--as opposed to an atomistic anarchy, as a pattern of domination that signifies a unity but is not a unity." 561 (1885-1886)

"In place of "sociology," a theory of the forms of domination. In place of "society," the culture complex, as my chief interest (as a whole or in its parts)." 462 (Spring-Fall 1887)

We can see how sociology, anthropology, psychology, and political science can be merged into one as they're all fused on their periphery already. What's left and doesn't fit is to be swallowed up by fields like history and marketing. Political Ponerology and Between Two Ages are good examples of how all encompassing disciplinary fusion can be done. HHD would naturally have a human as the smallest unit of analysis and total planetary population as the largest.

In essence HHD would look at:

1) How various breeds originate, develop, maintain, and expand clusters of force within the total herd
2) How these clusters of force interact with each other and the rest of humanity, what basic patterns of power arrangements occur
3) How clusters of force should be arranged within regional political units and the global unit as a whole. In this we would be guided by biology and engineering as they show us the needs of humans and the most efficient way to fulfill these needs via a 21st century version of utilitarianism (one which takes into account not just the individual's need for pleasure but also for personal autonomy and power)

HHD makes it harder to get volunteers for WW3

Before the reader accuses the Human Herd Dynamics study as something Aldous Huxley would dream up, it is key to know that our rulers already research and make practical use of HHD informally. Currently, the fusion of various fields is well on the way and we're just speeding up the existing processes via an organizational and linguistic streamlining. Of course it would also unleash mass popular dissemination of "forbidden" knowledge as key intuitive connections that scholars make will be sped up due to merging of the fields. In turn, we'll see healthy and major transformative ripple effects on society, political institutions, shared values, individual's self-appraisal, popular movements, etc. Considering the challenges and evolutionary leaps that await us in the decades ahead, the simplification, streamlining, holistic merging, popularization, and democratization of the soft sciences is a top priority for peacefully building the technocratic world of tomorrow. HHD can thus become a self referential discipline that affects and is affected, that illuminates yet evolves with us in a mutually enriching way.

Inequality of Wealth Distribution and Economic Growth

The forest was in chaos. Parts of it were burning and the food was scarce. Remembering how wonderful the forest used to be, various animal groups sent ambassadors to a very ancient owl. The wise owl remembered  historical cycles and hopefully had clues on how to reset the forest so it could be productive again. They gathered by the gargantuan oak tree where the owl lived.

"Is this what it took to come see me?" the owl hooted. "That's fine. I got some time to say the least, gather around."

"You see, most animals are needed to make the forest work. The beavers who are skilled at dams, the messenger birds, the defender bears, and the wily foxes. Each is as important as the next for proper societal function," the owl said.

The animals shouted, "foxes are the most important since they are 1% of the population and have the most food, they are the smartest and most capable! That's why they get at least 10% of everything always!"

"Well, perhaps. Don't listen to everything newspapers say. After all, they're owned by foxes," owl said.

The owl got comfortable and elaborated upon a few scenarios.

"Some animal theorists assure us that as the economy expands, the ruling foxes need to skim less and less from the pie. They say that if our economic pie is 100 slices today and foxes take 10%, then they can take 9% if the pie grows to 1,000 slices. Everybody wins?"

The animals nodded and murmured approval, "yes yes they'll need to loot less with time, we'll all have more!"

"Let me show you how that is rubbish!" declared the owl. He smiled at the puzzled expressions of the crowd. "If population and economy is both 100 then during the first generation one fox gets 10 slices while 99 chumpsters get 90 slices (.909 slice per chumpster). During the second generation, if both economy and population grow equally to 1,000 then reduction of fox share to 9% will yield 90 slices for 10 foxes (9 slices per fox) while 990 chumpsters split 910 slices amongst them (.919  slice per chumpster)."

He continued, "you see fellow forest dwellers, everybody always wants more resources with every passing year. Foxes, their offspring, and their families also want annual increases and they're in a political position to actually get them. Unless forced otherwise, they will expand their wealth at least at the rate of economic growth. Here's why.."

The owl pointed his wing at a sketch.

"Scenario I : Lets say we start with 100 slices and foxes take their usual 10% (10 slice) cut. Our pie grows 10% annually while the amount foxes take for themselves grows only 5% annually which means they're reducing their share gradually over time. After the first year, our pie is 110 slices and foxes take 10.5 slices. By year 10, we have 259 slices with foxes taking 16 of them. This means the share of how much they take has fallen from 10% to 6.17% in just a decade. If this continues and populations of foxes and non-foxes (chumpsters in fox vernacular) grow at a stable and exactly proportional rate, the foxes will be reduced to poverty chumpster status within a few generations."

A ripple of understanding went through the crowd, "since they lose when expanding insufficiently quickly, lets then peg the rate at which they grow their wealth to the rate at which the economy grows!" they roared.

"We're getting warmer" smiled the owl. "We've heard from various mammals that were dropped on their heads when little.."

*laughter*

"..we heard from them that not only should economy not grow at the rate of the herd but that we should enter post-growth!! Having taken everything the foxes want to consolidate their gains forever and turn everything into a "sustainable" equilibrium zoo!! As if life was equilibrium!"

*rolling laughter*

"Well, we can't stand still, that is, grow as fast as we breed considering the chumpster population usually breeds at greater rates than the fox one. If the orange trickster incomes are pegged to growth and have a guaranteed minimum pie cut, then there'll be massive privation for the rest. Keeping in mind the population growth rates of various animal classes is essential when determining forest policy. Especially in these troubled times we can't allow things to develop where one class wishes the other was depopulated or reduced in size just to maintain privileges, much less expand privileges.."

"Well lets expand the economy at a much faster rate than herd growth!", yelled the animals.

"Very good, obviously that's the solution, yet even with ratio of economic to population growth being top heavy, we must still prevent the 1% from claiming larger share than their usual 10%..."

"Hey can you speak from that higher bare branch over there so we can hear you better?" somebody called from the crowd.

"Sure thing", said the owl as he hopped upwards. He then unfurled another sketch.

"Scenario II  : Economic pie is expanding at twice the rate of the population (which remains internally proportional). Economy expands 1,000% and population expands 500% every generation. Foxes gradually expand the amount they claim by 2% of the total pie.

1st generation) POPULATION = 100 animals (1% fox  99% chumpsters)
PIE = 100 slices
1 fox takes 10 slices (10% of pie), 10 slices per fox
99 chumpsters split 90 slice, .909 slice per chumpster

2nd generation) POPULATION = 600 animals
PIE = 1,100 slices
6 foxes split 132 slices (12% of pie), 22  slices per fox (120% increase)
594 chumpsters split 968 slices, 1.629 slice per chumpster (79.20% increase)

3rd generation) POPULATION = 3,600 animals
PIE = 12,100 slices
36 foxes split 1,694 slices (14% of pie),  47.055 slices per fox (113% increase)
3,564 chumpsters split 10,406 slices   2.919 slice per chumpster (79.18% increase)
..... "

"As you can see, even with phenomenal growth, a tiny minority beginning to increase their total cut begins to stagnate and reverse the party for all. This greed may bring more slices today yet leave forest burning tomorrow."

The animals cried, "that's not fair!! 99% of animals deserve these increases over time! There's more of us!"

"Yes furry and feathery ones. The ancients had a guiding principle for herd survival. They said to limit the amount of resources the best off animals get to no more than 10 times the amount that worst off animals get. More importantly, they said to peg the rise in resources that the best off get to the rise of resources that the worst off get. That means that if field mice get 10 slices the foxes would get no more than 100 and if foxes wish to get 110 next year they better work out conditions where the mice can get 11 next year."

"It's not in their nature to share!!" said the animals "You mentioned the ancients. Wasn't there a time when we were ruled by turtles and kinder hunters like your fellow owls? Wasn't the forest more bountiful? Wasn't the.."

"Hah! Indeed," said the owl. "There is one more thing I need to say before I forget. You must also never allow usury to develop and never neglect rapid construction of infrastruc..."

Suddenly a loud shot rang out. The owl froze briefly, clutched at its chest, slumped, and fell down to loud gasps. The owl lay dead.

A very old fox burst into the clearing. It was panting and had a wild yet serious expression on its snout.

"The humans!" it gasped. "They're here! There's guns and mercenary dogs, the whole herd is in danger!! We're being attacked!"

The crowd forgot about everything as panic spread.

"The humans did this, they spoiled the forest! They used some owls as spies. We're forming a defensive grid with the wolves by the river bank. Follow me, we'll overcome this together like we always have! The beavers are in charge of logistics. Defend the forest!"

"I knew that owl was up to no good, talking down to us from those branches.." snorted a beaver elder.

The animals began to run.

click to enlarge

Libyan Civil War: What Would Lincoln Do?

As the large scale humiliation of NATO and their mercenary "National Transitional Council" continues into the fifth month, Abraham Lincoln sits down for a public meeting with Colonel Gaddafi to talk war and peace.

 Muammar Gaddafi: Most warm welcome Mr. Lincoln and thank you for being here. Always a pleasure to have guests who managed to successfully resolve mass civil disturbances and earn history's honor.

Most Libyans are familiar with your work. For those who aren't, Mr. Lincoln effectively suppressed a number of rebellious provinces in his home country and thwarted European desire to split USA into parts. Thus, the "second American revolution" as it was dubbed in foreign press never materialized after 5 years of bitter struggle.

Can you tell me what's the key dynamic to watch out for when dealing with a fluid situation like this?

 Abraham Lincoln: Pleasure to be here. Well, the first thing, and probably the most difficult thing, is the initial shock. The sense of betrayal and exasperation. One's ego takes a massive hit you know? How did it come to this? What % was my fault and so on and so on.

The first few weeks, I mean, we had such losses.. defections.. entire states you know? Some old friends and business backers were saying to cut our losses. In such environment it is essential to not become too psychologically paralyzed. One must surround oneself with optimists.

As they say, perception is everything and I remember one general telling me that, "it is essential to invest in perception management early in the game. No other seed grows as much". Since if th..

MG: Since humans are animals and that if loyalist forces hold on long enough in the beginning, the act of fighting and risking life for the regime will modify consciousness via behavioral conditioning. By acting "loyalist" they thus become loyalist as is the case with any other task. Plus this ego construction takes place in environment where lots of adrenaline is released thus burning the newly constructed identity into memory.

AL: Exactly. Mind you the rebels of course undergo same process yet without the benefit of formal military training, industrial capacity, coherent economic promises, absolute domestic support, and well coordinated logistics. Their new ego construction is one of losers. And they are currently dying and getting wounded at such a rate that there wont be too many survivors with Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 hour rule under their belt to train new arrivals. In case of Libya and the extraordinary international media propaganda offensive against it..

MG: Thicker and quicker established informational bubble than even those imposed on Yugoslavia or Iraq.

AL: ...it was remarkable how rapidly public opinion in NATO countries changed concerning the rebels. Considering the supposed openness of the Internet, it is amazing how airtight the cloud of lies has been. Yet even with mainstream aggressor press retelling the start of the hostilities not as foreign funded civilian looting of Libyan army bases..

MG: Where soldiers guarding the base naturally shot those who tried breaking in with bulldozers to steal weapons..

AL: Right. Imagine! 1000 secession supporters try to loot a Union base, some get shot, and the foreign press retells it as if soldiers attacked a peaceful demonstration! Anyway, the French, British, American publics felt that something wasn't right.

MG: "The city of Misrata, population half a million, is under brutal siege and has been indiscriminately bombarded by Gaddafi forces for months". Yet only 700 rebel civilians died there! Perhaps NATO definition of indiscriminate shelling has morphed over time but I literally couldn't stop laughing at such slander. They don't realize how much we were holding ourselves back and still do.

AL:  Well the casualty discrepancies were some of the more obvious clues along with such nonsense as allegations of rape as weapon, loyalist supporters not really being supporters at all but doing so due to "threats" against their families, etc. All the standard informational war tricks we've seen before. Yet the most important fact remains that without NATO intervention all of Benghazi and Tobruk would have fallen to Tripoli's armor.

MG: Returning to perception management for a moment. In your opinion, inability of rebels to settle into attrition stalemate independently has planted seeds of doubt throughout eastern provinces early on. This sapped morale which affected everything ranging from volunteer recruitment drives, civil service function, etc.

AL: Yes, considering NATO's history of losing and backstabbing, it was vital for the traitors to make early autonomous victories, victories that never materialized. They were however able to take advantage of government troops not being willing to use too much violence against their brethren, the civilian population, in the very beginning. Even when they were under attack. In other words, we're seeing Western projection onto an enemy of everything they do and plan to do while an absolute informational reversal of how the conflict began is presented.

MG: Your situation in 1860s was different. The rebels had major victories, even tried to invade I believe?

AL: Yes. It was terrible. Fortunately for us, we didn't have air superiority to worry about. One thing I found interesting in a civil war like this is when you reoccupy the area. The insurgency potential is limited since a large chunk of the rebel population never supported separation or feels like they deserve whatever happens once the initial rebellion attempt fails. Even after the civil war dragged on for years, there was almost no insurgency against the occupiers afterwards.

MG: The group of bandits and carpetbaggers calling itself a government in Benghazi is trying to purge people still loyal to me.  You've heard about the officially condoned vigilante justice going on as we speak, the racist attacks against citizens from southern parts of the country under cover of "fighting Gaddafi's foreign mercenaries", the climate of fear, midnight raids?

AL: Yes. A total victory for the rebels would unleash such mismanagement it'd make the Orange revolution in Ukraine seem like a walk in th...

MG: They'll be fighting like dogs over petrol and foreign aid. It has already been decided that 30 billion dollars worth of frozen tax payer's assets are to be given to the kangaroo leadership of Benghazi. They may begin to cannibalize each other even as the fighting with me goes on.

AL: Before I forget, congratulations on withstanding NATO punishment longer than Yugoslavia did. Thousands of sorties is no small..

MG: Thank you. In a way, I have it easier since they are using a third of the planes than they did against Milosovic and aren't targeting vital infrastructure as much.

AL: Right, it'd be absurd for them to mass murder civilians by destroying water and sewage infrastructure, electrical stations, bridges, etc and claim that they're protecting civilians. Especially in the middle of a North African summer. In Yugoslavia's case, NATO blatantly sided with welfare of one ethnic group over the other. NATO has dug its own prestige a grave by using this wording and pretext for the current aggression. They desperately want to break the will of the western population but can't. Violations of the UN resolution such as French weapons drops thus occur rather gradually.

You should have invested in more inflatable tanks. The bomb price versus inflatable decoy price differentials are amazing. They got inflatables that even have a heat signature..

MG: I'm aware of the leaps in decoy tech but shifting gears for a second, how would you handle this?

AL: Serbia, Sudan style splitting of countries seems to be the it thing currently. You must convey to the people that NATO wants to put bases in east Libya to apply additional pressure on Egypt and guide its revolutionary transformation. I would first promise something to the easterners to undermine their morale. The equivalent of freei..

MG: Did it, constitutional reform and such. I can't get through to these people. They are actually flying a flag of a deposed monarchy! I'm dealing with these Berber yokels in the mountains to the west, our version of the Chechens I'm afraid. But for educated urban dwellers to wave it.. shameful.

AL: I mean to promise something tangible like powerful and eyebrow raising new welfare state provisions. The rebels can't counter it considering their neoliberal foreign sponsors and cheerleaders.

MG: Interesting. Like "land, peace, bread" type easy to absorb memes?

AL: Yes. Control over meme flows is essential.

MG: Things have changed since I took office..

AL: At such young age too. I believe you were younger than Castro when you took such an enormous territory, considering the population that is?

MG: And they haven't forgiven since. You know, there was that early shock you spoke off. But then I felt alive for the first time in a while. The old "game mode" was back. One always feels like one can almost hack anything, defeat anything, no matter the odds. That if one can just uncover one weak point, the exploitation of it would create ripple effects leading to victory.

AL: Yes which is why they hope to decapitate the Tripoli government. I'm glad Confederates didn't send waves of hitmen against me early on, we didn't really have the bodyguard culture back then.. but that's ancient history.

MG: We're about out of time. Thank you for joining me. Next week I will talk to president Mahinda Rajapaksa who recently concluded a decades long civil war in Sri Lanka. We'll be talking of mending old wounds and winning hearts and minds.