Defenders of Capitalism and even some who claim to support socialism often use the cliché “new normal” to contend that one must adjust to “new realities “such as “globalization,” “the failure of state socialism,” “modernization,” post modernization,” etc.
I often don’t really know what they are talking about and suspect that they do not know either. But in many instances, what they either hail or lament as the “new normal” is really the surface restoration of old forms. There are many examples of this is history. For example, the attempt to restore a version of sixteenth century Europe through the Holy Alliance after the end of the wars of the French Revolution with Napoleon’s final defeat (1815), or the attempt restore a version of 19th century capitalism and imperialism after the end of the wars of the Russian Revolution and the dismemberment of the Soviet Union(1991) through the use of NAT0 as a new Holy Alliance.
But Marxists and even some non Marxist who have heard of dialectical analysis know that “new normals” are temporary syntheses or unities based on past struggles between what was and what had developed as its antithesis.
The old Holy Alliance of God, King andwhatever was designated as country tried and failed to restore a pre Enlightenment, pre Bourgeois English, American and French revolution world after 1815 and failed, even with their suppression of revolutions and establishment of alliances between old enemies. The New Holy Alliance of “free markets and democracy” in Europe represented by the EU and in the world by NAT0 is also failing to do the impossible, that is restore an udealized past in the name of building the future
Just as Britain, the world’s first industrial capitalist nation and greatest empire, found itself playing games of cross and double cross with its Holy Alliance friends, so the U.S today finds itself in a similar situation with its new Holy Alliance NAT0 allies. To use a contemporary term, it operates in a world of frenemies.
Now let us get less serious. In the news last week were reports that post 1991 unified Germany, leading force in the EU, has expelled a high U.S. official for organizing espionage against its government. Of course, in the U.S. especially in the cold war era but in other countries, including of course the Soviet Union, accusations against diplomatic officials and citizens of espionage were staples of national policy, leading to political show trials, even executions.
But, like imperialism itself, espionage is always unstable, and “allies” will spy on one another to gain competitive advantage in business, put themselves in a position to manipulate their ally on policy, since as any good capitalist/imperialist will tell you, no one has permanent enemies or allies, but only interests, and the interests of all capitalist and imperialist states is to maximize profits and power at the expense of the others, whatever formal alliances and trade agreements exist.
So, on this day when Germany is playing Argentina (a favored destination of war criminals aided by the U.S. Britain, the Vatican and other entities to escape arrest and prosecution after WWII) for the World Cup in Soccer, let me engage in some very tongue in cheek explanations of U.S. espionage in today’s Germany.
Perhaps Chancellor Angela Merkel, generally to the right of President Obama in most instances, has always been and remained a post Soviet bloc mole, Deutschland’s Manchurian Candidate or the last Stasi.
After all, she grew up in the German Democratic Republic (East Germany). Her policies advancing the interests of German based finance capital in the EU have directly harmed the working people of Greece, Spain, Portugal, Eastern Europe generally, the poorer EU nations. Perhaps, she is working to bring about new European anti-capitalist revolutions, which will then spread to Russia, Asia, Africa, Latin America, a Communist world revolution that would directly threaten the U.S. and Britain. And Obama, facing down this danger as Truman did after WWII, has unleashed the protectors of the free world before it is too late.
And that is just one frightening possibility. After WWII, German Nazis and various European fascists who had served in intelligence and propaganda work before and during the war against the Soviet Union, the anti-fascist resistance movements, and local communist and socialist, had their backgrounds sanitized and went to work for U.S. and British services, primarily.
Some, who were too dirty to clean, especially Germans, fled to Peron’s Argentina and other Latin American rightist dictatorships. Perhaps the great grandchildren of these war criminals were behind the 7-1 destruction of the Brazilian national team in the World Cup Soccer championships last week, sabotaging the Brazilian national team by injuring their key player in the previous game against Columbia (through their connection with Columbian Drug Cartels) believing that German World Supremacy in Soccer would be the beginning of both a Fourth Reich and revenge for the old ant-Nazi war criminal movie, The Boys from Brazil.
If you listen to the World Cup Soccer reports, then you know that the German team is being portrayed positively much like appeasers and collaborators portrayed the Wehmacht in the early years of WWII—a well oiled machine, without emotion, destroying everything in its path, a “Master Football Team.” If that scenario is true then the dangers are very great. At the very least, The German Soccer blitzkrieg is a threat to the Monroe Doctrine, which was aimed initially at the powers of the Holy Alliance aiding Spain to restore its colonial empire in the Western Hemisphere.
So with sympathy for Brazil and hopes for an Argentinean victory (both countries have governments today that are to the left of President Obama, not to mention Merkel) I will end this commentary, written before the German-Argentinian match, in case any spies are listening. And as a good American, I will never call any Soccer field the “pitch” especially on the weekend before our national All Star Game
