prole

Exactly, it would seem the Chinese have stumbled upon and unconsciously recreated that experience and it's really working for them. It's ironic that ruthless state control under communism wasn't particularly successful - unless you take the long term view and see that the remnants of that state control applied to commerce [/capitalism] really does work out pretty well in a strategic sense. Zizek's been doing a lot of writing around China's hybridity and its implications for us and the planet: http://www.16beavergroup.org/mtarchive/archives/002434.php

I hope Pat Robertson will be gracious enough to visit and speak with Sarah Palin on her new show. He has (well, they both have) an important message for all of us. God Bless.

True. The organizational capacities and dominant structures of successive hegemons have always had advantages over their predecessors. We may well see the private transnational corporation go the way of the Dutch East India Company in the coming decades.

From a world-systems perspective, it's less strategic incompetence than the inevitable decline phase in a cyclical process of successive hegemonies. The US has simply been overtaken by a more dynamic economic power that it helped to create and continues to foster. The US's "missteps" look quite familiar to historians looking at similar periods in capitalist history. Whether, as in previous eras, this transition will only be cemented after a period of global chaos and war remains to be seen. But it's certainly looking that way. Again, the late Giovanni Arrighi is a great resource here.

Only in America.

I have to admit that seeing the neighborhood bully getting kicked in the balls and getting to say "I told you so" does provoke a certain satisfaction. That's tempered, however, by the knowledge that a newly configured capitalism under Chinese or Asian hegemony is not likely to be any more democratic or less destructive than the one we're transitioning away from. You would make a top-notch polyeznyj idiot under Red China overlords Have you been under a rock since the late 70's? "Red China". Keep it up, you're hilarious!

I have to admit that seeing the neighborhood bully getting kicked in the balls and getting to say "I told you so" does provoke a certain satisfaction. That's tempered, however, by the knowledge that a newly configured capitalism under Chinese or Asian hegemony is not likely to be any more democratic or less destructive than the one we're transitioning away from.

The shifting of economic power from the US to China is looking more and more like a replay of the 19th Century rise of America at the expense of British imperialism every day. More here.

Yeah, the brown scare has been an unmitigated disaster.

WTF?

Just think, the carbonized remains of the million Iraqis that died as a direct result of the American invasion and occupation might one day become oil themselves. Irony.

She's one of us. That pretty much says it all. I meant she should join Spray.

She's one of us.

...like baby Moses!

Palin will then place Trig in a box attached to a large mylar balloon...

Thanks, Peter. I'll be writing my Congressmen to urge them to propose a universal, not-for-profit, single payer health care system.

You mean like FW and Kojak's gristly death camp collections?

I think it's safe to say that most people who are for the death penalty don't have a child on death row.

Shit, I don't even know half of those dudes. Any of them ever bomb an Afghan wedding? You can get your stats up quick over there.

You forgot the most important part of a scenario like this: holding hands and singing Kumbayah.

Which would explain why we see so many American hip hop artists being slain by Muslims in the US for using the word 'Allah' in their music. Whatever.

Slavery's practically legal, too! It'z hot, baybee!

Yeah, like we need more unemployed gunmen up around here... Thanks but no thanks.

Do we really want the troops competing for our jobs?

I don't know, but if they come back here they're going to be really bored.