{"id":1120,"date":"2020-06-14T08:18:38","date_gmt":"2020-06-14T08:18:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/?p=1120"},"modified":"2020-06-14T08:18:38","modified_gmt":"2020-06-14T08:18:38","slug":"for-this-to-slip-would-be-the-end-of-empire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/?p=1120","title":{"rendered":"For This To Slip Would Be The ‘End Of Empire’"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Alastair Crooke<\/a><\/p>\n

The push towards radical change \u2013 towards that global financial, political and ecological governance that threatens dollar hegemony \u2013 paradoxically may emerge from within<\/i><\/b>\"end_of_empire.jpg\"<\/p>\n

A hot humid day, but a gentle, warm breeze is blowing. The smoke and tear gas swirl gently to and fro, hanging in the dense, sweaty air, as shafts of dazzling sunlight scythe through the smokiness at sharp angles. A mass protest is forming. Youths are chattering; people moving aimlessly. It still has not solidified into purpose, yet the raw tenseness of the coming conflict hangs, as palpably as does the smoke in the air. It is evident \u2013 there will be violence today.<\/p>\n

No, this is not America. This is the flashpoint crossroad between the radical Jewish settler outpost of Beit El in the West Bank, and its interface with the Palestinian town of Ramallah. Between the two, the Israeli army are ranged, awaiting the hostilities to commence. This was back, during the Second Palestinian Intifada; it was a time of near war, and I was present, charged with observing this, and other unfolding confrontations, on behalf of the EU.<\/p>\n

As usual, I head to the back of the sprawling mob, for it is only from this perspective that one can understand the nature of events. You observe the silent organization in action. Young men smoothly and unobtrusively, position the piles of stones that later would be hurled (mostly ineffectually) at the soldiers who are stood just beyond the range of stone-throwers. Then the protest managers are gone \u2013 vanished.<\/p>\n

I know what is about to unfold. I have just seen two snipers (in this instance, Palestinians), slip into position, well-back, concealed on a hillside over-looking the crossroads. It is a sad sight \u2013 the young people massing before me are not dangerous; they generally are decent, sincere young people, angry at the expanding settler-occupation, and hyped by the \u2018animators\u2019 sent amongst the crowd to stoke emotions. They are not bad young people.<\/p>\n

I am sad, because some, I know, will soon be dead, their families mourning a child\u2019s loss tonight. But they are the fodder \u2013 innocent fodder \u2013 and this is war. At the height of confrontation, the snipers begin. Just a couple of rounds, but enough; they fire with silenced weapons. The Israelis soldiers cannot tell (unlike me), the source of the firing. A number of Palestinian youth fall dead; the mood incandescent. Purpose achieved.<\/p>\n

Why do I write about these twenty-year old events? Because I know well the patterns. I have seen them often. It is a playbook widely used. And I see familiar tell-tales emerging in the videos posted on the current protests in America.<\/p>\n

Most notable, are the ubiquitous palettes of bricks that mysteriously appear in the background to many videos of the protests (see here for a typical selection). Who is positioning them? Who is paying? U.S. commentator, Michael Snyder, too has noted<\/a> the \u201ccomplex network of bicycle scouts to move ahead of demonstrators in different directions of where police were, and where police were not, for purposes of being able to direct groups from the larger group to\u2026 where they thought officers would not be.\u201d<\/p>\n

He observes too, the anticipatory raising of bail money; the preparing of medical teams, ready to treat injuries; and of caches of flammable materials (suitable for torching official vehicles), pre-positioned in places where protests would later occur. All this \u2013 with simultaneous protests in more than 380 U.S. cities \u2013 in my experience, signals much bigger, silent backstage organization. And behind \u2018the organisation\u2019, the instigators lie, far back: maybe even thousands of miles back; and somewhere out there will be the financier.<\/p>\n

However, in the U.S., commentators say they see no leadership; the protests are amorphous. That is not unusual to see no leadership \u2013 a \u2018leadership\u2019 appears only if negotiations are sought and planned; otherwise key actors are to be protected from arrest. The most telling sign of a backstage organisation is that on one day, it is \u2018full on\u2019, and the next all is quiet \u2013 as if a switch has been pulled. It often has.<\/p>\n

Of course, the overwhelming majority of protestors in the U.S. this last week, were \u2013 and are \u2013 decent sincere Americans, outraged at George Floyd\u2019s killing and continuing social and institutional racism. Was this then, an Antifa<\/a> and anarchist operation, as the White House contends? I doubt it \u2013 any more than those Palestinian youth in Beit El constituted anything other than fodder for the front of stage. We simply don\u2019t know the backstage. Keep an open mind.<\/p>\n

Tom Luongo presciently suggests<\/a> that should we wish to understand better the context to these recent events \u2013 and not be stuck at stage appearances \u2013 we need to look to Hong Kong for indicators.<\/p>\n

Writing in October 2019, Luongo noted<\/a> that: \u201cWhat started as peaceful protests against an extradition law and worry over reunification with China has morphed into an ugly and vicious assault on the city\u2019s economic future. [This is] being perpetrated by the so-called \u201cBlock Bloc\u201d, roving bands of mask-wearing, police-tactic defying vandals attacking randomly around the city to disrupt people going to work\u201d.<\/p>\n

An exasperated local man exclaims<\/a>: \u201cNot only you [i.e. Block Bloc protestors are] harming the people making their living in businesses, companies, shopping malls. You\u2019re destroying subway stations. You\u2019re destroying our streets. You\u2019re destroying our hard-earned reputation as a safe, international business centre. You\u2019re destroying our economy\u201d. The man cannot explain why there was not a single police officer in sight, for hours, as the rampage continued.<\/p>\n

What is going on? Luongo quotes<\/a> a September Bloomberg interview with HK tycoon, Jimmy Lai, billionaire publisher of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) scourge, the Apple Daily, and the highly visible interlocutor of official Washington notables, such as Mike Pence, Mike Pompeo and John Bolton. In it, Lai pronounced himself convinced that if protests in HK turned violent, China would have no choice but to send the People\u2019s Armed Police units from Shenzen into Hong Kong to put down unrest: \u201cThat,\u201d Lai said on Bloomberg TV, \u201cwill be a repeat of the Tiananmen Square massacre; and that will bring in the whole world against China \u2026 Hong Kong will be done, and \u2026 China will be done, too\u201d.<\/p>\n

In brief, Lai proposes to \u2018burn\u2019 Hong Kong \u2013 to \u2018save\u2019 Hong Kong. That is, \u2018burn it to save it\u2019 from the CCP \u2013 to keep its residue in the \u2018Anglo-sphere\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cJimmy Lai\u201d, Luongo writes, \u201cis telling you what the strategy is here. The goal is to thoroughly undermine China\u2019s standing on the world stage and raise that of the U.S. This is economic warfare, it\u2019s a hybrid war tactic. And the soldiers are radicalized kids in uniforms bonking old men on the heads with sticks and taunting cops. Sound familiar? Because that\u2019s what\u2019s going on in places like Portland, Oregon with Antifa \u2026 And that cause is chaos\u201d. (Recall, Luongo wrote this more than six months ago).<\/p>\n

Well, here we are today: Steve Bannon, closely allied with what he, himself, terms the U.S.\u2019 China super-hawks<\/a>, and allied with yet another Chinese billionaire financier, Guo Wengui (a fugitive<\/a> from the Chinese Authorities, and member at Trump\u2019s Mar-a-Lago Club), is pursuing an incandescent campaign of denigration and vitriol against the Chinese Communist Party \u2013 intended, like Lai\u2019s campaign, to destroy utterly China\u2019s global standing.<\/p>\n

Here it is again \u2013 the tightly-knit band of U.S. and exile super-hawks want to \u2018burn\u2019 down the CCP, to \u2018save\u2019 what? To save the \u2018Empire Waning\u2019 (America), through \u2018burning\u2019 the \u2018Empire Rising\u2019 (China). Bannon (at least, and to his credit), is explicit about the risk: A failure<\/a> to prevail in this this info-war mounted against the CCP, he says, will end in \u201ckinetic war\u201d.<\/p>\n

So, back to the U.S. protests, and drawing on Luongo\u2019s insights from Hong Kong \u2013 I wrote<\/a> last week that Trump sees himself fighting a hidden global \u2018war\u2019 to retain America\u2019s present dominance over global money (the dollar) \u2013 now America\u2019s principal source of external power. For America to lose this struggle to a putative multi-lateral cosmopolitan governance \u2013 Trump perceives \u2013 would result in the whole, white Anglo-sphere\u2019s ejection from control over the global financial system \u2013 and its associated political privilege. It would entail control of the global financial and political system slipping away to an amorphous multi-lateral financial governance, operated by an international institution, or some global Central Bank. Since before WW1, control of global financial governance has been in the hands of the Anglo-American nexus running between London and New York. It still does, just about \u2013 albeit that today\u2019s Wall Street elite is cosmopolitan, rather than Anglo, yet still it is firmly anchored to Washington, via the Fed and the U.S. Treasury. For this to slip would be the \u2018end of Empire\u2019.<\/p>\n

To maintain the status of the dollar, Trump therefore has assiduously devoted himself to disrupting the multi-lateral global order, sensing this danger to the unique privileges conveyed by control of the world\u2019s monetary base. His particular concern would be to see a Europe that was umbilically-linked to the financial and technological heavy-weight that is China. This, in itself, effectively would presage a different world financial governance.<\/p>\n

But, is the fear that the threat principally lies with Europe\u2019s Soros-style vision justified? There may \u2013 just as well \u2013 be a fifth-column at home. The billionaires\u2019 club of the very rich has long ceased to be culturally \u2018Anglo\u2019. It has become a borderless, \u2018self-selecting\u2019, governing entity unto itself.<\/p>\n

Perhaps an earlier \u2018end of \u00c9poque\u2019 metamorphosis shows us how readily an old-established elite can swap horses in order to survive. In the historical Sicilian novel, The Leopard, Prince Salina\u2019s nephew tells his uncle that the old order is \u2018done\u2019<\/a>, and with it, the family is \u2018done\u2019 too, unless \u2026 \u201cUnless we ourselves take a hand now, they\u2019ll foist a republic on us. If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change\u201d.<\/p>\n

It is clear that some billionaire oligarchs \u2013 whether American or not \u2013 can see the \u2018writing on the wall\u2019: A financial crisis is coming. And so, too, is a social one. A recent survey done by one such member, showed that 55% of American millennials supported the end to the capitalist system. Perhaps the brotherhood of billionaires is thinking that \u2018unless we ourselves take a hand now, they\u2019ll foist socialism on us\u2019. If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change. The recent disorder in the U.S. will have unnerved them further.<\/p>\n

The push towards radical change \u2013 towards that global financial, political and ecological governance that threatens dollar hegemony \u2013 paradoxically may emerge from within: from within America\u2019s own financial elite.  \u2018Burning\u2019 the dollar\u2019s privileged global status may become seen as the price for things to stay as they are \u2014 and for the elite to be saved. The future of Empire hangs on this issue: Can US dollar hegemony be preserved, or might the financial \u2018nobility\u2019 see that things must change \u2013 if they are to stay as they are? That is, the Revolution may come from within \u2014 and not necessarily from abroad.<\/p>\n

In recent days, Trump has pivoted to being the President of \u2018Law and Order\u2019 \u2013 a shift which he explicitly connected to 1968, when, in response to protests in Minneapolis after the police suffocation last week of George Floyd, Trump tweeted: \u201cWhen the looting begins, the shooting starts\u201d. These were the words used by Governor George Wallace, the segregationist third-party candidate, in the 1968 Presidential election: Republicans launched their \u201csouthern strategy\u201d to win over resentful white Democrats after the civil rights revolution.<\/p>\n

Trump is determined to prevail \u2013 but today is not 1968. Can a Law and Order platform work now? U.S. demography in the south has shifted, and it is not clear that the liberal, urban electorates of America would sign up to a law-and-order platform, which implicitly appeals to white anxieties?<\/p>\n

In a sense, President Trump finds himself between a rock and a hard place. If the protests are not quelled, and \u201cthe right normal (not) restored\u201d (as per Esper\u2019s words), Trump may lose those remaining \u2018law and order\u2019 conservatives. But, were he to lose control and over-react using the military, then it may be Trump who has his own \u2018Tiananmen Square\u2019 \u2013 one, which Jimmy Lai (gleefully) predicted in Hong Kong\u2019s case would bring in the whole world against China: \u201cHong Kong will be done, and \u2026 China will be done, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Or, in this instance, Trump might be done, and\u2026 the U.S. too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Alastair Crooke The push towards radical change \u2013 towards that global financial, political and ecological governance that threatens dollar hegemony \u2013 paradoxically may emerge from within A hot humid day, but a gentle, warm breeze is blowing. The smoke and tear gas swirl gently to and fro, hanging in the dense, sweaty air, as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1120"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1120\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1121,"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1120\/revisions\/1121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}