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Date: Sat, 12 Apr 1997
Sender: Richard Clark <•••@••.•••>
Subject: Re: cj#655> China & KulturKampf: some predictions
Mr. Moore, American corporations have far too much invested in China to
allow our government, which they control, to go to war with China. Boeing
has billions invested in China. Seagate, the company I work for, has a huge
multi-billion dollar facility in China that produces 100 million disk drives
each year. All kinds of American companies are producing things like
Computerized Numerical Controller (CNC) machinery etc. etc. etc. It doesn't
seem to me you've taken this into account. Therefore I believe your
analysis is deeply flawed.
Richard Clark
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Dear Richard,
You raise a valid point, deserving thoughtful response. I do believe I've
taken the issue into account in the analysis, but only in passing.
"Hi-Tech Warfare with China?" includes, for example:
Teddy Roosevelt said "Walk softly, and carry a big stick". The more
profitable version, as carried out in the inter-war years and apparently
underway again with China, is: "Profit through engagement, then deliver a
just-in-time death blow".
Allow me to respond more adquately: There was extensive Western investment
in pre-war Japan and Germany (and Iraq for that matter), and much profit
was extracted - enough to marginalize eventual losses. Many prominent
business leaders, partly as a consequence of their investments, opposed
FDR's efforts to drum up anti-axis sentiment - but that didn't change the
overall strategic situation nor the ultimate outcome.
In some cases the investors were left holding the bag - compelled to write
off their losses - as their involuntary contribution to the war effort.
But then there were cases like Grumman - who apparently operated an
aircraft plant during the war in and for Nazi Germany - and then collected
damages from the US government to cover the loss of the plant from allied
bombing! We might wonder, as well, how much of Iraqi war reparation
payments will go to Texaco et al who lost facilities on the ground in
Desert Storm?
Even though Boeing, Seagate, etc. are genuinely investing in Chinese
operations, under the good-faith assumption that the situtation will remain
stable, we cannot conclude thereby that strategic-interest planners have
ruled out the eventual possible necessity for violent adjustment of China's
root national attitudes. The cited precedents are too similar to readily
discount. Short-term interests must sometimes be traded against long-term
ones.
Unfortunately, it seems difficult to find appropriate terminology to
discuss the power relationships involved. I usually try to say "elite
corporate" or "elite corporatist" when I talk about the ultimate
power/wealth brokers and their global-level designs, to distinguish that
from "corporate" interests in the short-term-profitability sense. But I
realize this makes for a jargony style - what to do?
I hope you will find the analysis somewhat less flawed after this clarification.
Yours,
rkm
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Date: Mon, 7 Apr 1997
From: Charles Bell <•••@••.•••>
To: "Richard K. Moore" <•••@••.•••>
Subject: Re: cj#653> Hi-Tech Warfare with China?
Very interesting article. I think you have grasped the outlines of the
debate rather well. (The real debate, I mean -- the one among elements of
the elite -- not the one held for public consumption around such `phoney
issues' as human rights (so characterized by Richard Cheney)).
The Economist article's reference to Sam Huntington (not Huntingdon, by
the way) drew my attention. I have mentioned Sam to you before, though
you may not recall the occasion. He was a protege of William Yandell
Elliot at Harvard, where he took his doctorate and became friends with
another doctoral candidate named Warren Manshel (whom I mentioned to you
at the same time). (McGeorge Bundy was a lecturer and Henry Kissinger was
a grad student at this time, but I don't think Warren or Sam was
especially close to either of them.)
Sam stayed on at Harvard, and has remained there most of his life
except for stints at Columbia (where he came to know Zbigniew Brzezinski)
and in Lyndon Johnson's Defense department (where he was a major architect
of the Vietnam `pacification' program). He became a senior staff member
of the Trilateral Commission, and was the U.S. rapporteur for the
commission's 1976 book, `The Crisis of Democracy'. (The book was
tripartite: Sam outlined the `crisis' in the U.S. while a Frenchman and a
Japanese described the situation in their parts of the world.) Sam
asserted that the problem with democracy in the U.S. was that there was
too much of it; people were getting unruly and making it difficult for the
government to govern; the press was largely responsible for this unrest
and had better pipe down or measures might have to be taken. (I am not
exaggerating; this is what he said. Look it up.)
Meanwhile Sam's friend Warren left Harvard to take a job as an analyst
with the CIA. After a few years he `quit' and did a stint in Europe
(where he had been born and educated) as a correspondent for the Christian
Science Monitor. Then he returned to the U.S., bought a partnership in a
small Wall Street brokerage (Coleman & Co.) and -- with no known
background or training in investment or finance -- soon became rich enough
to realize his `lifelong ambition'. He founded a magazine. It was called
The Public Interest. This magazine, first under Warren's editorship,
later under Irving Kristol's (but with Warren still the publisher) became
the intellectual spearhead of the neoliberalism/neoconservatism that
subsequently swept the nation and a large part of the world. I consider
Warren Manshel to be the most influential person I have ever met. And I
have met, among others, Jimmy Carter.
Meanwhile, Warren and Sam got into a friendly debate about the Vietnam
War. Sam was for it, Warren against it (or so he says). They decided to
continue their discussion in public -- or at least in the arena of the
only `public' that really matters -- so they founded another magazine,
of which they became joint editors (Warren, the moneyman, being publisher
again). The magazine was called `Foreign Policy.' The best
characterization of this publication I have heard was given by Richard
Barnet, founder of the Institute of Policy Studies and co-author of
`Global Dreams'. Barnet said: "`Foreign Affairs' is the organ of the old
tired warmongers. `Foreign Policy' is the organ of the fresh, vigorous
warmongers." Of course that was a while back, and Sam's generation is
getting along in years now. Both magazines have been passed on to other
hands. But while Warren has faded even further into the obscurity he
clearly relishes (I wonder what he is up to now?), Sam is out there
discovering mighty clashes of cultures in which the _next_ generation of
warmongers can find the moral equivalent of the self-destructed bugaboos
of yesteryear. Plus ca change...
But, just in the interest of filling in the blanks of our recent history,
don't you wonder where the money for those so-important magazines _really_
came from? I have been wondering for many years.
- Charles -
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Dear Charles,
Thanks for the interesting story - very good background material and
intriguingly spun. It would appear from your report that the careers of
Warren Manshel and Sam Huntington have been largely devoted to generating
propaganda - targetted at Western decision and policy makers - propaganda
which advances what I would identify as elite corporate interests.
The scope of their opinion-creating work includes both major strategic
opinion arenas: propagation of the pro-transnational neoliberal world-view
mythology, and the establishment, as needed tactically, of opinion-climates
supportive of elite-desired geopolitical interventions. The effectiveness
and timeliness of their various projects seems to be clearly established -
we would do well, it seems, to note carefully what these guys are currently
saying.
You provide good reason to take seriously Huntington's KulturKamph myth,
and not dismiss it as just one more in the fad of mega-paradigm pop theses
(Sociobiology et al). You add some fiber to the limb I find myself on,
with my China-warfare scenarios. I'll be interested in your response to
the second piece (cj#655 - China & KulturKampf: some predictions),
particularly regarding how that treats the role of Huntington's work.
The question of funding is an interesting one. There are sources of funds,
and there are channels for delivering them - and both are worth some
examination.
What we may have seen - in the enriching episode enjoyed by CIA-veteran
Warren at Coleman & Co. brokerage - is a time-proven money-delivery formula
in action:
The brokerage deal is set up for him; he is given timely warning
regarding insider-expected market-affecting transactions; he leverages big
on the anticipated swings; he pockets a windfall; he puts it to productive
use. As easy as a-b-c.
We saw a similar story with Reagan and his Irvine land deals prior to UC
Irvine beginning its site acquisition. More recently we have Gingrich, who
channels his money in through foundations funded by the corporations whose
interests his Congressional efforts are devoted to furthering. Perhaps
modern covert funding theory favors a tighter reign - money to be doled out
closer to the time services are rendered.
Many schemes have been used over the years to fund the careers of those who
show the ability and the inclination to further elite-favored agendas.
Indeed, every politician who wasn't wealthy before his career began may -
who knows - be hiding a suspicious sweetheart deal or two somewhwere in his
or her closet.
Not only does the funding get effectively delivered by such routine
practices, but the recipients (is that everyone in public life?) become
thereby vulnerable to graft exposure at some future time if they become
inconvenient to those behind the scenes (Recall: the S&L scapegoat censures
of the actively liberal Keating Seven). Both a carrot and a stick are
being applied to the recipients - the twin reins of covert political
agenda-setting. Here we view front-line action in the Betrayal Of
Democracy saga.
Who, then, are "those behind the scenes"? Whence can we follow the money
chain? Who are the active destabilizers of democracy?
In Warren's case, assuming our hypothetical scenario, we see a recipient,
already involved with the CIA, being assisted by parties who are
well-connected in elite financial circles: able to arrange brokerage
partnerships, pass on accurate insider trading tips, and snuff any trading
investigations that might fortuituously arise.
Let us consider another typical nexus of neoliberal globalist rhetoric -
the prestigious Heritage Foundation. Here we see a large-scale think-tank/
publishing-enterprise which, among other activities, pays legions of string
writers to dream up reasonable-sounding pseudo-studies to support
elite-favored conclusions - generating pieces which can then be propagated
in various targetted media venues.
According to a recent report I read, much of the start-up funding
for Heritage was dontated directly by wealthy right-wingers, including the
Coors family and the founder of Amway.
Whether a money chain is direct - or whether it passes through a brokerage
house, a land agent, a fundamentalist cult, a foundation, or a think-tank -
all the significant chains seem to lead back to the same ultimate sources:
the corporatist elite themselves, the corporate coffers they control, and
the captive institutions (CIA, FBI, et al) who covertly wield public
resources on behalf of elite interests.
---
Let me leave you with an unrhymed ditty:
Aphorisms for a modern age
Corrupt politicians and journalists are the bit players;
corrupt government and media provide the stage;
the corporate elite produces the show.
Downsizing of government attacks the wrong part of the problem;
deregulation is just another name for elite lawlessness;
neoliberalism is a trojan horse that carries the elite enemy within.
Cynicism is the lever that recruits us to applaud weaker government;
credulity is the flaw leading us to perceive reality in "their" terms;
mis-perceived impotence is the prison that hold us back from action.
Democratic institutions -civilization's very flower- took millenia to evolve;
they can become extinct in a generation - victim of neoliberal cataclysm;
where then would we seek a port in the storm - or even a life jacket?
Reclaiming democracy is the arduous but only path to societal regeneration;
premature globalism and devolution both serve elite designs;
let us return to our constitutional roots, to our creative national spirits.
We are free peoples only if we exercise our vigilance and act accordingly;
we can only act effectvely if we act together and with correct understanding;
we can only act together if we own our inherent power, focus, and organize.
rkm
Regards
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Posted by Richard K. Moore - •••@••.••• - PO Box 26 Wexford, Ireland
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