ECONOWAR

The world is changing, and understanding of the world is changing with it.  A time has arrived when warfare-as-we-know-it is slowly becoming obsolete. Certain exceptions still stand out.  The ruination of 7 Middle Eastern Countries has taken a bit longer than the neocons’ optimistic estimate of only five years, but chalk that up to unforeseen resistance: quite inexplicably some people are not entirely sold on hosting foreign invaders.

Now serious cracks in the European Union  have started to appear. A North-South rift seems to be widening.  Italy and Spain have some cause to find the thumb screws being tightened over Greek hands cause for alarm: they understand that under the juggernaut of the inexorable Merkel, they may be next.  And if the European Union crashes, pop goes the NATO weasel.

The new style of warfare is overtly a bankers’ war. Whereas bankers have usually taken a discreet back seat behind military affairs, being quite satisfied to pull the strings while preserving anonymity, in the neocon century they have become more brazen. The new style of warfare is antiseptic; it draws no immediate blood, contenting itself with the slow blood draw of leeches.

But credit where credit is due: it’s war nonetheless, just slower.  Call it Econowar, the war that dares not speak its name.  It is the war that helps itself to what economists like to dismiss as externalities: the labor of the working classes (prison labor is cheaper: there are no unions to get in the way, pensions are out of the question, and so are employee complaints); natural resources: no need to bother about expired permits, Nestle will keep drawing water from California’s drought-stricken aquifers and sell it back to the parched Californians it’s stealing from; the Department of the Interior will help Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton parlay sacred Apache land: a copper mine will make much more sensible use of Oak Flats; and FEMA will threaten the City of Oakland and the University of California with the boogie man of wild fires to ram its plan to decimate the Bay Area commons of 600,000 trees, ushering in the final triumph (music please) of Dow and Monsanto with contracts to spray 600,000 stumps for ten years twice a year to insure against any herbal resurrections.

Waging war against those who are presumably one’s own people (they dress alike, talk alike, walk alike, etc.) must be accomplished with finesse. Drawing blood would attract unwarranted attention, but slow leeching minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, still represents a satisfactory return on investment—and with much less overhead.