Stop The Spirit of Zossen 2.0

One interesting debate with implications for post 2008 is already occurring. Many of you, Dear Reader, may have already been following it. This one centers on the proper role of American power, particularly under the U.N.

Not a new subject on its face — controversy predates floridation, ‘black helicopters’ and Kofi Annan. The current impetus is a new Fareed Zakaria tome coupled with something called the “Princeton Project”. A brief recap can be found here.

The Princeton Project (now out some two years) proposes an alternative mechanism to the U.N., a ‘coalition of the willing’-esque ‘Council of Democracies’ should Russia and China not surrender their Security Council vetoes. Should the U.N. (China or Russia) balk at ‘regime change’ or other use of force, this alternative mechanism could be used for official sanction. At the core of this new concept is the still simmering notion of American imperial exceptionalism. The Stiftung is hardly the 10,345 th to note the Neocon nature of it all.

Michael Lind in the link above quite appropriately disabuses TPM Cafe readers of some intellectual sleight of hand. He correctly notes that the American liberal tradition embodied by Roosevelt’s intended post-war vision (starting with the U.N. Charter in S.F.) assumed a legal international order with cooperation among the powers on the security council. A Stiftung family member attended the UN Lake Success meetings. All of this very much in the liberal tradition.

That plan, as Lind notes, fell to the wayside after 1945 for a couple of reasons. First, concern over Soviet expansionism/Communist gains in Europe. Second, Washington oddly did not realize how feeble Britain had become. Not only in 1947 Greece but across the empire. Hence the Marshall Plan, etc. And finally, overt conflict at Berlin, the fall of China and the Korean War. (Note that U.N. sanction for that was possible only because the Soviets boycotted the Security Council vote).

Even so, if the U.S. tried to move to as Lind labels it from traditional American liberalism to an ad hoc and improvised “Plan B”, it was not an easy go of it. Contrary to what many think today, the U.S. military demobilized astonishingly fast from Europe in 1945. The Marshall Plan and money to Europe (offered even to the Soviets) alone was not an easy sell. We couldn’t disagree more with David Reiff’s response to Lind that continuity marked U.S. post war policy more than the discontinuity. What Reiff et al. simply overlook is the context and importance of how and why Paul Nitze wrote NSC-68, perhaps the most famous and influential document fixing U.S. Cold War policy (and often mistakenly seen as a frenetic intellectual riposte to Foreign Affair’s ‘X’ (Kennan) argument for limited containment).

NSC-68’s very existence proves Lind’s point about a discontinuity. Nitze wrote NSC-68 with the language and structure literally in his words to “bludgeon the mass bureaucratic mind of Washington.” Nitze needed to created Crown Prince-like change. In other words, a truly radically new way of thinking, preparation and acting. This has nothing to do with continuity. Moreover, the Stiftung doesn’t need a foot note in a book to tell him this. We spoke with Nitze about it all, and the whole era, etc. (even a bit about walking in woods).

For a while, the Western Europeans on their own attempted defense against both a future resurgent Germany and the existing Soviet Army. One example is the 1948 Brussels Treaty. Unlike much one might read on the Internet, the truth about the Brussels Treaty is that Britain tried to play it’s traditional role as balancer and “guarantor” with Montgomery in command. Britain, however, did not have clout, money, power or will to pull it off. This only underscored the European resolve to bring American power back into the Old World. NATO from its birth was designed to “keep the Americans in, the Germans down, and the Russians out.”

Why the U.S. should maintain the same distortive strategic and foreign policy commitments absent the Soviets is as relevant today as it was circa 1994 because of the Warlord’s regime. The fora or forum which should decide matters — should the U.N. be reformed and remain the final arbiter on use of force? Should the U.S. turn to the Princeton Project’s Necon ‘Council of Democracies?’ Ad hoc but long standing organizations like NATO? Lind is quite right to note how a cynical Neocon regime Part Deux under McCain could manipulate the Princeton mechanism. He also honestly raises situations like Kossovo.

The primary challenge for us today as it was in 1947 is how to understand the world around us and align U.S. power and commitments wisely. The Stiftung has long argued the need for a substantial realignment before it is forced upon us by circumstances. One thing we hope all have learned from the Warlord’s regime and its rotting, terminal carcass? Process indeed does matter. To avoid a ‘meet the new boss’ knock on the forehead, Neocon-esque bullshit should be called at its earliest inception. If the Demos once again falls for manipulative tricks like hard sells of alluring abstraction, constant elevation of specifics to general, and cases based on emotive semantics — well then, things won’t have changed much at all.

Yet another bold outcropping of Americana; this is why we fight them over there so we don’t have to fight them here, or why we will be turning the Green Zone into its exact replica, assuming the graft, incompetence, oh and kinetic warfare don’t get in the way.

First, we start with a typical Caruso mall extravaganza:

The Americana at Brand, the new mega-project by mega-developer Rick Caruso, was set to open two days ago. Maybe you’ve already twirled some spaghetti at its branch of the Cheesecake Factory or taken your kids for a ride on its trolley, which runs in a loop around the 15-acre property in the center of Glendale. If so, you probably marveled at the effortless mélange of architectural styles, which run from gritty, rusted-steel industrialism to prettified mansard roofs from Paris (by way of Las Vegas). Maybe you found yourself thinking that it looks like a classic Caruso shopping center–a place essentially designed to print money.

At the very least, it is the biggest thing to hit the ‘Dale since the 134 Freeway went up.

But Caruso has tweaked his formula this time around, adding 100 condominiums and 238 rental apartments to the mix. That combination is not unheard of: Paseo Colorado in Pasadena is among a handful of other open-air shopping centers built in recent years in which apartments have been stacked above retail outlets.

But in the case of the Americana, which was designed by Caruso’s in-house architects and Boston firm Elkus Manfredi, along with other firms for certain storefronts, the cheek-by-jowl proximity of residential and retail architecture raises fascinating questions.

As the LA Times sums up —

“That makes the distinction between public and private in the final product almost impossible to untangle. At the Americana, the park is public space masquerading as private space that is masquerading as public.

Got that?”

Perhaps that really is a glimpse of our future. Or a part of it. Some sort of “Westworld” meets “Logans Run” kitsch — but camouflaged by a $200 dinner. Naturally, this kind of interweaving achievement will be possible to more Americans only after the “creative destruction” of the markets “work their magic” and we “re-balance” the economy from its current “slowdown.”

It eventually will happen. In a weird kismet kind of thing, “Wall Street” has been running on AMC. Douglas’ scenery chewing aside, that bubble at least had some inherently identifiable aspects. They are still tangible and resonate today. “Blue horseshoe loves Anacot Steel” pre-dated the Money Honey by some time. Perhaps there is some over sentimentality involved. At STSOZ 1.0 we mentioned our good fortune to be on familiar terms with one of the real life financial figures portrayed in the movie. Truly a personality writ large.

Today’s frauds, deceptions, thievery, by contrast, are on a scale that almost compels passive acceptance of it all. For the American people reject the dull miasma conveniently labeled ‘the sub prime crisis’ and see the real scope of what has transpired — well, angry voters would be ironic. The ’sub prime crisis’ terminology is more manipulatively outrageous than “mistakes were made.”

For Caruso’s vision to soar beyond isolated pockets, we must first move past today’s ’sub prime crisis’. We as a society naturally still have to perform the small courtesies for the wounded shot and left behind. We are not barbarians yet. Larry Kudlow will honor them for sure with a brief sentence, invoking the lives torn asunder as validation of and lubrication for the wheels of the markets. He may even then remove his glasses in silent tribute. Krauthammer, in yet another perverse exercise of projection and self loathing, will blame the victims. Tweety will toss in the working stiffs in Philadelphia.

All that’s missing is the larger cultural memorial. The task is beyond Michael Moore, for example. Moore was on Larry King the other day. The whole tragi-comic hour reminded the Stiftung of Rock’em Sock’em Robots of Irrelevancy. So horrific we were transfixed by it all. Both men of yesterday or yesteryears. So instead of Anacot Steel and Oliver Stone, our future film maker will elevate DiTech dot com to a cultural touchstone.

With that healing done, there is something profoundly revealing about the American Persona living in such a multi-layered existence (and largely oblivious to the layers except by some partially understood visuals tossed in front of them in a real estate brochure). The impossibility of untangling public and private space is It. All while being visited by yet another set of Americans experiencing a different or partially overlapping set of experiences in the same space. And so on.*

More than LA freeways. More than Rockwell paintings. More than wealthy suburban caucasian children desperate to prove they are ‘gangsta’. Or people playing with others online with Second Life, Wow. This will be The New Us.

The New Us will not be in just California, Disney, Orlando or Vegas. Net connection makes the contagion semi-pervasive. In some urban areas — pick your favorite — the self aware could turn it into a consciously plastic (in the best sense) and malleable situation. But for the most, it would be passive consumption. And, typically except perhaps for a few neighborhoods in NY City or in California, there is no inherent aesthetic statement at all — by default or consciously. Ridley Scott’s by-now widely hailed Blade Runner (discussed on STSOZ 1.0) as all here know created a vision that permeated Asian and American conceptions of future urban culture and environments. If any reader ever saw Japanese OVA anime when it was first coming out in the mid 1980s, created by enthusiasts for enthusiasts (not the Japanese network toy cartoon shows), the impact of Blade Runner was obvious. Today? Who knew that Caruso could crush the whole thing in a flick using the brand power of Abercombie and Fitch.

In the end, probably the most important question of all? We kid you not. Will the homeowners’ associations like their counterparts now across this turbulent land also get drunk with trivial authority and become power mad lunatics? Now that’s an existential layer many Americans can immediately grok.

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* Yes, we know that in effect that this is what happens daily at any art museum especially but since by proportion of population art museum attendance is negligible, we wrote it off as a rounding error.

Publishing such superficial fluff as this ‘Iron Man’ ( Shell Head to his fans). Not only does the twit miss the whole point entirely of comic books (the Stiftung used to have those early Iron Man comics, btw, when they came out), the idiot also omits the impact of Tony Stark being the flawed, alcoholic hero, etc.

Comparing Tony Stark to Steve Jobs is timely in a shallow-meet-our-weekly-deadline sort of way. It is snarky. It is also 100% pure bullshit. It demonstrates profound ignorance if not willful stupidity about either (or both) fictional character or the real man. (This after Larry Ellison just got paid $197 million as Oracle’s CEO). Mere quibbles before the piece’s lazy claim that Iron Man was and is really a subliminal attempt to hypnotize young Americans into capitalism’s dark embrace (forgetting George Reeve’s earlier portrayal standing avec flag), etc. Just what is the point of the Slate exercise?

We could go on about Slate’s flatulence. And probably will after seeing the movie. (We’ve heard good things from people who, like the Stiftung, enjoy this sort of pop culture).

Doubtlessly these same grandees at Slate are also in the tank for the Crown Prince.

The scene: on one those bloated vacation cruise boats (often cursed with some debilitating gastro-intestinal event). One can vividly imagine one the throngs of really swinging crowd of post 50 years old trying to do the ‘mambo’. [See reader Perusio’s correction below — for ‘mambo’ read ‘limbo’. Our bad, as the kids say]. The rope sinks lower and lower. Until either his or her lower back collapses, the pants rip, or balance fails and the whole stunt ends in adrunken embarrassment.

So now to Bernancke and the Fed. The Fed Open Market Committee’s 5.25% rate has fallen to the brink of free money: 2.0%. Still, nothing. As we have seen with every other rate cut, banks refuse to extend credit to the general market. The U.S. credit crisis continues. Despite Bernake’s efforts including the Fed’s dramatic rescue of Bear Stearns. Even arrangements to allow banks and quasi banks to treat locked and illiquid assets as liquid guaranteed by the U.S. government? Nada. Zip.

Inflationary pressures continue to spiral. Most observers (and we mean beyond the eye candy-Erin Burnett-figurettes) argue that 2% is as low as Bernancke can go in his mambo ‘limbo’. The risk of massive inflation is too great, they say. We disagree with those who argue that Bernancke already has been successful and may actually seek inflation. From what we see, he has acted primarily to save the U.S. and international financial system by injecting capital. Even Asia has caught the U.S. flu.

Commodity hoarding is not too fantastic imagine but is not yet here. It was a hallmark of the Weimar inflation (driven in part by the government of pay off the ridiculous Versailles reparations with junk money). What we see at Costco is merely media driven frenzy. Yet the Stiftung hears more and more talk about it among the chattering classes with soft, unmarked hands. Inflation is taking a toll. I.e., among people whose idea of honest labor is to mark up a document and give it to a secretary (male or female). These are the people who are supposed to take a tax rebate check and put a down payment on a BMW lease. We doubt it. Consumers are cutting back, IRS cheques or not.

All this is not to say 1923 is around the corner. Yet Bernancke really can’t do much more. If he dropped the rate to 0% as the Japanese did in the Lost Decade it is unlikely to change current conditions. Our political leadership have done nothing to prepare the American people for the ‘creative destruction’ ahead. And its impact on consumer lifestyles. There is a curious willful ignoring of the problem, waving it aside as a mere re-enactment of the S&L crisis.

Aside from the effete Crown Prince or the other candidates, one does wonder what real American populism would look like circa 2010. One doubts it would be limited to “crosses of gold” and end with an epic and civilized trial about evolution.

We are strangely out of touch and tune with the recent zeitgeist, that is obvious to you, Dear Reader. Recent posts do not address the pressing issues on cable news or other blogs, let alone frothing on talk radio.

It is perhaps an internal failure. But we just can’t give a frak (and no, we are not really fans of BSG). Did Wright say anything we did not know about him before? Not really. Some of the quasi eugenics aspects might be called new, but in the main it was an old story. And we are, as you know, no big fan of the Crown Prince.

That this is the fifth anniversary of “Mission Accomplished”? Does anyone really care this day or tomorrow? After all, Olbermann annoyingly ends his show with a daily countdown from that speech.

No surprise here that the Pentagon tried to spin analysts. What do the media think they were doing when they were “embedded”? The whole thing is almost pathetic beyond the telling of it.

We miss Firing Line, Tomorrow or any show that did not feature whether a Disney starlet posed inappropriately for a magazine shoot.

Perhaps it is just being grumpy tonight. We’ll try to write about something else tomorrow with a bit more substance. But we still are puzzled at it all.

The Telegraphs’ “50 Most Influential Pundits”.

And regarding Wright’s performance art at the National Press Club today, one can only imagine the Crown Prince as he punches a soft pillow under 700 thread count sheets on the road and declares in soft but lofty voice, “You’re not helping . . .”

My Dearest Alinka,

Please wait just a bit longer. I know your heart is aflame with the same passions as mine. To think that we are this close to all our dreams! So all the more reason for patience.

I understand that Carla Bruni did not have to wait this long to have her man. But this Russia! We must set a precedent for those that follow. France by comparison already is decadent and just a small dot on a map. We will be building an empire! Please, darling, believe me, we will have a future. Has not everything transpired according to my design? The rebels are falling into a trap with this fully armed and operational — oh wait. What I mean from the heart is we must be patient. Truly, I love you. I will leave Lyudmilla. I promise. We just need to do it at the right time.

Did I not promise you that night in Sochi under the moon that I would put you in the Duma? Didn’t we enjoy the election with that special room prepared just for you? As I promised. More such excitements await us Dearest Alinka. Lyudmilla is threatening blackmail, yelling that she will reveal all to the warmongering Washington Weekly [Weekly Standard, ed.]. My agents in her circle of friends encourage this. That place is the ideal graveyard for any accusations about Russia or us. Lyudmilla never did understand these things. But we will let her go to Londonistan and see how she behaves. We must let this play out.

Are you enjoying the chaotic American political scene? This should be a lesson, Alinka. That young man you like so much? He reminds me of the reformers from the years of Oligarchy. Young. Earnest. And shield for the real distribution of wealth, resources and money. How many instant billionaires did those young reformers allow to appear? You may be too young to remember what those earnest young reformers allowed to happen to Russia and her greatness. I have spent so much time Alinka tracking those billionaires down and making them pay for what they did to the motherland.

The clique running the Americans now at least we could identify and predict. Under their leadership, we knew American influence dependably declined each passing day. With such a young, earnest reformer, who knows where the real power will shift? Or cut out from under him? He is weak. Do you see what I mean, Alinka? The unpredictable is to be avoided when we wield our power.

Compare how our Duma works with that quaint American notion of process. A hypocritical front for how the real hidden power is used. I have returned Russia to her truth path. Alinka, you must see that together, you and I are about power. Without facade. Power. When you learn to wear your power effortlessly, then truly my love you will be the next tsarina.

Your devoted Vlad

P.S. I agree with you that Pennsylvania should have been double digits for all the headlines. That’s American mainstream media for you.

“C‘est le hystérie qui fait l’homme.” Perhaps.

All the swooning over the Crown Prince reveals to us a subliminal (and certainly not self aware) Dada-ism in the smug clique over at Huffington Post, etc. The words typed there and elsewhere made into analysis simply by assertion. It’s commentary and analysis because we say so. Such fevered adoration certainly demostrates embrace of irrationality. Moreover, finding suitability for global leadership in a laundry list of state bills can not be anything but diving for obscure meaning. Do we not have Dada in its most contemporary possibility?

Not to put to fine a point on it, but parallels between then and now are significant. if Dada could said to have its origins after the disaster of WWI, then our current political zeitgeist is mostly a rejection of the disasters of 2001-07. Leaders today are not artists and they do not completely embrace the provocative zany behavior of Dada. But why should they? It already is produced by our surrounding Kultur. They just need to flash a Jay Z. And even then like now, they are all actually closet aesthetes.

Back then, Dada stood for freedom: from war, from a lying press and government, etc. Today is simply one word, change.

Yes, we can. Indeed.

It’s really instructive that the drama of the current campaign is deemed to be so crushingly relevant. The near lynching of ABC for its temerity in asking the Crown Prince about things any other candidate would surely endure? It seems to reflect more on his irrational adoration than anything else. We’ve even fallen for the attention in posts below.

Yet in truth, we should all perhaps take a step back. And ask ourselves — isn’t this a mosquito bite in the larger span of time? Won’t the details of this campaign itself disappear faster than John Kerry’s desperately wooden attempts to mimic spontaneity? Isn’t Gary Will’s breezy comparison of the Crown Prince to the greatest president in U.S. history a bit much? . Even Petraeus’ lack of candor regarding the Iraqi Army’s abysmal performance in Sadr City doesn’t merit a footnote in, as Ross Johnson (so memorably portrayed by James Garner) said, “the sands of time.”

We know, for example, that Vietnamization failed as an overall policy. Particular engagements in its failure are ignored by history’s cold and remorseless prism. (We will note, however, the lives lost and sacrificed here). So with U.S. strategic failure in Iraq. History may invoke Vietnam’s failure in a short kaleidescope: the Tet execution, innocents fleeing napalm and the helicopter. A couple of paragraphs in the not too far distant future given the Cold War’s outcome. And even then, more likely than not, in sociological books looking at hippies, Woodstock, the Haight and a summer of love.

We can all submit our favorites for the Excellent Adventure in the Sands.

Yes, it’s true that Iraq itself is a more profound historical matter than Vietnam. And that personalities such as the Warlord, Cheney, Rumsfeld and General Jello exerted decisive impact. But let’s be candid. The war’s presence (or looming presence) in the campaign is also a sideshow. All of the devastating effects of its launch can not be changed. Regardless whether the U.S withdraws in a year, 5 years or 10 years. The impact now is on the volunteers who sacrifice while the nation shops. “Judgment” who said what (true for all candidates, a fact suppressed by many in the besotted media) — a blip. All the damage already is on the balance sheets: the war’s genesis, deceptive inducement, catastrophic diplomatic ineptitude (continued with a blank smile by Cher Condi), and a supine armed forces knowingly led to its exhaustion, failure and near destruction. That train is long gone.

Cheney and Rumsfeld’s international coercive politics will not be tolerated or even possible again. Their “ram and cram” (here is what you are going to eat, today, Dearest Darling Virginia)) to Old Europe is already in the distant past (beyond chronological years). We are not fans of Joe Nye’s deification over “soft power” (such an obvious concept for him to be given a de facto “trademark”). Yet it is without doubt that the U.S. destroyed forever the century old mythos of America as benign hegemon. A new president reaching out will not change the global perceptual damage. That dream is gone out of the corner of the eye. The Warlord succeeded in one thing: he took us down to becoming just another declining Great Power.

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of asking the Crown Prince about Wright, scandals and of, course, his profoundly condescending view of the American people. Reading the frantic and (shrill) Leftist blogs, one would think a small yield tactical nuclear device was detonated in Philadelphia (God forbid). Perhaps all the screaming is an intuitive grasp that the Crown Prince himself comes across as a wimp.

Such audacity, ABC. For shame in breaking from the pack. The Crown Prince, the Pope, READ ALL THE SIGNS ABC.