NP - Krugman: Petrothoughts (Via Kevin Drom)

[alice malice]

Treacherous, yes, a good word for it. The US is focused on doing
business.  It's business. The Ukraine killing is entrusted to
non-professionals, Russia and Ukraine are a deversion, not the focus,
not the axis for a pivot.  Germany, the Ruble, Oil, these are all that
are needed to keep Putin with his face in the honey jar. Japan and
South Korea are adding US defense pieces, not to defend themselves
against North Korea, a diversion, but to do business with America as
the Empire moves on China, not Russia. Russia has an emerging economy
dependent on energy, but China, now the largest economy in the world,
is still growing at 6%, and its transitioning away from GDP built on
Government infrastructure spending to a consumer economy. This is not
a cold war, this is a business war and the US plans to win it. And it
is well positioned to win.

“Don't forget the real business of war is buying and selling. The
murdering and violence are self-policing, and can be entrusted to
non-professionals. The mass nature of wartime death is useful in many
ways. It serves as spectacle, as diversion from the real movements of
the War. It provides raw material to be recorded into History, so that
children may be taught History as sequences of violence, battle after
battle, and be more prepared for the adult world. Best of all, mass
death's a stimolous to just ordinary folks, little fellows, to try 'n'
grab a piece of that Pie while they're still here to gobble it up. The
true war is a celebration of markets.”


― Thomas Pynchon, _Gravity's Rainbow_

On Sun, Dec 21, 2014 at 11:30 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
> "The US is focused"?
> Which US? The Banks, you mean? That chess board is all treachery.
> David Morris
>
> On Sunday, December 21, 2014, alice malice <alicewmalice at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> If you apply the grand chessboard, Crimea is conceded to Putin and the
>> Ukraine, a pawn is perfectly positioned. Neither matters much in the
>> grand chessboard, Eurasia is the middle of the board, and the US is
>> focused on the Queen, that is, China, not Russia. Putin would like to
>> make it about him, about Nazis and the like, but t is not about Russia
>> or Nazis. Germany has some obvious weaknesses from history and the
>> Nazi history, though no longer crippling, still limits Germany's
>> ambition. But Germany will run for the Americans, be sure of that, and
>> the neo-Nazis will be dispensed with once they've been used, as in
>> Ukraine. I like Obama's soft power Castle in Cuba. Nice move,  O.
>>
>> On Sun, Dec 21, 2014 at 10:21 AM, Thomas Eckhardt
>> <thomas.eckhardt at uni-bonn.de> wrote:
>> > Am 19.12.2014 um 05:56 schrieb alice malice:
>> >>
>> >> It doesn't much matter anyways, the Ukraine is not important and the
>> >> Crimea less so,
>> >
>> >
>> > You should tell that to Zbigniew Brzezinsky who calls Ukraine a
>> > "geopolitical pivot" in "The Grand Chessboard."
>> >
>> > Thomas
>> -
>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l