In These New Times

Cailean Bochanan

27th  November, 2010

The Atlanticist’s astonishing post G20 offensive has involved a new Korean provocation, a renewed and intensified assault on the eurozone and the flooding of the entire world with freshly minted dollars. They have also flooded the world with a wave of freshly penned bullshit from their formidable batteries of lying shills, economists and assorted “experts”. This is the empire’s last and greatest asset, the like of which has never been seen, the human intellect reduced to the tool of bandits, fraudsters and mobsters. The professors profess that all is well in the imperial heartlands, the land of economic recovery, of  the punctilious observance of the highest standards of human rights, the paradigm of progress. That the rest of the world has resolutely decided to move on without us has gone unnoticed: we will defend to the last our right to blindness.

On Airstrip 1, in bombed out Easy Oceania, a proud initiative has been launched: we must now leave the European Union. What need have we for their food, their investments or their markets, or, indeed, their bailouts of our  bankers who have recklessly overextended themselves into their jurisdiction?

But just as we seem to be making some progress, despite troubling rumours of a substantial haircut for creditors of Irish banks, just as we are celebrating once again the demise of Europe and laughing heartily at the sorry plight of these hapless foreigners something has happened that we refuse to notice even more than anything else: we refuse to notice that Germany and Russia are moving inexorably towards each other and we turn away in horror at the spectre of a free trade zone from Lisbon, not London, to Vladivostok. This is the audacious project which Vladimir Putin has proposed and which Angela Merkel, and Germany’s economic elite including even the notoriously neo-liberal Deutsche Bank CEO, Josef Ackerman have  received with sympathy. One comment under the Telegraph’s online publication of this news thought it was an April fool joke: it simply can’t be real. But it is real and this dramatic development shows that the rest have finally sussed out the West and are determined to plough on without us.

With the coming of Obama, there was a feeling that the neo-cons would be marginalised and that dialogue with the US under wiser leadership could advance. But there is no wiser leadership available in the US and the G20 was the ultimate proof of that. There was a way out for America, with it’s hollowed out economy, its debts and its descent into generalised chaos. An overarching East-West deal was a possibility but the empire and its criminal elites know only the path of conflict: only endless war can keep these elites on top of the pile. What can be done about America, God only knows. The key battle is the battle for Europe. It is weak on its western flank where Britain is still resourcefully playing its old wrecking game. Geopolitics demands that Europe look east and leave the offshore island and its antique fame aside for the moment. Nothing can now stop this development: unlike Napolean or Hitler, Merkel will be welcomed in Moscow with open arms. This is a historic moment and the key one in the end of empire, leaving Mackinder  agonising in his grave. The European project had to become a Eurasian one in order to succeed and that is what it will become

Of course, a great Eurasian trade area, with Berlin  and Shanghai linked by high-speed trains as they will be by 2020, offers a great opportunity to Britain- a friendly Britain actively cooperating in this exciting development would certainly be rewarded by massive and much needed inward investment. For the Eurasians it would be a  money well spent to secure their western flank. but Britain is simply too mired in its mythical past to respond to contemporary history, too much a fiefdom of the moronic, Murdoch press, too much a safe haven for criminals and fraudsters, too much the home of bankrupt ideologies and lost causes, too sclerotic. Not the beacon, not the City on the Hill: just the City of London.The miserable spectacle of this decaying imperial rump serves only as an example for the rest of the world of the folly of hegemonic dreams: it confirms the thesis of, I think, Toynbey that the post-mortem of empire shows death by suicide.

So Britain will not be succumbing to the inevitable any time soon- we don’t want a way out. But for Ireland it is I think different. Their love affair with neo-liberalism has ended in tears and they must return to themselves and reconnect with a past that was only too well known and which they wanted to exchange for a fantasy world of consumption. If they listen to the baloney of David McWilliams, they will abandon Europe and put themselves at the tender mercies of the Wall Street/ City of London gang. They can become like Scotland with a leadership holding a subordinate niche to City interests. Dublin can become another Edinburgh running dodgy banks and periodically begging for  bailouts on the backs of its people, Together we can be Airstrips 2 and 3, respectively.

Or it can assert its own sovereignty within Europe, reject the bailout  and make the creditors take the hit- an astonishing number of them will turn out to be City based if I’m not mistaken. Of course, this will rock Europe as well as London. Europe is going through a crisis which is an absolutely necessary one- a Europe of the bankers cannot survive. It has to mobilise its resources towards reconstruction and finance must serve this end. It must also throw off its vassalage to US/UK imperialism.

The Irish crisis is also a necessary one: it is an opportunity for an Irish leadership to come forward which as well as defending the interests of Ireland’s people can take leadership in Europe. The Irish people have done well to reject the highly suspect rescue which is being imposed on them. Ourselves alone is a good principal but in today’s condition national wellbeing is inseparable from the ability to take advantage of geopolitical trends. Of course, Ireland still has the issue of its national unity unresolved but Dublin can’t wait for stragglers. Within these islands Dublin must now lead the way- eventually after long and painful lessons the rest must follow suit and all will fall into place.