Caitlin's Satire -- Bitter rather than funny
BlackRock Logo To Be Added To Ukrainian Flag
Kyiv has announced the addition of a fifth corporate logo to the Ukrainian flag following news that BlackRock will be playing a crucial role in the reconstruction of the nation. The world's largest investment management firm will join Raytheon Technologies, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, and McDonald's upon the now-omnipresent blue and yellow flag.
"I understand some Ukrainians may be frustrated at the continual additions to our nation's glorious flag," Ukraine's President Zelensky said during a speech announcing the change. "Just last month we added the Raytheon logo, and now we're adding BlackRock. I am sure it was a bit awkward for our American friends as they were continually adding stars to their flag back when they were adding lots of new states to their republic, too."
"The only difference is instead of adding states, we're adding multinational megacorporations," the leader said.
Zelensky then took a large bite of a McDonald's Big Mac™, saying, "Mmm mmm, I'm lovin it!" in English, eliciting awkward applause throughout the Walt Disney Company Presidential Press Hall.
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BlackRock to "rebuild" Ukraine. This is going to make the neoliberalism and privatization the U.S. inflicted on post-Soviet Russia look like child's playhttps://t.co/IOm6XckVDo— Jordan (@JordanChariton) December 28, 2022
.Critics have complained that BlackRock's new role in Ukraine could draw accusations of corruption, with some noting that the the company's managing director Eric Van Nostrand was hired straight into a senior advisory position in the Biden administration's Treasury Department just this past August, explicitly to shape US economic policy on Russia and Ukraine.
Others have noted that BlackRock is a top beneficial owner of shares in major arms manufacturers who are reaping immense profits from the war in Ukraine, with tens of billions invested in Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon.
These words of caution have however not been sufficient to dissuade the Ukrainian government from selling Ukraine piece by piece to western oligarchs like billionaire BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, and now one more giant corporation gets another slice of the nation.
We can expect more such deals to be signed by Kyiv, which is slated to be re-named Goldman Sachs City early next year.
The McProxy War continues.
I completely agree with the indignant dismissal of the cowardly war against Russia that our political and corporate entertainment culture is waging as absurd and corrupt to an infinite degree. But I am not so sure about what really motivates this charade. If you look at the current front page diaries on this board, you see several separate catastrophes being discussed, all of them driven by crazy propaganda. Vaccine as poison, the dollar headed for a Weimar Republic catastrophe, politics degraded into pure graft, homelessness turning into a permanent feature of our Dystopian national life. The ass is falling out of everything -- but there is no single explanation for it all, other than figuring that the people in power want more power and more wealth. Like Caitlin's piece today.
Hard to argue against that point of view. But it does not ring true to me. I cannot imagine a ruling class member who believes that all the power and wealth in the world is Not Enough. On the other hand, it is easy to understand a megalomaniac convincing himself that the world has been on the wrong track for quite a while and deciding to save humanity from itself.
The first order of business in this sci-fi fantasy is to unify the planet, ending forever the nation-state system. This means knocking the USA off its high horse first. Our most vulnerable imperial aspect is over-extension. So the USA now leads our shrinking cadre of allies into economic suicide, while a global health crisis destabilizes everything everywhere.
Global chaos along with a bankrupt hegemon would open the possibility of a truly new world order.
It would make a great movie and Bill Gates could star in it.
Comments
How fast is the US losing influence
...in its own backyard?
The disastrous geopolitical mistakes of the US are piling up on the world stage. Those mistakes, however, seem to be restoring and uniting the very nations the US has attacked and bullied over the years. The US awash in the frightening unintended consequences that are the blowback of the ugly foreign policy pushed by the deranged Neocon psychopaths who control the massive war spending machine of the Federal government. There is no political remedy that can rescue the government from drowning in its own corruption. The elected in DC are mired in the quicksand of corruption. The People are gripped by Stockholm Syndrome. They are passengers on a runaway train. Perhaps the TV will tell them what to do and who to blame.
Sovereign nations and sovereign individuals are facing reality and going their own way — while trying to recognize the risks, and steer clear of them.
The tangentially related newsletter that follows, came today. I regard everything as a clue these days.
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Unintended consequences.
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The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
They've been privatizing Ukraine piecemeal --
-- since the Soviet Union ended. See Yuliya Yurchenko's Ukraine and the Empire of Capital.
(NB: last I checked, Yurchenko was in favor of kicking the Russians out of Ukraine, then ousting the kleptocrats now in charge of Ukraine. Yurchenko has studied under Kees van der Pijl at the University of Sussex, so she's entitled to believe in whatever utopian dream she wants. Still, said idea looks like a pretty big longshot, especially since Zelenskyy has banned the major left-wing parties.)
They do want more power and more wealth. But it appears that the war is being pursued, from the US end, to keep the military gravy train going. Remember that Biden ended the military gravy train in Afghanistan, so he maintains a profitable war to keep military capital happy. He is, nonetheless, underfunding the Ukrainian effort, considering what the Ukrainians would actually need. Perhaps Biden hopes that the Russians will implode and that what his government is sending will be enough. They may very well do so.
As for Putin, one is reminded of the Aesop's fable of the guy who killed the goose that laid the golden eggs. What is the point of conquering a bombed-out country, especially if you are a kleptocrat like Putin?
Hope lies in ordinary people, not the parade of greedy narcissists who claim to rule them.
"the Democratic Party is not 'left'." -- Sabrina Salvati