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Text of the page (random words):
the new normal schwerpunkter travel in the new normal archives archives select month february 2025 1 january 2024 1 april 2023 1 may 2022 1 january 2022 1 may 2021 1 april 2020 1 january 2019 1 october 2018 2 september 2018 1 may 2018 1 march 2018 1 january 2018 1 october 2017 3 september 2017 1 august 2017 1 july 2017 1 june 2017 1 may 2017 3 april 2017 3 march 2017 2 february 2017 2 january 2017 5 december 2016 4 november 2016 5 october 2016 2 september 2016 3 august 2016 2 july 2016 2 june 2016 3 may 2016 4 april 2016 5 march 2016 6 february 2016 2 january 2016 4 december 2015 4 november 2015 5 october 2015 6 september 2015 7 august 2015 8 july 2015 8 june 2015 11 may 2015 19 april 2015 5 march 2015 4 february 2015 7 january 2015 4 december 2014 6 november 2014 8 october 2014 5 september 2014 10 august 2014 13 july 2014 18 june 2014 9 may 2014 5 april 2014 3 march 2014 6 february 2014 4 january 2014 3 december 2013 2 november 2013 3 october 2013 3 september 2013 4 august 2013 4 july 2013 5 june 2013 5 may 2013 7 april 2013 30 march 2013 4 february 2013 5 january 2013 4 december 2012 4 november 2012 5 october 2012 4 september 2012 3 august 2012 5 july 2012 4 june 2012 4 may 2012 5 april 2012 1 march 2012 2 february 2012 2 january 2012 3 december 2011 2 november 2011 3 october 2011 1 september 2011 2 august 2011 1 july 2011 4 june 2011 2 may 2011 3 april 2011 2 march 2011 3 february 2011 4 january 2011 4 december 2010 2 november 2010 3 october 2010 3 september 2010 2 august 2010 4 july 2010 3 june 2010 4 may 2010 2 april 2010 4 march 2010 5 february 2010 2 january 2010 5 december 2009 3 november 2009 8 october 2009 8 september 2009 16 featued writers schwerpunkter schwerpunker a writing project that touches on the places one goes the things one sees and the strange thoughts one may have along the way scribbled into notebook idevice and spun out onto the internets at least until the lights go out all images art writing and compound words and spelling mistakes are copyright schwerpunkt international aka schwerpunkter 2008 2016 skip to content travel in normal rethink normal future normal the mask is off what we are witnessing is the final end of the cold war a war that america has inexplicably continued after it was won with the anathema of the soviet union in 1991 this end of the cold war does not come with a peace treaty or a rational recalibration of global power it ends with a ham fisted dismantling of institutions that the world and at least a segment of the american population believes are the bulwarks of freedom it is not a total surprise that this change is a culture shock these institutions had been propagandized and i am using this word as edward bernays would as the barriers holding back the power of the godless commies ussr not cccp and the sinister machinations of the almost fu manchu like moskals despite that the godless communists intent on infiltrating us had to be replaced by the idea of corrupt oligarchs intent on infiltrating us there is a long standing prejudice that the average american often unconsciously carries toward the idea of russian power that is sustained by the press and promoted by common media one could say this goes back to the start of our nation while not an american british diplomat charles whitworth 1st earl whitworth who served as an ambassador to russia in the late 18th century once wrote in a letter dated 1785 the magnificence of the court is striking yet beneath the gilded surface lies a squalor that offends the senses courtiers adorned with pearls yet their persons betray a neglect bordering on the verminous the common language we share with that author has amplified and that perception has persisted into modern times appearing in popular media in classic and shitty films and in the press the belief that russians are an existential threat to the u s remains more deeply ingrained than fears of other foreign adversaries such as saudi arabia from which 19 hijackers came to attack the u s israel which has contributed a quarter of a billion dollars to u s politicians since 1990 excluding dark money or the people s republic of china which harbors a world domination ambition with a red hard on visible from space americans must confront their own biases stopping just short of full maoist self criticism lest we veer into actual communism and ask why is the way it has always been so important especially when it wasn t exactly working it seemed only to bring us closer to nuclear war and an ever expanding military budget it is strange what we are told to fear and when we are told to fear it change is never lovely simple or done correctly the heads removed during the french choppy choppy time caused quite a mess heck our own revolution of 1776 was an almost total disaster change is not lovely but here it is it is not that the american people did not call for change sometimes it was ridiculous characters like linden larouch or ron paul sometimes it was for rational actors like ralph nader and bernie sanders the people called again and again for change but this change was blocked like water flowing through ice or stone or whatever best fits change eventually happens even if it does not happen the way you want it to so here we are with change at the hands of the current president whom we shall call captain chaos cc since it is apparent that this change agent moves quickly breaks stuff and has access to the nuclear codes which we will pretend doesn t matter for now this change marks the unofficial end of the cold war the mask is off and we do not all like what we see since with that mask we could pretend we were not precisely what we turned into post war an imperial power that used soft and hard violence to get what it wanted this change will threaten and frighten many americans and others for many americans the country has remained static for decades why can t it just be like it was a good 75 million or so of us now say change is innovation at a rapid and uncertain rate and change has not happened in the united states in decades this may be best illustrated not by analyzing politics for now but by looking at fashion on tv while tv was corny in 1992 and you certainly won t laugh at the same jokes think of how characters dressed and interacted when the united states first enjoyed unipolarity following the collapse of the soviet union and today compare a 1992 episode of the real world with any tv show from 1962 the differences between 1962 and 1992 were remarkable you can look at a show and say not just the decade but often the year then look at the real world and compare it to the office then compare it to today after the communists were vanquished we mostly stopped and held things in place if you walked in dressed exactly like michael scott was when the series launched it would not look strange no one would be like hey 2007 they want their shirt back however if today you dressed like a character from the dick van dyke show say dick van dyke you would look like you were going to a costume party this is a silly but profound expression of our static attempt to keep an unraveling empire and dying brand of capitalism together we have been sold change though we get technology that has changed things your pile of toxic battery powered toys rotting in the dump leaching into the groundwater has certainly grown but has that technology altered that we still have to work for a living that michael scott would be sending out emails from his phone rather than his computer really doesn t change the power dynamics we have changes in our culture to the point that we have a culture war but while little details have changed have the larger bitchings remained the same if we said sagging pants and school shootings are caused by video games and absent fathers are we talking about the 90s or today the system s underpinnings have remained the same despite growing old sclerotic and obsolete if anything we added to them by creating new departments and initiatives primarily warring on things like terror but also undermining unions the buying power of the average american or a drastic change in participatory democracy the powersthatbe wanted the cold war tm forever as it enriched the political leaders and the corporations and continued the real politik of kissenger long after the devil dragged his soul to hell no matter the party republocrat or demoplublian both parties propped up cold war institutions and resisted calls for change even when these calls came from inside the government in june 1997 a group of 50 foreign policy experts including former senators defense officials and diplomats signed an open letter to president clinton opposing nato expansion they argued it was a policy error of historic proportions potentially destabilizing europe and undermining u s russian relations signatories included figures like sam nunn gary hart paul nitze and robert mcnamara while usaid has given away a lot of rice it is also used as a tool of great violence during the counterinsurgency efforts in guatemala usaid s office of public safety ops collaborated closely with local police forces between 1966 and 1974 ops provided extensive training in counterinsurgency intelligence gathering and interrogation techniques this collaboration aimed to suppress insurgent activities and align guatemala s internal security measures with u s strategic interests during the cold war in october 1966 the guatemalan army bolstered by u s military aid launched a large scale pacification effort in the departments of zacapa and izabal dubbed operation guatemala under the command of colonel carlos arana osorio military forces with guidance from approximately 1 000 u s green berets targeted suspected insurgents and their civilian supporters the operation involved systematic arrests torture and extrajudicial killings estimates suggest that between 3 000 and 8 000 peasants were killed by the army and paramilitary organizations during this period colonel arana osorio earned the nickname the butcher of zacapa due to the brutality of the campaign the voice of america a valuable tool to promote jazz in nazi germany and rock n roll to the soviet union was also a tool of the state in october 1956 hungarians initiated an uprising against soviet imposed policies seeking greater political freedom and national autonomy during this period western broadcasters including voa transmitted messages that many hungarian listeners interpreted as supportive of their cause these broadcasts coupled with speeches by u s leaders advocating for the liberation of oppressed peoples led many hungarians to believe that western military assistance was forthcoming however such support did not materialize and the soviet union forcefully suppressed the revolution resulting in significant loss of life and political repression the only people genuinely questioning the institutions of american imperial power and late capitalism while they had different reasons and solutions were leftists rallying around bernie sanders and right wingers rallying around the current president the centrists the biden obamas the bush clintons merely filed the opposition letters ignored the calls for reform and adjusted the horizontal and vertical refusing to change the channel growing increasingly disconnected from the population now president captain chaos pcc has become the instrument of one of these two factions unfortunately it s not the side many of us would have preferred many had hoped for a more educated deliberate dismantling or reform of these institutions but reform was off the table in the 2016 and 2020 primaries courtesy of the demopublican republocrats ancien régime institutions are being swept away or diminished this will have short term destructive consequences but then so did the beheading of kings and queens no one sort of chopped off marie antoinette s head to make her understand the plight of the poor they took it off entirely and then like angry children went on a head chopping spree before eventually settling into the modern french republic we will have to see how this madness unfolds for it is already upon us the end of the cold war also marks the end of america s tenure as the empire ruling that cold war one thing is certain the relics of both parties will either retire or perish our system may undergo a period of collapse as all empires do think britain in the 1960s or the soviet union in the 1990s the current president will not last long he is not made of the same stuff as that infamous really bad german he is more akin to that guy in the back of a deli in queens suddenly elevated to a national level he will not last we should fear what is coming next the collapse of the american empire will continue to unfold we do not yet know what this means does it happen like in france where the american version of the pied noirs come rushing back do we get the ottoman collapse where we are divided up by stronger power is it england with deindustrialization will we wind up like the former soviet union having to drink the chicago school of economic ideas about the privatization of profits and increase of public debts shhhhh it is this version methinketh while the press sells newspapers wait what are those while the press increases digital subscriptions analyzing every hand gesture and convincing us we are getting a version of that unpopular german leader we are far from it now or in the person or persons to come imho we are neither getting an american king nor a russian puppet regime at least those things we know how to fight rather we should expect now or soon a bizarre blend of thatcher yeltsin and trujillo to imerge that you may not even know that last figure means you should stop looking at hand signals and start reading up on the politics of the americas to learn of those who may prove far more effective in steering the nation toward an ahistorical and therefore far more dangerous 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