Brock Novak is a freelance Military and Geo-Political Analyst. He is credited with coining the contextual term "COMMULISM" (COMMUnism fueled by capitaLISM), the "Commulism Series", and creating the "Commulism Response Framework" (CRF).
Among others, his credits further extend to coining and defining the 21st century concepts of "Fusion Warfare" and "Fission Threat Environment", as well as the contextual terms "Pandanomics", "Benevolent Terrorism", "Phased and Jammed Democracy".
Coming: The launch of COMMULISM.COM - A website dedicated to increasing the U.S. government and public awareness of this, the greatest near and long term threat to U.S. economic and national security.
I had read of the roots of this Chinese ascendancy probably fifteen years ago, and at that time it struck me as an astute analysis, although it did not consider such an active and contributory component from the United States.
An important difference between the societies is the planning horizon, which for the Chinese is generally five to ten times further out than in the United States. When looking that far out, it is very difficult to be surprised.
This is a good article, and I look forward to the rest of the series.
by
John Sanchez Jr. (6 articles, 0 quicklinks, 13 diaries, 1289 comments)
on Friday, January 25, 2008 at 11:26:39 AM
is a contradiction in terms. It is nonproductive and inflationary since there are no consumer goods available for the money that pays for the production to be spent on. The end consumers of military production are easily identified by their severe traumatic injuries and absence of life functions.
Military production is what gave rise to stagflation in the late 1970's and early 1980's, and, oddly enough, it's doing it again now.
by
John Sanchez Jr. (6 articles, 0 quicklinks, 13 diaries, 1289 comments)
on Friday, January 25, 2008 at 4:06:44 PM
The author needs to study dialectics, the science of the STRUGGLE and UNITY of OPPOSITES. There has always been UNITY between capitalism and communism. First, because they are both social/political/economic systems. Second, because they both want certain people to prosper. Third, because white Americans, the West and Asians are all human beings on this earth. Any attempt to demonize any of the players is doomed to failure because it simply isn't true. There is nothing "scary" about the Chinese, and scholars who attempt to scare people on the basis of a segment of humanity need to have their scholarship questioned. At the same time, it is undeniable that there is STRUGGLE, and there always has been. The struggle between capitalism and communism in the 20th century (the categories are not really accurate, but we can ignore that for the moment) was always between money becoming concentrated into fewer and fewer hands while the masses starved ("capitalism" really a form of monopoly) ) and the money being spread out across a larger spectrum so that everyone had education, food, housing, jobs and medical care ("communism", really a form of socialism. ) It was never about being able to criticize the government, and even less about abstract "freedom". Latin American dictatorships of the period were capitalist, yet there was no freedom there. Just try and criticize the government during the capitalist Mac Carthy era. The struggle was always about who is going to get the money, who is going to provide it (through their work) and where its going to wind up, ultimately. That was true in the USSR, in China, in Western Europe, in the US and everywhere else. The OPPOSITES came into play when the US wanted to control the Chinese economy after WWII and the Chinese wouldn’t let them. (The war in Viet Nam was just such an attempt, but the Viet Namese wouldn't play ball, either). China was ravaged by the war, and under Mao’s leadership they were determined to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, to the point that they wouldn’t borrow, but made their international transactions in cash, so that they wouldn’t be beholden to anyone but themselves. This required great sacrifice. Slowly, China started to come out of the abject poverty and backwardness this thousand year old culture had been thrust into. It was time for a new OPPOSITE. Deng was the opposite of Mao, and "pure communism" was NEGATED, after the success of the post war years. China started to leap forward into the capitalist sphere, becoming better at it than the capitalists themselves, and leaving the West in the dust. The twenty-first century is the time for the NEGATION OF THE NEGATION, where a synthesis is sought and established. This is where prosperity (capitalist) will be provided for everyone (socialist). Any attempt to scapegoat China and blame it for the US crash is ridiculous. It is much more to the point to investigate what caused the crash and to investigate what the dialectics of that situation are. What is the opposite of the crash? How will that turn into a negation? Where will the synthesis ultimately reside?
by
Guajolotl (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 131 comments)
on Friday, January 25, 2008 at 5:33:19 PM
I suppose it is necessary to view freedom as an abstraction if you want to support your preordained conclusion that capitalism is a form of coercion.
In reality, only one economic system has enough surplus to allow the luxury of dreaming about plenty for all. And that economic system doesn't work without freedom. If you treat freedom as some kind of abstraction, looking for some kind of 'synthesis', your mixture will be bad for humans. And that's not an abstraction. Force is not an abstraction, unless you comfortably reside in an armchair away from the shooting.
by
John Danforth (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 98 comments)
on Saturday, January 26, 2008 at 1:27:42 PM
Blame Someone else for Failure. It's an American Tradition.
Embracing Communism and its façade Cultural Revolution, which was anything but good, the country then withdrew and disappeared from the world
.....This is such nonsense when you consider what culture is and how it transformed the chinese people. China was always the quest from the West because of its wealth and goods, and the West wanted trade. Why did Lewis and Clark go west? We all know to find a route for China Trade. Do we forget the Opium Wars, and Traders/Traitors from Britain, and the USA?
Opium Trade took hold of the people in China, making some chinese merchants very rich who supported the Opium influx into the country. Then there was the China government who saw its destructive affect on the people, when people became addicts and roaming vagabonds, and knew right away Opium had to be stopped. There was war, and who lost? China lost. They became captives to British and USA interests. The Opium trade was not stopped. What happened is it expanded and the West wanted to go into Japan. Japan did not want Opium in their country either. Britain gained sizable properties such as Hong Kong, and Kowloon; and the USA wanted similar quests, so they went after Japan.
We all witnessed time evolved, and we have our own opinions about history, but the fact is WWI was really about the Opium Trade, when Germany wanted to get in on it, and take the growing fields in Turkey that the USA controlled, who shipped the Opium through Iraq, and exported from the ports of Kuwait. Germany was going to Join the Ottoman Empire and this would have given Germany ownership rights, cutting off US interests. With the UK and US partnership in the black slave market in North America, the British supported the USA and incited economic hardship on the Serbs, prompting a Serb national to assassinate Arch Duke Ferdinand who was negotiating the deal for Germany. This erupted into WWI.
And from the ravages of WWI it produced WWII.
China was being controlled by the West and essentially had no government, with the West having control of China's Capitol City, NanKing. Japan was fighting against Western Imperialism, to include preventing the West from infiltrating Japan with Opium. Japan really invaded NanKing to oust the Western Opium hold. The slaughter of 300,000 people was the precipitous in having the West withdraw. Our similar comparison to this idea of killing innocent people to reach a political objective is seen when the Bush administration willingly killed innocent people in Iraq with higher numbers and on going DU poisoning to get Oil resources, and shore up their previous crimes to Iraq when they stole Kuwait.
So those who wish to discount the relevance that Japan did not kill 300,000 people to stop the West but only to take over China is quite naive. In fact Japan proved its objective when later it attacked Pearl Harbor. WWII was about stopping the Opium Trade, for Japan, while WWII for Hitler was about regaining what Germany lost in the first WW. Hitler was really against the Communists in Russia, and it should be noted that Communists were also Jews. The West did not make the War out to be Hitler against the Communists because that would have been a good thing for the West. But instead they made it a personal fight against a race of people. And although it was Hitlers War against Jews, it was really Hitlers war against the Communists because the Jews were Communists.
Many famous Americans supported Hitler to include George Bush's grandfather Prescott Bush who was instrumental in helping finance Hitlers objectives. But when Britain and France declared War in Germany, the prevailing FDR joined the Allies Forces to stop Hitler. The fight became more pronounced when Hitlers, generals began the final solution, in mass murdering thousands of Jews during the holocaust.
In fact China gained its foothold when the Japanese invaded Nanking. This act proved that China must come to grip with saving China. Chairman Mao was the man to start such action. Chairman Mao was fighting the Kumintang, and Japan. They wanted to expel all foreign influence. It is not so much that Chairman Mao started Communism, but the people wanted it, and they grew in strength. They cuold only defeat the evil forces that came to their land if they joined forces, and so the communists were born.
Indeed the Kumintang was defeated as they ran from the Mainland to Taiwan. Chairman Mao fought valiantly against the Japanese, and the War ended really before Japan was bombed by Harry Trumans 2 terrorists A bomb wiping out thousands of innocent Japanese civilians. Japan surrendered much earlier, but Truman refused to accept because they wanted to use the bomb on Japan to send a message around the world.
First to get Russia to stop its advance when clearly the Russians defeated Hitler. And the fact that the bomb would be the ace card to who had the authority to say and grant Israel the right to form its own Religious State. There being; Israel became a State power, and Britain relinquished it's empire hold on the region.
We can say that the assault on NanKing really was the beginning to China, and the end to the Opium Trade market in China; that is the control the west had on it. China's closed doors was it's victory to the long years of Opium influx the West infected China with.
As far as China being Communlism, I think it is more of Communionism. Meaning that there is an emerging peace objective that is reconginzed. China does not have War ambitions. They are only concerned with their own country. They have no ambitions to spread their type of government practices, by force. They are wise to know force never wins the hearts of people, and know that over throwing another govenment inevitably affects innocent people. They being first hand examples to the experience.
Whatever kind of propaganda Mr. Novak is trying to stir, whether it is to massage his patriotic american endemic, he has no clue to the real story Inside History.
Good going China.... I say.
by
Dom Jermano (20 articles, 0 quicklinks, 40 diaries, 930 comments)
on Friday, January 25, 2008 at 7:07:37 PM
And 'so far' is farther than any the world has known. The culture included the savagery and murderous brutalism in thousands of years of those days, and it includes the rocket science of these days -- for 'world-class' parity, sure, (where "power proceeds out the barrel of a gun," -- Mao, then having that gun and accorded its respect), yet too, rocket science for dual-purpose humanist (if not altruist) shared sensibilities such as planetary (science) perspective, weather and climate data monitoring, news acquisition self-sufficiency, ('eye-in-the-sky' witness means not having to take the untrusted word for it, of satellite-surveillance monopolist's propaganda), global communications relay, and sundry more hi-tech 'people'-benefits; when was the last time you heard of -- or received! -- 'civilian' quality-of-life applications shared of public-taxed Pentagon 'spy sats,' which have secured nodefense of Americans, and have only secreted militaristic USterror crimes offended on foreigns abroad, (google "full spectrum dominance") in USA's name -- were 'spy imagery' as open as internet traffic cams, public documentation could have proved no WMDs undoing all Bush lies and claims, in advance of invasion, and could today prove no battlelines in Iraq but only mercenary-maintained helter-skelter faux-war 'gaming' (pseudo 'civil war') for faux-justifying violative occupation, all munitions both 'sides' expend in Iraq are US-taxed and US-made, arming 'two' proxies in perpetrated 'stalemate' as when once there's a 'winner' oil-kleptomanic occupation must end. 'Civilian' dashboard-GPS and GoogleEarth-map doesn't count, coming as it does (20 years) ineffectually after the fact and only when charged (and restricted) for private-gain exploitation, (such as mineral deposit prospecting, straightforward easy from space and aerial SSR). You can't even get realtime weather display, (unless and until illegal military deployments are 'photo-shop' blotched).
China, (also Europe, also Russia, also Australia, also Africa, also South America countries) brings on-line planet-plenty wider access to such feats of Earth's earthlings. The communitarian of it damn-sure countermands US public-monied capitalist roaders.
So China has rocketry and technology and weaponry, and all -- a veritable 'hand at the table' in realworld politick, so what. There's also confucianism, feng shui, tai chi, acupuncture, non-dairy low-cholesterol organic-health diet, not to mention familial ancestor-reverence and elder-respect, and more, keeping best of the past alloyed with most of the modern. So what? Appraise behavior in action for 5000 years: China keeps decorous fences made, and making good neighborliness. No, capitalists can't have their land; no, they don't covet other lands either. Ways of old-culture duty are arbitrary and strong, and means governing civil-provision are strict ... feeding, clothing, housing a billion-and-more in some kind of domestic tranquility, (be reminded, 1-percent means 10+ million bodies and souls, enough to cause a commotion when slighted). Review Chinese reaction after imbecile Bush crash-landed his spy plane on their sovereign turf: No captee was tortured, water-boarded, or murdered, and the plane was returned, cash on delivery, in good working order, disassembled for shipping. We should have impeached bushbutcher right then, and garnished his family for damages.
The world may expect its Olympics host next, to set new hospitality standards. Likely with commulism greasing some gears.
Agent Novak provocateur, appears crash-landed here on some Evil Office mission from The Fright House -- good god man, the imbecility there's contagious.
---
ikster, you put so much straight in few words. J'adjust, and add on a footnote. WWI Germany eyeing Turkey wasn't looking at opium, although it'd take all it could get. At the time, in the region, the prized Baku oil fields made modern metallurgy manufacturing. Serbia and the Archduke intrigue came sort of incidental in the Berlin-to-Baku line of march to petroleum. And, the opium was also nearby.
Further on, there's a heroin thing. Prouty (dot ORG) in eyewitness anecdote substantiates everything you say. And goes on through some homeless Vietnam vets, to show the clear and present danger around us today -- see, eye: aye.
And for a general reference site, where the sun is always shining on some place, in some part, disinfecting the imbecile lies and the virus pooh-pooh propaganda, with a mass education that's free for the reading, folks: keep tabs on the WSws (dot ORG) -- World Socialist web site. Empty skulls decapitalized daily.
by
meremark (1 articles, 3 quicklinks, 26 diaries, 507 comments)
on Saturday, January 26, 2008 at 4:22:27 AM
Thanks Meremark, I was unaware of the link you gave, but do know of WSW. Also to celar up something I wrote> With the UK and US partnership in the black slave market in North America, the British supported the USA and incited economic hardship on the Serbs, prompting a Serb national to assassinate Arch Duke Ferdinand who was negotiating the deal for Germany. This erupted into WWI.
This looks sticky, so to be clear the British was supplying black Slaves to the US during and before the Civil War, clearly the same time frame of the Opium Wars in China. They gained lot's of money and the relationship lasted through the years, in which the British supported US efforts in controlling Turk opium fields, which was the beginning to WWI.
You are right that Oil fields were beginning to raise to a level of value because of the need for transportation control in trade routes, but the reason for oil was for the transport of Opium, the greatest profit making commodity the world had ever known in those days. WWII for Hitlers rise is because Germany was unsuccessful in gaining the fields and loss the revenue, creating havoc and poverty in Germany, especially when War reparations from the Versailles Treaty really a heavier added burden to Germany gave Hitler his start and quest to reverse the tide from the consquences of WWI, a war Germany really didn't start.
My rational is that the West caused WWI and WWII. Not the idea that the West saved the world from the evils of Japan and Germany. Just like the War in Iraq is not an American achievment in bringing some sort of liberty and Justice, but was actually something the US caused to create.
I just don't stand behind the facade of being a supporter of Freedom and Democracy, when the very idea causes the problems in the world. We create the problem, then we pat ourselves on the back for solving it, is quite insane, ridiculous, and malicious, especially from a national perspective.
So many people believe the crap that the criminal universities dish out, and we get leaders who graduate from said places, to create scandals, and crimes in high levels of government tells me the whole America scene is nothing but one crime scene after another while being out of touch with reality and the auspices of doing the right and benevolent things that support the world at large.
by
Dom Jermano (20 articles, 0 quicklinks, 40 diaries, 930 comments)
on Saturday, January 26, 2008 at 8:31:52 PM
there are voices that give the vanquished a voice too
My great grandfather, great grandfather and grandmother were missionary doctors in China from 1866-1915, and they witnessed first hand the ravages what Opium was doing to over an estimated 70% of the Chinese population at that time.
The British had forced much of the Indian population into cultivating poppies and processing it into bowling ball sized balls, to be shipped to China. After the War in 1908 where the western nations finished the rape of Peking, and the adbication of Pui Yi, did China fall into total anarchy.
The decades of War Lords ruling sections of China, its Civil War brtween the Kumongting and Communists caused much pain in the country. Mao, was no military genius, and he avoided fighting the Japanese too.
His idea under the Long March was to consolidate control of the army, and his spies within the Kumongting provided him with logistical support. Who were later sent to fight in Korea in the 50's.
Japan had Imperialists ambitions and did not "liberate" Nanking as claimed in earlier posts. The plan was similar to Hitler's in "cleansing" the land of its current inhabitants to make way for the future Japanese expansion agenda.
Mao, was the West's best wish, and kept China from enjoying what Japan benifited in upgraded manufacturing base after WWII. His inept knowledge of intricate details of economics led to what China experienced under his rule.
Deng Xiaopeng was educated in the West, and knew how to jumpstart the Chinese economy. This has led to the rampant development at the expense of its environment and the select few who are benifiting from the financial rewards.
The idea of the Communist Party is to remain in control at all costs. As long as it can continue to increase the ecenomic clout of the masses, they will not demand change of its leadership.
Stability is what the people desire, and so far the CPP is able to deliver this, though there are some voices of discontent, they are few and quickly brought under control.
The U.S., as the leading economic superpower, is slowly being absorbed by China. Just like former world powers have come and gone, China will enjoy her moment as well. A combined Sino-Rus pact is a very practical theory, which would benifit each greatly.
What's in store for the future of the U.S., will be of lesser world influence than it possess today.
by
Stanimal (0 articles, 4 quicklinks, 24 diaries, 678 comments)
on Sunday, January 27, 2008 at 5:03:23 AM
Japan had Imperialists ambitions and did not "liberate" Nanking as claimed in earlier posts. The plan was similar to Hitler's in "cleansing" the land of its current inhabitants to make way for the future Japanese expansion agenda.
There may have been elements in Japan society to smuggle opium for profit; but clearly the supplies came from the West. Anyone who would think Japan simply murdered people for the sake of their own imperialistic agenda without a concensus in stopping the drug suppliers is mistaken. Interesting that the West killed people to bring Opium into China and Japan, while the notion that Japan would not attack Nanking because of the Opium trade is without a clue to the real happenings of the times.
The Japanese Opium Experience Japan was, as far as I know, the only colonial power to execute faithfully the principles of opium suppression set forth at the Hague Convention in 1912, for Japan had been fighting opium addiction, at home and in her colonies, for decades. Japan persistently argued that drug trafficking was not only immoral but, in the long run, unprofitable.
One of Japan’s top priorities after taking Taiwan in 1895 was to end opium use. European smugglers were impotent against the Japanese’ efficient police organization and tight surveillance and investigation. Opium-related deaths in Taiwan plummeted from 215,476 in 1908 to 38,000 annually by 1923. Japan also suppressed opium smuggling into Korea.
At the Second Opium Conference, Mr. Sugimura of Japan complained that it “was beneath a nation’s dignity to derive so much revenue from opium,” and he urged Western powers to view the problem not just from a humanitarian viewpoint but from an economic one, noting that in Taiwan, “Even from the economic and financial point of view, a sacrifice of revenue from opium was in reality a gain, since the productive power of the nation increased.”
Britain protested Japan’s attacks on ‘the justice and fairness of the British government,” but the Polish delegate agreed with the Japanese. He said that because of the smokescreen of rhetoric clouding Western opium monopolies, the world was further from eliminating opium in 1924 than it had been in 1913.
Lord Cecil finally dismissed mounting criticism by arguing that opium was “purely an Indian question…it does not appear to me to be a matter for international interference at all.”
Britain clung to her Hong Kong opium monopoly right up until 1945, when postwar profits no longer justified the embarrassment.
Thankfully, opium trafficking is behind us, but not so the arrogance born of opium’s easy wealth and power.
“Mankind loves to hate. It makes us feel good and right. People feel so appallingly righteous about ideologies and faiths they have been conditioned to believe in. We need scapegoats, objects outside ourselves so that we can project our own anger and hostility. If we are to understand how we can commit barbarities, we have to analyze this need and question the whole process of demeaning and devaluing others.” Professor Ron Baker, Holocaust survivor.
What You See... Scientists say that what you expect of people is pretty much what you get. I think the same goes for nations. ‘Japan’ conjures up images of Mount Fuji and Japanese gardens, of quality cars and electronics – not of the rape of Nanjing, or the bombing of Pearl Harbor, or the enslaving of Amoy. We put Japan’s atrocious past behind us, committed our resources to building a new Japan, and got one.
Germany evokes images of Beethoven and BMW, of engineering excellence – not of the millions of Jews and Gentiles massacred during the Holocaust. We put Germany’s past behind us and worked to help her rebuild. We wanted a new Germany and got one.
Time (or, more likely, economic success) has exonerated Japan and Germany, but we continue to view China only from the perspective of the Great Leap Forward, or the Cultural Revolution, or Mao’s dental hygiene. I fear that if we persist in painting China as the evil empire we could very well get just what we fear -- a paranoid, defensive superpower.
Some people demonize China, others deify her, but she is neither demon nor deity. China is but a nation much like our own, with the same frailties and faults and hopes and dreams that we have. Chinese are a carnival glass, through which we see darkly images that, however distorted, are but of ourselves.
Note:* Lin also enacted laws which allowed for the execution of Opium traders. The British were furious and declared war on China in 1839. The Chinese were completely out-gunned. In 1842, the defeated Chinese were forced to sign the Treaty of Nanking. The treaty demanded British extraterritoriality-all British citizens in China were subject to British, not Chinese laws-and five ports were gained for the British: Canton, Shanghai, Foochow, Ningpo, and Amoy.
Furthermore, the Chinese were forced to cede Hong Kong to the British (Hooker, 14.) Japan was not unaware of this. "While the most assiduous Westerner could learn nothing of the internal affairs of Japan, an educated Japanese could, if he wished, arrive at some idea of the French Revolution, or know who was president of the United States" (Palmer, 545.)
News of China's defeat spread quickly to Japan. The bakufu, fearing that an attack on a foreigner as permitted in the Uchi-harai-rei might result in a war with the West, relaxed the edict. This created a large problem for the bakufu. The Uchi-harai-rei had created a strong anti-foreign sentiment in Japan. The complete reverse in foreign policy antagonized the bakufu in the eyes of the same anti-foreigners which the bakufu had encouraged.
As has been stated, however, the bakufu had no choice but to issue the Uchi-harai-rei as the West had threatened the sakoku policy of the Shogunate. The West's destruction of China also left the bakufu with little choice but to relax the aforementioned Edict. Had the Shogunate not, Japan might have shared China's fate. Thus, Western Imperialism was responsible for creating an anti-bakufu sentiment in Japan which had not previously existed. This anti-bakufu sentiment would prove critical in the collapse of the Tokugawa bakufu.
by
Dom Jermano (20 articles, 0 quicklinks, 40 diaries, 930 comments)
on Monday, January 28, 2008 at 2:22:01 AM
Freedom is USED as an abstraction. America's freedom, freedom for all, are all abstractions, because they don't say anything. The US has plenty of freedom for the rich (when you have your own private jet you are free to do any damn thing you please) but not freedom for the homeless, and very limited freedom for everybody else. The word freedom used in this way is not an abstraction. Your problem is not with the word freedom, but with the word abstraction, which you dont seem to understand. Abstract is the opposite of concrete. Freedom should be concrete, not abstract.
by
Guajolotl (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 131 comments)
on Monday, January 28, 2008 at 5:55:09 PM
Freedom is concrete for some, and an abstraction for others. Those who concretely have it, polticize it abstractly, while those who are abstract are always trying to concretely obtain it. And so what does this have to do with the article? Is your comment toward the author of the article or one of the commenters?
by
Dom Jermano (20 articles, 0 quicklinks, 40 diaries, 930 comments)
on Wednesday, January 30, 2008 at 12:30:58 AM
15 comments
How would you rate this?
You must be logged in (if signed up) to do ratings.
It's free to signup! And easy. And takes just a minute or two....
Must Read (
Well Said (
News (
Touching (
Funny (
Supported (
Interesting (
Inspiring (
Valuable (
