Fear of Emptiness?

In the Texas debate Barack Obama said that US foreign policy had neglected Latin America, something he would right. By not providing "aid" and establishing a dominant presence "people like Hugo Chavez or the Chinese fill the void". Maybe he's being schooled by Beakerkin on global hegemony or maybe he was just pandering to a crowd that believes what it reads in Time magazine or The Wall Street Journal, but either way it's a sad contradiction from the man who said about Iraq ,"We need to change the mindset that got us there in the first place." Same damn mindset. He knows what USAID and the NED really do, doesn't he?



When you view regions of the world as places that are either occupied or a "void" instead of places filled with people, people with complex histories and societies that have their own trajectories and aspirations, you have bought into that whole "Great Game" view that has characterized every modern Empire. Soft power means trade and debt, aid and militarization, resource extraction and Coca Cola. All the mainstream candidates and policy wonks who they listen to think of the globe as a volume which becomes filled with " capitalist-democracy" and the American Way of Life. Throw in a little Christian zeal and White Mans Burden. ( we're going to have to come up with a new term considering Barack, Condi and Colin )It's the Missionary Position and Kissinger, Albright, Baker, Holbrooke, Brzezinski, Lake, Dennis Ross and the whole crew are on top, sweating away, filling that void. (apologies to Freud)

I don't imagine the economic advisors spending much time talking about overaccumulation either. They concentrate on the micro - oil prices, bubbles, stimulus packages and tax rates- things where they believe they can have some direct control, but someone should start paying a little attention to Mr. Bellow:

"The stagnation of the real economy is related to the condition of overproduction or over-accumulation that has plagued the international economy since the mid-1970s. Stemming from global productive capacity outstripping global demand as a result of deep inequalities, this condition has eroded profitability in the industrial sector. One escape route from this crisis has been “financialization,” or the channeling of investment toward financial speculation, where greater profits could be had. This was, however, illusory in the long run since, unlike industry, speculative finance boiled down to an effort to squeeze out more “value” from already created value instead of creating new value."

Walden Bellow doesn't mention that ever-popular method of wealth creation known as primitive accumulation. Screw the soft power and go get what you want. Devote your budget to militarization! "Fill that void" with bases and embassies and the United Fruit Company.