Patrickov wrote:
I don't really see the alternatives any better.
What the West has consistently been wrong is that they install proxies instead of doing the hard work of transforming the societies themselves.
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Patrickov wrote:
They do have that burden.
Well, which *is* it -- do imperialist countries like the U.S. have the social "responsibility" to play supercop to the rest of the world, imposing its Western fundamentalist values, as with warfare, or should economics be 'politically neutral', as you contend later in this post of yours -- ?
Here's the *economics* backdrop to the U.S.' invasion of Iraq, exposing the 'weapons of mass destruction' pretext to be imperialist *bullshit*, while revealing the real, imperialist-opportunist reason for the invasion and slaughter of Iraqi people:
Iraq nets handsome profit by dumping dollar for euro
Faisal Islam, economics correspondent
Sat 15 Feb 2003 20.55 EST
435
A bizarre political statement by Saddam Hussein has earned Iraq a windfall of hundreds of million of euros. In October 2000 Iraq insisted on dumping the US dollar - 'the currency of the enemy' - for the more multilateral euro.
The changeover was announced on almost exactly the same day that the euro reached its lowest ebb, buying just $0.82, and the G7 Finance Ministers were forced to bail out the currency. On Friday the euro had reached $1.08, up 30 per cent from that time.
Almost all of Iraq's oil exports under the United Nations oil-for-food programme have been paid in euros since 2001. Around 26 billion euros (£17.4bn) has been paid for 3.3 billion barrels of oil into an escrow account in New York.
The Iraqi account, held at BNP Paribas, has also been earning a higher rate of interest in euros than it would have in dollars.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... aq.theeuro
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Patrickov wrote:
If what all of you said is true, they have the responsibility to clean up this mess themselves.
The U.S. and NATO made the 'mess' themselves in the first place, so they're not trustworthy entities for 'cleaning up' the mess -- the U.S. military has *no business* being in Iraq currently, nor did it *ever* in the first place.
Patrickov wrote:
I really don't trust pestered people to be in a psychologically capable position to handle such matters. Gandhi was an exception, most of them act more like Pol Pot.
People should have the autonomy / self-determination / sovereignty to handle *their own* matters, and that includes countries as well -- you're saying that the external imposition of 'pestering' a nation renders that country psychologically unfit for self-governance. That's simply convenient for the imperialist types doing the 'pestering'.
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ckaihatsu wrote:
You're implying that petroleum, and the U.S. dollars used to valuate the petroleum resource / commodity, are both politically *neutral*, when that's actually *far* from the reality.
Patrickov wrote:
It is neutral. It's how the people see and do with them which is wrong.
But only the United States has the privilege of designating its *own* currency to be the world's *reserve currency*, or standard, for all subsequent economic activity, including for the petroleum industry.
This means that whenever the U.S. issues a new U.S. dollar, that new dollar has just as much economic legitimacy and worldwide acceptance as any other dollar already in circulation, which is a *lot* socially and geopolitically.
So, no, not all national currencies are the same, or 'neutral', geopolitically.
Patrickov wrote:
As I said, the West have been consistently wrong.
But admittedly, I probably hold similar view against nationalism and patriotism like yours against petrodollars.
It should be neutral, but if people are consistently wrong with them then it's better not be used.
(Sorry I omitted the rest of your post because this one point is enough)
What has the West been 'consistently wrong' about, and where did you already say that, in this thread?
I don't argue for currency neutrality, as you're implying. You may want to explain what your position is on nationalism and patriotism.
(No prob.)
I advocate for a workers-collectivist kind of 'internal' currency, as part of the overall transitional period to workers-of-the-world socialism, outlined here:
global syndicalist currency
by Chris Kaihatsu, [email protected], 10-18
The overall rationale for potential use of a 'global syndicalist currency' is to better-see the surplus labor value that is currently expropriated by private ownership, through the ongoing exploitation of the working class -- anything not directly for the maintenance and reproduction of labor-power going-forward (typically capitalist 'wages') could be represented quantitatively as this workers currency, to enable cash-like purchases from one workplace to another, as an expedient convenience.
This would be a *transitional* material-economic measure, until the ruling class is fully overthrown, to catalyze relationships among those nascent worker-controlled workplaces, over any arbitrary geographic terrain and topology of real-world physical linkages.
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