Is North Korea so insecure that it believes that it needs to threaten the United States in order to maintain its independence? The answer is most probably yes. As a new younger “dear leader” is anointed to the most heavily defended right of privilege in the world, ironically the ultimate product of the last communist state is the reinvention of dynastic heritage by right. God Kings do not present a very stable record. And the last couple of “dear Leaders” have been the typically paranoid delusional type that wants to barricade their country as though their culture is threatened by outside forces. What can we expect from the next?

If we define a cult as being an organisation that breeds adherents according to a political philosophy then North Korea’s gargantuan military is a tremendously successful cult that locks itself away from the rest of the world. It may be a China’s patsy – there to deflect possible aggression from USA/Japan? It is hard to understand why else China should put up with this nuclear armed expensive and recalcitrant menace on its borders. If it does fire a salvo of nukes the odds are some will go off locally and of course it would affect China badly as their missiles are not reliable enough to predict what will happen to them. If one were to land on the Chinese mainland for example, then North Korea would find itself worse than completely isolated.

Threatening the world with a nuclear showdown is a dumb path to suicide. North Korea must learn the power of diplomatic negotiation.

See also:

UK Guardian

Russia – it used to strike fear into the hearts of capitalists. Now it is an economic pipsqueak but according to the dean at the Foreign Ministry’s school for future diplomats and a regular on Russia’s state-guided TV channels, Igor Panarin, Russia along with China will become the guardians of the new world order from the ruins of the financial meltdown.

The fire and brimstone of his predictions belong in Disturbing Trends! America will fail! It will break into six substates! Alaska will revert to Russian control! America will declare martial law this year and will collapse by 2010! Such great headlines.

Putin seems to share this view, apparently he has has likened the US to Nazi Germany’s Third Reich and blames Washington for the global financial crisis. Disturbing Trends likened the Bush administration to Nero – not the real Nero whom we really do not know all that much about – but the image of a leader fiddling as his city burned. It is a potent image even if it did or did not reflect the 5th Roman Emperor in history – but what we remember is not necessarily what happened.

Are the Igor Panarin and Vladimir Putin views symptoms of a return to government by desperation and rumour? Both are ex-KGB – and their world view seems a little hyper-patriotic if not inflammatory, certainly imaginative, and without a touch of irony. The logic may go that Sarah Palin’s house can be seen from Siberia too, and she is far too attractive to not be from Russian stock – her house must therefore be a house of Russia. You can hear it in thick KGB accents, followed by long drawn down breathy sighs.

Meantime the Chinese Government is saving the economic world – I believe not so much because American financiers deserve to be dug out of the ditch they dug, but that humanity senses a gap between the discord – a place where American, Chinese and Russian governments see eye to eye – human rights and dignity are more important things to defend than “freedom” when that really means sending children to fight in wars so fat man can gamble on the share market.

The evolution of a workable financial system for 6 billion people who will be 7 billion soon enough is proving a very tricky process for humanity. Russia is evidence that communism is more sensitive to corruption than capitalism ever was. (Has China’s system of authoritative capitalism based on years of totalitarian communism created a more moral form of capitalism than the Western variety?)

One can view the current economic crisis – not so much as a collapse of the American Way but a correction that came about due to overreach. The Soviet project died because corruption became a significant proportion of GDP. The “world” (actually right wing media commentary) then could see the collapse of that huge corrupt overreaching system as a “collapse due to communism” and bolster confidence that the superior capitalist system would hide their funds from tax gathering governments. Both “systems” are distortions that create market tension; you got to switch between them – with democracy, it seems.

This is a crisis because the assumed wealth – based on a belief in the financial instruments being traded – the assumed wealth was inflated effectively by unclear ownership. Derivatives are fine in a limited sense, but the trading of these worthless scraps of hope for failure – is a bit like selling the organs of corpses as medical spare parts or investing in post atomic war world futures.

Although financial regulation is a fine road for the new US Administration – it is the fantasy of the Russian view – the fantastic nature of their aspirations to a return to the illusion of world power – that reeks of the disingenuous. It reminds me of Bush and his revelations about the nature of evil in the world. Hyperbole.

If the conflict between government and capital growth is resolved (taxes are effectively a reduction in private capital power) by making it economically efficient to pay ones domestic taxes instead of seeking financial devices to avoid fiscal responsibility – then Government of the people by the people again has meaning.

When the wealth of the top 5% is protected from tax by financial wizardry, it is evidence of a bubble and it will burst.

Simplistically, the bubble is not real wealth. In the same way that bluster is not real power.