After the Autumn of the Patriarch (was Re: New Economy, MidEast)

["Charles Brown" <CharlesB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>>> furuhashi.1@xxxxxxx 10/15/00 11:48AM >>>
Edward Said, alas, can't see the connection between the ghastly Peace
Process and the dreadful dissolution of Yugoslavia.  As Heartfield
notes, "Without Soviet support, the PLO accepted America's offer of a
negotiated solution that would recognize the sovereign claims of both
Israel and the Palestinians."  And with the collapse of the USSR, the
Evil Empire saw no reason to keep Yugoslavia as a non-aligned buffer
between East and West.  The end of the Soviet Union, the end of
anti-imperial nationalism & progressive pan-Arabism (e.g.,
Palestinian struggles for statehood & against American-Israeli
colonialism), the end of market socialism that depended upon the
delicate balance of power between East and West (= socialist
Yugoslavia), the end of social democracy, the end of corporatism &
import substitution, the end of anti-communist dictatorship (e.g.,
Mobutu, Suharto, etc.), the end of the pacifist and/or
anti-imperialist Left in the West (e.g., the German Greens)....  This
is what you call post-modern conditions.  Post-Modern = Post-Soviet.
And the post-Soviet conditions began _even_ before the formal end of
the Soviet Union (= the overthrow of Ferdinando Marcos, the invasion
of Panama, the Gulf War, etc. which saw the Evil Empire turning
against its erstwhile allies Marcos, Noriega, & Hussein).

((((((((

CB: And New Economy = Post-Soviet Economy