Radical Noesis - Thinking outside the box

What we would like to focus on, at present time, is the way good old "friends" (kept apace by fear or direct military intervention) are now turning against their Master - and in the most provocative, unexpected and probably deadly way.

First of all, it is quite clear how Venezuela is pursuing a strong leftist and populist politics against the U.S., quickly moving away from the dreadful "Washington Consensus" that created so many tragedies in Latin American in the last decades. From Reuters we read that:

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is moving to boost royalties and taxes paid to the government and give state oil company PDVSA a majority stake in the deals as part of a sweeping "re-nationalization" of the energy sector. [...] In addition to the mandatory majority stake for PDVSA, the changes increase the income tax on the projects from 34 percent to 50 percent, boost royalty payments to 33.3 percent from 16.6 percent, as well as levying a new 0.1 percent export tax.

In this "running away" from Washington (toward China, mainly, but this is another story), Chavez is taking other South American countries with hime: for example, shortly after Venezuela re-nationalization of oil - exactly on May, 1st - Bolivia followed pretty much the same path:

President Evo Morales ordered the military to occupy Bolivia's natural gas fields on Monday after nationalizing the industry and threatening to expel foreign companies that do not recognize state control. [...] "This is just the start ... tomorrow or the day after it will be mining, then the forestry sector, and eventually all the natural resources for which our ancestors fought," Morales told a jubilant crowd in La Paz's main plaza.

while just a week ago Ecuador made its own move against foreign energy producers:

Ecuador revoked Occidental's contract on Monday after accusing the company, in a long-run legal dispute, of violating its operating contract. Occidental says it has complied with its obligations and still hopes to settle. [...] President Alfredo Palacio has been under pressure from Indian groups in the oil rich Amazon to expel Occidental, who accuse the firm of exploiting natural resources with no benefit for Ecuadoreans. Occidental, Ecuador's largest investor, had also become a lightening rod for criticism of U.S. "imperialism".

All these facts combined give a pretty clear view of the current situation of the Empire and its former and closer "friends", who have long been its source of cheap labor, energy and money.

The strongest blow to America's hegemony, thou, came from what was once considered Bush's new, strongest friend: Vladimir Putin. From today's RIA Novosti we read that:

The RTS, Russia's leading stock market, will begin trading ruble-denominated futures for the domestic price of oil and oil products from 2007, RTS Vice President Roman Goryunov said Friday.

The U.S. started a war (in Iraq) because they didn't want anybody in the world to trade oil in a currency different from the dollar (remember that Saddam decided to start trading its oil in Euros a few weeks before the U.S. invasion) - and now one of the few military super-powers decide to use rubles for its energy futures? And what are we going to do with all the dollars currently held worldwide by governments - dollars that actually are needed to sustain U.S. unsustainable trade deficit? Sell them to buy RUBLES and send American economy down the toilet?!? (well, the answer is, probably ... yes)

What is happening? A quick answer could be that high oil prices gave oil producing countries so much money that they now feel strong enough to kick Washington puppets and controllers out of their way - thus showing that their true and deep friendship with American was neither true nor deep.

But all these moves have a much stronger significance than just a return of nationalistic desires: for the first time, in our point of view, the Great Empire has found boundaries to its expansion - and when an Empire cannot grow anymore it is deemed to implode.

In any case, we need to watch closely all these "cracks" in the Empire: it's very important to be prepared to all sort of outcomes - as the Empire Building is taller than ever, and it will make a huge noise when it will come tumbling down.