Comrades, a Satire

             Comrades, a Satire

The upcoming “fiscal cliff”, a.k.a. “austerity bomb”, and the looming debt ceiling crisis, reminds me of the following emails, which I wrote during the congressional debt-ceiling crisis of 2011. In them, I satirically took on the persona of a Chinese Communist Party apparatchnik, sending a message to various acquaintances and friends; each satirically given the persona of a higher-up official. I took on that point of view to see if things made more sense that way. Some of my correspondents wrote back, one in character.

These emails propose an offer that the Chinese would be foolish not to make, and the Americans would be hard-pressed not to accept. And it has precedent in our own history.

*******

From: Comrade Hellerstein, Finance Ministry

To: Comrade Pournelle, Defense Ministry

Dear Comrade Pournelle:

I write you to propose a way for us, the People’s Republic of China, to

reclaim Taiwan without firing a shot. Our army is strong and could

easily over-run the rebel province, were it not for the Americans. Also

it would be a shame to damage the property while repossessing it; and

the use of force could have a negative propaganda effect.

The key is to convince the Americans to go. Fortunately they are

trillions of dollars in debt to us, due to their foolish greed and our

foresight. The solution, then, is simple; we need merely buy Taiwan.

This has historical precedent; consider the Louisiana Purchase.

The procedure would be simplicity itself. We would merely agree to

cancel part of the debt we hold over them, along with interest payments

owed to us; and in exchange the Americans withdraw all of their armed

forces from the area; and then, for political cover, hold a referendum

on the island, agreeing to the transfer of power. The election will, of

course, be fixed to ensure the correct outcome; the Americans are

skilled at such things.

Some of your comrades in the Party will object that the barbarous

Americans are too proud to betray an ally. They are indeed proud and

bellicose, but they are also corrupt, and they are economically

vulnerable. So much so that our trillions of dollars of holdings might

depreciate badly, soon; so I suggest that we bargain that debt away

while it’s still worth something.

Sincerely,

Comrade Hellerstein

**

Are you sure this isn’t happening?

I like it

Jerry Pournelle

Chaos Manor

**

From: Comrade Hellerstein, Finance Ministry

To: Comrade Pournelle, Defense Ministry

Dear Comrade Pournelle:

Our plan is working perfectly. The Americans are aware of what’s 

happening, but they can’t prove it, and they lack the political will to 

resist. Right now they are too busy destroying their own credit rating. 

I would like to brag that our agents were responsible for that triumph, 

but it seems that the Americans are doing it to themselves. Amazing!

Comrade Anderson inform me that there is another historical precedent 

for our plan to purchase Taiwan; namely, the absorption of the Republic 

of Texas into the United States, in exchange for assuming the Republic’s debt.

Buying instead of invading Taiwan will of course be an ideological 

victory for capitalism. Perhaps the Americans will console themselves 

with that.

Sincerely,

Comrade Hellerstein

**

From: Comrade Hellerstein, Finance Ministry

To: Comrade Johnson, Covert Operations

Dear Comrade Johnson:

I write you to inquire about your cadre’s role in the upcoming 

self-ruination of our American rival. As you may recall from a recent 

email, I was planning, with Comrade Pournelle’s office, to arrange for 

the purchase of Taiwan. We Chinese need merely cancel several trillion 

dollars of American debt, in exchange for abandoning their military 

bases on Taiwan, plus a fixed election for political cover. However, if 

the Americans default on their debts, then those trillions of dollars 

that they have borrowed from us might lose value.

Therefore I write to ask if your office has a different plan for the 

recovery of the breakaway island province. Perhaps your comrades figure 

that if the Americans bankrupt themselves, then they will abandon 

Taiwan for lack of funding. We Chinese will lose too in the capitalist 

crisis, but less so than the deindustrialized Americans. Our dollar 

holdings will become worthless; but balanced with the takeover of 

Taiwan, this is in a sense a Communistic version of my office’s 

Taiwan-purchase plan; for we will lose a terabuck, and they will lose 

Taiwan, so it will be as if we had traded.

However I must warn you not to underestimate the willful aggression and 

stupidity of the American ruling class. They might go bankrupt, but 

defund their empire last of all. We Chinese might find our rival 

weakened but desperate, hanging on to Taiwan out of pride, inertia and 

corruption. It would be a shame to get Taiwan back in a damaged 

condition.

Speaking of corruption: congratulations to your office in arranging for 

a favorable ruling in the “Citizens United” case. Now my office can 

spend unlimited untraceable funds on American elections. And let me 

tell you, Comrade, that as investment opportunities go, it’s hard to 

beat a Congress. They go for cheap, and they pay back big.

But that is precisely why I feel that your office must have had a hand 

in the American’s self-inflicted default crisis. For how else are we to 

explain such rank folly? Since when does a plutocracy disguised as a 

republic use the political process - which it owns! - to degrade its 

own credit rating? Baffled by this contradiction of both Marxist 

orthodoxy and capitalist-road revisionism, I consulted with Comrade 

Hari Sheldon. He, after long hours with the supercomputer, extracted 

three possible causes: interference from a rival power (that’s your 

office); royal ambitions from elements of the ruling plutocrats (for 

instance, the Koch brothers); and misdirected revolutionary energies 

from the suppressed masses (the “tea-partiers”).

In Comrade Sheldon’s model these forces interact; to wit, elements 

within the American plutocracy seek supreme power, and the ruination of 

most fellow plutocrats: this “1% of the 1%”, knowing itself treasonous, 

conspires with foreign rivals (that’s us) to manipulate the electoral 

process to provoke a political crisis over imperial credit; a crisis 

supported by masses of disaffected former petty bourgeois.

These “tea-partiers” are of course duped by us Chinese, and by 

America’s economic royalists. Comrade Sheldon told me, with grave 

amusement, that leftists will vote against their own economic 

interests, if they are rich, whereas rightists will vote against their 

own economic interests, if they are poor. Nonetheless the tea-partier’s 

actions have an internal revolutionary logic; for how better to destroy 

a hated plutocracy than by debasing the currency? In a default, Main 

Street will lose big, but Wall Street might lose worse.

How could we Chinese Communists, of all people, question such 

reasoning? Except to ask them: if you don’t like the 1%, then what will 

you think of the 1% of the 1%? We Chinese know the answer to that 

question all too well; but this time it’s the outer barbarian’s 

problem, and not ours.

Our problem is; how do we repossess the island province in an undamaged 

condition? I submit that your office’s plans might compromise this 

mission. At the very least we need to coordinate our efforts. Please 

respond soonest.

Sincerely,

Comrade Hellerstein

*********

Dear Leslie Fish:

Attached find two satires; emails in which I take the role of a Chinese

Communist Party apparatchnik, (Finance Ministry) addressing you in the

role of a comrade in the Propaganda Ministry. I wrote the first on

Sunday, in the expectation of a federal default; I write the second on

Monday, with an austerity budget deal emergent. But who knows, it may

fall through; so I send you and the others both now, in the hope that

one of them might be true.

Satirically yet sincerely,

Nathaniel Hellerstein

***********

(Written Sunday:)

From: Comrade Hellerstein, Finance Ministry

To: Comrade Fish, Propaganda Ministry

Dear Comrade Fish:

I take my Mao hat off to you, Comrade. You and your cadre have well and

truly done it this time. Your office has managed to persuade the

biggest plutocracy the world has ever known to voluntarily bankrupt

itself. This is an event fit for the history books. Interesting times,

indeed. What a mess!

On August 2nd, 2011, a day that shall live in capitalist infamy, the American 

President was instructed by the Congress to 1) spend, 2) not tax, and

3) not borrow. This is of course mathematically impossible. What we see

here is a revolt against arithmetic itself.

I say this with some personal passion attached because to me, as a

worker in the Finance Ministry, 2+2=4 is not just a fact, it is a moral

imperative. I realize that in the Propaganda Ministry a different

standard applies; nonetheless two syllables plus two syllables make

four; ignore that fact and the scansion shall limp. I invoke the

authority of reality here, Comrade Fish.

I call this a revolt against arithmetic (and hence also against logic,

reason, civilization, etc.) because of the stalwart intransigence of

the “Tea Party” insurgents. Their dauntless obstructionism went beyond

the Republican party’s personal vendetta against President Obama (or

any Democratic president); it transcended DC’s normal plutocratic

greed; it achieved the glamour of madness. The Tea Partiers want

chaos. They wanted it all along!

Obama, the centrist, will try to make the center hold, but can he?

Which of three laws is he to break?  - for he must break one.

Shall he usurp Congress’s power to levy taxes? Unthinkable! (Yet I have

just thought it, and so will others).

Shall he usurp Congress’s power to allocate funds? Also unthinkable;

yet that describes the plan to give Treasurer Geithner the power to

choose which bills not to pay.

Or shall he defy the debt ceiling law? This is called the

‘constitutional option’ because it merely defies the law, and not the

Constitution. It will also provoke a Constitutional crisis, with the

President first challenged in the courts (who will probably pass the

hot potato right along) and then yet another impeachment of a

Democratic president - just in time for the election.

All of these will result in political chaos; which is, again, the

stated desire of the Tea Party, which in turn, Comrade Fish, points to

your cadre. To repeat; your Propaganda Ministry has done a masterful

job (in tandem with the Koch brothers and other local collaborators) in

convincing masses of disaffected former petty-bourgeois to an ideology

programmed to bankrupt them and their country. We Chinese Communists

are moderately well-positioned to take advantage of our rival’s

economic self-destruction. On the downside the USA owes us trillions of

dollars, and it is a large market for our goods. On the upside, we have

other markets, and we are ready to step into the power vacuum when

their empire-of-bases collapses.

(This includes the repossession of the breakaway Taiwan province. As

you may recall from previous emails, my office was coordinating with

Comrade Pournelle, of the Defense Ministry, to arrange the purchase of

Taiwan. We Chinese cancel trillions of dollars of American debt, and

the Americans withdraw their forces from the area. That was the plan;

but default may decrease the value of that debt. But not to worry;

Comrade Hari Seldon assures me that the American’s desperation to sell

out their allies will increase in inverse proportion to the value of

their money; therefore the price will remain constant. The nominal

terabucks we own will suffice, whatever they truly denominate, to cover

a face-saving withdrawal by the Americans. Comrade Johnson, of Covert

Ops, poetically warns me that Taiwan may prove to be “as elusive a

lover to China as Canada is to the Americans”. Ah, but this time we have

cash in hand.)

I have reviewed the propaganda that your cadres plan to catapult.

Abolition of the Federal Reserve? A fine plan for chaos! Close their

empire of bases; another win for the Middle Kingdom. I was at first

skeptical about the marijuana-legalization proposal; it’s good for

them, but what’s in it for us Chinese? Why give a rival a good market?

But then I thought; perhaps to ease America’s post-imperial transition

to second-class status. From world’s nuclear superpower to world’s

marijuana farm; there are worse fates.

I am particularly impressed by your proposal to eliminate bureaucratic

waste. Excellent plan! It comes complete with new forms, directives,

organization charts, and outside consultants! That’s bound to

increase efficiency! I jest, Comrade; for surely you know as well as I

do that bureaucratic reform measures rarely reform bureaucracy. The

would-be reformer must contend with  Murphy’s Law, the Peter Principle,

and ultimately the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Alas, Comrade; all

of existence is wasteful! That, indeed, is the Dao; the Cosmic Process;

the Watercourse Way: go with the flow, down the drain. Haven’t you

noticed that by now? But I entirely approve of your plan to tell the

American plutocrats to eliminate all waste. They will fail, and they

will eliminate themselves in the process, for excellent reason.

So I congratulate you, Comrade, for doing with a pen what the Great

Helmsman himself could not do with a sword; namely, make the American

plutocrats go screw themselves. Even if they avoid ruinous default,

their only politically viable alternative at present is a return to

Hooverism - in the midst of a capitalist crisis! Your office has made a

return to Depression-era economics the official consensus!

My only concern, Comrade Fish, is; what if the resulting revolution

goes the wrong way?

Sincerely,

Comrade Hellerstein

*************

(Written Monday:)

From: Comrade Hellerstein, Finance Ministry

To: Comrade Fish, Propaganda Ministry

Dear Comrade Fish:

My condolences on the failure of your cadre’s plan to wreak instant

chaos. You’ll just have to wait a few years to create chaos. The

Americans in DC have gone through their ‘kabuki dance’ (curious, isn’t

it, how they choose Japanese terms? It’s high time for us to penetrate

their mindshare with Chinese terms) and a deal is in. Predictably, the

poor, needy and vulnerable take a hit; also predictably, the richest do

not pay a dime; but surprisingly the cutbacks include the military.

With both military and domestic spending facing austerity, we see the

decline of the American warfare-welfare state. Predictably, it was

welfare that led the decline; only now is the Pentagon itself target of

cuts. Will the over-extended Americans phase out their empire of bases?

Perhaps my office’s Taiwan purchase plan will come to fruition without

our spending a dollar!

With characteristic hypocrisy, cowardice and opportunism, the two

American parties have created a ‘trigger mechanism’ by which unpopular

cuts to the poor and to the military will take place in a year if

nothing gets done; and nothing is what this Congress is most able to

do. It is wu-wei in action; doing by non-doing. How gratifying that the

Americans, those most Western of Westerners, have unconsciously adopted

this Daoist concept. They have yet to explicitly understand that Daoism

is for when you are losing. Winners are Confucians.

It is now Monday afternoon; the House must vote on the plan by evening;

so maybe the default will happen anyhow. But even if Tea Partiers and

Progressives in the House fail to rebel against this deal distasteful

to all, even so it sets up America for renewed decline. To repeat;

Hooverist austerity is now the law of the land; and this in the midst

of a capitalist crisis. This policy is designed to create a decade of

decline, stagnation and slow recovery.

And so, again, I hail you, Comrade Fish, and your cadre, for being the

architects of the Second Great Depression. As you may recall, Comrade,

the great Lenin once remarked that ‘worse is better’. The more obvious

the dysfunction of the system, the greater the options are for the

committed revolutionary.

The question is, which revolution? And it is notorious that

revolutions eat their children. The Tea Partiers in particular should

note that, by merely threatening federal default, they have made a

large number of rich and powerful enemies, both foreign and domestic.

Revolutionary theatrics, that’s one thing. Endangering the national

credit line, that’s something else entirely.

For you can preach love, peace and liberty in the wilderness, and the

authorites will ignore you; you can tell an army of followers to

prepare for the end of the world, and you’ll still barely be noticed;

but if you throw the moneylenders out of the temple, then rest assured,

Comrade, that the Man will nail you to a cross!

Sincerely,

Comrade Hellerstein

**

From: Comrade Anderson, Foreign Affairs Ministry

To: Comrade Hellerstein, Finance Ministry

Comrade Hellerstein:

Comrade Johnson is unfair in referring to the “stupidity” of the neo-cons, or as my cell refers to them, Project Tar Baby. One of the threats to the peaceable expansion of the People’s Republic is the threat of sudden military action by the President of the United States. We have developed the now obvious countermeasure: if an American army occupies a country, it cannot be removed in less than eighteen months, unless it leaves its equipment behind; in neither case is it a credible threat.

Unfortunately, the neocons are not under strict party discipline: only some are agents, others are Trotskyites, pursuing a World Empire which will produce World Socialism after its collapse; yet others have a false consciousness: they have become interested only in the Empire for their lifetime (now short), no matter what happens to it. Fortunately, there is a dialectical harmony among them.

We therefore encourage the use of American force in as many countries as possible, as long as they’re not us. The use of Afghanistan for the first example was controversial. since those forces could have been effective against us; so some Project members sought to divert as many forces as possible to Iraq; but the Americans would have invaded Afghanistan sooner or later, and getting it over with also served to deter reactionary Uighur elements in our Northwest.

Nevertheless, I must commend Comrade McCain for his effort to emmesh US forces in Georgia, which would also have occupied the Russians. Our long term interest, of course, is an American army in Israel: that’s the other end of Asia, and they’ll never get out.

Our backup plan is the Balanced Budget Amendment, which our agents should be able to phrase so that no military action is possible unless it is budgeted for six to eighteen months in advance; that’s as good as Kandahar, and takes care of the Navy as well. (It is true that a nuclear war will be fought off the shelf, and so be possible under the BBA, but that doesn’t matter to us - we have a deterrent.)

Comrade Anderson