The Post-Partisan Emporium

  Adapt, Resist, Deform, Reform Linh Dinh [Cape Town, 9/18/21] On the grimy wall over me is  a flyer  for a missing cat. In the color xerox, this white and tan pussy is lying inside an old cardboard box. Despite this, its owner is clearly not indigent, for the reward is $100. The average monthly salary in Phnom Penh is only 300 bucks. Sure, some Cambodians eat dog and cat, as do Vietnamese, but the majority stay clear of such delicacies. In Thailand, such meats are banned. After WWII, even pork was frowned upon because it was deemed too Chinese. This went nowhere, though. Pork is too tasty. Until the Meiji Restoration of 1868, Japanese ate no beef. Encountering beefy whites forced them to change their diet, to grow taller. Before fighting Russia in 1904-05, they were still concerned about their smaller soldiers, then they won. Now, Japan produces the best beef in the world. When a culture is threatened or already overrun by another, it must quickly overhaul itself. In 191...

India: The Next Front in the War on the BRICS   There is far more to the current multi-modal geopolitical war than just what’s happening in Ukraine. This conflict has led to a myriad of downstream effects and moves which are just as important as what the encirclement of Bakhmut means. For years the wildcard in the BRICS Alliance has been India. India’s rivalry with China as well as its complicated relationships with both Russia and the West have always served as wedge issues to drive the alliance apart. During the Trump years the “I” in BRICS, India, was slowly working its way under Prime Minister Narendra Modi back into the West’s orbit. It led to me thinking that that “I” had been replaced by Iran, especially pre-COVID-19. Today with the ascendence of Lula to the presidency in Brazil, the BRICS have, for now, lost the “B” in their alliance. So, with all of the talk about the BRICS coming into their own as a global economic and political force the situation is far from settled bec...