Slog

News & Arts

Line Out

Music & the City
at Night

« Auto-Tune The Healthcare Debate | No Pepsi! Coke! »

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

International The Decline

Posted by Charles Mudede on Wed, Sep 9, 2009 at 9:12 AM

From HuffPo:

The ruling by a three-member panel of the Federal Court ends all legal avenues for McDonald's to protect its name from what it said was a trademark infringement.

"On the basis of unanimous decision, our view is that" McDonald's plea to carry the case forward has no merit, said chief judge Arifin Zakaria. "It is unfortunate that we have to dismiss the application with costs," he said.

McDonald's will have to pay 10,000 ringgit ($2,900) to McCurry, a popular eatery in Jalan Ipoh on the edge of Kuala Lumpur's downtown. McDonald's lawyers refused to comment, except to say the company will abide by the judgment.

How can we not see this as yet another indication of the decline of American imperial power and the emergence of an economic system that has been decentralized? In my theory, this decline was accelerated not by the crash of 2008 but by the collapse of American unilateralism in 2005. The neocon project in Iraq was an effort to transform an economic global system that America no longer controlled into a military order that it could control. The shift from the "new economy" to the "new war" expressed this design. The project failed. We are now back into new economy and American power is not above but is embedded in this system of states, cities, corporations, and NGOs.

Comments (2) RSS

Oldest First Unregistered On Registered On Add a comment

Reminds me of the McD's spoof in Coming To America.

McCurry sounds good. I wanna try it.

Posted by apres_moi on September 9, 2009 at 9:57 AM

Good god man! I don't even have to look at who posted and I can always tell when it's Charles. He can take any simple straightforward story and turn it into a doctoral philosophy thesis.

Yes, Charles, this could be another indication of the decline of American imperial power. It could show that our economy and military suck.

or

It could just mean that to win an international trademark infringement case you need more to go on than "both of us have vaguely Irish sounding names".

Posted by Root on September 9, 2009 at 11:46 AM