The fuzzy nebulous cloud widely known as 'liberals' may be more a threat to the well being of the working classes (aka: the middle class) and the poor than the screaming, manic right. Obama illustrates and verifies this point; not by his words, but by his actions. And it is right there we spot the enemy in our midst.
The manic right stand out like flames in the night. They stand for their own principles and will rarely concede some select issues to protect their own core neo liberal beliefs. They will fight to the death for every inch. They are precisely what they seem to be.
Herd Mentality
The line between right wing liberals and apparent leftists is blurry, especially in the USA since Obama was elected. The differences can be seen however where points of friction occur. There is undoubtedly a large percentage of bona fide leftists that identify themselves as liberals and there is also a large portion that are actually right wingers posing as liberals. This may be due to identification with liberals on social issues. These liberals may actually see capitalism as a great panacea and believe that profit taking has the potential to care for those that are unable to work for a living. Not even the most rabid right winger would suggest this but, among liberals, that naive attitude runs rampant.
The phenomena where liberals remain loyal to Obama may have much to do with a team sports mentality; us vs them. That hard mentality seems to render previous critical thinkers, stunned. There are many examples. Two that jump to mind are Michael Moore and Bill Maher.
There are opportunities to observe real beliefs beneath the public image. Within the great halls of liberalism, image is everything. A recent confrontation between Bill Maher and constitutional expert and political journalist, Glen Greenwald, betrayed Maher's carefully crafted image. Link here to view the debate:
Maher's language betrays him. Language like 'our side' in reference to the global atrocities committed by his political leader and his strident defense of all things Obama suggests the same inhuman view of Muslims as Tony Blair or Maher's professed nemesis, George W Bush.
Whatever political tradition Greenwald identifies with we can say with certainty that he is a substantial and thoughtful intellect and as such, loyal only to principles, not popular bandwagons. There are many others like him; Noam Chomsky, Tariq Ali, Norman Solomon, and many others are steeped in integrity and secure in their views. However, these substantive intellectuals are included within the same blurry concept called liberalism whether they identify themselves that way or not.
Social Democrats
Social democrats have been painting lipstick on the capitalist pig even before John Maynard Keynes showed a way to trickle wealth down to lower classes. His efforts to stave off a threatening groundswell of anti-capitalist sentiment during the great depression worked and re-validated the so called free enterprise system. Now that Keynes is dead, seemingly, they will scramble to either spin war and unbridled capitalism in brave new ways or, they may come up with ways to soft-sell austerity, perhaps with hints of New Deal elements.
Their analysis will never penetrate deep enough to show that wealth that trickles down is created by workers in the first place. Neither will they probe the failings of Keynesian policies. Social democrats are weak on substance but strong on spin and the manufacture of plastic politicians.
Last month (April 2013) the Canadian social democratic NDP (New Democratic Party) voted to remove references to the term 'socialism' from the party's constitution. The NDP has been ratcheting their way rightward since the 60s and now believe they have secured the top of the pragmatic and unprincipled center. At that same convention, members were ordered to remove a banner critical of Obama's drone strikes in order not to offend Obama's national field director who was scheduled to speak.
In the 1990s Britain's Labour Party made a sharp move to the right, distancing itself from whatever ties remained to real egalitarian principles. In 1997 so called 'new labour' was to sweep in its champion, Tony Blair who, as Prime Minister, helped the party move past the center to the conservative right. It would be hard to imagine a more right wing politician than Tony Blair still posing as anything close to moderate. While Blair frequently hypes up the threat of extremism, an examination of his views can only lead one to conclude that his views differ little, if at all, from the extreme right. Former Conservative Prime Minister recently said, “I remember joking once that I had gone swimming in the River Thames and left my clothes on the bank and when I got back, Tony Blair was wearing them.” 1
The vulgar opportunist that is Tony Blair cannot be overstated. His support for weapons companies though hawkish war mongering have paid off large. “The £2m-plus annual fee from JP Morgan Chase... the $250,000 for a 45-minute speech on the US lecture circuit... the all-expenses paid jaunts to Jerusalem as the Quartet's (ineffectual) Middle East envoy... it all serves as a reminder to members of the western political elite of the enormous financial rewards that will come their way if they toe the line.” 2
In 2007 “BAE systems is (was) alleged, by British media, to have secretly paid Saudi Prince Bandar more than £1bn in connection with Britain's biggest ever weapons contract. There have been demands for an investigation. In response to this, Tony Blair decided to stop the Serious Fraud Office from investigating alleged bribery relating to the BAE contract with Saudi Arabia. It involves a £43 billion arms deal.” 3
He said he didn't want to sour relations with the Saudi dictators.
Tony Blair's habit of turning tricks on Downing street only show his pragmatic side. He is as John Major suggests, a right wing ideologue. He persists in urging the Labour Party to the right and he persists in his his thirst for blood in the Middle East.
The USA
Bill Clinton is as responsible for the financial meltdown that began in 2008 as the banks. Depending on how we look at it, we could say he was even more complicit than the banks. He was in cahoots with them as was his co-conspirator, Sen. Phil Gramm. The reason he is responsible is because he repealed the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999, a move the banks could not pull off without political stooges doing their bidding. That particular De-regulation paved the way for large banks to use, abuse, and ruin the lives of their customers and the economy as a whole. The result was a bonanza for the banks and they utilized a myriad of mesmerizing shell games to reap unprecedented profits.
And what does Clinton get? Like Tony Blair, he continues to reap benefits from his nefarious dealings. “ Clinton teamed up with Tony Blair at private equity and consulting group Teneo Capital, one of whose clients was MF Global, the bankrupt broker-dealer run by former New Jersey Sen. and Goldman Sachs CEO Jon Corzine. After losing bets taken with client money, MF Global collapsed. And despite a swirl of controversy, no criminal charges will be filed against Corzine. There’s no evidence that the payoff to Clinton made a difference in the Department of Justice’s position, but then, it couldn’t have hurt.”
“He received $125,000 in cash apiece from Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse just two months after signing the bill deregulating derivatives. His speaking arrangements, a well-known conduit to funnel cash to retired politicians, has garnered him over $80 million since 2001, a substantial amount of which has come from the financial services industry he helped.”
“In 2010, Clinton received a six-figure cash payment from the American Chamber of Commerce in Cairo, one of many payments he received from groups with significant policy interests before the State Department run by his spouse.”
In 2011 “Clinton received six-figure cash payments from Goldman Sachs ($200,000), HSBC Securities ($200,000), Fidelity Investments ($175,000), TD Bank ($260,000), Itau BBA USA Securities ($175,000), privatization specialist Highstar Capital ($175,000), Jefferies and Co. ($200,000), UBS Wealth Management ($165,000 and $150,000), American Express ($250,000), TD Ameritrade ($200,000), Highland Capital ($175,000), Wells Fargo ($200,000), the Association for Financial Professionals ($175,000) and Bank of America Merrill Lynch ($200,000).” 4
Aside from sleazy dealings and large kick-backs, the ethical profile of liberals in general is as bad as that of the extreme right. Considering the reality of their political maneuvering, their skill at hoodwinking not only the public but many journalists, especially those employed by large private interests, they are much worse.
The criminal performance of Barack Obama as President is hard to even fathom. This former professor of constitutional law openly boasts about murdering people. Prior to Obama, murders were carried out but they were not openly displayed for all to see. Obama's murdering rampage is its own sick and macabre reality television show. Aside from ongoing drone strikes on innocent people, where all that is apparently needed to murder somebody is 'intelligence' from a local yokel, let's consider one event.
Beyond the callous notion that the President can kill foreigners if somebody claims them to be a threat, Obama murdered 16 year old Abdulrahman Awlaki, the son of Anwar Awlaki as he was making his way to a barbecue in Yemen. His crime was that he was his father's son. Officials say that he was not the intended target. The vile bastards are not bragging about this 'hit'. His father, Anwar, was murdered by Obama two weeks prior. The drone strike also killed eight other people that happened to be nearby.
The President has a 'kill list'; a list that he personally oversees. "The president of the United States believes that he has the power to order people killed, assassinated, in total secrecy, without any due process, without transparency or oversight of any kind,". 5
Obama is also responsible for a massive security apparatus where spying on citizens has become normalized. As the security state continues to expand and impinge on citizens, unabated. The latest development is the expected support from the Administration to back up FBI proposed “sweeping overhaul of surveillance laws.” 6
Obama isn't only contemptuous of the American Constitution. He has regressed legal progress back to before the Magna Carta.
Obama is fully aware of the precedents he sets when he openly violates these legal basis. If we contemplate what that is about, we may feel a shudder; we should.
Although we live in interesting times, they promise to get far more 'interesting'. The Dow Jones Industrial Average passed 15,000 for the first time ever. This wealth is a mirage created by the Federal Reserve. Its basis rests in ether. It will collapse and it will crash hard. And while this dizzying expansion of capital occurs, folks on the ground are suffering. And as this fiasco is perpetrated against good people everywhere, conservatives and social democrats alike dance to the tune called by large finance capitalists.
At some point you will need to seriously ask yourself: What side am I on?
References
1. http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/06/12/tony-blair-right-wing-says-john-major_n_1589295.html
2. http://www.theweek.co.uk/politics/24457/tony-blairs-reward-following-right-foreign-policy#ixzz2SzubzAlX
3. http://leftlite.blogspot.ca/search?updated-min=2007-01-01T00:00:00-04:00&updated-max=2008-01-01T00:00:00-04:00&max-results=6
4. http://www.salon.com/2012/09/14/clintons_no_liberal_hero/
5. http://www.democracynow.org/2012/5/30/glenn_greenwald_obamas_secret_kill_list
6. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/08/us/politics/obama-may-back-fbi-plan-to-wiretap-web-users.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
This blog is an archive of articles I've published in MWC News, Indymedia, and on Newsgroups.
Saturday, May 11, 2013
Friday, March 29, 2013
The Saudi Model
The United States of America’s long term goal for the Middle East is to establish Saudi type dictatorships throughout the volatile oil rich region. One of the main objectives toward that goal is the destabilisation of unpredictable or disobedient regimes such as the current Assad regime in Syria.
Destabilisation as Objective
As outrageous a hypotheses this may seem, it has the power to explain America’s foreign policy in the Middle East for the past decade. While it may seem ludicrous that the USA would empower radical Islamist movements over stable governments, the fact remains that the USA has been carrying out a campaign of de-stabilization from Libya to Iran to Pakistan with many stops in between.
As suggested here
“It may be that the United States had no intention of destroying the Taliban or Al Qeada. If we look at outcomes, we may conclude; on the contrary. The pattern suggests that the Americans aim to empower the clerics throughout the Middle East and to destroy the more secular and rationally based governments.”
The fact is that both the Taliban and Al Qeada have been empowered more than ever thanks to the war on terror. The Taliban have become more a threat inside Pakistan than ever and Al Qaeda is operating with impunity in Iraq, Syria, Libya, and throughout Northern Africa and the Middle East. If we consider the outcomes of Western interventions as opposed to what the stated goals of these interventions had been, we can only conclude that the American State Department, the Pentagon, NATO, the CIA/Homeland Security have taken the concept of incompetence to a rather bizarre new level. It is not simple incompetence, it is a matter of making America’s own officially stated nightmare come true. There’s something not right about this picture.
Western agitation in Syria shows no sign of abating; on the contrary. Assad, like Saddam, is a Bathist and like Gaddafi and Saddam, quasi socialist. Western media showed real excitement several weeks ago when they had reports of weapons of mass destruction used by Syria against the rebels. They have stopped reporting on it and this can only mean that either there were no chemical weapons or, it was the rebels that were using them as alleged by Assad.
The Americans have wizard-like skill in bringing disparate groups together for a common cause. It is amazing what billions of dollars in arms and cash can do. But it will be the people of Syria and the region that will not only suffer war, but the very unstable morning after.
Western imperial models of interference in other nations show well established pattern of exploiting chauvinistic divisions in all societies. When Shias are attacking Sunnis and vice versa, they are doing unpaid ground work for the State Department. Divide and conquer techniques in Ireland pitting Catholics against Protestants have worked very well in terms of the British Empires objectives. It’s an effective modus operandi that has been employed by Empires in every corner of the globe for many centuries.
Destabilising Pakistan
Musharraf’s return may fit into the ongoing destabilisation efforts of Pakistan. On the other hand, he may on his own, apart from Washington’s directives. Considering the scant media attention on his return, this is probably accurate.
Relations with the West have been increasingly strained in the past number of years. Previous to this, Pakistan, like Saudi Arabia, was supportive of Afghanistan’s Taliban. Musharrif was an obedient puppet. As soon as Washington declared the Taliban an enemy, he followed suit. This has created much internal strife in the country. The United States however have much influence due to the billions of American tax dollars that go to Pakistan. Of course, this aid (like much of the aid handed out all over the world) is a way to funnel large sums of tax dollars into the hands of arms sellers and private contractors. There are undoubtedly a significant number of powerful Pakistanis, both in the military and outside the military that benefit from this aid; it certainly does buy influence.
Public relations between Pakistan and the West have been deteriorating and continue to do so. Fractures and strains both domestically and internationally make Pakistan a very unstable situation. Pakistan has been showing increasing levels of disobedience and Western politicians and media are openly critical and suspicious of that government. Mike Mullen, past chair of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that “The Haqqani network...acts as a veritable arm of Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence Agency” and blamed them for an attack on the American Embassy in Kabul.
This level of distrust of the Haqqani group and its concomitant distrust of Pakistan government places Pakistan on the very same ground as Syria, Gaddafi’s Libya, or any state that does not fit with Washington’s long term goals and objectives. Drone strikes continue unabated in Pakistan, further exacerbating already strained relations. The blatant and widely boasted murder of Osama bin laden has not helped the situation.
The likelihood that Pakistan will remain stable over the next decade is remote. Pakistan is armed with nukes. If the USA needs a Saudi king, the need is no greater than in Pakistan.
Syria
According to the New York Times,
“With help from the C.I.A., Arab governments and Turkey have sharply increased their military aid to Syria’s opposition fighters in recent months, expanding a secret airlift of arms and equipment for the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, according to air traffic data, interviews with officials in several countries and the accounts of rebel commanders.”
The times article points out that the United States, Turkey, and other nations are coordinating large and frequent arms shipments from places such as Crotia.
Hassan Aboud, a commander of one of the rebel groups operating in Syria said, “There are fake Free Syrian Army brigades claiming to be revolutionaries, and when they get the weapons they sell them in trade”. The extent to which the weapons are sold for profit by local criminals isn’t known but given the various elements at play, there can be little doubt many faux rebels are getting very wealthy. The additional problem with this, for the West, is that it is likely that those same weapons will be used against the USA.
Jordan, Qatar, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, The United States, Crotia and others are involved in these frequent massive arms shipments to forces opposed to Assad.
After two years of fighting the opposition forces and more importantly, those facilitating them seem more determined than ever in their efforts to topple Assad.. At this point, heavy fighting is reported in Damascus and an attack on the University of Damascus has killed 15 students.
From the sidelines, the whole affair looks like an enormous disaster as well as a threat for the West and potentially, and most especially, Israel. Syrian destabilization may be key to the destabilization of the whole area. This will threaten Iran as well as unintended collaterals. Neighbours like Lebanon may be affected but if this hypothesis is correct, Lebanon must also fall.
The Arab League has formally recognized the Syrian rebels and Qatar has recently opened up an embassy in recognition of the Syrian opposition as Syria’s government. Qatar is an excellent example of the Saudi model. It is brutal and does not tolerate dissent. It enforces strict Islamic law. This result is a population free from dissent or trouble of any kind. The trains run on time and it is very easy to control.
Qatar may also be remembered for its enthusiastic recognition of the National Transition Council during the hostilities to usurp Gaddafi’s less than enthusiastic obedience to Western directives. Qatar showed it’s eager subservience to Washington by becoming the second nation (after France) to do so.
Progressive elements to governments in the Middle East are in the process of being wiped out in favour of a return to regressive and absolute feudal rule. The destabilization of Iran through internal dissent, a government that is both ruled through democratic elections as well as the Leader of the Revolution, or, Supreme Leader, may be seen as futile. Assassination may also be futile and pointless. Destabilization through war may get Washington closer to its objectives.
An era of destabilization rife with terrorism and competing religious factions waging civil war against each other may appears to be in the cards.
Israel
Israel will be in very deep trouble if this hypothesis has merit.
The instability in Egypt, Syria, general Palestinian suffering at Israel’s hand and the general antipathy throughout the Middle East place Israel in a very precarious place. As is often the case, what is promoted as increased security is anything but. Attacking Iran may push their tender situation over a tipping point.
Israeli citizens need to look at the history of American pragmatism when it comes to foreign affairs. When any nation, movement, or individual are no longer useful, they are either forgotten or finished off. Should the Saudi model gambit fail, and it will, Israel will be in a very difficult place. On the other hand, we would be hard pressed to find anything more hawkish than an Israeli politician. Obviously, there are no shortage of hawks within the voting population. Perhaps the people of Israel have considered many of the factors and dynamics that are considered here but choose to maintain settlements, Palestinian oppression, and war with Iran. We must also consider however that many Israelis are friends of their neigbours and want more than anything else, peace.
To accept the idea that the United States would be as ruthless and irresponsible as this article suggests would suggest something beyond scepticism regarding Uncle Sam. It would suggest something beyond cynicism. It would suggest a belief that the USA, NATO, and many of its allies conspire to buy leaders in the Muslim world and pay them to work against their own people. It further suggests that they have no qualms about waging war, killing scores of innocent civilians, and oppressing whole regions of the world in order to eventually control them.
That sounds about right.
Destabilisation as Objective
As outrageous a hypotheses this may seem, it has the power to explain America’s foreign policy in the Middle East for the past decade. While it may seem ludicrous that the USA would empower radical Islamist movements over stable governments, the fact remains that the USA has been carrying out a campaign of de-stabilization from Libya to Iran to Pakistan with many stops in between.
As suggested here
“It may be that the United States had no intention of destroying the Taliban or Al Qeada. If we look at outcomes, we may conclude; on the contrary. The pattern suggests that the Americans aim to empower the clerics throughout the Middle East and to destroy the more secular and rationally based governments.”
The fact is that both the Taliban and Al Qeada have been empowered more than ever thanks to the war on terror. The Taliban have become more a threat inside Pakistan than ever and Al Qaeda is operating with impunity in Iraq, Syria, Libya, and throughout Northern Africa and the Middle East. If we consider the outcomes of Western interventions as opposed to what the stated goals of these interventions had been, we can only conclude that the American State Department, the Pentagon, NATO, the CIA/Homeland Security have taken the concept of incompetence to a rather bizarre new level. It is not simple incompetence, it is a matter of making America’s own officially stated nightmare come true. There’s something not right about this picture.
Western agitation in Syria shows no sign of abating; on the contrary. Assad, like Saddam, is a Bathist and like Gaddafi and Saddam, quasi socialist. Western media showed real excitement several weeks ago when they had reports of weapons of mass destruction used by Syria against the rebels. They have stopped reporting on it and this can only mean that either there were no chemical weapons or, it was the rebels that were using them as alleged by Assad.
The Americans have wizard-like skill in bringing disparate groups together for a common cause. It is amazing what billions of dollars in arms and cash can do. But it will be the people of Syria and the region that will not only suffer war, but the very unstable morning after.
Western imperial models of interference in other nations show well established pattern of exploiting chauvinistic divisions in all societies. When Shias are attacking Sunnis and vice versa, they are doing unpaid ground work for the State Department. Divide and conquer techniques in Ireland pitting Catholics against Protestants have worked very well in terms of the British Empires objectives. It’s an effective modus operandi that has been employed by Empires in every corner of the globe for many centuries.
Destabilising Pakistan
Musharraf’s return may fit into the ongoing destabilisation efforts of Pakistan. On the other hand, he may on his own, apart from Washington’s directives. Considering the scant media attention on his return, this is probably accurate.
Relations with the West have been increasingly strained in the past number of years. Previous to this, Pakistan, like Saudi Arabia, was supportive of Afghanistan’s Taliban. Musharrif was an obedient puppet. As soon as Washington declared the Taliban an enemy, he followed suit. This has created much internal strife in the country. The United States however have much influence due to the billions of American tax dollars that go to Pakistan. Of course, this aid (like much of the aid handed out all over the world) is a way to funnel large sums of tax dollars into the hands of arms sellers and private contractors. There are undoubtedly a significant number of powerful Pakistanis, both in the military and outside the military that benefit from this aid; it certainly does buy influence.
Public relations between Pakistan and the West have been deteriorating and continue to do so. Fractures and strains both domestically and internationally make Pakistan a very unstable situation. Pakistan has been showing increasing levels of disobedience and Western politicians and media are openly critical and suspicious of that government. Mike Mullen, past chair of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that “The Haqqani network...acts as a veritable arm of Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence Agency” and blamed them for an attack on the American Embassy in Kabul.
This level of distrust of the Haqqani group and its concomitant distrust of Pakistan government places Pakistan on the very same ground as Syria, Gaddafi’s Libya, or any state that does not fit with Washington’s long term goals and objectives. Drone strikes continue unabated in Pakistan, further exacerbating already strained relations. The blatant and widely boasted murder of Osama bin laden has not helped the situation.
The likelihood that Pakistan will remain stable over the next decade is remote. Pakistan is armed with nukes. If the USA needs a Saudi king, the need is no greater than in Pakistan.
Syria
According to the New York Times,
“With help from the C.I.A., Arab governments and Turkey have sharply increased their military aid to Syria’s opposition fighters in recent months, expanding a secret airlift of arms and equipment for the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, according to air traffic data, interviews with officials in several countries and the accounts of rebel commanders.”
The times article points out that the United States, Turkey, and other nations are coordinating large and frequent arms shipments from places such as Crotia.
Hassan Aboud, a commander of one of the rebel groups operating in Syria said, “There are fake Free Syrian Army brigades claiming to be revolutionaries, and when they get the weapons they sell them in trade”. The extent to which the weapons are sold for profit by local criminals isn’t known but given the various elements at play, there can be little doubt many faux rebels are getting very wealthy. The additional problem with this, for the West, is that it is likely that those same weapons will be used against the USA.
Jordan, Qatar, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, The United States, Crotia and others are involved in these frequent massive arms shipments to forces opposed to Assad.
After two years of fighting the opposition forces and more importantly, those facilitating them seem more determined than ever in their efforts to topple Assad.. At this point, heavy fighting is reported in Damascus and an attack on the University of Damascus has killed 15 students.
From the sidelines, the whole affair looks like an enormous disaster as well as a threat for the West and potentially, and most especially, Israel. Syrian destabilization may be key to the destabilization of the whole area. This will threaten Iran as well as unintended collaterals. Neighbours like Lebanon may be affected but if this hypothesis is correct, Lebanon must also fall.
The Arab League has formally recognized the Syrian rebels and Qatar has recently opened up an embassy in recognition of the Syrian opposition as Syria’s government. Qatar is an excellent example of the Saudi model. It is brutal and does not tolerate dissent. It enforces strict Islamic law. This result is a population free from dissent or trouble of any kind. The trains run on time and it is very easy to control.
Qatar may also be remembered for its enthusiastic recognition of the National Transition Council during the hostilities to usurp Gaddafi’s less than enthusiastic obedience to Western directives. Qatar showed it’s eager subservience to Washington by becoming the second nation (after France) to do so.
Progressive elements to governments in the Middle East are in the process of being wiped out in favour of a return to regressive and absolute feudal rule. The destabilization of Iran through internal dissent, a government that is both ruled through democratic elections as well as the Leader of the Revolution, or, Supreme Leader, may be seen as futile. Assassination may also be futile and pointless. Destabilization through war may get Washington closer to its objectives.
An era of destabilization rife with terrorism and competing religious factions waging civil war against each other may appears to be in the cards.
Israel
Israel will be in very deep trouble if this hypothesis has merit.
The instability in Egypt, Syria, general Palestinian suffering at Israel’s hand and the general antipathy throughout the Middle East place Israel in a very precarious place. As is often the case, what is promoted as increased security is anything but. Attacking Iran may push their tender situation over a tipping point.
Israeli citizens need to look at the history of American pragmatism when it comes to foreign affairs. When any nation, movement, or individual are no longer useful, they are either forgotten or finished off. Should the Saudi model gambit fail, and it will, Israel will be in a very difficult place. On the other hand, we would be hard pressed to find anything more hawkish than an Israeli politician. Obviously, there are no shortage of hawks within the voting population. Perhaps the people of Israel have considered many of the factors and dynamics that are considered here but choose to maintain settlements, Palestinian oppression, and war with Iran. We must also consider however that many Israelis are friends of their neigbours and want more than anything else, peace.
To accept the idea that the United States would be as ruthless and irresponsible as this article suggests would suggest something beyond scepticism regarding Uncle Sam. It would suggest something beyond cynicism. It would suggest a belief that the USA, NATO, and many of its allies conspire to buy leaders in the Muslim world and pay them to work against their own people. It further suggests that they have no qualms about waging war, killing scores of innocent civilians, and oppressing whole regions of the world in order to eventually control them.
That sounds about right.
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Our Great Historical Dilemma
The lengths the great media circus will go to to make sure we are not alarmed has long crossed the line beyond irresponsibility to criminal collusion. Perhaps collusion isn't the best term since it implies a separate entity is colluding with a criminal entity. In this case, they are one and the same. Approximaltey 90% of media we typically use is owned by six very large corporations. It is in their interests that we are pacified and docile.
In the meantime, nations, communities, and individuals suffer one economic blow after another. Be patient 'they' tell us, the 'recovery' is sluggish.
The problem is far deeper than economists and politicians will admit.
The Productivity Problem
In a refreshing and poignant article in Global Research entitled 'Recession, Depression or Jobless Recovery? Long-Term Unemployment under “Neoliberal Capitalism”' by Alan Nasser (Feb. 1, 2013),the dilemma imposed by what John Maynard Keynes dubbed 'technological unemployment' suggests that labour itself is becoming obsolete. As technology advances well ahead of the inertia of the political and economic gatekeepers of capitalism, labour forces are becoming increasingly polarized. What is being rapidly eliminated is the mid skill, mid pay occupations that have been the spending stimulant and tax base of advanced nations. “The job market is bifurcating into high skill, high paying, advanced-education jobs at one extreme, and low skill, low paying, low education jobs at the other. Disappearing are occupations in the middle of the skill and pay distribution.”
If we consider the logic of this observation we may also consider the speed and insatiable drive for firms to bring production costs down. In this effort, human labour is eliminated or reduced; profits go up and so does unemployment. The logical extension of this trend will eventually eliminate human labour as a relevant factor in the production of things and in providing services. While arguments have been made that technology will plateau and whatever is left of a workforce will be secure, the fact is that microchip technology is not the same as a car or any other single utility technological development where plateaus occur rather quickly. Microchip technology is more akin to electricity where the potential may never be fully realized.
In the 1980s Western governments hitched their ride to the neo liberal train. As Nasser points out in his article, the recoveries of 1970, 1975, and 1982 resulted in recovering employment. The recessions of 1991, 2001, and 2009 have seen a ratcheting up of long term unemployment. That is not to say we can blame it all on neo liberals. They are simple whores suited to the times. The real problem is well beyond ideology or idealism of any sort.
Nasser points out that while much has been made of the problem of offshoring, the real crux of the matter is that human labour is in competition with technology. We are not competing with Asians that will work harder, longer, and cheaper than we in the West are accustomed to; We are competing with machines that will work far longer, harder, and cheaper than any human. As Nasser points out: “Over the period 1995-2002, China lost 15 million manufacturing jobs, the US lost 2 million and the whole world lost 22 million manufacturing jobs. The great majority of these jobs were lost to automation and other productivity-enhancing innovations.”
The production capacity of firms and nations has grown tremendously over the past few decades. It will grow much more. As a result human beings increasingly do without. Vast manufacturing centres rust away while people need work. The commodities that people need in order to survive are becoming more difficult to obtain. The situation is utterly absurd. Solving the production problem should be a reason for celebration but, as it is, it may lead us to barbarism.
Living in the Past
We are married to an obsolete social and political means of getting things done. It's as if the caterpillar refuses to be a butterfly. The reason people are homeless, starving, and unemployed is not the fault of technology. The profit motive itself with plenty of help from the state prohibits human beings with little or no money from producing or obtaining what is needed. The capacity to produce enough is secure. Production does not occur unless Johnny can make on his investment however.
What has not been solved is the distribution problem. That is a problem that capitalism not only cannot solve, it will do whatever it takes with whatever means possible to stop it from being solved. It is right here that capitalism shifts from a glorified system of greed to a pernicious system of social cancer. As an abstract system, the bent to harm human beings is baked into the software.
We have entered a pivotal historical period. It is as if the future of the material/technological world has imposed itself upon us in spades. Yet here we remain, stuck is some quasi feudal system which is increasingly polarized between those that have and those that don't. And as time marches on, our social worlds tend toward backward. The state is becoming increasingly less rational and more brutal. Our social trajectory to the future has gone in reverse. Ironically, the figurehead steering the direction was a professor of constitutional law. Where we have been plied with Kyensian sugar in the past, we will find the cruel barbs of the state apparatus in the future. There is seemingly no limit on the capacity to spend on weapons, war, and state security but for human beings austerity, starvation, and war.
On the other hand we have much room for optimism. With the production problem solved, more or less, we have the possibility of obtaining the material we need to survive and to be comfortable. The reduction/abolition of work is a very positive development in human history.
It is up to us to solve the distribution problem.
In the meantime, nations, communities, and individuals suffer one economic blow after another. Be patient 'they' tell us, the 'recovery' is sluggish.
The problem is far deeper than economists and politicians will admit.
The Productivity Problem
In a refreshing and poignant article in Global Research entitled 'Recession, Depression or Jobless Recovery? Long-Term Unemployment under “Neoliberal Capitalism”' by Alan Nasser (Feb. 1, 2013),the dilemma imposed by what John Maynard Keynes dubbed 'technological unemployment' suggests that labour itself is becoming obsolete. As technology advances well ahead of the inertia of the political and economic gatekeepers of capitalism, labour forces are becoming increasingly polarized. What is being rapidly eliminated is the mid skill, mid pay occupations that have been the spending stimulant and tax base of advanced nations. “The job market is bifurcating into high skill, high paying, advanced-education jobs at one extreme, and low skill, low paying, low education jobs at the other. Disappearing are occupations in the middle of the skill and pay distribution.”
If we consider the logic of this observation we may also consider the speed and insatiable drive for firms to bring production costs down. In this effort, human labour is eliminated or reduced; profits go up and so does unemployment. The logical extension of this trend will eventually eliminate human labour as a relevant factor in the production of things and in providing services. While arguments have been made that technology will plateau and whatever is left of a workforce will be secure, the fact is that microchip technology is not the same as a car or any other single utility technological development where plateaus occur rather quickly. Microchip technology is more akin to electricity where the potential may never be fully realized.
In the 1980s Western governments hitched their ride to the neo liberal train. As Nasser points out in his article, the recoveries of 1970, 1975, and 1982 resulted in recovering employment. The recessions of 1991, 2001, and 2009 have seen a ratcheting up of long term unemployment. That is not to say we can blame it all on neo liberals. They are simple whores suited to the times. The real problem is well beyond ideology or idealism of any sort.
Nasser points out that while much has been made of the problem of offshoring, the real crux of the matter is that human labour is in competition with technology. We are not competing with Asians that will work harder, longer, and cheaper than we in the West are accustomed to; We are competing with machines that will work far longer, harder, and cheaper than any human. As Nasser points out: “Over the period 1995-2002, China lost 15 million manufacturing jobs, the US lost 2 million and the whole world lost 22 million manufacturing jobs. The great majority of these jobs were lost to automation and other productivity-enhancing innovations.”
The production capacity of firms and nations has grown tremendously over the past few decades. It will grow much more. As a result human beings increasingly do without. Vast manufacturing centres rust away while people need work. The commodities that people need in order to survive are becoming more difficult to obtain. The situation is utterly absurd. Solving the production problem should be a reason for celebration but, as it is, it may lead us to barbarism.
Living in the Past
We are married to an obsolete social and political means of getting things done. It's as if the caterpillar refuses to be a butterfly. The reason people are homeless, starving, and unemployed is not the fault of technology. The profit motive itself with plenty of help from the state prohibits human beings with little or no money from producing or obtaining what is needed. The capacity to produce enough is secure. Production does not occur unless Johnny can make on his investment however.
What has not been solved is the distribution problem. That is a problem that capitalism not only cannot solve, it will do whatever it takes with whatever means possible to stop it from being solved. It is right here that capitalism shifts from a glorified system of greed to a pernicious system of social cancer. As an abstract system, the bent to harm human beings is baked into the software.
We have entered a pivotal historical period. It is as if the future of the material/technological world has imposed itself upon us in spades. Yet here we remain, stuck is some quasi feudal system which is increasingly polarized between those that have and those that don't. And as time marches on, our social worlds tend toward backward. The state is becoming increasingly less rational and more brutal. Our social trajectory to the future has gone in reverse. Ironically, the figurehead steering the direction was a professor of constitutional law. Where we have been plied with Kyensian sugar in the past, we will find the cruel barbs of the state apparatus in the future. There is seemingly no limit on the capacity to spend on weapons, war, and state security but for human beings austerity, starvation, and war.
On the other hand we have much room for optimism. With the production problem solved, more or less, we have the possibility of obtaining the material we need to survive and to be comfortable. The reduction/abolition of work is a very positive development in human history.
It is up to us to solve the distribution problem.
Thursday, November 29, 2012
The Critical Condition of Capitalism
Throughout the western world increasing misery has become an expectation. A generation ago and for generations before that, the apparent financial and social trajectory was upward. With that expectation firm, we had forgiven astounding inequality, pockets of deprivation, and public generosity to those that least need it. That was then. At this point no serious economist will suggest things will be getting better in the future. The question now: How bad will it get?
Economists and the Labour Theory of Value
Who knows how bad it will get? We have been listening to economists provide us with information and analysis that is so misguided and wrong that their credibility is little more than an illusion based on wishful thinking. They, their colleagues in the press and in government continue to bury their heads in the muck hoping that if they kick the can down the road, if they tell us all that everything is going to be okay, they will be. The problem with this is that the very serious and fundamental issues that have the Western world sinking are not being addressed or even considered. Part of the reason for that is that there are may be no way of fixing these problems short of revolution. We can lipstick a pig as much as we want but at the end of the day, it’s still a pig.
Over the past three or maybe four decades, economics departments at universities have been marching lock step to the command of Milton Freidman and the Chicago School (and the Austrian School) of economics. And today, if you consult one of these trained oracles they will continue to repeat the same voo-doo they digested at school. They will tell you that wealth flows from the top down; that it emanates from investors and the wealthy. It is (was) logical then to believe that if we manage to seduce these investors to our own location they will create jobs.
At this point in time, we really need to analyze the credibility of these economists. Maybe they understand the situation, maybe not. The latter appears to be the case if we read their opinions and analysis. To the extent they blindly follow those that pay them, they are accomplices. They manage to stave off their natural loss of credibility because they will say whatever the IMF, the World Bank, investors or right wing think tanks tell them to say. As long as they all delude themselves in unison, they can hide in plain sight. To make matters worse, they listen to and applaud each other. We really shouldn’t assume they don’t actually believe what they say. They have been thoroughly indoctrinated.
As a result, we see governments throughout the Western world continue to apply the same measures to deal with the crisis that have been key factors in causing it. The unrelenting drive to austerity is but one example of this.
The most crucial reality that they and we need to understand is the labour theory of value as formulated by Adam Smith, elaborated on by Ricardo, and fine-tuned by Karl Marx. To understand this economic point of view is to at least consider the possibility that wealth starts with labour (or nature).
Understanding the labour theory of value requires turning the economic order, as it is, 180 degrees. This view makes clear that the wealth we see around us, the computer, the desk, the chair you sit on and everything else that we use to survive and make life easier is a result of work. And without the input of work and without control (ownership) of resources, commodities have little to no market value (as opposed to use value).
This perspective sees wealth begin with the ore in the ground and the raw materials that we process for use. The air we breathe does not need to be processed and it cannot be controlled (owned) by private investors. If those conditions were in place, we would pay for the air we breathe. Medical care, food, and shelter require processing and these items can be controlled (owned). As a result of this control, we are *not* free in a most profound way; that is, we must sell ourselves, our time, for a wage in order to survive.
The wizards of the Chicago School (as well as the IMF, the Federal Reserve, the World Bank etc.) and governments throughout Europe and the Western World assume that it is the 1 % that provide the rest of us with what we need to survive (jobs and money). With that assumption in hand, they naturally assume that if their wealth is protected that will ensure prosperity ahead. This assumption has led to bailouts, quantitative easing, and scores of measures to secure a protective dome around the very constituency that has brought us all to the brink. That has made a bad situation critical.
What is really crucial for us to understand is that the common notion of what wealth is is wrong. Money is representative of wealth as a medium of exchange. It would be difficult to bring several pigs to a store to obtain a lawnmower. Money has little or no inherent value. And it is money (in various forms) that has become ‘the’ key commodity as capitalism has matured from capitalism proper to monopolism. Finance capitalists and money traders make a fortune dealing with money (as opposed to tangible commodities). They are dealing with spooks, the world of ether.
Understanding the labour theory of value not only allows us to see through the absurdity where millions are homeless when homes not only sit empty, but are demolished by the banks; where millions are unemployed while factories rust away. It shows us that it is the efforts of countless workers that have built the standard of living that we have become used to. It informs us that we can not only do it again, we can do much better. It is our labour power that is the potent powerhouse of latent wealth that we may all benefit from.
Once we realize that every dime owes its existence to labour we will understand that it is the people that hold all the power. That very realization, once it is understood by a critical mass, will transform our human world. The upshot is we can make this human world as we wish.
Our Collective Addiction
We have become accustomed to coping with the instability that is characteristic of dependence on the capitalist system as a way of collective survival and well-being. We have faith that things will turn around. It has always worked this way in the Keynesian past. Things will eventually pick up, hiring will come back and the tax base for a healthy public infrastructure will return. Manufacturers will hire and that tax base will employ teachers, medical professionals, and it will re build roads and bridges. We have learned to expect business cycles and to expect hard times to not be excessively hard and to be followed by a period of energetic manufacturing and spending.
We have become dependent on the initiative of greed and we continue to hope for the best. The wizards of high finance and economics will tell us that the only hope for us is that we make conditions good enough for investors. Locally, we can get rid of standards, regulations, and minimum wages to make investing attractive. They will ask why they should invest in your location when they the same work can be done in China or India for much less money. The globalization seeds that were planted in the 80s and 90s have flourished and those that own, own more than ever.
We have come to believe we are dependent, absolutely, on investors. There is a problem with that.
There are no economists on the right and there are no economists on the left that will argue that capitalists or capitalism has a responsibility to provide for the people that are sick, elderly, for children or the unemployed. With that premise in hand, it naturally follows that an alternate means of production and distribution is required. The other alternative is to let them suffer and die.
(An interesting side-note on this is that all GOP candidates for the 2012 Presidential election were asked by moderator, Wolf Blitzer, about a hypothetical 30 something year old male that did not buy insurance who goes into a coma and needs intensive care. While the candidates struggled to euphemize their answers saying he should have bought insurance, the crowd cheered wildly voicing their enthusiastic agreement that the man should die.)
While this looks unbelievably barbaric, in fact 3,000 Americans die each month because they are not insured. Obama’s plan is to fix it by forcing Americans, by law, to pay protection money to health insurance racket.
So then, if we depend on private investors and they can’t and won’t provide for those in need, we have a choice to make. We either see people that cannot earn a wage or find any other means of feeding themselves as doomed or, we can make the progressive assertion that we do have a responsibility to take care of human beings that cannot survive or live comfortably without help.
Critical Condition
The situation may be that we are trying to maintain and preserve a stage of economic and social development that is just that; a stage. It appears to be obsolete. We may try to hang onto a system of production and distribution that is critically ill. We may do so out of cowardice, apathy, or morbidity but for sure, we cannot do so rationally. At this point, it does not look as if we want to come to life. History may be screaming for us to wake up but we may be too sleepy to pay attention.
If we do listen to the voice of history, we will see with no doubt that we are in serious trouble. There are factors at play that are fatal to our traditional reliance on capitalism. For instance, technology has made it possible to produce goods with little labour input. As a result, demand for goods and services cannot depend on wages. This will get worse as technology allows firms to produce goods with less and less wage costs. The more efficient the whole system gets, the less we can depend on wages for an honest day’s work. And as the rate of profit is reduced per unit of labour, the capacity to squeeze profit from a unit of labour diminishes.
To re-state the glaringly obvious: We cannot depend on selfish impulses in a small portion of society to care for the sick, the elderly, and families. We are depending on the most manipulative and selfish members of society to care for those most in need. The time is coming when we need to act. At some point the situation will become too critical to salvage the most basic material and structural development we have accomplished.
The argument can be made that we, the people, can get people elected to focus on people’s priorities such as a healthy public infrastructure and job creation. While this is technically true, it is not plausible. We are getting to a state of desperation where traditional vote buying and financial bullying can no longer be tolerated. Meaningful change will require a new system of democracy and a new system of production and distribution. The elites and their political whores have not only perverted systems of production and distribution, they have corrupted democracy to the point that elections are meaningless.
The time to start organizing to provide the essential and vital needs for the weakest members of societies is well behind us and we have not even started. This is a pressure cooker, a recipe for violent and bloody revolution. Like the sudden onset of the counter culture movements of the 60s, revolution can come with a sudden and unexpected public expression of rage. It is a matter of time.
On the other hand we can start planning for our collective response to the increasing and unacceptable deaths of citizens due to material deprivation. It is worth starting this discussion. Withstanding the appearance of far-fetched hypotheticals, we need to discuss very different approaches to the production problem and the distribution problem.
We can and should use parliamentary processes to affect revolutionary changes. Bills can be passed that do not take effect until certain minimal criteria are met. This suggestion is quite reasonable. Once the misery index is satisfied, whole new constitutions underlie the legal governance of the nations and the natural resources and labour power of the nation aims to meet human needs that are not satisfied through the residual droppings of the profit system. One way or another, we must take matters into our own hands.
In the meantime, we will need to build an alternative that empowers all citizens.
Economists and the Labour Theory of Value
Who knows how bad it will get? We have been listening to economists provide us with information and analysis that is so misguided and wrong that their credibility is little more than an illusion based on wishful thinking. They, their colleagues in the press and in government continue to bury their heads in the muck hoping that if they kick the can down the road, if they tell us all that everything is going to be okay, they will be. The problem with this is that the very serious and fundamental issues that have the Western world sinking are not being addressed or even considered. Part of the reason for that is that there are may be no way of fixing these problems short of revolution. We can lipstick a pig as much as we want but at the end of the day, it’s still a pig.
Over the past three or maybe four decades, economics departments at universities have been marching lock step to the command of Milton Freidman and the Chicago School (and the Austrian School) of economics. And today, if you consult one of these trained oracles they will continue to repeat the same voo-doo they digested at school. They will tell you that wealth flows from the top down; that it emanates from investors and the wealthy. It is (was) logical then to believe that if we manage to seduce these investors to our own location they will create jobs.
At this point in time, we really need to analyze the credibility of these economists. Maybe they understand the situation, maybe not. The latter appears to be the case if we read their opinions and analysis. To the extent they blindly follow those that pay them, they are accomplices. They manage to stave off their natural loss of credibility because they will say whatever the IMF, the World Bank, investors or right wing think tanks tell them to say. As long as they all delude themselves in unison, they can hide in plain sight. To make matters worse, they listen to and applaud each other. We really shouldn’t assume they don’t actually believe what they say. They have been thoroughly indoctrinated.
As a result, we see governments throughout the Western world continue to apply the same measures to deal with the crisis that have been key factors in causing it. The unrelenting drive to austerity is but one example of this.
The most crucial reality that they and we need to understand is the labour theory of value as formulated by Adam Smith, elaborated on by Ricardo, and fine-tuned by Karl Marx. To understand this economic point of view is to at least consider the possibility that wealth starts with labour (or nature).
Understanding the labour theory of value requires turning the economic order, as it is, 180 degrees. This view makes clear that the wealth we see around us, the computer, the desk, the chair you sit on and everything else that we use to survive and make life easier is a result of work. And without the input of work and without control (ownership) of resources, commodities have little to no market value (as opposed to use value).
This perspective sees wealth begin with the ore in the ground and the raw materials that we process for use. The air we breathe does not need to be processed and it cannot be controlled (owned) by private investors. If those conditions were in place, we would pay for the air we breathe. Medical care, food, and shelter require processing and these items can be controlled (owned). As a result of this control, we are *not* free in a most profound way; that is, we must sell ourselves, our time, for a wage in order to survive.
The wizards of the Chicago School (as well as the IMF, the Federal Reserve, the World Bank etc.) and governments throughout Europe and the Western World assume that it is the 1 % that provide the rest of us with what we need to survive (jobs and money). With that assumption in hand, they naturally assume that if their wealth is protected that will ensure prosperity ahead. This assumption has led to bailouts, quantitative easing, and scores of measures to secure a protective dome around the very constituency that has brought us all to the brink. That has made a bad situation critical.
What is really crucial for us to understand is that the common notion of what wealth is is wrong. Money is representative of wealth as a medium of exchange. It would be difficult to bring several pigs to a store to obtain a lawnmower. Money has little or no inherent value. And it is money (in various forms) that has become ‘the’ key commodity as capitalism has matured from capitalism proper to monopolism. Finance capitalists and money traders make a fortune dealing with money (as opposed to tangible commodities). They are dealing with spooks, the world of ether.
Understanding the labour theory of value not only allows us to see through the absurdity where millions are homeless when homes not only sit empty, but are demolished by the banks; where millions are unemployed while factories rust away. It shows us that it is the efforts of countless workers that have built the standard of living that we have become used to. It informs us that we can not only do it again, we can do much better. It is our labour power that is the potent powerhouse of latent wealth that we may all benefit from.
Once we realize that every dime owes its existence to labour we will understand that it is the people that hold all the power. That very realization, once it is understood by a critical mass, will transform our human world. The upshot is we can make this human world as we wish.
Our Collective Addiction
We have become accustomed to coping with the instability that is characteristic of dependence on the capitalist system as a way of collective survival and well-being. We have faith that things will turn around. It has always worked this way in the Keynesian past. Things will eventually pick up, hiring will come back and the tax base for a healthy public infrastructure will return. Manufacturers will hire and that tax base will employ teachers, medical professionals, and it will re build roads and bridges. We have learned to expect business cycles and to expect hard times to not be excessively hard and to be followed by a period of energetic manufacturing and spending.
We have become dependent on the initiative of greed and we continue to hope for the best. The wizards of high finance and economics will tell us that the only hope for us is that we make conditions good enough for investors. Locally, we can get rid of standards, regulations, and minimum wages to make investing attractive. They will ask why they should invest in your location when they the same work can be done in China or India for much less money. The globalization seeds that were planted in the 80s and 90s have flourished and those that own, own more than ever.
We have come to believe we are dependent, absolutely, on investors. There is a problem with that.
There are no economists on the right and there are no economists on the left that will argue that capitalists or capitalism has a responsibility to provide for the people that are sick, elderly, for children or the unemployed. With that premise in hand, it naturally follows that an alternate means of production and distribution is required. The other alternative is to let them suffer and die.
(An interesting side-note on this is that all GOP candidates for the 2012 Presidential election were asked by moderator, Wolf Blitzer, about a hypothetical 30 something year old male that did not buy insurance who goes into a coma and needs intensive care. While the candidates struggled to euphemize their answers saying he should have bought insurance, the crowd cheered wildly voicing their enthusiastic agreement that the man should die.)
While this looks unbelievably barbaric, in fact 3,000 Americans die each month because they are not insured. Obama’s plan is to fix it by forcing Americans, by law, to pay protection money to health insurance racket.
So then, if we depend on private investors and they can’t and won’t provide for those in need, we have a choice to make. We either see people that cannot earn a wage or find any other means of feeding themselves as doomed or, we can make the progressive assertion that we do have a responsibility to take care of human beings that cannot survive or live comfortably without help.
Critical Condition
The situation may be that we are trying to maintain and preserve a stage of economic and social development that is just that; a stage. It appears to be obsolete. We may try to hang onto a system of production and distribution that is critically ill. We may do so out of cowardice, apathy, or morbidity but for sure, we cannot do so rationally. At this point, it does not look as if we want to come to life. History may be screaming for us to wake up but we may be too sleepy to pay attention.
If we do listen to the voice of history, we will see with no doubt that we are in serious trouble. There are factors at play that are fatal to our traditional reliance on capitalism. For instance, technology has made it possible to produce goods with little labour input. As a result, demand for goods and services cannot depend on wages. This will get worse as technology allows firms to produce goods with less and less wage costs. The more efficient the whole system gets, the less we can depend on wages for an honest day’s work. And as the rate of profit is reduced per unit of labour, the capacity to squeeze profit from a unit of labour diminishes.
To re-state the glaringly obvious: We cannot depend on selfish impulses in a small portion of society to care for the sick, the elderly, and families. We are depending on the most manipulative and selfish members of society to care for those most in need. The time is coming when we need to act. At some point the situation will become too critical to salvage the most basic material and structural development we have accomplished.
The argument can be made that we, the people, can get people elected to focus on people’s priorities such as a healthy public infrastructure and job creation. While this is technically true, it is not plausible. We are getting to a state of desperation where traditional vote buying and financial bullying can no longer be tolerated. Meaningful change will require a new system of democracy and a new system of production and distribution. The elites and their political whores have not only perverted systems of production and distribution, they have corrupted democracy to the point that elections are meaningless.
The time to start organizing to provide the essential and vital needs for the weakest members of societies is well behind us and we have not even started. This is a pressure cooker, a recipe for violent and bloody revolution. Like the sudden onset of the counter culture movements of the 60s, revolution can come with a sudden and unexpected public expression of rage. It is a matter of time.
On the other hand we can start planning for our collective response to the increasing and unacceptable deaths of citizens due to material deprivation. It is worth starting this discussion. Withstanding the appearance of far-fetched hypotheticals, we need to discuss very different approaches to the production problem and the distribution problem.
We can and should use parliamentary processes to affect revolutionary changes. Bills can be passed that do not take effect until certain minimal criteria are met. This suggestion is quite reasonable. Once the misery index is satisfied, whole new constitutions underlie the legal governance of the nations and the natural resources and labour power of the nation aims to meet human needs that are not satisfied through the residual droppings of the profit system. One way or another, we must take matters into our own hands.
In the meantime, we will need to build an alternative that empowers all citizens.
Sunday, September 23, 2012
Financial Fascism
A coup is underway and is near completion. It is a carefully coordinated coup against almost every nation on the planet. While national governments have been heavily influenced by financial capitalists over the past century and longer, what is happening now is blatant control of governments by a foreign installation. They are not only infesting and contaminating democratic structures, they have each and every one of us by the throat and they are starting to squeeze.
The means that are used to control you and me may not be as blatant and crude as the methods used by fascists of the 20th century; fascists like Pinochet, Mussolini, Hitler or Franco, but the control this current band of bandits have over you is probably far more personal. They are hurting you and controlling you and it will get much worse.
Financial elites are ruling societies and have not been and are not subject to elections. To the extent politicians themselves are directed by financial bodies such as Moodys of New York, the Federal Reserve, or the IMF, is the extent to which we are under the rule of financial elites. Each of these players do their bit to ensure that governments are under their control. It is they and not us that direct politicians and governments. When governments we elect work in the interests of financial elites against not only the wishes but the material circumstances of the population, the political situation can only be realistically described as oligarchy or, more accurately, plutocracy.
If it seems a little spooky that Western governments have all worked in synch over the past three decades on not only international issues, but on domestic policies as well, it should; it is. They all, suddenly and at once, identify an particular enemy as a threat to ‘national security’. They all, all at once, meet at Bilderburg. They all, all at once, agree, as if they were in the same cult, on monetary policies. In fact, they are all in the same cult.
Independence of Western European States from control of the United States no longer exists. The American government is an arm of financial elites. European states do not work against the interests of the United States. While their own financial elites control the European Central Bank, you will not see the ECB run policies contrary to the Federal Reserve. The fact is, they all in this together. (On an even more ominous note, Chinese and Russian elites are not.)
European foreign and financial policies align with their executive director in Washington. It's as if the so called Western World, including much of Latin America, is under the control of one large, unelected, international government.
The Monopolization of Europe
Throughout the so called Western world, a formula of inequality has been entrenched and forcibly enforced. Those that have been fortunate enough to live within the heart of American hegemony have lived relatively comfortable lives. The further you get from the center in class, political, or geographic directions, the more likely it is that you have experienced the brutality of financial fascism.
In Europe, there are a number of geographic divisions. First there is Germany and the Northern states. They are closest to the center of American/financial hegemony. Secondly, there are the Southern states. They are currently beginning to feel the bite of financial fascism. Then there is eastern Europe with all its baggage from its recent communist past. They are on the bottom rung of American hegemony in Europe. Greece, by the way, almost fumbles into the latter category.
Witness the recent coups in Greece and Italy by the European Central Bank. In Italy, Silvio Berlusconi was ousted by switching purchases in the bond markets on and off to enforce obedience with its directives and allowing 10-year yields to rise to 7.45 per cent. This was the last nail in his political coffin.
Whatever their methods, the European Central Bank has installed Lucas Papademos in Greece and Mario Monti in Italy to replace Italy's elected Berlusconi and Papandreou in Greece. Realistically however, politicians don't matter whether they are in Greece, Germany, or Washington. They are either simple whores or, they are gone.
Inequality between individuals, classes, and nations is an admitted necessary requirement for what our financial rulers consider a healthy business climate. Rather than lift all ships, the financial directors of the European Union demand and enforce austerity throughout the hinterland. (Please note that ‘hinterland’ refers to geographic, class, and individual distance from meetings at Bilderburg and Washington.) The medicine supplied by ECB, the Federal Reserve in the U.S. or the IMF/World Bank to those that need medicine has turned out to be poison.
Ironically, the result of this may be to reinforce and balkanize many regions throughout unified Europe as tensions between populations increase.
Increasing regional xenophobic sentiments, increasing nationalisms, increasing lateral hostilities may be encouraged by the beneficiaries of finance capitalism in order to mask the reality of horizontal class hostilities. In the 1930s, nationalist chauvinism and fascism flourished throughout Europe as economic conditions deteriorated. The current crisis has not resulted in substantial fascist movements thus far but as Germans blame the Greeks, and Greeks increasingly feel hostility toward Germans, and region blames region and they all blame immigrants, the flames of fascism will find new fuel. The European Union will crack and fracture and crumble to a climate of fear and mutual distrust. To stem this tide, a true account of and analysis of the economic collapse must be discussed and widely acknowledged. We must identify the real enemy of the people.
European nations need to fight back, to unshackle themselves from the stranglehold of monopoly capitalism. In order to do that, they need to take control of their own economic destiny.
As it is, the European Central Bank has a stranglehold on national economic sovereignty. The UK has a degree of autonomy due to its refusal to accept the Euro as its currency. That allows for greater potential to enhance local economies. They may fight the monopolies of the hegemony through increasing taxation on corporations, through devolution of wealth from the center to the regions, by implementing trade and manufacture on their own terms, and by increased emphasis on enhancement of the public commons. As it is, these things are not possible. Corporations and large finance capitalists have effectively taken control of national governments.
Under the current stage of monopoly capitalism, capitalism proper has become archaic. What has replaced it is power struggles by and between large corporate and banking interests. The notion of ‘free enterprise’ where Mom and Pop can start up a business and make it must withstand the efficiency and ruthlessness of multi-billion dollar enterprises. That is a long way of saying, free enterprise no longer exists.
Throughout the 20th century revolutions have impacted many societies. It is worth noticing that each and every revolution occurred, not where Karl Marx expected (advanced capitalist societies) but in the hinterland, in those areas that were either forgotten or abused; where parents feared for their children's availability of food and medicine. The ominous trend is that the hinterland is expanding quite rapidly as the center shrinks with the rapid concentration of capital. The middle classes are being forced out. As the class dimension of the hinterland increases, in folds into the lands that once been privileged. A black tide of suffering is enveloping the world.
You may have noticed that unlike previous capitalisms, the current configuration holds no loyalty to its local. They have sold out American and European workers with open celebration. They, the ultimate traitor, will and are exploiting and abusing citizens of all nations.
Quantitative Easing and TARP
On September 13, 2012, the Federal Reserve announced a new round of quantitative easing. This third round of printing money for banks is hard evidence that the capitalist world is in very deep trouble. Ultimately, printing money devalues the value of money. We are heading for hyperinflation. We are heading off a cliff.
Under this scheme, the Federal Reserve will buy $40 billion worth of mortgage backed securities from the banks each month in an effort to stimulate the housing market. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said that the initiative should “provide further support for the housing sector by encouraging home purchases and refinancing.” He said, “housing is usually a big part of the recovery process” but has been “one of the missing pistons in the engine.”
Quantative Easing increases the money supply for banks but does nothing to increase the volume of money circulating on Main Street. It fuels the stock market (a grand casino). Moods, impulses, and superstition can run it up or down. But again, this does nothing for the man or woman on the street.
The Federal Reserve rationalizes this massive glorified printing of money as a means to lower interest rates for homeowners. This is the third round. It didn't work before and it won't work now.
When the housing market crashed in the United States, and the banks were in serious trouble, the banks were deemed too big to fail. They were saved by the phantom taxpayer of the future. They banks were saved and homeowners were not. Instead of stimulating Main Street, the Federal Reserve and its servile politicians saved the ultra wealthy. Instead of handing all that money directly to struggling homeowners, it was handed to the banks.
Using the banks as the directors of the economy does nothing for the economy. It only helps one class. On the other hand, the economy could be stimulated through massive public works, through providing loans to small and start up enterprises, by bailing out drowning homeowners, or through any means of actually putting money in the pockets of ordinary people. his would result in people buying goods and services and this would actually work. The spending would create many millions of jobs.
The amounts that have been provided to the wealthy classes over the past few years are inconceivable. They took the money provided through the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) with no strings attached. Obama promised to help homeowners (through the Home Affordable Modification Program) but Obama is a liar and a coward. It was an illusion like so many financial shell games that have been and are currently being played.
Neil Barofsky, United States Treasury Department Inspector General and overseer of the TARP explains in his book, 'Bailout' that prior to his involvement with TARP he had no idea that the U.S. government was "captured" by the bankers. He was "shocked" at the control they have.
What he discovered was similar to what has been described above in Europe. The financial elites have tight control of the U.S. government. He aimed to publicize the rot and corruption but received no interest from the press. Instead, he was threatened and shut down. His reports were ignored or shut down.
To the extent governments are controlled by financial elites is the extent to which we effectively live under a dictatorship. The financial elites not only control governments, they control the lives of each and every one of us. What they do has a profound impact on each and every one of us.
Time to Wake Up
Austerity is being forced on Europeans and Americans and really, throughout the capitalist world. While the people suffer, the stock market booms. Their party rages on.
Additionally, pressure on local governments continues to increase and reduced spending on infrastructure is multiplying our collective misery. Physical and social infrastructures are collapsing and local governments are selling off what they own to pay bondholders. What was public property is now private. User fees for essential services will make them that own more secure and more free and they will make you and me less secure and less free.
The private sector is using the crisis to drive down wages and cut benefits to workers.
And throughout political and media opinion, the parasites and drain on society are Romney's 47%. Political and media stooges agree, they are only shocked at the bluntness with which he said it. In Europe as well, social programs and spending are seen as the problem, the drain on society. It is the citizens and not the elite criminals that are at fault.
In fact, every euro or dollar those criminals own has its genesis in other people's work.
Prior to Keynes and the modern era of gentle social programs, private capitalists pushed their jackboots against the throats of citizens with unbelievable cruelty. The Company Store and the private company forced workers and citizens to buy their water, food, housing, electricity from them. Workers were left with barely enough to survive. Examples of the depth of the misery people had to endure are well documented but have been forgotten after eight decades of Keynesianism.
Barbarism is returning. Everything that can possibly be sold will be privatized. Wherever a price can be extracted from a citizen it will be. If they can find a way to make us pay for the air we breathe, they will. And the state will back them up. They will criminalize and demonize the poor. That has already started.
Workers will work harder for less. The terms of exploitation are getting grim. To back that up, as social infrastructure crumbles, as benefits to the unemployed and the poor are more meager and jobs are more scarce, we find ourselves slipping back into the world Charles Dickens preserved in his accounts of the hardships of Victorian England.
As social problems beget social problems, our spiral to hell increases. As with any poor neighbourhood, one set of social problems exacerbates others. Concentrations of poverty where hopelessness fuels addictions problems, which increases domestic violence, which compromises child development, which causes many more social problems in the future and so on and so on, will expand from being neighbourhood problems, to whole cities to whole counties, provinces and states to whole nations. Increased homicides, suicides, crime of all sorts play off each other contributing an increasing reality of violence, insecurity, and instability.
We have become reliant on an expectation that somebody else will organize manufacturing, they will fix roads, they will educate and feed our children. We expect politicians and 'the market' to take care of it. We are waiting for criminals, psychopaths, and cowardly political whores to take care of us in an age of barbarism.
Wake up!
The means that are used to control you and me may not be as blatant and crude as the methods used by fascists of the 20th century; fascists like Pinochet, Mussolini, Hitler or Franco, but the control this current band of bandits have over you is probably far more personal. They are hurting you and controlling you and it will get much worse.
Financial elites are ruling societies and have not been and are not subject to elections. To the extent politicians themselves are directed by financial bodies such as Moodys of New York, the Federal Reserve, or the IMF, is the extent to which we are under the rule of financial elites. Each of these players do their bit to ensure that governments are under their control. It is they and not us that direct politicians and governments. When governments we elect work in the interests of financial elites against not only the wishes but the material circumstances of the population, the political situation can only be realistically described as oligarchy or, more accurately, plutocracy.
If it seems a little spooky that Western governments have all worked in synch over the past three decades on not only international issues, but on domestic policies as well, it should; it is. They all, suddenly and at once, identify an particular enemy as a threat to ‘national security’. They all, all at once, meet at Bilderburg. They all, all at once, agree, as if they were in the same cult, on monetary policies. In fact, they are all in the same cult.
Independence of Western European States from control of the United States no longer exists. The American government is an arm of financial elites. European states do not work against the interests of the United States. While their own financial elites control the European Central Bank, you will not see the ECB run policies contrary to the Federal Reserve. The fact is, they all in this together. (On an even more ominous note, Chinese and Russian elites are not.)
European foreign and financial policies align with their executive director in Washington. It's as if the so called Western World, including much of Latin America, is under the control of one large, unelected, international government.
The Monopolization of Europe
Throughout the so called Western world, a formula of inequality has been entrenched and forcibly enforced. Those that have been fortunate enough to live within the heart of American hegemony have lived relatively comfortable lives. The further you get from the center in class, political, or geographic directions, the more likely it is that you have experienced the brutality of financial fascism.
In Europe, there are a number of geographic divisions. First there is Germany and the Northern states. They are closest to the center of American/financial hegemony. Secondly, there are the Southern states. They are currently beginning to feel the bite of financial fascism. Then there is eastern Europe with all its baggage from its recent communist past. They are on the bottom rung of American hegemony in Europe. Greece, by the way, almost fumbles into the latter category.
Witness the recent coups in Greece and Italy by the European Central Bank. In Italy, Silvio Berlusconi was ousted by switching purchases in the bond markets on and off to enforce obedience with its directives and allowing 10-year yields to rise to 7.45 per cent. This was the last nail in his political coffin.
Whatever their methods, the European Central Bank has installed Lucas Papademos in Greece and Mario Monti in Italy to replace Italy's elected Berlusconi and Papandreou in Greece. Realistically however, politicians don't matter whether they are in Greece, Germany, or Washington. They are either simple whores or, they are gone.
Inequality between individuals, classes, and nations is an admitted necessary requirement for what our financial rulers consider a healthy business climate. Rather than lift all ships, the financial directors of the European Union demand and enforce austerity throughout the hinterland. (Please note that ‘hinterland’ refers to geographic, class, and individual distance from meetings at Bilderburg and Washington.) The medicine supplied by ECB, the Federal Reserve in the U.S. or the IMF/World Bank to those that need medicine has turned out to be poison.
Ironically, the result of this may be to reinforce and balkanize many regions throughout unified Europe as tensions between populations increase.
Increasing regional xenophobic sentiments, increasing nationalisms, increasing lateral hostilities may be encouraged by the beneficiaries of finance capitalism in order to mask the reality of horizontal class hostilities. In the 1930s, nationalist chauvinism and fascism flourished throughout Europe as economic conditions deteriorated. The current crisis has not resulted in substantial fascist movements thus far but as Germans blame the Greeks, and Greeks increasingly feel hostility toward Germans, and region blames region and they all blame immigrants, the flames of fascism will find new fuel. The European Union will crack and fracture and crumble to a climate of fear and mutual distrust. To stem this tide, a true account of and analysis of the economic collapse must be discussed and widely acknowledged. We must identify the real enemy of the people.
European nations need to fight back, to unshackle themselves from the stranglehold of monopoly capitalism. In order to do that, they need to take control of their own economic destiny.
As it is, the European Central Bank has a stranglehold on national economic sovereignty. The UK has a degree of autonomy due to its refusal to accept the Euro as its currency. That allows for greater potential to enhance local economies. They may fight the monopolies of the hegemony through increasing taxation on corporations, through devolution of wealth from the center to the regions, by implementing trade and manufacture on their own terms, and by increased emphasis on enhancement of the public commons. As it is, these things are not possible. Corporations and large finance capitalists have effectively taken control of national governments.
Under the current stage of monopoly capitalism, capitalism proper has become archaic. What has replaced it is power struggles by and between large corporate and banking interests. The notion of ‘free enterprise’ where Mom and Pop can start up a business and make it must withstand the efficiency and ruthlessness of multi-billion dollar enterprises. That is a long way of saying, free enterprise no longer exists.
Throughout the 20th century revolutions have impacted many societies. It is worth noticing that each and every revolution occurred, not where Karl Marx expected (advanced capitalist societies) but in the hinterland, in those areas that were either forgotten or abused; where parents feared for their children's availability of food and medicine. The ominous trend is that the hinterland is expanding quite rapidly as the center shrinks with the rapid concentration of capital. The middle classes are being forced out. As the class dimension of the hinterland increases, in folds into the lands that once been privileged. A black tide of suffering is enveloping the world.
You may have noticed that unlike previous capitalisms, the current configuration holds no loyalty to its local. They have sold out American and European workers with open celebration. They, the ultimate traitor, will and are exploiting and abusing citizens of all nations.
Quantitative Easing and TARP
On September 13, 2012, the Federal Reserve announced a new round of quantitative easing. This third round of printing money for banks is hard evidence that the capitalist world is in very deep trouble. Ultimately, printing money devalues the value of money. We are heading for hyperinflation. We are heading off a cliff.
Under this scheme, the Federal Reserve will buy $40 billion worth of mortgage backed securities from the banks each month in an effort to stimulate the housing market. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said that the initiative should “provide further support for the housing sector by encouraging home purchases and refinancing.” He said, “housing is usually a big part of the recovery process” but has been “one of the missing pistons in the engine.”
Quantative Easing increases the money supply for banks but does nothing to increase the volume of money circulating on Main Street. It fuels the stock market (a grand casino). Moods, impulses, and superstition can run it up or down. But again, this does nothing for the man or woman on the street.
The Federal Reserve rationalizes this massive glorified printing of money as a means to lower interest rates for homeowners. This is the third round. It didn't work before and it won't work now.
When the housing market crashed in the United States, and the banks were in serious trouble, the banks were deemed too big to fail. They were saved by the phantom taxpayer of the future. They banks were saved and homeowners were not. Instead of stimulating Main Street, the Federal Reserve and its servile politicians saved the ultra wealthy. Instead of handing all that money directly to struggling homeowners, it was handed to the banks.
Using the banks as the directors of the economy does nothing for the economy. It only helps one class. On the other hand, the economy could be stimulated through massive public works, through providing loans to small and start up enterprises, by bailing out drowning homeowners, or through any means of actually putting money in the pockets of ordinary people. his would result in people buying goods and services and this would actually work. The spending would create many millions of jobs.
The amounts that have been provided to the wealthy classes over the past few years are inconceivable. They took the money provided through the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) with no strings attached. Obama promised to help homeowners (through the Home Affordable Modification Program) but Obama is a liar and a coward. It was an illusion like so many financial shell games that have been and are currently being played.
Neil Barofsky, United States Treasury Department Inspector General and overseer of the TARP explains in his book, 'Bailout' that prior to his involvement with TARP he had no idea that the U.S. government was "captured" by the bankers. He was "shocked" at the control they have.
What he discovered was similar to what has been described above in Europe. The financial elites have tight control of the U.S. government. He aimed to publicize the rot and corruption but received no interest from the press. Instead, he was threatened and shut down. His reports were ignored or shut down.
To the extent governments are controlled by financial elites is the extent to which we effectively live under a dictatorship. The financial elites not only control governments, they control the lives of each and every one of us. What they do has a profound impact on each and every one of us.
Time to Wake Up
Austerity is being forced on Europeans and Americans and really, throughout the capitalist world. While the people suffer, the stock market booms. Their party rages on.
Additionally, pressure on local governments continues to increase and reduced spending on infrastructure is multiplying our collective misery. Physical and social infrastructures are collapsing and local governments are selling off what they own to pay bondholders. What was public property is now private. User fees for essential services will make them that own more secure and more free and they will make you and me less secure and less free.
The private sector is using the crisis to drive down wages and cut benefits to workers.
And throughout political and media opinion, the parasites and drain on society are Romney's 47%. Political and media stooges agree, they are only shocked at the bluntness with which he said it. In Europe as well, social programs and spending are seen as the problem, the drain on society. It is the citizens and not the elite criminals that are at fault.
In fact, every euro or dollar those criminals own has its genesis in other people's work.
Prior to Keynes and the modern era of gentle social programs, private capitalists pushed their jackboots against the throats of citizens with unbelievable cruelty. The Company Store and the private company forced workers and citizens to buy their water, food, housing, electricity from them. Workers were left with barely enough to survive. Examples of the depth of the misery people had to endure are well documented but have been forgotten after eight decades of Keynesianism.
Barbarism is returning. Everything that can possibly be sold will be privatized. Wherever a price can be extracted from a citizen it will be. If they can find a way to make us pay for the air we breathe, they will. And the state will back them up. They will criminalize and demonize the poor. That has already started.
Workers will work harder for less. The terms of exploitation are getting grim. To back that up, as social infrastructure crumbles, as benefits to the unemployed and the poor are more meager and jobs are more scarce, we find ourselves slipping back into the world Charles Dickens preserved in his accounts of the hardships of Victorian England.
As social problems beget social problems, our spiral to hell increases. As with any poor neighbourhood, one set of social problems exacerbates others. Concentrations of poverty where hopelessness fuels addictions problems, which increases domestic violence, which compromises child development, which causes many more social problems in the future and so on and so on, will expand from being neighbourhood problems, to whole cities to whole counties, provinces and states to whole nations. Increased homicides, suicides, crime of all sorts play off each other contributing an increasing reality of violence, insecurity, and instability.
We have become reliant on an expectation that somebody else will organize manufacturing, they will fix roads, they will educate and feed our children. We expect politicians and 'the market' to take care of it. We are waiting for criminals, psychopaths, and cowardly political whores to take care of us in an age of barbarism.
Wake up!
Sunday, September 02, 2012
Beyond Occupy Wall Street
These troubled economic times coupled with the disturbing distance political and media elites have travelled to the right will move us to action. The question of 'when' is pressing. The absence of organization and serious discussion about moving forward (from Occupy Wall Street protests) is troubling, to say the least. Perhaps the time to actually organize in ways that have a substantial impact has arrived.
It has become obvious that capitalism has ripened and has become not capitalism but monopolism. We have entered a period of tremendous instability. On the path we are on, we will eventually stabilize into third world conditions. It's in the cards.
The powers that control our societies have taken an increasingly ominous and threatening tone. Unapologetic in their contempt for rule of law or human rights, they are sending messages, repeatedly, that force and fear will replace the friendly face of social programs. The state itself is morphing from the apparent sweetness of Keynes to the bitterness of Ayn Rand and Machiavelli. The reason for this is the predicted transmutation of capitalism to mafiaesque monopolism.
The state and private business are married and stand over and above societies and we, powerless to govern ourselves, helpless in our troubling and increasing deprivation, wait for a master to take care of us. The time is coming where we, individuals and members of various societies must take the initiative to move ourselves a fraction; from late capitalism to early socialism. Don't be alarmed. Early socialism should and will look like late capitalism but at that point, we will have switched tracks. Our trajectory will have changed and we will be on the road to the abolition of state barbarism and naked selfishness toward true democracy and stable societies.
Our Historical Dilemma
The latter part of the 20th century gave witness to a period of prosperity throughout developed nations that was truly impressive. Memories of the Great Depression of the 1930s faded and the momentum of post war enthusiasm showed the world that the cynics and the malcontents were wrong. Capitalism has lifted us from the muck of feudal tyranny and misery. It had rendered communism and socialism a joke. History was finished. The excessive inequality that is part and parcel of raw capitalism was buffered by Keynes. His magic formula was up and running and the general notion was, the sky’s the limit. The trajectory was clearly upward.
Behind the scenes however, problems emerged. Economists began to question the stability of capitalist based economies. In the 1970s, a century of rising real wages came to an almost unnoticed end. In the 80s deficits became more an ominous threat than ever. The narrative began to crack. Keynes solid ground had weakened. New radical and bold neo liberal policies were widely promoted, especially by right wing think tanks. De-regulation and globalization found their way to the collective lexicon. Thatcher and Reagan led the political direction away from the social safety net and toward a new era of unbridled finance capitalism.
Stagnation and the reduction of real wages would have enormous consequences for the capitalist classes. The remedy for this was not a remedy at all. The problem was masked through credit. The party could continue. This has been but one of many schemes that have built up an illusion of stability. It was primarily aimed to continue the flow of money into the pockets of the very wealthy.
Another deeply relevant event occurred in the world of state capitalism. At the end of the 80s, communism died a silent and bloodless death. It died of old age and morbid stagnation. It was buried on the ash heap of history. The Western world could celebrate. The time had come for the ghost of Karl Marx to finally rest in peace; it seemed.
Now capitalism could operate more easily. With the cold war left to historical analysis, capitalism was now free to express itself more freely. There would be no more racing to the moon or building social safety nets aimed to be more impressive than the public sphere of communism. The time for authentic capitalism had arrived. The Keynesian model had been failing. The time had arrived for the resurrection of classical economics re branded as 'new'. Even though it would be branded with the prefix ‘neo’, there was nothing new about it.
Essentially there are two models for capitalism; the classical model (read Dickens) where you sink or swim or, the Keynesian model where a social safety net softens the hard edges; the places where the American dream could not reach.
Liberalization of the financial world (neo liberalism) was promoted as a means to generate wealth by allowing investors to acquire as much wealth as they could with as few restrictions as possible. This increased wealth, it was argued, would raise all ships. It is where capitalism is free, they argue, where most wealth is generated and consequently, ordinary citizens are most affluent. This line of argument ignores the fact that the best quality of life across the board has been in nations where generous social programs, high wages to workers, and a generous and healthy public sphere made that quality of life possible for everybody. The good life occurred where equality had been a political priority. On the other hand, nations that have accentuated inequality are the most tense socially and most unstable politically and economically.
Classical or neo liberal economists will argue that it is the free market that best regulates prices, wages, and demand. The market is democratic and what people want, they will demand. The free market is efficient and the competition that exists between firms will increase efficiency. And in that effort, technology as well as processes becomes ultra-efficient. That efficiency not only made it possible to produce very cheaply with far less labour input, it also made it possible to move capital around the globe at the flick of a switch and then, with even less effort. Playing with money became far more attractive than producing things.
The layers of economic illusion including selling sub-prime loans and the financial voodoo among bankers and investors cannot hide the underlying reality. The loss of wages among the working classes may not matter in the heat of short selling and hedging. The soulless masters of the capitalist world continue to pretend there is money, somewhere, to make good the enormous wealth that exists on paper but the bottom line is, every dime of real wealth including the wealth they 'own' begins with work. The genesis of wealth is rooted in the production of goods and services. Financial voodoo does not create wealth. When those chickens come home to roost (and they are) they will discover, and so will we, that all that wealth they accumulate through magical financial wizardry has no basis in reality. In other words, the real adults (workers) don't have jobs and cannot pay the bills. We are in trouble.
Old Age, Sickness, and Death
It is precisely the things that are the strengths of the so called free market that are its fatal flaws as capitalism matures. If capitalism could survive long enough, it could produce all the goods and services human beings could consume, very easily. The problem with that scenario is that everybody is out of work in that scenario, there are no paycheques. Consequently, there is no demand. An additional problem with that scenario is the distribution problem.
Capitalism has been the driving force of a stage of human development that, in many ways, has served us very well. The wealthiest of 19th century merchants or kings could not imagine the quality of life enjoyed by the middle class of the late 20th century. Capitalism has had its day however. It's useful utility has passed. Although it lives only as a mental abstraction, like any entity in the natural world it cannot live forever. Its very energetic and dynamic nature and concomitant instability, its intense energy, naturally results in a relatively short life span. It lasted longer than Marx had imagined however thanks to John M. Keynes.
The years ahead will be tumultuous. Without the calming salve of social programs to quell social upheaval, neo liberal inspired governors will become increasingly fascistic in efforts to stem the tide of social unrest. Keynesians will aim to return to the old world order but at this point this scenario isn't possible or even desirable. Keynes strategy was to protect capitalism from its own demise. Moreover, the maturation of capitalism, the window of opportunity to squeeze profit from a unit of labour has almost vanished and without that excess, the possibility of funding social programs through taxes from workers pockets is substantially reduced.
At this point the chickens 'have' come home to roost. The afterglow of capitalism's long run was sustained by a dot com bubble, by various other bubbles and pyramid schemes and most recently, by creating liquidity through quantitative easing (read: printing money). The notion that we need our too big to fail capitalist masters to take care of us is wearing thin. Big money and their minions have kicked the can down the road about as far as they can. They are running to a dead end.
Millions of jobs in the so called developed world have gone and there is no way they are coming back. They are gone thanks to technological efficiency; the same efficiency makes it much easier to open up the so called second and third world to manufacturing and a 'new and improved' neo liberal brand of consumerism.
To say that rising real wages has ended understates the severity of the situation. The jobs that had paid for roads and bridges and schools and social care and a decent standard of living are gone. Our infrastructure, schools, roads, social programs, is crumbling. The beginning of an ugly death spiral has started and there is no way out.
The wealthy classes and the right wing (their accomplices) had been demanding cuts in worker's wages throughout boom period. They have won. They got their wish. (Be careful what you wish for.)
The Paul Ryans and the rest of the so called libertarians call for less regulations and taxes on the private sector and consequently, the further impoverishment of society as a whole, is becoming more suspicious to the public. At some point, a critical mass will realize that the ideology of neo liberalism was a rather simplistic (albeit complicated in terms of financial gyrations) scam intent on funneling large quantities of wealth to the very rich at the expense of everybody else. At that point, Paul Ryan and the rest of the capitalist classes will be on very thin ice. No Homeland Security, no militias, no threats from the state or political bullshit will stop the outrage and revolutionary upheaval of the American people. The same holds true for Canada, Europe, and for working classes everywhere. Not only will the integrity of phoney wealth vanish, they themselves will be in real danger. They have been the ultimate traitors.
Mutual Interdependence
We've become dependent on gangsters and criminals. We've become addicted to the crack they sell. The time that we need to depend on ourselves is either very close or it has already arrived. We need to do more than occupy Wall Street.
We have always depended on each other. It has always been the efforts of other workers that produced all the goods and services you needed and enjoyed. At this point we need to develop ways and means to organize work to produce goods and services for each other, for our families, and for our communities.
The time will come when revolution will not be a choice. Reality itself will demand it in the requirement to meet human needs. We are fast approaching a point where we will need to produce and distribute goods and services. The need will be/is vital.
We first must recognize that it is not investors that actually produce and provide goods and services. It is you and me. The absurdity of factories rusting while millions look for jobs, while millions do without the goods and services they need; the absurdity of millions homeless while homes lay empty is screaming at us. Those suffering screams compel us to end our reliance on wealthy investors to make things happen.
To do this we need to organize. We need to work. If ever there was a time for us to think outside the box, it is now.
One way to do this is for workers to organize industrial production and for the workers that actually produce to be the board of directors for that enterprise. What is important is that while those workers are in control of surplus, that surplus have a mechanism to social responsibility.
Another element to this will require the focus of research and investment to be attuned to both local and international needs. The old paradigm's outcomes meant much research on getting an edge on making a tastier hamburger (not that there's anything wrong with that on its own) as opposed to research on or providing medicine to people suffering from various diseases. The focus must be on alleviating the suffering of those that suffer most.
While productive workers must have decision making power over their own work and what it is to be used for, input from the community truly democratizes the process. Industry that does not respond to the needs of the community is not worth anything to the community. Integration between producers and consumers (the community) is vital to the democratization of free enterprise.
On the public sphere, municipalities make decisions on what they need and want. If the citizens in a town want to make their town a version of a resort, the national government supplies the expertise to build the pools, the tennis courts, the landscaping and as needed, the supplies. The locals provide the labour.
To get there, to get to the place where we can realistically take back control of our workplaces, our communities, and our nations, we must take control of the state from the gamblers and the criminals. That will take organizing and it will require much effort. But it is not futile. The very same thing has been done and is being done in Venezuela.
As a collective and individually, we cannot be held hostage to old and archaic paradigms. We can no longer afford to submit to the master-slave dialogue. We need to build our own communities and workplaces. We need to provide for ourselves and each other.
We need to understand that the reality has always been, their wealth is based in our work. We need to understand to our bones that our wealth is our work. It does not come from 'them'. It never did.
It has become obvious that capitalism has ripened and has become not capitalism but monopolism. We have entered a period of tremendous instability. On the path we are on, we will eventually stabilize into third world conditions. It's in the cards.
The powers that control our societies have taken an increasingly ominous and threatening tone. Unapologetic in their contempt for rule of law or human rights, they are sending messages, repeatedly, that force and fear will replace the friendly face of social programs. The state itself is morphing from the apparent sweetness of Keynes to the bitterness of Ayn Rand and Machiavelli. The reason for this is the predicted transmutation of capitalism to mafiaesque monopolism.
The state and private business are married and stand over and above societies and we, powerless to govern ourselves, helpless in our troubling and increasing deprivation, wait for a master to take care of us. The time is coming where we, individuals and members of various societies must take the initiative to move ourselves a fraction; from late capitalism to early socialism. Don't be alarmed. Early socialism should and will look like late capitalism but at that point, we will have switched tracks. Our trajectory will have changed and we will be on the road to the abolition of state barbarism and naked selfishness toward true democracy and stable societies.
Our Historical Dilemma
The latter part of the 20th century gave witness to a period of prosperity throughout developed nations that was truly impressive. Memories of the Great Depression of the 1930s faded and the momentum of post war enthusiasm showed the world that the cynics and the malcontents were wrong. Capitalism has lifted us from the muck of feudal tyranny and misery. It had rendered communism and socialism a joke. History was finished. The excessive inequality that is part and parcel of raw capitalism was buffered by Keynes. His magic formula was up and running and the general notion was, the sky’s the limit. The trajectory was clearly upward.
Behind the scenes however, problems emerged. Economists began to question the stability of capitalist based economies. In the 1970s, a century of rising real wages came to an almost unnoticed end. In the 80s deficits became more an ominous threat than ever. The narrative began to crack. Keynes solid ground had weakened. New radical and bold neo liberal policies were widely promoted, especially by right wing think tanks. De-regulation and globalization found their way to the collective lexicon. Thatcher and Reagan led the political direction away from the social safety net and toward a new era of unbridled finance capitalism.
Stagnation and the reduction of real wages would have enormous consequences for the capitalist classes. The remedy for this was not a remedy at all. The problem was masked through credit. The party could continue. This has been but one of many schemes that have built up an illusion of stability. It was primarily aimed to continue the flow of money into the pockets of the very wealthy.
Another deeply relevant event occurred in the world of state capitalism. At the end of the 80s, communism died a silent and bloodless death. It died of old age and morbid stagnation. It was buried on the ash heap of history. The Western world could celebrate. The time had come for the ghost of Karl Marx to finally rest in peace; it seemed.
Now capitalism could operate more easily. With the cold war left to historical analysis, capitalism was now free to express itself more freely. There would be no more racing to the moon or building social safety nets aimed to be more impressive than the public sphere of communism. The time for authentic capitalism had arrived. The Keynesian model had been failing. The time had arrived for the resurrection of classical economics re branded as 'new'. Even though it would be branded with the prefix ‘neo’, there was nothing new about it.
Essentially there are two models for capitalism; the classical model (read Dickens) where you sink or swim or, the Keynesian model where a social safety net softens the hard edges; the places where the American dream could not reach.
Liberalization of the financial world (neo liberalism) was promoted as a means to generate wealth by allowing investors to acquire as much wealth as they could with as few restrictions as possible. This increased wealth, it was argued, would raise all ships. It is where capitalism is free, they argue, where most wealth is generated and consequently, ordinary citizens are most affluent. This line of argument ignores the fact that the best quality of life across the board has been in nations where generous social programs, high wages to workers, and a generous and healthy public sphere made that quality of life possible for everybody. The good life occurred where equality had been a political priority. On the other hand, nations that have accentuated inequality are the most tense socially and most unstable politically and economically.
Classical or neo liberal economists will argue that it is the free market that best regulates prices, wages, and demand. The market is democratic and what people want, they will demand. The free market is efficient and the competition that exists between firms will increase efficiency. And in that effort, technology as well as processes becomes ultra-efficient. That efficiency not only made it possible to produce very cheaply with far less labour input, it also made it possible to move capital around the globe at the flick of a switch and then, with even less effort. Playing with money became far more attractive than producing things.
The layers of economic illusion including selling sub-prime loans and the financial voodoo among bankers and investors cannot hide the underlying reality. The loss of wages among the working classes may not matter in the heat of short selling and hedging. The soulless masters of the capitalist world continue to pretend there is money, somewhere, to make good the enormous wealth that exists on paper but the bottom line is, every dime of real wealth including the wealth they 'own' begins with work. The genesis of wealth is rooted in the production of goods and services. Financial voodoo does not create wealth. When those chickens come home to roost (and they are) they will discover, and so will we, that all that wealth they accumulate through magical financial wizardry has no basis in reality. In other words, the real adults (workers) don't have jobs and cannot pay the bills. We are in trouble.
Old Age, Sickness, and Death
It is precisely the things that are the strengths of the so called free market that are its fatal flaws as capitalism matures. If capitalism could survive long enough, it could produce all the goods and services human beings could consume, very easily. The problem with that scenario is that everybody is out of work in that scenario, there are no paycheques. Consequently, there is no demand. An additional problem with that scenario is the distribution problem.
Capitalism has been the driving force of a stage of human development that, in many ways, has served us very well. The wealthiest of 19th century merchants or kings could not imagine the quality of life enjoyed by the middle class of the late 20th century. Capitalism has had its day however. It's useful utility has passed. Although it lives only as a mental abstraction, like any entity in the natural world it cannot live forever. Its very energetic and dynamic nature and concomitant instability, its intense energy, naturally results in a relatively short life span. It lasted longer than Marx had imagined however thanks to John M. Keynes.
The years ahead will be tumultuous. Without the calming salve of social programs to quell social upheaval, neo liberal inspired governors will become increasingly fascistic in efforts to stem the tide of social unrest. Keynesians will aim to return to the old world order but at this point this scenario isn't possible or even desirable. Keynes strategy was to protect capitalism from its own demise. Moreover, the maturation of capitalism, the window of opportunity to squeeze profit from a unit of labour has almost vanished and without that excess, the possibility of funding social programs through taxes from workers pockets is substantially reduced.
At this point the chickens 'have' come home to roost. The afterglow of capitalism's long run was sustained by a dot com bubble, by various other bubbles and pyramid schemes and most recently, by creating liquidity through quantitative easing (read: printing money). The notion that we need our too big to fail capitalist masters to take care of us is wearing thin. Big money and their minions have kicked the can down the road about as far as they can. They are running to a dead end.
Millions of jobs in the so called developed world have gone and there is no way they are coming back. They are gone thanks to technological efficiency; the same efficiency makes it much easier to open up the so called second and third world to manufacturing and a 'new and improved' neo liberal brand of consumerism.
To say that rising real wages has ended understates the severity of the situation. The jobs that had paid for roads and bridges and schools and social care and a decent standard of living are gone. Our infrastructure, schools, roads, social programs, is crumbling. The beginning of an ugly death spiral has started and there is no way out.
The wealthy classes and the right wing (their accomplices) had been demanding cuts in worker's wages throughout boom period. They have won. They got their wish. (Be careful what you wish for.)
The Paul Ryans and the rest of the so called libertarians call for less regulations and taxes on the private sector and consequently, the further impoverishment of society as a whole, is becoming more suspicious to the public. At some point, a critical mass will realize that the ideology of neo liberalism was a rather simplistic (albeit complicated in terms of financial gyrations) scam intent on funneling large quantities of wealth to the very rich at the expense of everybody else. At that point, Paul Ryan and the rest of the capitalist classes will be on very thin ice. No Homeland Security, no militias, no threats from the state or political bullshit will stop the outrage and revolutionary upheaval of the American people. The same holds true for Canada, Europe, and for working classes everywhere. Not only will the integrity of phoney wealth vanish, they themselves will be in real danger. They have been the ultimate traitors.
Mutual Interdependence
We've become dependent on gangsters and criminals. We've become addicted to the crack they sell. The time that we need to depend on ourselves is either very close or it has already arrived. We need to do more than occupy Wall Street.
We have always depended on each other. It has always been the efforts of other workers that produced all the goods and services you needed and enjoyed. At this point we need to develop ways and means to organize work to produce goods and services for each other, for our families, and for our communities.
The time will come when revolution will not be a choice. Reality itself will demand it in the requirement to meet human needs. We are fast approaching a point where we will need to produce and distribute goods and services. The need will be/is vital.
We first must recognize that it is not investors that actually produce and provide goods and services. It is you and me. The absurdity of factories rusting while millions look for jobs, while millions do without the goods and services they need; the absurdity of millions homeless while homes lay empty is screaming at us. Those suffering screams compel us to end our reliance on wealthy investors to make things happen.
To do this we need to organize. We need to work. If ever there was a time for us to think outside the box, it is now.
One way to do this is for workers to organize industrial production and for the workers that actually produce to be the board of directors for that enterprise. What is important is that while those workers are in control of surplus, that surplus have a mechanism to social responsibility.
Another element to this will require the focus of research and investment to be attuned to both local and international needs. The old paradigm's outcomes meant much research on getting an edge on making a tastier hamburger (not that there's anything wrong with that on its own) as opposed to research on or providing medicine to people suffering from various diseases. The focus must be on alleviating the suffering of those that suffer most.
While productive workers must have decision making power over their own work and what it is to be used for, input from the community truly democratizes the process. Industry that does not respond to the needs of the community is not worth anything to the community. Integration between producers and consumers (the community) is vital to the democratization of free enterprise.
On the public sphere, municipalities make decisions on what they need and want. If the citizens in a town want to make their town a version of a resort, the national government supplies the expertise to build the pools, the tennis courts, the landscaping and as needed, the supplies. The locals provide the labour.
To get there, to get to the place where we can realistically take back control of our workplaces, our communities, and our nations, we must take control of the state from the gamblers and the criminals. That will take organizing and it will require much effort. But it is not futile. The very same thing has been done and is being done in Venezuela.
As a collective and individually, we cannot be held hostage to old and archaic paradigms. We can no longer afford to submit to the master-slave dialogue. We need to build our own communities and workplaces. We need to provide for ourselves and each other.
We need to understand that the reality has always been, their wealth is based in our work. We need to understand to our bones that our wealth is our work. It does not come from 'them'. It never did.
Saturday, June 30, 2012
The Silent Violence of Vultures
Wealthy investors and their political stooges kill as many Americans in a month as were killed in the terrorist attacks on 9 11. This outrageous crime against humanity must be named for what it is.
The terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centres have steered foreign policy toward more violence and more war. Violence in Syria, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan continues to grab top news spots. The subtext is; 'there are enemies out there and they are everywhere'. They leave us with a clear impression of who the enemy is. Although 2,977 people were murdered on September 11, 2001 by terrorists, an equal number (more or less) of Americans die each month because they lack health care. The fact that these deaths are caused, that they are the result of calculations aimed at maximizing profit, makes them murder. Victims that are dying every 20 minutes die because some very wealthy people want to become even more wealthy. Terrorists that kill through acts of terror are rightly called murderers. Those that kill for investment opportunities are not thought of as murderers but that is what they are. We need to look at this ugly reality directly. The situation promises to get much worse.
American Deaths Due to Health Care Profits
Families USA released a report (June 2012) entitled 'Dying for Coverage: The Deadly Consequences of
Being Uninsured'. The report indicates:
• Across the nation, 26,100 people between the ages of 25 and 64 died prematurely due to a lack of health coverage in 2010 (Table 1). That works out to:
• 2,175 people who died prematurely every month;
• 502 people who died prematurely every week;
• 72 people who died prematurely every day; or
• Three every hour. Between 2005 and 2010, the number of people who died prematurely each year due to a lack of health coverage rose from 20,350 to 26,100.
• Between 2005 and 2010, the total number of people who died prematurely due to a lack of health coverage was 134,120.
• Each and every state sees residents die prematurely due to a lack of health insurance. In 2010, the number of premature deaths due to a lack of health coverage ranged from 28 in Vermont to 3,164 in California.
• The five states with the most premature deaths due to uninsurance in 2010 were California (3,164 deaths), Texas (2,955 deaths), Florida (2,272 deaths), New York (1,247 deaths), and Georgia (1,161 deaths).
Not a single Canadian dies because he or she can't afford health care. This is true of most developed nations and it drives home the point that these deaths are a result of decisions made by politicians. They are responsible.
Grinding Poverty
Across the developed world austerity measures are stripping individuals and nations of their spending power. The strategy is to secure wealth at the upper echelons and to make the poor and the middle classes pay for the excessive financial abuses of the ultra wealthy. As Mainstreet suffers, the politicians focus is almost exclusively on the health of the private sector, the stock markets. And in that spirit, austerity measures grind the poor to their deaths to make sure that the world is safe for investors.
The absurdity of industrial plants rusting while millions are unemployed, of homes being emptied by large banks while thousands are homeless should catch our attention. Something is seriously wrong.
According to the Nation Alliance to End Homelessness:
• There are 643,067 people experiencing homelessness on any given night in the United States.
• Of that number, 238,110 are people in families, and
• 404,957 are individuals
• 17 percent of the homeless population is considered "chronically homeless," and
• 12 percent of the homeless population - 67,000 - are veterans.
"These numbers come from point-in-time counts, which are conducted, community by community, on a single night in January every other year. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) requires communities to submit this data every other year in order to qualify for federal homeless assistance funds. Many communities conduct counts more regularly."
The capitalist world is on a one track austerity mission and human needs are beside the point. Protection of profit is all that counts. When human needs are routinely ignored and when mounting evidence suggests that this is a zero sum game; that the more they get the less we get, it is time that the meek claim our inheritance.
Individual Needs
It may be argued that vital needs define human needs and apart from that, you could switch much of what are called 'needs' to the ‘wants’ category. This crude definition of needs is not sufficient however. Wheelchairs for those that need them may not be vital in any strict sense, but they are needs nonetheless.
People in Toronto need heat in the winter. They also need telephones and transportation. As technology and social structures change, people’s needs change. Kids in Toronto also need a myriad of items and services that hunter gatherer kids in the Amazon do not need. These may not be vital needs but they are not simply 'wants'; they are real needs. When a society slips beyond providing those needs it will pay an ugly price. When a society does not even provide what people need to survive, and a person dies from a lack of medicine, the price has already been paid.
To rise above barbarism, we have to move beyond providing food and shelter and hoping for the best. For people to develop and grow to their potential, obstacles to growth must be removed. If we don't provide these apparently non-vital needs, social problems grow exponentially. Apparent non-vital needs may be ignored and the price of that ignorance is increased numbers of children growing up in high stressed environments resulting in attachment problems, pathologies resulting from living in violent homes, pathologies resulting from living in addicted homes etc. which in turn results in far more addictions, attachment disorders, and violence in the future. And in the future costs associated with jails, rehabilitation programs, and mental health will not only cost in monetary terms, the problems will reduce our collective quality of life and standard of living. By being austere on the front end, we spend much more on the other end. Silent violence has very strange and very ugly, expensive karma.
Most are a single accident away from reliance on social services to provide for them. An accident may result in a physical or mental disability. Very few people are immune from having to potentially rely on the state or community for vital and other basic needs. People that have this misfortune and are not covered by insurance or if their insurance company finds a way out of paying the bills may be shocked to find out how barbaric and cold social welfare systems can be. And they are on a downward trajectory.
Collective Needs
Western nations have long held that freedom is the ultimate goal, the single most important issue worth fighting and dying for. This concern along with 'national security' concerns have driven many young men and women to their deaths - for profit. The key pre-requisite to freedom however is security. In real terms, freedom is predicated on economic and social security.
Society must take care of its material production needs. This includes production, processes of exchange, distribution and so on. We need to produce before we can consume. We also need to distribute adequately for everybody to consume adequately.
As the spectacle of the Republican debates for Presidential candidate revealed for the world to see, the candidates agreed, including Ron Paul, that people that need wheelchairs or food should fend for themselves or rely on the whims of philanthropy. This is another way of saying that the needs of the poor and disadvantaged are not our collective responsibility.
This extreme of selfishness and callous individualism has become the mantra of the extreme right which is parroted by mind numbing corporate media shills. From there an Orwellian group-think download indoctrinates citizens that only want to keep up with what's happening in the world. The result is, those that are exposed to American media learn to think in a certain way. The less exposure, the more we get to keep some semblance of elemental morality. As a result, statements that are jaw dropping over most of the world have become a bizarre and macabre 'normal' in the USA.
Outside the cult of monopoly capitalism, we understand the need to build and maintain a public commons that satisfies the vital needs of each and every individual. No human being should die due to his or her financial status. The fact that this is promoted and encouraged by elected politicians is unforgivable.
MWC news, Counterpunch, Global Research and alternative media in general are quite limited in persuading masses of people to notice what may appear to be obvious to you (a reader of MWC news). The bulk consume mainstream news and this is key to maintaining corporate callous indifference to human suffering. In fact, we all need to do a better job. This enemy is far worse than the terrorists and all the foreign threats they can't stop talking about. This enemy is very real and it is pretending to be your friend.
That is the very worst kind.
The terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centres have steered foreign policy toward more violence and more war. Violence in Syria, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan continues to grab top news spots. The subtext is; 'there are enemies out there and they are everywhere'. They leave us with a clear impression of who the enemy is. Although 2,977 people were murdered on September 11, 2001 by terrorists, an equal number (more or less) of Americans die each month because they lack health care. The fact that these deaths are caused, that they are the result of calculations aimed at maximizing profit, makes them murder. Victims that are dying every 20 minutes die because some very wealthy people want to become even more wealthy. Terrorists that kill through acts of terror are rightly called murderers. Those that kill for investment opportunities are not thought of as murderers but that is what they are. We need to look at this ugly reality directly. The situation promises to get much worse.
American Deaths Due to Health Care Profits
Families USA released a report (June 2012) entitled 'Dying for Coverage: The Deadly Consequences of
Being Uninsured'. The report indicates:
• Across the nation, 26,100 people between the ages of 25 and 64 died prematurely due to a lack of health coverage in 2010 (Table 1). That works out to:
• 2,175 people who died prematurely every month;
• 502 people who died prematurely every week;
• 72 people who died prematurely every day; or
• Three every hour. Between 2005 and 2010, the number of people who died prematurely each year due to a lack of health coverage rose from 20,350 to 26,100.
• Between 2005 and 2010, the total number of people who died prematurely due to a lack of health coverage was 134,120.
• Each and every state sees residents die prematurely due to a lack of health insurance. In 2010, the number of premature deaths due to a lack of health coverage ranged from 28 in Vermont to 3,164 in California.
• The five states with the most premature deaths due to uninsurance in 2010 were California (3,164 deaths), Texas (2,955 deaths), Florida (2,272 deaths), New York (1,247 deaths), and Georgia (1,161 deaths).
Not a single Canadian dies because he or she can't afford health care. This is true of most developed nations and it drives home the point that these deaths are a result of decisions made by politicians. They are responsible.
Grinding Poverty
Across the developed world austerity measures are stripping individuals and nations of their spending power. The strategy is to secure wealth at the upper echelons and to make the poor and the middle classes pay for the excessive financial abuses of the ultra wealthy. As Mainstreet suffers, the politicians focus is almost exclusively on the health of the private sector, the stock markets. And in that spirit, austerity measures grind the poor to their deaths to make sure that the world is safe for investors.
The absurdity of industrial plants rusting while millions are unemployed, of homes being emptied by large banks while thousands are homeless should catch our attention. Something is seriously wrong.
According to the Nation Alliance to End Homelessness:
• There are 643,067 people experiencing homelessness on any given night in the United States.
• Of that number, 238,110 are people in families, and
• 404,957 are individuals
• 17 percent of the homeless population is considered "chronically homeless," and
• 12 percent of the homeless population - 67,000 - are veterans.
"These numbers come from point-in-time counts, which are conducted, community by community, on a single night in January every other year. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) requires communities to submit this data every other year in order to qualify for federal homeless assistance funds. Many communities conduct counts more regularly."
The capitalist world is on a one track austerity mission and human needs are beside the point. Protection of profit is all that counts. When human needs are routinely ignored and when mounting evidence suggests that this is a zero sum game; that the more they get the less we get, it is time that the meek claim our inheritance.
Individual Needs
It may be argued that vital needs define human needs and apart from that, you could switch much of what are called 'needs' to the ‘wants’ category. This crude definition of needs is not sufficient however. Wheelchairs for those that need them may not be vital in any strict sense, but they are needs nonetheless.
People in Toronto need heat in the winter. They also need telephones and transportation. As technology and social structures change, people’s needs change. Kids in Toronto also need a myriad of items and services that hunter gatherer kids in the Amazon do not need. These may not be vital needs but they are not simply 'wants'; they are real needs. When a society slips beyond providing those needs it will pay an ugly price. When a society does not even provide what people need to survive, and a person dies from a lack of medicine, the price has already been paid.
To rise above barbarism, we have to move beyond providing food and shelter and hoping for the best. For people to develop and grow to their potential, obstacles to growth must be removed. If we don't provide these apparently non-vital needs, social problems grow exponentially. Apparent non-vital needs may be ignored and the price of that ignorance is increased numbers of children growing up in high stressed environments resulting in attachment problems, pathologies resulting from living in violent homes, pathologies resulting from living in addicted homes etc. which in turn results in far more addictions, attachment disorders, and violence in the future. And in the future costs associated with jails, rehabilitation programs, and mental health will not only cost in monetary terms, the problems will reduce our collective quality of life and standard of living. By being austere on the front end, we spend much more on the other end. Silent violence has very strange and very ugly, expensive karma.
Most are a single accident away from reliance on social services to provide for them. An accident may result in a physical or mental disability. Very few people are immune from having to potentially rely on the state or community for vital and other basic needs. People that have this misfortune and are not covered by insurance or if their insurance company finds a way out of paying the bills may be shocked to find out how barbaric and cold social welfare systems can be. And they are on a downward trajectory.
Collective Needs
Western nations have long held that freedom is the ultimate goal, the single most important issue worth fighting and dying for. This concern along with 'national security' concerns have driven many young men and women to their deaths - for profit. The key pre-requisite to freedom however is security. In real terms, freedom is predicated on economic and social security.
Society must take care of its material production needs. This includes production, processes of exchange, distribution and so on. We need to produce before we can consume. We also need to distribute adequately for everybody to consume adequately.
As the spectacle of the Republican debates for Presidential candidate revealed for the world to see, the candidates agreed, including Ron Paul, that people that need wheelchairs or food should fend for themselves or rely on the whims of philanthropy. This is another way of saying that the needs of the poor and disadvantaged are not our collective responsibility.
This extreme of selfishness and callous individualism has become the mantra of the extreme right which is parroted by mind numbing corporate media shills. From there an Orwellian group-think download indoctrinates citizens that only want to keep up with what's happening in the world. The result is, those that are exposed to American media learn to think in a certain way. The less exposure, the more we get to keep some semblance of elemental morality. As a result, statements that are jaw dropping over most of the world have become a bizarre and macabre 'normal' in the USA.
Outside the cult of monopoly capitalism, we understand the need to build and maintain a public commons that satisfies the vital needs of each and every individual. No human being should die due to his or her financial status. The fact that this is promoted and encouraged by elected politicians is unforgivable.
MWC news, Counterpunch, Global Research and alternative media in general are quite limited in persuading masses of people to notice what may appear to be obvious to you (a reader of MWC news). The bulk consume mainstream news and this is key to maintaining corporate callous indifference to human suffering. In fact, we all need to do a better job. This enemy is far worse than the terrorists and all the foreign threats they can't stop talking about. This enemy is very real and it is pretending to be your friend.
That is the very worst kind.
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