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.
This blog is an archive of articles I've published in MWC News, Indymedia, and on Newsgroups.
Thursday, November 29, 2012
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.
Saturday, June 09, 2012
The Death Throes of Capitalism
Everything that is being said, written, and discussed throughout the financial press, mainstream media, and throughout closed door discussions between business leaders and politicians are 180 degrees wrong. They have swallowed a bill of goods that had been invented by neo liberal economists which legitimizes theft on the grandest of scales. And it is you they are stealing from. That is not to say the majority of these 'experts' are necessarily insincere or malevolent. We need to accept a fact that appears absurd at first. And that fact is; when it comes to economics, the stupidity of our political and business 'betters' is mind boggling.
To say that reading the financial press and trying to follow the machinations of economics is confusing is more than an understatement. It is an exercise in futility. They, the wizards and masters of the financial universe, really don't know what they are talking about. What is crucial is that we, the people, don't turn our backs on the fundamentals of political economy just because 'they' have taken the art of scam to whole new level of confusion and bewilderment. It is important that we look at, examine, and debate the fundamentals of what our material world consists of and how it's made.
The Value of Work
Everything around you that you own and use is the result of effort of a vast army of unseen workers. The material reality we live in and with is not only the basis of wealth, it is wealth. The great attribution error of our economic gurus is that wealth emanates 'from' the top and finds its way to the rest of us. In reality, the very genesis of wealth starts in the process of work. The erroneous assumption that we need thieves and parasites to make it all possible has us all in a bind with nowhere to turn. Maintaining this assumption has devastating consequences for us as societies and as individuals. We need to pay attention.
We find ourselves in the midst of a grand Globalization experiment gone bad. The promise is, it will get much worse. It is an economic experiment penned by Milton Freidman of the Chicago School of Economics, Ludwig von Mises and Freidrich Hayek of Austria, French economist Jean Baptiste Say, and generally the authors of what we call neo liberal economics.
On the question of value, these marginalists have parted company with Adam Smith and David Ricardo who knew that analysis of the role of work itself was central to scientific economic study to understand what it is that determines value. They tackled questions about what it is that encourages wealth to grow and what determines its distribution between classes in society. They saw an objective measure of value as a precondition for coming to terms with these problems. Smith suggested it was to be found in labour. Ricardo built his work from these notions and they developed the idea of use-value as opposed to exchange-value. This was to be elaborated on later by Karl Marx.
There is no doubt that that the shallow focus of the marginalists and the concept of marginal utility which serves as their basis for economic theory is valid on a micro level. It suits the interests of business. But when we consider the multiple confounding factors of the larger economy, marginal utility curves do not and cannot take us where we need to go. It is a superficial and vulgar view of economics. We must go deeper to discover what it is that determines value. We must go to Ricardo, Smith and for more depth, Marx.
The Limits of Capitalism
Aside from a passionate revolutionary condemnation of capitalism as an evil entity, we must consider the limits of what it can achieve as a motivator and player in our societies. The marginalists and capitalists themselves will not even suggest that it is meant to provide jobs, care for the poor, or bring the majority to a level of material satisfaction. It not only won't do those things, it can't do those things. It is limited in its utility and it has been unfairly cast into a role that it cannot live up to. Moreover, the notion that the so called 'market' will produce what is best for society is simply wrong. For instance, the vital needs of citizens such as medicine or health care, housing, food, whatever the case may be, may be lacking to a small or large degree. The easiest and most profitable way to invest however may be in the production of play stations or in buying and manipulating stocks, bonds, commodities, currencies and so on. (For the sake of staying with more grounded and less ethereal concepts, let us stick with the manufacture of commodities.) If play stations sales will result in the most profit, then research, energy, and investment will focus on play station development, manufacture, and distribution. Research and development related to human beings vital needs is relevant if profits can be made.
Capitalism goes beyond the possibility of marginalizing human needs. It is often an impediment to human needs and the security of human health. Again, this is not the fault of capitalism per se. It is a problem of misattribution and overdependence. As we can see in the bizarre health care configuration in the United States, if there is a way to make a buck, your needs will be served and served well. If not, good luck with the mirage Americans rely on for public health.
Capitalist motives are very good at compelling the production and provision of trinkets, shiny toys, and killer hamburgers. It is abysmal as an engine for the provision of human needs. It is our collective dependence on it that is the crux of the matter. It runs governments and rules the world. It even controls us down to the most basic elements of our lives.
We need to criticize and condemn our dependence on this rather simplistic method of making a buck; this sleight of hand. Like all things, overdependence leads to disaster. Like dependence on heroin, it will sicken and eventually kill the host body. It had been a solution, a source of energy for production and material security and has evolved to become our overarching collective nemesis. It has become a social sickness and has the characteristics of addiction.
Our Wealth is Our Work
Supply and demand graphs help explain the price of something in a given time or place but it does not explain why things have the exchange value they have. Adam Smith's labour theory of value has far more relevance to our understanding of how we value commodities. According to Smith, the exchange value of commodities is determined by the amount of labour measured in working hours necessary to make them (given current levels of technology). Bicycles sell for less than cars in part due to the fewer hours to making bicycles than cars. In the same period of time, a person may make many bicycles (notwithstanding technological factors) but only one car. Smith and other economists tested this theory by comparing prices of commodities with the necessary labour time needed to produce them. They found that while it does not explain the exact price of things, it does explain why they exchange for their approximate prices.
This theory takes the mystery out of the concept of value by relating exchange value to human labour. Consider the fact that the basis of capitalist economies is surplus value, that is, the hours of labour beyond what the worker is paid for and the value that is appropriated by the capitalist; that this is the basis of the wealth of capitalists. When we consider what can be done with labour power in terms of developing priorities, goods and services, we may then consider possibilities beyond the poor and short sighted rationality of the marginalists. We might abandon the superstitious nonsense that the theft of the value that is produced by labour as an indispensable ingredient to economic success. In other words, we can afford to abandon the notion that exploitation, greed, and theft are necessary evils for societies to function well. At that point, we may go beyond the limitations as well as the financial tyranny of capitalism itself.
The upshot is this: everything you see around you in terms of material goods is real, tangible wealth. You computer, you stove, your television are tangible items that make your life better. Money is but a means of getting them. It is not the actual wealth itself. And each and every one of the items that make your life better that you are willing to pay for is probably some form of modified rock or energy; modified by work. We can, minus our collective addiction, provide all the goods and services we all need and then some.
What Happened?
What Happened to the Golden Age of Capitalism? Not so long ago the trajectory was upward. The sky was the limit. Wages were increasing, social programs were being implemented everywhere, material deprivation seemed a thing of the past. What happened to the American Dream? The answer is, that is what it was; a dream. It was based in gross exploitation of the capitalist hinterland (formerly known as the Third World) where starvation and brutal oppression were essential ingredients to our soft lives. It was also based on the clever wealth sharing mechanisms of John Maynard Keynes which, due to the diminishing rate of profit (that's another story) as well as the need for capital to grow, are no longer a realistic option.
At this point capitalism has grown beyond Keynes. Keynes policies and recommendations have become archaic. Keynes provided capitalism with a longer shelf life than classical unbridled capitalist anarchy could have expected otherwise. But now, we're back to square one.
It also could be argued that defense spending has done more for the overall health of capitalism in the 20th century than Keynes distribution policies. It certainly cultivates and maintains hegemony. The United States government doesn't spend more than all nations on earth to save women from the Taliban.
At this point we can see that advanced capitalism is not living up anything close to stability or equilibrium. Capitalism is showing itself to be an anarchistic loose hose, flipping and whipping depending on the mood of speculators. Rather than stability, the economy is subject to the whims of a bizarre grand global casino game. Furthermore, it is becoming clear that what is good for profiteers is not good for the general population and vice versa. The stock market booms with news of bailouts or quantitative easing (printing money) for the wealthy or, when announcements of austerity measures against the general population are made.
The neo-classical experiment is on and we are in the midst of it. The patterns that are emerging looking grim. And from these patterns and hardships an awareness of the true nature of capitalism is growing.
A specter is haunting the planet…
To say that reading the financial press and trying to follow the machinations of economics is confusing is more than an understatement. It is an exercise in futility. They, the wizards and masters of the financial universe, really don't know what they are talking about. What is crucial is that we, the people, don't turn our backs on the fundamentals of political economy just because 'they' have taken the art of scam to whole new level of confusion and bewilderment. It is important that we look at, examine, and debate the fundamentals of what our material world consists of and how it's made.
The Value of Work
Everything around you that you own and use is the result of effort of a vast army of unseen workers. The material reality we live in and with is not only the basis of wealth, it is wealth. The great attribution error of our economic gurus is that wealth emanates 'from' the top and finds its way to the rest of us. In reality, the very genesis of wealth starts in the process of work. The erroneous assumption that we need thieves and parasites to make it all possible has us all in a bind with nowhere to turn. Maintaining this assumption has devastating consequences for us as societies and as individuals. We need to pay attention.
We find ourselves in the midst of a grand Globalization experiment gone bad. The promise is, it will get much worse. It is an economic experiment penned by Milton Freidman of the Chicago School of Economics, Ludwig von Mises and Freidrich Hayek of Austria, French economist Jean Baptiste Say, and generally the authors of what we call neo liberal economics.
On the question of value, these marginalists have parted company with Adam Smith and David Ricardo who knew that analysis of the role of work itself was central to scientific economic study to understand what it is that determines value. They tackled questions about what it is that encourages wealth to grow and what determines its distribution between classes in society. They saw an objective measure of value as a precondition for coming to terms with these problems. Smith suggested it was to be found in labour. Ricardo built his work from these notions and they developed the idea of use-value as opposed to exchange-value. This was to be elaborated on later by Karl Marx.
There is no doubt that that the shallow focus of the marginalists and the concept of marginal utility which serves as their basis for economic theory is valid on a micro level. It suits the interests of business. But when we consider the multiple confounding factors of the larger economy, marginal utility curves do not and cannot take us where we need to go. It is a superficial and vulgar view of economics. We must go deeper to discover what it is that determines value. We must go to Ricardo, Smith and for more depth, Marx.
The Limits of Capitalism
Aside from a passionate revolutionary condemnation of capitalism as an evil entity, we must consider the limits of what it can achieve as a motivator and player in our societies. The marginalists and capitalists themselves will not even suggest that it is meant to provide jobs, care for the poor, or bring the majority to a level of material satisfaction. It not only won't do those things, it can't do those things. It is limited in its utility and it has been unfairly cast into a role that it cannot live up to. Moreover, the notion that the so called 'market' will produce what is best for society is simply wrong. For instance, the vital needs of citizens such as medicine or health care, housing, food, whatever the case may be, may be lacking to a small or large degree. The easiest and most profitable way to invest however may be in the production of play stations or in buying and manipulating stocks, bonds, commodities, currencies and so on. (For the sake of staying with more grounded and less ethereal concepts, let us stick with the manufacture of commodities.) If play stations sales will result in the most profit, then research, energy, and investment will focus on play station development, manufacture, and distribution. Research and development related to human beings vital needs is relevant if profits can be made.
Capitalism goes beyond the possibility of marginalizing human needs. It is often an impediment to human needs and the security of human health. Again, this is not the fault of capitalism per se. It is a problem of misattribution and overdependence. As we can see in the bizarre health care configuration in the United States, if there is a way to make a buck, your needs will be served and served well. If not, good luck with the mirage Americans rely on for public health.
Capitalist motives are very good at compelling the production and provision of trinkets, shiny toys, and killer hamburgers. It is abysmal as an engine for the provision of human needs. It is our collective dependence on it that is the crux of the matter. It runs governments and rules the world. It even controls us down to the most basic elements of our lives.
We need to criticize and condemn our dependence on this rather simplistic method of making a buck; this sleight of hand. Like all things, overdependence leads to disaster. Like dependence on heroin, it will sicken and eventually kill the host body. It had been a solution, a source of energy for production and material security and has evolved to become our overarching collective nemesis. It has become a social sickness and has the characteristics of addiction.
Our Wealth is Our Work
Supply and demand graphs help explain the price of something in a given time or place but it does not explain why things have the exchange value they have. Adam Smith's labour theory of value has far more relevance to our understanding of how we value commodities. According to Smith, the exchange value of commodities is determined by the amount of labour measured in working hours necessary to make them (given current levels of technology). Bicycles sell for less than cars in part due to the fewer hours to making bicycles than cars. In the same period of time, a person may make many bicycles (notwithstanding technological factors) but only one car. Smith and other economists tested this theory by comparing prices of commodities with the necessary labour time needed to produce them. They found that while it does not explain the exact price of things, it does explain why they exchange for their approximate prices.
This theory takes the mystery out of the concept of value by relating exchange value to human labour. Consider the fact that the basis of capitalist economies is surplus value, that is, the hours of labour beyond what the worker is paid for and the value that is appropriated by the capitalist; that this is the basis of the wealth of capitalists. When we consider what can be done with labour power in terms of developing priorities, goods and services, we may then consider possibilities beyond the poor and short sighted rationality of the marginalists. We might abandon the superstitious nonsense that the theft of the value that is produced by labour as an indispensable ingredient to economic success. In other words, we can afford to abandon the notion that exploitation, greed, and theft are necessary evils for societies to function well. At that point, we may go beyond the limitations as well as the financial tyranny of capitalism itself.
The upshot is this: everything you see around you in terms of material goods is real, tangible wealth. You computer, you stove, your television are tangible items that make your life better. Money is but a means of getting them. It is not the actual wealth itself. And each and every one of the items that make your life better that you are willing to pay for is probably some form of modified rock or energy; modified by work. We can, minus our collective addiction, provide all the goods and services we all need and then some.
What Happened?
What Happened to the Golden Age of Capitalism? Not so long ago the trajectory was upward. The sky was the limit. Wages were increasing, social programs were being implemented everywhere, material deprivation seemed a thing of the past. What happened to the American Dream? The answer is, that is what it was; a dream. It was based in gross exploitation of the capitalist hinterland (formerly known as the Third World) where starvation and brutal oppression were essential ingredients to our soft lives. It was also based on the clever wealth sharing mechanisms of John Maynard Keynes which, due to the diminishing rate of profit (that's another story) as well as the need for capital to grow, are no longer a realistic option.
At this point capitalism has grown beyond Keynes. Keynes policies and recommendations have become archaic. Keynes provided capitalism with a longer shelf life than classical unbridled capitalist anarchy could have expected otherwise. But now, we're back to square one.
It also could be argued that defense spending has done more for the overall health of capitalism in the 20th century than Keynes distribution policies. It certainly cultivates and maintains hegemony. The United States government doesn't spend more than all nations on earth to save women from the Taliban.
At this point we can see that advanced capitalism is not living up anything close to stability or equilibrium. Capitalism is showing itself to be an anarchistic loose hose, flipping and whipping depending on the mood of speculators. Rather than stability, the economy is subject to the whims of a bizarre grand global casino game. Furthermore, it is becoming clear that what is good for profiteers is not good for the general population and vice versa. The stock market booms with news of bailouts or quantitative easing (printing money) for the wealthy or, when announcements of austerity measures against the general population are made.
The neo-classical experiment is on and we are in the midst of it. The patterns that are emerging looking grim. And from these patterns and hardships an awareness of the true nature of capitalism is growing.
A specter is haunting the planet…
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
The Nature of the War on Islam
The American state is asking you to harass, attack, and bully Muslims. And, you are doing it.
In America, there is an emerging, less than official, doctrine that places Muslims under the same spotlight where millions of Africans, Aboriginal Americans, Mexicans, and various other ethnic groups that have suffered a campaign of sustained and brutal racism. Victims have been attacked within the culture and the attacks have been not only accepted by the state, but in many cases the state has taken the initiative. That is what has been happening to Muslims since the collapse of the Soviet Union. State (official) antipathy against Muslims is growing and becoming more dangerous.
In this endeavour, Canada, the UK, and many European nations are working in concert with the United States.
With the exception of the enemy du jour, this is not new. The state has taken the initiative to single out and attack a particular ethnic group and have been doing so since the first colonies rooted in New England. Individuals that happen to be born into the group that the state deems a lower caste will be harassed, bullied, enslaved, beaten, raped, tortured and murdered. Once the state unleashes its many racist hounds, it only needs to play a supporting role. Lumpen-racists are happy to carry out the dirty work. History shows many willing accomplices have been found within the domestic, European population. They don't only support the state's nefarious view of the threatening or inferior population but have often taken their own initiatives as they have with Emmitt Till, Trayvon Martin, and countless others.
Understanding the Threat to America
According to Al Jazeera,Army Lieutenant Colonel Matthew Dooley had been teaching a course at a military base in Norfolk, Virginia, entitled "Understanding the Threat to America" where he states that Geneva Conventions no longer apply when fighting Muslims. The course comes dangerously close to counselling genocide when it calls for teaching soldiers to engage in "total war" on Islam and to take the war on Islam to the civilian population "wherever necessary".
Rampant anti Muslim feelings through the American military are acknowledged by Morris Davis, a retired Air Force Colonel and past chief Prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay. Davis acknowledges that this is just the tip of the iceberg, that anti-Muslim feelings are widespread throughout the military. Davis states in an interview with Josh Rushing (Al Jazeera) that a significant number of people in the U.S. military have an attitude that says, 'the only good Muslim is a dead Muslim'. He describes Dooley as "the tip of the iceberg". Ibraham Hooper, National Communications Director for CAIR (Muslim Civil Liberties Advocacy Organisation), echoed Davis view. CAIR itself was named as one of many Muslim organizations that have connections to HAMAS. Hamas has already been established as a terrorist organization and a threat to Israel and America by commentators through Western mainstream media. Hooper goes on to say that this type of anti-Muslim teaching is widespread throughout military and security organizations in the United States such as the CIA, the FBI, and DHS.
While this may be dismissed as military psychological indoctrination in a similar way that marines learned that Vietnamese 'gooks' were not human, the widespread attack on Muslims is far more sustained and pernicious. While this attack is not 'just like' the European demonizing of the 'menacing Jew' of 1930s, there is an undercurrent, a subtext, of shared similarities. Muslims are fast becoming the lowest caste on the Western rung. They are also being attacked along the same lines as alleged communists did under the suspicious gaze of Senator Joe McCarthy.
Participants in the course have been taught that the "historical precendents of Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki are applicable to Mecca and Medina's destruction" and "Given the factual basis of what "Islamists" say they seek to impose on the world, the United States has come to accept that radical "true Islam" is both a political and military enemy to free people throughout the world.... It is therefore time for the United States to make our true intentions clear. This barbaric ideology will no longer be tolerated. Islam must change or we will facilitate its self destruction."
Dooley also taught that Hamas has infiltrated the US government at the highest levels. The course material simply lies in order to make its main point; that many disparate Islamic groups are in cahoots with each other and their aim is to infiltrate the US government, to take over.
Although the official position of the Pentagon does not support this and no official anywhere within the American, Canadian, British or any government would openly agree, widespread antipathy toward Muslims throughout military and law enforcement organizations appears to be encouraged. There is no significant movement to see it as a problem or to eradicate it. On the other hand it is denied, minimized, or, Muslims are blamed for it.
Dooley has been suspended for this hate fueled presentation which implies the promotion of genocide. He still teaches at the military college however. The important point is that he isn't alone, he is one of many - too many in fact. His teaching material includes quotations from a variety of right wing media outlets and authors.
The state will deny or minimize their own racism and deny that Dooley's course reflects the official position of the state. Not many political leaders express the same overt messianic fervour. What politicians will say in public rarely lines up with what they really believe. To see what they think, we must look at their actions. Obama is far too polished to say anything that would make his PR handlers cringe. His actions however, give him away. He ignores the ongoing abuses of Palestinians, especially in Gaza. He has protected torturers, increased spying against Muslims, intensified and expanded the war against the Afghani people, dramatically increased the frequency and scope of drone murders in many Mid East locales, and he has given himself the power to kill, in a first degree murder kind of way, Muslims. He will not close Guantanamo. He is further curtailing free speech rights for Muslims and he is expanding wiretaps against them. He has justified a war against Libya citing human rights abuses and at the same time protects the brutal dictatorships of Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Bahrain. Behind the scenes, we can be sure him and Hillary Clinton are ensuring Egypt's return to the status of tame lapdog.
He is also threatening Iran with war and, like most attacks against Muslims, facts don't get in the way of a good story line (lie). Against all credible evidence available, he is pushing ahead against this Islamic nation as Bush has done against Iraq and Afghanistan. Obama continues to militarize his nation through speech, symbolism, and deed. He will not admit to being a war hawk but he is. He will not admit his hostility toward Muslims but it is obvious.
Separate Justice System for Muslims
In an article for the New York Times, Andrew Rosenthal suggests that the current justice system in the United States makes little distinction between Muslims and terrorists. There are, " Special detention centers for Muslims (Guantanamo Bay and the network of secret C.I.A. lockups, now said to be closed, where prisoners were almost routinely tortured); special trial procedures for Muslim prisoners (military tribunals); special allowances for agents dealing with Muslim suspects (extraordinary rendition, i.e. officially sanctioned kidnapping of foreigners)."
This, against a backdrop where Muslims are searched, followed, spied upon, and generally harassed by the state as well as citizens suggests an overarching system of widespread human rights abuses. The New York Police Department is becoming well known for its anti-Muslim witch hunts as are many other 'departments'.
Rosenthal points out in his article that the F.B.I., in response to an expose (by Wired magazine) of offensive and blatant anti-Muslim training materials which have been described by Senator Richard Durbin of Illinois as “crude stereotypes of American Muslims and Arab Americans”, will not respond in any meaningful way. As the author states: "When confronted with abuses and misbehavior in the so-called “war on terror,” government agencies start with denial, follow up with a grudging admission of missteps and then refuse to hold anyone accountable."
This is the situation in the United States of America and in the UK/Europe the situation may be worse. Perhaps the most vocal and blatant politician (notwithstanding far right fascists) against Islam has been Tony Blair who seems to have no limits to his capacity in describing Islam and Muslims as a threat to Western civilization. Whether Mr. Blair intended it or not, he has energized extreme right wing nationalism in the UK. He has made it clear that Muslims are suspect. Today in the UK Muslims are under attack from lumpen-racists, media, and politicians.
The Rise of European Fascism
Western media have been pushing the Islamic threat and it is they, perhaps more than anything or anybody else, that have pushed Muslims in a very dangerous corner. As economic conditions deteriorate, the danger increases. Attacks on immigrants in general are easily encouraged in a climate of economic uncertainty and insecurity. It is this type of environment where nationalism and fascist sentiments thrive.
In the 1930s, in Europe, when economic instability compelled the press and politicians to urge citizens seek out lateral enemies (Jews, Gypsies, African Europeans) to distract citizens from horizontal enemies (the ultra wealthy), extreme and violent anti-Jewish, anti-African, anti-immigrant and anti-anything that 'isn't us' reactions followed culminating in the slaughter of millions of innocent people. Signs of a re-emergent fascism are on the rise throughout Europe as it had in the 30s. This time it will not be Jews but Muslims that pay the price.
In this backdrop, established, irresponsible, and hysterical political voices like that of Tony Blair make statements like “...there is the most enormous threat from the combination of this radical extreme movement and the fact that, if they could, they would use nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons. You can’t take a risk with that happening.” Anders Breivik was listening and he acted. He was also listening to mainstream media, right wing alarmists, and various rightist and 'moderate' politicians spewing hatred against a religion of over one billion people. It is only a matter of time before deranged psychopaths pick up their cues from these 'legitimate' sources and run with it. And Breivik ran with it. He murdered, not Muslims, but what he perceived as leftists/Marxists for being soft on Muslims and immigration. He has declared that there is a conspiracy by Muslims aimed at taking control of Europe.
The very same political movement that killed Jews (because they were Jews and no other reason) in the 1930s, namely far right fascists, are now flirting with right wing Zionists and Zionists are flirting back. In a bizarre twist of political reality, they stand together against a common enemy. Tom Heneghan, writing for Reuters states: "Geert Wilders, whose populist far-right party supports the Dutch minority government, told Reuters last week (December 2010) he was organizing an "international freedom alliance" to link grass-roots groups active in "the fight against Islam.
Earlier this month, Wilders visited Israel and backed its West Bank settlements, saying Palestinians there should move to Jordan. Like-minded German, Austrian, Belgian, Swedish and other far-rightists were on their own Israel tour at the same time.
"Our culture is based on Christianity, Judaism and humanism and (the Israelis) are fighting our fight," Wilders told Reuters in Amsterdam last week. "If Jerusalem falls, Amsterdam and New York will be next."
Heneghan makes the point that extreme attitudes against Muslims are creeping into mainstream political normalcy. He observes, "Campaigns aimed at Muslims have been gaining ground in Europe, most notably with the Swiss minaret ban last year and France's law this year against full facial veils in public, which Wilders said the Netherlands should copy next year.
Support for these steps has spread beyond anti-immigrant parties and toward the political center as globalization and the aging of Europe's population fuel voters' concerns about national sovereignty, according to a leading French analyst.
Political scientist Dominique Reynie said the financial crisis had prompted more voters to agree with the far right that their political elites were incompetent."
The right wing alliance with Zionists will provide them with legitimacy and support from quarters they would never gain trust with otherwise; namely Jews, the very same people they slaughtered two generations ago.
Far right zealots are in the margins in every corner of Europe from Russia to the UK. And as they stand in the margins and listen to the likes of the former Prime Minister, as they watch the murderous zeal of Barack Obama, and they listen to and watch mainstream news organizations demonize Islam, they are empowered and encouraged.
When established individuals and organizations are silently in cahoots with the extreme right; when they agree in hushed tones to fight Islam and to harm Muslim people, we all need to take notice. That is the first step and although it may seem insurmountable, it isn't. From there we need to stand shoulder to shoulder with people that are potential victims of cowardice and hatred. We need to stand up and defend them.
We need to imagine that we managed to travel back in time; we are standing in Europe in the 1930s. We know what's about to happen. We need to find a way to stop it before it gets out of control. We need to do it because it is possible, maybe even probable, that this is more than a metaphor.
In America, there is an emerging, less than official, doctrine that places Muslims under the same spotlight where millions of Africans, Aboriginal Americans, Mexicans, and various other ethnic groups that have suffered a campaign of sustained and brutal racism. Victims have been attacked within the culture and the attacks have been not only accepted by the state, but in many cases the state has taken the initiative. That is what has been happening to Muslims since the collapse of the Soviet Union. State (official) antipathy against Muslims is growing and becoming more dangerous.
In this endeavour, Canada, the UK, and many European nations are working in concert with the United States.
With the exception of the enemy du jour, this is not new. The state has taken the initiative to single out and attack a particular ethnic group and have been doing so since the first colonies rooted in New England. Individuals that happen to be born into the group that the state deems a lower caste will be harassed, bullied, enslaved, beaten, raped, tortured and murdered. Once the state unleashes its many racist hounds, it only needs to play a supporting role. Lumpen-racists are happy to carry out the dirty work. History shows many willing accomplices have been found within the domestic, European population. They don't only support the state's nefarious view of the threatening or inferior population but have often taken their own initiatives as they have with Emmitt Till, Trayvon Martin, and countless others.
Understanding the Threat to America
According to Al Jazeera,Army Lieutenant Colonel Matthew Dooley had been teaching a course at a military base in Norfolk, Virginia, entitled "Understanding the Threat to America" where he states that Geneva Conventions no longer apply when fighting Muslims. The course comes dangerously close to counselling genocide when it calls for teaching soldiers to engage in "total war" on Islam and to take the war on Islam to the civilian population "wherever necessary".
Rampant anti Muslim feelings through the American military are acknowledged by Morris Davis, a retired Air Force Colonel and past chief Prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay. Davis acknowledges that this is just the tip of the iceberg, that anti-Muslim feelings are widespread throughout the military. Davis states in an interview with Josh Rushing (Al Jazeera) that a significant number of people in the U.S. military have an attitude that says, 'the only good Muslim is a dead Muslim'. He describes Dooley as "the tip of the iceberg". Ibraham Hooper, National Communications Director for CAIR (Muslim Civil Liberties Advocacy Organisation), echoed Davis view. CAIR itself was named as one of many Muslim organizations that have connections to HAMAS. Hamas has already been established as a terrorist organization and a threat to Israel and America by commentators through Western mainstream media. Hooper goes on to say that this type of anti-Muslim teaching is widespread throughout military and security organizations in the United States such as the CIA, the FBI, and DHS.
While this may be dismissed as military psychological indoctrination in a similar way that marines learned that Vietnamese 'gooks' were not human, the widespread attack on Muslims is far more sustained and pernicious. While this attack is not 'just like' the European demonizing of the 'menacing Jew' of 1930s, there is an undercurrent, a subtext, of shared similarities. Muslims are fast becoming the lowest caste on the Western rung. They are also being attacked along the same lines as alleged communists did under the suspicious gaze of Senator Joe McCarthy.
Participants in the course have been taught that the "historical precendents
Dooley also taught that Hamas has infiltrated the US government at the highest levels. The course material simply lies in order to make its main point; that many disparate Islamic groups are in cahoots with each other and their aim is to infiltrate the US government, to take over.
Although the official position of the Pentagon does not support this and no official anywhere within the American, Canadian, British or any government would openly agree, widespread antipathy toward Muslims throughout military and law enforcement organizations appears to be encouraged. There is no significant movement to see it as a problem or to eradicate it. On the other hand it is denied, minimized, or, Muslims are blamed for it.
Dooley has been suspended for this hate fueled presentation which implies the promotion of genocide. He still teaches at the military college however. The important point is that he isn't alone, he is one of many - too many in fact. His teaching material includes quotations from a variety of right wing media outlets and authors.
The state will deny or minimize their own racism and deny that Dooley's course reflects the official position of the state. Not many political leaders express the same overt messianic fervour. What politicians will say in public rarely lines up with what they really believe. To see what they think, we must look at their actions. Obama is far too polished to say anything that would make his PR handlers cringe. His actions however, give him away. He ignores the ongoing abuses of Palestinians, especially in Gaza. He has protected torturers, increased spying against Muslims, intensified and expanded the war against the Afghani people, dramatically increased the frequency and scope of drone murders in many Mid East locales, and he has given himself the power to kill, in a first degree murder kind of way, Muslims. He will not close Guantanamo. He is further curtailing free speech rights for Muslims and he is expanding wiretaps against them. He has justified a war against Libya citing human rights abuses and at the same time protects the brutal dictatorships of Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Bahrain. Behind the scenes, we can be sure him and Hillary Clinton are ensuring Egypt's return to the status of tame lapdog.
He is also threatening Iran with war and, like most attacks against Muslims, facts don't get in the way of a good story line (lie). Against all credible evidence available, he is pushing ahead against this Islamic nation as Bush has done against Iraq and Afghanistan. Obama continues to militarize his nation through speech, symbolism, and deed. He will not admit to being a war hawk but he is. He will not admit his hostility toward Muslims but it is obvious.
Separate Justice System for Muslims
In an article for the New York Times, Andrew Rosenthal suggests that the current justice system in the United States makes little distinction between Muslims and terrorists. There are, " Special detention centers for Muslims (Guantanamo Bay and the network of secret C.I.A. lockups, now said to be closed, where prisoners were almost routinely tortured); special trial procedures for Muslim prisoners (military tribunals); special allowances for agents dealing with Muslim suspects (extraordinary rendition, i.e. officially sanctioned kidnapping of foreigners)."
This, against a backdrop where Muslims are searched, followed, spied upon, and generally harassed by the state as well as citizens suggests an overarching system of widespread human rights abuses. The New York Police Department is becoming well known for its anti-Muslim witch hunts as are many other 'departments'.
Rosenthal points out in his article that the F.B.I., in response to an expose (by Wired magazine) of offensive and blatant anti-Muslim training materials which have been described by Senator Richard Durbin of Illinois as “crude stereotypes of American Muslims and Arab Americans”, will not respond in any meaningful way. As the author states: "When confronted with abuses and misbehavior in the so-called “war on terror,” government agencies start with denial, follow up with a grudging admission of missteps and then refuse to hold anyone accountable."
This is the situation in the United States of America and in the UK/Europe the situation may be worse. Perhaps the most vocal and blatant politician (notwithstanding far right fascists) against Islam has been Tony Blair who seems to have no limits to his capacity in describing Islam and Muslims as a threat to Western civilization. Whether Mr. Blair intended it or not, he has energized extreme right wing nationalism in the UK. He has made it clear that Muslims are suspect. Today in the UK Muslims are under attack from lumpen-racists, media, and politicians.
The Rise of European Fascism
Western media have been pushing the Islamic threat and it is they, perhaps more than anything or anybody else, that have pushed Muslims in a very dangerous corner. As economic conditions deteriorate, the danger increases. Attacks on immigrants in general are easily encouraged in a climate of economic uncertainty and insecurity. It is this type of environment where nationalism and fascist sentiments thrive.
In the 1930s, in Europe, when economic instability compelled the press and politicians to urge citizens seek out lateral enemies (Jews, Gypsies, African Europeans) to distract citizens from horizontal enemies (the ultra wealthy), extreme and violent anti-Jewish, anti-African, anti-immigrant and anti-anything that 'isn't us' reactions followed culminating in the slaughter of millions of innocent people. Signs of a re-emergent fascism are on the rise throughout Europe as it had in the 30s. This time it will not be Jews but Muslims that pay the price.
In this backdrop, established, irresponsible, and hysterical political voices like that of Tony Blair make statements like “...there is the most enormous threat from the combination of this radical extreme movement and the fact that, if they could, they would use nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons. You can’t take a risk with that happening.” Anders Breivik was listening and he acted. He was also listening to mainstream media, right wing alarmists, and various rightist and 'moderate' politicians spewing hatred against a religion of over one billion people. It is only a matter of time before deranged psychopaths pick up their cues from these 'legitimate' sources and run with it. And Breivik ran with it. He murdered, not Muslims, but what he perceived as leftists/Marxists for being soft on Muslims and immigration. He has declared that there is a conspiracy by Muslims aimed at taking control of Europe.
The very same political movement that killed Jews (because they were Jews and no other reason) in the 1930s, namely far right fascists, are now flirting with right wing Zionists and Zionists are flirting back. In a bizarre twist of political reality, they stand together against a common enemy. Tom Heneghan, writing for Reuters states: "Geert Wilders, whose populist far-right party supports the Dutch minority government, told Reuters last week (December 2010) he was organizing an "international freedom alliance" to link grass-roots groups active in "the fight against Islam.
Earlier this month, Wilders visited Israel and backed its West Bank settlements, saying Palestinians there should move to Jordan. Like-minded German, Austrian, Belgian, Swedish and other far-rightists were on their own Israel tour at the same time.
"Our culture is based on Christianity, Judaism and humanism and (the Israelis) are fighting our fight," Wilders told Reuters in Amsterdam last week. "If Jerusalem falls, Amsterdam and New York will be next."
Heneghan makes the point that extreme attitudes against Muslims are creeping into mainstream political normalcy. He observes, "Campaigns aimed at Muslims have been gaining ground in Europe, most notably with the Swiss minaret ban last year and France's law this year against full facial veils in public, which Wilders said the Netherlands should copy next year.
Support for these steps has spread beyond anti-immigrant parties and toward the political center as globalization and the aging of Europe's population fuel voters' concerns about national sovereignty, according to a leading French analyst.
Political scientist Dominique Reynie said the financial crisis had prompted more voters to agree with the far right that their political elites were incompetent."
The right wing alliance with Zionists will provide them with legitimacy and support from quarters they would never gain trust with otherwise; namely Jews, the very same people they slaughtered two generations ago.
Far right zealots are in the margins in every corner of Europe from Russia to the UK. And as they stand in the margins and listen to the likes of the former Prime Minister, as they watch the murderous zeal of Barack Obama, and they listen to and watch mainstream news organizations demonize Islam, they are empowered and encouraged.
When established individuals and organizations are silently in cahoots with the extreme right; when they agree in hushed tones to fight Islam and to harm Muslim people, we all need to take notice. That is the first step and although it may seem insurmountable, it isn't. From there we need to stand shoulder to shoulder with people that are potential victims of cowardice and hatred. We need to stand up and defend them.
We need to imagine that we managed to travel back in time; we are standing in Europe in the 1930s. We know what's about to happen. We need to find a way to stop it before it gets out of control. We need to do it because it is possible, maybe even probable, that this is more than a metaphor.
Saturday, April 28, 2012
La Gratuite Scolaire
The students of Quebec are not only fighting tuition hikes in their own province, they are leading the charge against crippling austerity measures forced upon citizens throughout the capitalist world. The importance, the vital necessity, of fighting austerity is reflected in this single issue.
If we fail to succeed in this fight, we will be aiding and abetting the criminal and wholesale theft of and destruction of a standard of life that is rightfully ours and it will be lost to our children. The legacy of this will be a legacy of barbarism. The importance of this struggle cannot be overstated. The students are fighting one of many fronts.
The Right to Education
Prior to Sputnik, access to higher education was almost exclusively a privilege of the monied classes. The Russians beat the Americans into space and as a result, the National Defense Education Act of 1958 was established in the United States. Other Western nations followed suit and the importance of higher education was widely recognized. Funding into scientific research and development and education in general was now a top priority.
It is no coincidence that access to education, health care, and the erosion of public infrastructure throughout the Western world follows the collapse of the Soviet Union. Competition between the two superpowers was directly and indirectly beneficial to citizens in many countries, most notably in the West. The disappearance of the evil Red menace, our collective nemesis, has ended the compulsion of Western governments to provide for a healthy 'commons'.
Access to higher education should be based on the individuals capacity to succeed. It should never be based on financial means. The latter only entrenches class privilege and divisions and it assigns scores of highly intelligent members of the working class to a life where they do not utilize their capacity. This is not only detrimental to the individual, it is detrimental to society as a whole; the end result being an educated class, many of which are in over their heads and an uneducated class, many of which resent their occupations and lives. Most of us know many examples of both in spite of access to student loans and bursaries for working class people.
The principle we need to uphold is that if an individual has the capacity and desire to be a doctor, an engineer, or a rocket scientist the individual should be granted the means and the encouragement to do so.
The Student Strike
The intensity and the breadth of the strike is impressive. It has been energetic and sustained now for almost three months and shows no signs of slowing down. The protests are not only shaking the Liberal government of Jean Charest, it is becoming internationally recognized a force to be reckoned with. For his part, Charest has conceded that tuition hikes will proceed at a slower pace than was planned. He aims to appear to kick the can down the road and let the less formidable ten year olds deal with it. Charest is offering to spread tuition hikes over seven years instead of five, adding a paltry $35 million in bursaries, linking student loan payback to post graduation income, and several other fuzzy concessions that amount to lies. The offer is right called by student organizers what it is; an insult.
In spite of attempts by establishment media to divide students and turn public opinion against them, the students of Quebec are showing remarkable integrity, solidarity, and collective intelligence. The ruling Liberals had aimed to separate the largest of student groups, the CLASSE, by forcing them to humility after a constituency office was invaded. The Liberals demanded they denounce the incident. Charest is refusing to negotiate with CLASSE. Student federations involved responded by supporting CLASSE. They point out that such a denunciation would require an agreement by their congress.
This type of divide and conquer strategy is used by the state to divide strong social movements and to gain control of them. The issue is not violence on the part of the students. It is about government gaining control. In all protest and political movements, the state will utilize several strategies to weaken movement and control the outcome. They will be infiltrated by agent provocateurs, they will be criticized as extremist and unreasonable by the media, they will be arrested and attacked by police and/or military. The state will do its utmost to break solidarity. The student strikes in Quebec are certainly the targets of such campaigns and the insult offered up by Charest is a tactical move to divide the students.
For its part, CLASSE appear to be a highly sophisticated organization. Their aim is beyond freezing tuition rates. Their aim is la gratuite scolaire, free and universal access to post secondary education. They are well organized and appear to be on top of state strategies and tactics that aim to crush them.
These are days of increasingly aggressive attacks on unions and the working class in general. Wages are being slashed and infrastructure is crumbling. Profits are at an all time high on the backs of average citizens. Unions and the Occupy movement need to join in solidarity with the protesters.
Canada and Quebec
In spite of established Canadian media and politicians proclivities, Canadians and especially the people of Quebec are not subservient, docile, quisling whores. Canadians see inequality as 'the' major social issue. A recent poll suggests that Canadians are willing to pay more in taxes to lessen the advantages the wealthy enjoy over the working class. 64% of Canadians are willing to pay more taxes to save social programs. Even Conservative voters tend to agree. 58% of these agree that they would pay more taxes to save social programs.
Right wing organizations like the Fraser Institute, CTV News and other established corporate media have been working overtime for decades to indoctrinate Canadians to their way of thinking. Canadians have been hearing the corporate right scream hysterical about the evil of taxation, the pernicious nature of the 'welfare state', the glories of unbridled free enterprise and so on. In spite of all this, Canadians remain even more vigilant about maintaining socialized health care and are highly sensitive to fairness and the public good. The more the corporate right and their politicians establish unbridled neo liberal financial anarchy, the more left wing Canadians turn.
The protests will likely ensure that Quebec will remain the province in Canada and region of North America with the most accessible post secondary education. The citizens of Quebec will have the greatest potential for the Sputnik of the 21st century. Through access to universities, is they that will receive the greatest quantity and as a result, the greatest quality education.
They are already teaching us a valuable lesson.
If we fail to succeed in this fight, we will be aiding and abetting the criminal and wholesale theft of and destruction of a standard of life that is rightfully ours and it will be lost to our children. The legacy of this will be a legacy of barbarism. The importance of this struggle cannot be overstated. The students are fighting one of many fronts.
The Right to Education
Prior to Sputnik, access to higher education was almost exclusively a privilege of the monied classes. The Russians beat the Americans into space and as a result, the National Defense Education Act of 1958 was established in the United States. Other Western nations followed suit and the importance of higher education was widely recognized. Funding into scientific research and development and education in general was now a top priority.
It is no coincidence that access to education, health care, and the erosion of public infrastructure throughout the Western world follows the collapse of the Soviet Union. Competition between the two superpowers was directly and indirectly beneficial to citizens in many countries, most notably in the West. The disappearance of the evil Red menace, our collective nemesis, has ended the compulsion of Western governments to provide for a healthy 'commons'.
Access to higher education should be based on the individuals capacity to succeed. It should never be based on financial means. The latter only entrenches class privilege and divisions and it assigns scores of highly intelligent members of the working class to a life where they do not utilize their capacity. This is not only detrimental to the individual, it is detrimental to society as a whole; the end result being an educated class, many of which are in over their heads and an uneducated class, many of which resent their occupations and lives. Most of us know many examples of both in spite of access to student loans and bursaries for working class people.
The principle we need to uphold is that if an individual has the capacity and desire to be a doctor, an engineer, or a rocket scientist the individual should be granted the means and the encouragement to do so.
The Student Strike
The intensity and the breadth of the strike is impressive. It has been energetic and sustained now for almost three months and shows no signs of slowing down. The protests are not only shaking the Liberal government of Jean Charest, it is becoming internationally recognized a force to be reckoned with. For his part, Charest has conceded that tuition hikes will proceed at a slower pace than was planned. He aims to appear to kick the can down the road and let the less formidable ten year olds deal with it. Charest is offering to spread tuition hikes over seven years instead of five, adding a paltry $35 million in bursaries, linking student loan payback to post graduation income, and several other fuzzy concessions that amount to lies. The offer is right called by student organizers what it is; an insult.
In spite of attempts by establishment media to divide students and turn public opinion against them, the students of Quebec are showing remarkable integrity, solidarity, and collective intelligence. The ruling Liberals had aimed to separate the largest of student groups, the CLASSE, by forcing them to humility after a constituency office was invaded. The Liberals demanded they denounce the incident. Charest is refusing to negotiate with CLASSE. Student federations involved responded by supporting CLASSE. They point out that such a denunciation would require an agreement by their congress.
This type of divide and conquer strategy is used by the state to divide strong social movements and to gain control of them. The issue is not violence on the part of the students. It is about government gaining control. In all protest and political movements, the state will utilize several strategies to weaken movement and control the outcome. They will be infiltrated by agent provocateurs, they will be criticized as extremist and unreasonable by the media, they will be arrested and attacked by police and/or military. The state will do its utmost to break solidarity. The student strikes in Quebec are certainly the targets of such campaigns and the insult offered up by Charest is a tactical move to divide the students.
For its part, CLASSE appear to be a highly sophisticated organization. Their aim is beyond freezing tuition rates. Their aim is la gratuite scolaire, free and universal access to post secondary education. They are well organized and appear to be on top of state strategies and tactics that aim to crush them.
These are days of increasingly aggressive attacks on unions and the working class in general. Wages are being slashed and infrastructure is crumbling. Profits are at an all time high on the backs of average citizens. Unions and the Occupy movement need to join in solidarity with the protesters.
Canada and Quebec
In spite of established Canadian media and politicians proclivities, Canadians and especially the people of Quebec are not subservient, docile, quisling whores. Canadians see inequality as 'the' major social issue. A recent poll suggests that Canadians are willing to pay more in taxes to lessen the advantages the wealthy enjoy over the working class. 64% of Canadians are willing to pay more taxes to save social programs. Even Conservative voters tend to agree. 58% of these agree that they would pay more taxes to save social programs.
Right wing organizations like the Fraser Institute, CTV News and other established corporate media have been working overtime for decades to indoctrinate Canadians to their way of thinking. Canadians have been hearing the corporate right scream hysterical about the evil of taxation, the pernicious nature of the 'welfare state', the glories of unbridled free enterprise and so on. In spite of all this, Canadians remain even more vigilant about maintaining socialized health care and are highly sensitive to fairness and the public good. The more the corporate right and their politicians establish unbridled neo liberal financial anarchy, the more left wing Canadians turn.
The protests will likely ensure that Quebec will remain the province in Canada and region of North America with the most accessible post secondary education. The citizens of Quebec will have the greatest potential for the Sputnik of the 21st century. Through access to universities, is they that will receive the greatest quantity and as a result, the greatest quality education.
They are already teaching us a valuable lesson.
Sunday, March 04, 2012
Fatal Betrayal
Benjamin Netinyahu is urging an Iranian attack on Israel. He is begging for it.
He has recently made statements that are parroted and backed up throughout mainstream media that state, clearly, Iran should be attacked. A pre-emptive attack will safeguard Israelis against an Iranian attack against them. Iran is, according to Netinyahu, a threat to Israel and he makes it clear, with no ambiguity whatsoever, that Israel is a threat to Iran. It follows then, that he would have no ethical objection to an Iranian attack on Israel.
It is quite possible that Benjamin Netinyahu presents more serious threat to Israel than he does to Iran.
International Law
Pre emptive war or, preventative war, is clearly against International Law. Article 2, Section 4 of the UN Charter prohibits all members from using or threatening to use pre-emptive war: "All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations."
Further to this, Article 51 states that self defense is acceptable only if an armed attack has occurred. These principles are vitally important if we intend a future without capricious barbarism.
Detractors will argue that the United States and Israel are modern democracies and rightfully have a role to police the region and the world; most especially the backward and barbaric Middle East. These notions ignore historical and contemporary reality. The Middle East was civilized and at relative peace long before the European tribes got there. And the killing and the oppression that are current in the Middle East is the handiwork of Occidental Empires.
Certainly, the United States and Israel should not be given benefit of doubt considering the death, oppression, and suffering that is occurring and has occurred throughout the Islamic world at their hands.
Dangerous Precedents
Aside from International Law and aside from moral and ethical considerations civilized nations should hold to, there is the equally compelling strategic weakness underlying this whole affair from the point of view of the average Israeli citizen. Their Prime Minister is not only proclaiming to the world that Israel can and should use pre-emptive force against any nation that Israel feels a threat from, he is also telling the whole world that doing so against Israel is fair game. This is clearly implied when he issues threats against Iran. In other words, he is telling Iran you'd better build nuclear arms and you better do it quick because we are going to attack you; it's just a matter of time. He is also suggesting to other nations, including nuclear armed Pakistan, that attacking Israel is not only a good idea, it's a matter of survival and it's perfectly acceptable.
No serious analyst considers Iran a threat to Israel. Hawkish speech spews from the mouths of simple shills and war mongers, or from consequential players with serious intent. Iran is not realistically in a position to build nuclear weapons and if had them it could never use them against Israel. One reason is that it would be suicide. MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) during the cold war it worked between the USA and the USSR for a reason.
The right wing in Israel tell the world that Israel feels threatened over some ambiguous comments made by Ahmadinejad in an interview; comments that were actually not a threat to the nation of Israel. They believe they can justify waging war because possibly, maybe, someday, Iran might have nuclear weapons and if they do, possibly, maybe, someday, they could attack Israel. Think of how threatened Iranians feel at the moment when month after month, week after week, and day after day both Israel and Western powers issue both implicit and explicit threats against them.
The Real Threat
The upshot is - it is a lie. Iran presents no threat to Israel. Israel and/or Washington are intent on waging war against Iran and we are not being told the real reasons for it. We were not told why Iraq and Afghanistan were attacked. As Buffalo Springfield warned in the 60s; 'There's something's happening here, what it is ain't exactly clear'.
Currently, in the midst of Obama and Netinyahu playing an ominous 'good cop bad cop' routine against Iran, the Israelis are actively planning for war. They are getting absolutely manic about it:
"Israel is to test an advanced anti-ballistic missile system in the coming weeks, inevitably fuelling speculation about preparations for a possible military confrontation with Iran.
The announcement that the first test of the Arrow 3 interceptor system would be performed "in the near future" was made as the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, flew to the US ahead of a crucial meeting with President Barack Obama at which Iran will top the agenda. Netanyahu is expected to press for a clear US commitment to military action if diplomacy and sanctions fail."
In the face of the lies and the wars that follow the lies, we really need to analyze what has occurred and what is occurring. We need to look for patterns. Something's happening beneath the surface. The real intent may be discovered if we examine action and not words, if we examine outcomes instead of the official rationale.
Ominous Patterns
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. Rational based, quasi democratic, and secular lite governments are being toppled in rapid secession. Even America's close ally and friend, Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, has fallen to be replaced with what will probably be a more cleric based government. While this may not have been engineered by Washington, it may play into their hands if they are pushing secular governments out in favour of theocracies.
Syrian rebels are positioned to oust Bashar Al Assad of Syria; another more or less secular leader with a measure of control of the nation that may be unacceptable to Washington. It is worth noting that Assad, a Bathist (as was Saddam Hussein) has been somewhat resistant to American style economic liberalization.
To suggest the United States simply reacts like the hapless buffoons they appear to be would be to make an enormous error in judgment. They certainly have a game plan. Naturally, it isn't shared with the public. We can almost predict the aims of Washington by watching Anderson Cooper on CNN. Whenever his handlers tell him to put forth a full righteous sneer at a particular leader or government, you can almost be sure that leader will soon be dead. He sneered at Gaddafi and various others. It appears to be a death sneer. And now he is sneering at Assad.
There is speculation that the Americans are supporting the uprising and may be behind the uprising in Syria. It's hard to say. What is easy to say is that it fits into a larger pattern.
Within that pattern, the Taliban are stronger than ever. Al Qeada, an element foreign to Iraq and an element that Saddam Hussein would have summarily executed with brutal force, is now operating in Iraq on a large scale. They will soon gather strength in Syria. That is, if this pattern has merit.
Washington's reasons for courting and facilitating emerging regressive Islamic dictatorships over secularists is unclear. It is likely the same reasoning that places politicians in Washington and London in lock step with the vicious established religious dictators of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait and so on.
If the pattern continues, all hints of rational based and possibly progressive elements to governments in the Middle East will be 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 (for whatever reason) may get them to their objectives. America had a measure of control of Iran under the CIA installation of the Shah that was comfortable for them. The combination of a cleric and a democratically elected government may be impossible for them to control.
Although it is difficult to imagine what the end game may be, if these observations of patterns have any merit, it would also suggest that promoting tremendous instability into the region is another desired outcome. An era of destabilization rife with terrorism and competing religious factions waging civil war against each other may be in the cards. An environment like that would ostensibly require strict control and those controllers (dictators) may be the optimal choice for Washington.
Where Does Israel Fit?
Israel is standing in quicksand if this pattern is what it appears to be.
As it is, the demise of Mubarak, the destabilization of Syria, the ongoing abuse of Palestinians and so on do nothing to secure the safety of the Israeli people. As is often the case, what is promoted as security is anything but. The ongoing destabilization of the region and the empowerment of clerics is doing nothing to help long term Israeli security. Attacking Iran may push their situation over a tipping point.
If the people of Israel think that Washington is loyal to anything or anybody, they need to really examine history. They need to examine what happened to various puppet/minions, from every corner of the globe when they are no longer useful to the designs of Empire. Loyal - they are not. Ruthless - they are. When your enemies are more useful to them than you are, you are finished.
The right wing in Israel has been shocked by what they see as America's betrayal of Mubarak. They shouldn't be. America bears no loyalty, not even to its own working classes. The state made no apologies when it facilitated the export of millions of American jobs offshore for profit. They are beholden only to those that have bought and paid for the President and Congress. And when you, dear Israeli citizen, are no longer useful, you too will be shocked. Between now and then, reach out to your Palestinian brothers and sisters, to your Iranian and Arab comrades. They need you and the day is coming when you will need them. Say 'no' to war against Iran.
Eventually, we may see an aging, sneering, Anderson Cooper outraged at Israel's considerable crimes against humanity. Don't give him anything to sneer at.
He has recently made statements that are parroted and backed up throughout mainstream media that state, clearly, Iran should be attacked. A pre-emptive attack will safeguard Israelis against an Iranian attack against them. Iran is, according to Netinyahu, a threat to Israel and he makes it clear, with no ambiguity whatsoever, that Israel is a threat to Iran. It follows then, that he would have no ethical objection to an Iranian attack on Israel.
It is quite possible that Benjamin Netinyahu presents more serious threat to Israel than he does to Iran.
International Law
Pre emptive war or, preventative war, is clearly against International Law. Article 2, Section 4 of the UN Charter prohibits all members from using or threatening to use pre-emptive war: "All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations."
Further to this, Article 51 states that self defense is acceptable only if an armed attack has occurred. These principles are vitally important if we intend a future without capricious barbarism.
Detractors will argue that the United States and Israel are modern democracies and rightfully have a role to police the region and the world; most especially the backward and barbaric Middle East. These notions ignore historical and contemporary reality. The Middle East was civilized and at relative peace long before the European tribes got there. And the killing and the oppression that are current in the Middle East is the handiwork of Occidental Empires.
Certainly, the United States and Israel should not be given benefit of doubt considering the death, oppression, and suffering that is occurring and has occurred throughout the Islamic world at their hands.
Dangerous Precedents
Aside from International Law and aside from moral and ethical considerations civilized nations should hold to, there is the equally compelling strategic weakness underlying this whole affair from the point of view of the average Israeli citizen. Their Prime Minister is not only proclaiming to the world that Israel can and should use pre-emptive force against any nation that Israel feels a threat from, he is also telling the whole world that doing so against Israel is fair game. This is clearly implied when he issues threats against Iran. In other words, he is telling Iran you'd better build nuclear arms and you better do it quick because we are going to attack you; it's just a matter of time. He is also suggesting to other nations, including nuclear armed Pakistan, that attacking Israel is not only a good idea, it's a matter of survival and it's perfectly acceptable.
No serious analyst considers Iran a threat to Israel. Hawkish speech spews from the mouths of simple shills and war mongers, or from consequential players with serious intent. Iran is not realistically in a position to build nuclear weapons and if had them it could never use them against Israel. One reason is that it would be suicide. MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) during the cold war it worked between the USA and the USSR for a reason.
The right wing in Israel tell the world that Israel feels threatened over some ambiguous comments made by Ahmadinejad in an interview; comments that were actually not a threat to the nation of Israel. They believe they can justify waging war because possibly, maybe, someday, Iran might have nuclear weapons and if they do, possibly, maybe, someday, they could attack Israel. Think of how threatened Iranians feel at the moment when month after month, week after week, and day after day both Israel and Western powers issue both implicit and explicit threats against them.
The Real Threat
The upshot is - it is a lie. Iran presents no threat to Israel. Israel and/or Washington are intent on waging war against Iran and we are not being told the real reasons for it. We were not told why Iraq and Afghanistan were attacked. As Buffalo Springfield warned in the 60s; 'There's something's happening here, what it is ain't exactly clear'.
Currently, in the midst of Obama and Netinyahu playing an ominous 'good cop bad cop' routine against Iran, the Israelis are actively planning for war. They are getting absolutely manic about it:
"Israel is to test an advanced anti-ballistic missile system in the coming weeks, inevitably fuelling speculation about preparations for a possible military confrontation with Iran.
The announcement that the first test of the Arrow 3 interceptor system would be performed "in the near future" was made as the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, flew to the US ahead of a crucial meeting with President Barack Obama at which Iran will top the agenda. Netanyahu is expected to press for a clear US commitment to military action if diplomacy and sanctions fail."
In the face of the lies and the wars that follow the lies, we really need to analyze what has occurred and what is occurring. We need to look for patterns. Something's happening beneath the surface. The real intent may be discovered if we examine action and not words, if we examine outcomes instead of the official rationale.
Ominous Patterns
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. Rational based, quasi democratic, and secular lite governments are being toppled in rapid secession. Even America's close ally and friend, Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, has fallen to be replaced with what will probably be a more cleric based government. While this may not have been engineered by Washington, it may play into their hands if they are pushing secular governments out in favour of theocracies.
Syrian rebels are positioned to oust Bashar Al Assad of Syria; another more or less secular leader with a measure of control of the nation that may be unacceptable to Washington. It is worth noting that Assad, a Bathist (as was Saddam Hussein) has been somewhat resistant to American style economic liberalization.
To suggest the United States simply reacts like the hapless buffoons they appear to be would be to make an enormous error in judgment. They certainly have a game plan. Naturally, it isn't shared with the public. We can almost predict the aims of Washington by watching Anderson Cooper on CNN. Whenever his handlers tell him to put forth a full righteous sneer at a particular leader or government, you can almost be sure that leader will soon be dead. He sneered at Gaddafi and various others. It appears to be a death sneer. And now he is sneering at Assad.
There is speculation that the Americans are supporting the uprising and may be behind the uprising in Syria. It's hard to say. What is easy to say is that it fits into a larger pattern.
Within that pattern, the Taliban are stronger than ever. Al Qeada, an element foreign to Iraq and an element that Saddam Hussein would have summarily executed with brutal force, is now operating in Iraq on a large scale. They will soon gather strength in Syria. That is, if this pattern has merit.
Washington's reasons for courting and facilitating emerging regressive Islamic dictatorships over secularists is unclear. It is likely the same reasoning that places politicians in Washington and London in lock step with the vicious established religious dictators of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait and so on.
If the pattern continues, all hints of rational based and possibly progressive elements to governments in the Middle East will be 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 (for whatever reason) may get them to their objectives. America had a measure of control of Iran under the CIA installation of the Shah that was comfortable for them. The combination of a cleric and a democratically elected government may be impossible for them to control.
Although it is difficult to imagine what the end game may be, if these observations of patterns have any merit, it would also suggest that promoting tremendous instability into the region is another desired outcome. An era of destabilization rife with terrorism and competing religious factions waging civil war against each other may be in the cards. An environment like that would ostensibly require strict control and those controllers (dictators) may be the optimal choice for Washington.
Where Does Israel Fit?
Israel is standing in quicksand if this pattern is what it appears to be.
As it is, the demise of Mubarak, the destabilization of Syria, the ongoing abuse of Palestinians and so on do nothing to secure the safety of the Israeli people. As is often the case, what is promoted as security is anything but. The ongoing destabilization of the region and the empowerment of clerics is doing nothing to help long term Israeli security. Attacking Iran may push their situation over a tipping point.
If the people of Israel think that Washington is loyal to anything or anybody, they need to really examine history. They need to examine what happened to various puppet/minions, from every corner of the globe when they are no longer useful to the designs of Empire. Loyal - they are not. Ruthless - they are. When your enemies are more useful to them than you are, you are finished.
The right wing in Israel has been shocked by what they see as America's betrayal of Mubarak. They shouldn't be. America bears no loyalty, not even to its own working classes. The state made no apologies when it facilitated the export of millions of American jobs offshore for profit. They are beholden only to those that have bought and paid for the President and Congress. And when you, dear Israeli citizen, are no longer useful, you too will be shocked. Between now and then, reach out to your Palestinian brothers and sisters, to your Iranian and Arab comrades. They need you and the day is coming when you will need them. Say 'no' to war against Iran.
Eventually, we may see an aging, sneering, Anderson Cooper outraged at Israel's considerable crimes against humanity. Don't give him anything to sneer at.
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Wanted For Murder: Barack Obama
On February 8 (2012), eight young boys were slaughtered by American bombs as they tried to keep warm as they tended sheep. NATO apologized and excused themselves by saying, " “The decision to bomb this group was made because they were seen as adult-sized and moving in a tactical fashion", according to the New York Times. Relatives of the boys said that one boy was 12 and several others were younger. NATO countered this: “Our view is that initial assessment suggests they that they are closer to 15 to 16 with one older.”
This is not an isolated event. While MWC readers know this is not an isolated event, those that rely on mainstream media for their news probably don't know about this and the ongoing NATO atrocities that have been happening with disturbing regularity over the past number of years.
On February 4 The Bureau of Investigative Journalism issued a report entitled, "Obama terror drones: CIA tactics in Pakistan include targeting rescuers and funerals".
The report states that since Obama took office three years ago, "between 282 and 535 civilians have been credibly reported as killed including more than 60 children. A three month investigation including eye witness reports has found evidence that at least 50 civilians were killed in follow-up strikes when they had gone to help victims. More than 20 civilians have also been attacked in deliberate strikes on funerals and mourners."
The report also states that unmanned Predator or Reaper strikes occur in Pakistan averaging one every four days. John Brennan, the president’s top counterterrorism adviser, argues that the US has the right to unilaterally strike terrorists anywhere in the world, not just what he called ‘hot battlefields’. The targeting of rescuers after an initial attack as well as funerals is clearly a deliberate massacre of civilians.
Many legal experts disagree with Brennan. "Naz Modirzadeh, Associate Director of the Program on Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research (HPCR) at Harvard University, said killing people at a rescue site may have no legal justification.
‘Not to mince words here, if it is not in a situation of armed conflict, unless it falls into the very narrow area of imminent threat then it is an extra-judicial execution’, she said. ‘We don’t even need to get to the nuance of who’s who, and are people there for rescue or not. Because each death is illegal. Each death is a murder in that case.’
Between May 2009 and June 2011, at least fifteen attacks on rescuers were reported by credible news media, including the New York Times, CNN, Associated Press, ABC News and Al Jazeera.
Overall, there have been approximately 3,000 killed in drone strikes and 175 of those killed are reported to be children. Of 314 strikes, 262 were carried out by Obama.
The Crime
As human rights abuses go, as war crimes go, as crimes against humanity go, the dropping of bombs on populated areas is among the most egregious methods of mass murder in the history of humanity. Aside from recent drone attacks in Middle Eastern countries, many thousands have been slaughtered by NATO or American bombs in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Iraq, Yugoslavia, Libya, Lebanon, Grenada, Yemen, Somalia, and Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and all the watchdogs that have the self appointed responsibility for raising the alarm about human rights abuses seem to overlook the dropping of bombs on civilians. They mention it when its status as a crime is not controversial but considering what is actually happening, perhaps it's fair to say they don't want to rock the American boat. The civilians that are killed in these bomb attacks are dead as surely as the Jews that died in Hitler's ovens. They live in terror as the people of New York felt on September 11, 2001 and they live with it on a daily basis.
If you compare this crime with torture, first degree murder, sex crimes or any conceivable crime, none can compare with the terror and suffering that accompanies the dropping of bombs on populated areas. Serial killers stalk, rape, and murder women and its front page news. Psychopaths cruelly carry out their nefarious deeds and it haunts our nightmares. Yet NATO murders as a matter of habit and we don't even notice.
The most outrageous act that has affected public consciousness in the West was the terrorist attacks on the twin towers in New York. That was the mother of all terrorist attacks. Those attacks have taken on an air of sanctity, of religious seriousness. There is not much argument from anywhere; those attacks were singularly brutal in their indiscriminate violence and they ripped through the collective consciousness of America. America has been changed by it and unfortunately, that change is not pretty. We are right to view this act with the horror and disgust that is the common reaction to them.
White House Mafia
The President of the United States recently carried out a ‘hit’ on Anwar al Awlaki. And what did he use to kill this American citizen? He used a bomb. He not only killed Awlaki but anybody that was in the vicinity. Did Obama care about anybody that was in the vicinity? No he did not. Did he care that he carried out an illegal murder of an American citizen?
A week later he killed Awlaki's 16 year old son, again with a bomb that killed anybody near the boy that might have been guilty of being Awlaki's son.
There is no member of organized crime families or street gangs that can come close to the psychopathic callousness found among those in the employ of the American state. Their lofty status does not make them immune from prosecution. Those that have attacked civilians and murdered them are guilty of war crimes. President Obama has joined an exclusive club. A club whose current members include but is not exclusive to Robert McNamara, Henry Kissinger, Bush Sr., Bush Jr., Cheney, Rumsfeld, Bill Clinton, Paul Wolfowitz.
Given the history, it's not much wonder we've come to expect the murder of civilians as par for the course. But when we consider the open boasting about the current savagery - as Obama basks in the limelight of extrajudicial murder, we may feel as if the most crude 'B' rated movies of late night TV, the movie where a mad man takes over the word, to be prophetic. We don't live in interesting times as much as we live in bizarre times.
To be fair, they do sometimes offer weak justifications for the ongoing mass murders. They will justify it and say that the terrorists are at fault for using human shields. That is why innocent people die. They imagine a scenario where the locals that are defending their invaded homeland (terrorists or 'insurgents) leave the home when the Americans approach, stand in the desert with an AK 47, and let the American bombs rain down on them as they shoot in the general direction of the planes that sail safely through the stratosphere and obliterate them.
Or, they may argue that terrorists live in the village and that the pragmatic utility of killing women and children justify getting the terrorists to save the lives of good clean 'White people'. When arguments are made in such a way, we know we are dealing with rationalizations that are not even vaguely connected to rationality.
In the coming months and years, it is likely that thousands of people; people that are now reading opinion pieces as you are reading this one, people that are being tucked into bed by their parents for a good night's sleep, people that are falling in love and people that are embarrassed because they said something silly, will be slaughtered by American or, NATO bombs. Those people will be guilty of being born in Iran.
References
http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2012/02/04/obama-terror-drones-cia-tactics-in-pakistan-include-targeting-rescuers-and-funerals/
http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2011/08/10/google-map/
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/19/world/asia/19pstan.html?_r=1&ref=world
http://articles.cnn.com/2010-12-28/world/pakistan.drone.strike_1_drone-strikes-drone-attack-tribal-region?_s=PM:WORLD
http://www.dailyamericannews.com/newsnow/x1738176407/Suspected-US-missiles-strikes-kill-11-in-Pakistan
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia/2010/01/20101613294018697.html
http://www.dannen.com/decision/int-law.html#D
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/16/world/asia/nato-acknowledges-bombing-killed-eight-young-afghans.html?_r=2
This is not an isolated event. While MWC readers know this is not an isolated event, those that rely on mainstream media for their news probably don't know about this and the ongoing NATO atrocities that have been happening with disturbing regularity over the past number of years.
On February 4 The Bureau of Investigative Journalism issued a report entitled, "Obama terror drones: CIA tactics in Pakistan include targeting rescuers and funerals".
The report states that since Obama took office three years ago, "between 282 and 535 civilians have been credibly reported as killed including more than 60 children. A three month investigation including eye witness reports has found evidence that at least 50 civilians were killed in follow-up strikes when they had gone to help victims. More than 20 civilians have also been attacked in deliberate strikes on funerals and mourners."
The report also states that unmanned Predator or Reaper strikes occur in Pakistan averaging one every four days. John Brennan, the president’s top counterterrorism adviser, argues that the US has the right to unilaterally strike terrorists anywhere in the world, not just what he called ‘hot battlefields’. The targeting of rescuers after an initial attack as well as funerals is clearly a deliberate massacre of civilians.
Many legal experts disagree with Brennan. "Naz Modirzadeh, Associate Director of the Program on Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research (HPCR) at Harvard University, said killing people at a rescue site may have no legal justification.
‘Not to mince words here, if it is not in a situation of armed conflict, unless it falls into the very narrow area of imminent threat then it is an extra-judicial execution’, she said. ‘We don’t even need to get to the nuance of who’s who, and are people there for rescue or not. Because each death is illegal. Each death is a murder in that case.’
Between May 2009 and June 2011, at least fifteen attacks on rescuers were reported by credible news media, including the New York Times, CNN, Associated Press, ABC News and Al Jazeera.
Overall, there have been approximately 3,000 killed in drone strikes and 175 of those killed are reported to be children. Of 314 strikes, 262 were carried out by Obama.
The Crime
As human rights abuses go, as war crimes go, as crimes against humanity go, the dropping of bombs on populated areas is among the most egregious methods of mass murder in the history of humanity. Aside from recent drone attacks in Middle Eastern countries, many thousands have been slaughtered by NATO or American bombs in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Iraq, Yugoslavia, Libya, Lebanon, Grenada, Yemen, Somalia, and Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and all the watchdogs that have the self appointed responsibility for raising the alarm about human rights abuses seem to overlook the dropping of bombs on civilians. They mention it when its status as a crime is not controversial but considering what is actually happening, perhaps it's fair to say they don't want to rock the American boat. The civilians that are killed in these bomb attacks are dead as surely as the Jews that died in Hitler's ovens. They live in terror as the people of New York felt on September 11, 2001 and they live with it on a daily basis.
If you compare this crime with torture, first degree murder, sex crimes or any conceivable crime, none can compare with the terror and suffering that accompanies the dropping of bombs on populated areas. Serial killers stalk, rape, and murder women and its front page news. Psychopaths cruelly carry out their nefarious deeds and it haunts our nightmares. Yet NATO murders as a matter of habit and we don't even notice.
The most outrageous act that has affected public consciousness in the West was the terrorist attacks on the twin towers in New York. That was the mother of all terrorist attacks. Those attacks have taken on an air of sanctity, of religious seriousness. There is not much argument from anywhere; those attacks were singularly brutal in their indiscriminate violence and they ripped through the collective consciousness of America. America has been changed by it and unfortunately, that change is not pretty. We are right to view this act with the horror and disgust that is the common reaction to them.
White House Mafia
The President of the United States recently carried out a ‘hit’ on Anwar al Awlaki. And what did he use to kill this American citizen? He used a bomb. He not only killed Awlaki but anybody that was in the vicinity. Did Obama care about anybody that was in the vicinity? No he did not. Did he care that he carried out an illegal murder of an American citizen?
A week later he killed Awlaki's 16 year old son, again with a bomb that killed anybody near the boy that might have been guilty of being Awlaki's son.
There is no member of organized crime families or street gangs that can come close to the psychopathic callousness found among those in the employ of the American state. Their lofty status does not make them immune from prosecution. Those that have attacked civilians and murdered them are guilty of war crimes. President Obama has joined an exclusive club. A club whose current members include but is not exclusive to Robert McNamara, Henry Kissinger, Bush Sr., Bush Jr., Cheney, Rumsfeld, Bill Clinton, Paul Wolfowitz.
Given the history, it's not much wonder we've come to expect the murder of civilians as par for the course. But when we consider the open boasting about the current savagery - as Obama basks in the limelight of extrajudicial murder, we may feel as if the most crude 'B' rated movies of late night TV, the movie where a mad man takes over the word, to be prophetic. We don't live in interesting times as much as we live in bizarre times.
To be fair, they do sometimes offer weak justifications for the ongoing mass murders. They will justify it and say that the terrorists are at fault for using human shields. That is why innocent people die. They imagine a scenario where the locals that are defending their invaded homeland (terrorists or 'insurgents) leave the home when the Americans approach, stand in the desert with an AK 47, and let the American bombs rain down on them as they shoot in the general direction of the planes that sail safely through the stratosphere and obliterate them.
Or, they may argue that terrorists live in the village and that the pragmatic utility of killing women and children justify getting the terrorists to save the lives of good clean 'White people'. When arguments are made in such a way, we know we are dealing with rationalizations that are not even vaguely connected to rationality.
In the coming months and years, it is likely that thousands of people; people that are now reading opinion pieces as you are reading this one, people that are being tucked into bed by their parents for a good night's sleep, people that are falling in love and people that are embarrassed because they said something silly, will be slaughtered by American or, NATO bombs. Those people will be guilty of being born in Iran.
References
http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2012/02/04/obama-terror-drones-cia-tactics-in-pakistan-include-targeting-rescuers-and-funerals/
http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2011/08/10/google-map/
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/19/world/asia/19pstan.html?_r=1&ref=world
http://articles.cnn.com/2010-12-28/world/pakistan.drone.strike_1_drone-strikes-drone-attack-tribal-region?_s=PM:WORLD
http://www.dailyamericannews.com/newsnow/x1738176407/Suspected-US-missiles-strikes-kill-11-in-Pakistan
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia/2010/01/20101613294018697.html
http://www.dannen.com/decision/int-law.html#D
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/16/world/asia/nato-acknowledges-bombing-killed-eight-young-afghans.html?_r=2
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