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 blog is an archive of articles I've published in MWC News, Indymedia, and on Newsgroups.
Showing posts with label Obama. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Obama. Show all posts
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Saturday, September 05, 2009
Love Me: I'm a Liberal
As Obama ratchets up the war machine and continues to wage economic war on American workers, it is easy to forget his rhetoric prior to the election. As far to the right as he is in his policies, the American right continue to portray him as, God forbid, a socialist.
Commentary from the American right dismiss liberals and relegate them far on the margins of acceptability. They make socialism and liberalism synonymous. In the USA, liberals are socialists and vice versa. Maybe when you are standing next to Augusto Pinochet everything looks left.
That clumsy dismissal of all that is not conservative is a mistake. It's not fair to liberals. It's even less fair to socialists. Liberals, if you examine them now or through history paint the same broad strokes as conservatives. They campaign as if they were socialists but once in power, they not only paint the same broad strokes as the right but they fill in many of the details to the most minute detail - exactly the same.
It wouldn't be fair or accurate to say liberals are the same as conservatives however. They not only talk differently, their approach is different. They may want to achieve the same broad goals but they strategize differently and present differently. Liberals are pragmatic and slick. Conservatives are ideologically principled (notwithstanding a quick buck) and stupid.
Obama is a liberal. He may be called a socialist by the raging right but if you ask any socialist, he or she will explain why, with certainty and passion, Obama is no socialist.
Politicians always sound courageous and principled during an election campaign. Campaign rhetoric is always well to the left. Prior to an election, politicians are going to stand up to the biggest of big business. Even the HMOs and the banks are not safe according to campaign trail bluster. They will end war and they will feed the poor and they will increase social spending and cut taxes. As predictably as rain on a weekend they turn sideways and show the other face once they get the votes. At that point they turn and the soft liberal face vanishes. They become ugly and mean spirited. That conservative face tries to hide its darting eyes and its iron teeth.
This isn't new. It is a very old story. Centrist liberal and social democratic parties have been at it a very long time. The question arises; Is it a matter of dishonesty or is it that once they are elected their real bosses come from the shadows and demand pro business decisions? It is both.
Liberal voters naively believe what politicians say. And even in the face of politicians actions that run contrary to what they promised, they remain loyal. They believe. Like religious zealots they can't be swayed. They defend their liberal hope. They will rationalize, minimize, deny reality. They will blame others. Their leader remains pristine even in the face of obvious election lies. Even when their hero slaughters innocent people in Afghanistan. Even in the face of consistently anti middle class governance.
Big Business
Since Obama has taken the Presidency, the big banks have enjoyed the same unfettered financial freedom to do as they wish as they did under Bush. They also enjoy unconditional support from the state.
They have enjoyed a spending spree courtesy of the American taxpayer that has paved the way for them to take even more control of the finances of America. The big banks hold more of the share of Americans deposits than they did under Bush. Not that Obama is more friendly to them. The process of concentration and accumulation is simply continuing, unabated. The big fish are eating the smaller fish and are growing even more menacing and powerful. The process is eased through government subsidies.
Financial power was highly concentrated prior to the economic crisis. Rather than using policies that would create real economic stimulation by providing money to those that really need it - like workers and homeowners, the crisis resulted in both Bush and Obama facilitating greater concentration. Real stimulation is inflationary and the ultra wealthy don't want their money de-valued.
We might imagine American politicians saying to the to the big banks; 'don't worry. We got your back.' But it doesn't work that way. They didn't say it. They didn't have to. Politicians always keep their promises to big business. They don't even have to make them. They are assumed. Public promises are not really promises, it's just election talk. Private promises are always solid. It's a matter of who controls whom.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation was created in the depression to ensure depositors savings are there for them by provided banks with security and backing. The FDIC controls the banks and you can bet your bottom dollar that the people that control the FDIC are the same as those that control the President.
The FDIC has increased the number of banks categorized as 'troubled' to 416 on August 27, 2009. It was 305 three months ago. The financial feeding frenzy continues under Obama. With the help of the FDIC the large fish are eating small ones and have also gorged themselves on some very large ones as well. In the past year JP Morgan Chase swallowed Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual with the help of the federal government. Bank of America and several other mega financial institutions deemed "too big to fall" have been benefiting immensely from this crisis. They are laughing all the way to their own vaults. To be precise, they are laughing all the vaults of JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Citigroup, and Wells Fargo.
Through the American state, the taxpayer is funding these takeovers and absorbing the losses through the FDIC.
And there we have it. Mr. 'love me I'm a liberal' Obama is finishing what Bush started. He is moving the process of consolidating power and wealth in American at a faster rate than anyone before him.
The American state has become an extension and a tool of big business. Any President that tries to change that or even question it will be in the sights of another Lee Harvey Oswald. We can't entirely blame Obama. He just knows how to play the game. The problem is systemic.
War
Conventional war and big business are intimately connected to the state. Big business can exist without war but war can't thrive without big business. They thrive on each other.
Obama has fired up the war in Afghanistan like a man possessed. The unfortunate people of Afghanistan and in the mountains of Pakistan that happen to live near Taliban are being incinerated by Obama and his war machine. People are being killed by human-less drones and manned multi-billion dollar war toys with cowboys dropping bombs on some of the most impoverished and oppressed people on the planet.
Cindy Sheehan was a celebrity to the soft left in the USA when she was protesting against Bush's wars. But she isn't so popular nowadays. To her, war, not Bush, is the enemy. That's where Sheehan and many of the liberals part company. She can't even get acknowledgement from the anti-war movement since Obama took the reins. You gotta love him - he's a liberal like many of the anti-Bush protesters.
Obama's expansion of the war both in size and intensity is alarming. The anti-war movement is silent and their voices have been silenced by the liberal Obama supporting quislings in their ranks.
An ominous sign for people in Latin America is an Obama initiative in Latin America. He is building seven new military bases in Colombia to the chagrin of South American leaders. Chavez is particularly worried about this development. The leaders in South America are upset to the point that they are demanding explanations from the United States and Colombia for the reasons for the bases.
Latin Americans are far too familiar with death squads, assassinations, and American dominance.
In Israel Netanyahu has approved hundreds of new housing units on the West Bank. Obama expresses "regret". HIs weak and limp reaction is tantamount to approval. Israel and Obama have agreed to not allow new settlements in the West Bank for one year but the Israelis will continue on with construction. The agreement does not include East Jerusalem.
The Israelis and the Americans will agree to new sanctions against Iran. Watch for more belligerence and sabre rattling on this front.
Medical Care
Obama did shake up the privateers that prey on the sick and the elderly in America; the big insurance companies. He threatened to curb their free- wheeling protection racket. And we have seen what happens in the USA when you go up against organized crime.
Standing outside the USA, watching the lies spread about the Canadian and British health care systems by the American right and big business is quite surreal. For Canadians and for people outside the USA, the practice of paying for health care or not being eligible for health care is alien. Insurance companies turning people down applying for insurance due to sickness seems barbaric. The insurers refusal to pay due to pre-existing conditions certainly is barbaric.
The fact that these discussion even happen appears to the rest of us to be archaic. A chapter from another time; a time way back when people were tortured and thrown in jail without charges and left to die when they are sick. A time that has been erased by rational modernity.
The Americans use the term 'socialist' as if they were uttering a curse. It is poison to them. And the notion of universal health care is socialist - a put down. Socialists must plead guilty. We demand universal health care.
Obama's metamorphosis from a sophisticated and sensitive human being to a crude quisling yes man jumping to the demands of the banks, the oil companies, and the HMOs is almost complete. But the liberals, the tax-paying suburbanites that elected him still squint their eyes to see that first face; the face of change and progress.
But more and more, as people are bombed and incinerated in Afghanistan and Pakistan, as old and sick people continue to die in poverty, they must come to realize there is no change with Obama. And they will change who they vote for. Enter: Sarah Palin.
The whole thing is as American as apple pie.
Once I was young and impulsive
I wore every conceivable pin
Even went to the socialist meetings
Learned all the old union hymns
But I've grown older and wiser
And that's why I'm turning you in
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal
- Phil Ochs
Saturday, May 23, 2009
The Threat to America
Security is a relative concept. We can never be absolutely safe. The greatest cause of death is birth. Once that happens, its unavoidable.
We can choose to live in a secure society. Perhaps we'd choose a totalitarian society where neighbour watches neighbour for the state. Or maybe you'd be more comfortable with a cleric, watching to ensure that you and everybody else stays on the right path.
In societies like this we don't have to worry about our partners infidelity or our neighbour stealing our grocery money. The price is too high. Conventional crime is rare and the state's response to it is severe.
But then there's America. America means (or has meant) more than just the name of a country. It touted itself as 'the' bastion of freedom. And in a free society we can't arrest the criminal before he commits the crime. We have to wait for the act. And in a free society you can say what you want, support and speak to whomever you wish whether they be branded terrorists or Nazis. In a free society we must suffer the paedophile on the street until he actually does something. We must live with a measure of insecurity if we are free. A free society is a messy society, the trains don't run on time, and there are strikes.
Of course America has touted itself as the bastion of freedom and democracy but the genesis of and realization of these principles date back to the Magna Carta and beyond. But we get the idea. We are free.
Not anymore.
Things look more or less the same in everyday life but history books will show that the Bush era has fundamentally changed the nature of the modern state once the owl of Minerva flies off. The tyrants have not started to bust down the doors of leftists and radicals but if you are Muslim, you are suspect. The fascification of America is being achieved through incremental changes and the vast majority don't seem to notice.
The Bush era has seen to it the freedoms we had taken for granted are no longer taken for granted. And this has occurred not only in the USA but in the UK, Canada, Australia and many other free societies.
For generations Americans (and the rest of us) have fought and died for freedom and the basic principles that have evolved from rational arguments in courts, in universities, and in parliaments. This was the holy grail that Americans learned to be proud of. They even sport gung-ho license plates that whack us with 'Live Free or Die'.
The important point being that we live with and under rational principles that are the bedrock of our real security. As long as we live with these principles we can rest easy knowing the state or anyone else can't abuse us and get away with it. Life is unpredictable yes but predictable where it counts. We know we won't be jailed for political deviance and we know when we see injustice, we can fight back.
Not anymore.
Obama is keeping the Bushite template of state tyranny in place after portraying Bush and the Bush era as a period of dangerously uncontrolled folly into the realm where tin-pot dictators and large scale fascists do as they wish; unfettered. Obama is flirting with the idea of allowing preventive detention in the United States as a security measure to make up for the closure of Gitmo. As horrible as Guantanmo Bay is in terms of slamming a hard blow to the principles of freedom, crossing the line further into allowing the state to jail people domestically who are perceived to be a threat would be a fatal blow. Once that happens the pretence is over. We have already swallowed the kool-aid.
So then, where do we see change once we avert our collective gaze from the decor of the oval office and the charisma of Obama?
Much has been said and much has been done to mitigate the threat to America since 9-11. Ironically, the greatest threat to America is Americans; the Americans that cower under their beds waiting for the terrorists to strike providing tacit support for draconian laws and murderous aggression by the state. These 'Americans' are not only Bush and Obama and Cheney and they are not only Americans. The greatest threat to America is you and me and our collective cowardice.
We can choose to live in a secure society. Perhaps we'd choose a totalitarian society where neighbour watches neighbour for the state. Or maybe you'd be more comfortable with a cleric, watching to ensure that you and everybody else stays on the right path.
In societies like this we don't have to worry about our partners infidelity or our neighbour stealing our grocery money. The price is too high. Conventional crime is rare and the state's response to it is severe.
But then there's America. America means (or has meant) more than just the name of a country. It touted itself as 'the' bastion of freedom. And in a free society we can't arrest the criminal before he commits the crime. We have to wait for the act. And in a free society you can say what you want, support and speak to whomever you wish whether they be branded terrorists or Nazis. In a free society we must suffer the paedophile on the street until he actually does something. We must live with a measure of insecurity if we are free. A free society is a messy society, the trains don't run on time, and there are strikes.
Of course America has touted itself as the bastion of freedom and democracy but the genesis of and realization of these principles date back to the Magna Carta and beyond. But we get the idea. We are free.
Not anymore.
Things look more or less the same in everyday life but history books will show that the Bush era has fundamentally changed the nature of the modern state once the owl of Minerva flies off. The tyrants have not started to bust down the doors of leftists and radicals but if you are Muslim, you are suspect. The fascification of America is being achieved through incremental changes and the vast majority don't seem to notice.
The Bush era has seen to it the freedoms we had taken for granted are no longer taken for granted. And this has occurred not only in the USA but in the UK, Canada, Australia and many other free societies.
For generations Americans (and the rest of us) have fought and died for freedom and the basic principles that have evolved from rational arguments in courts, in universities, and in parliaments. This was the holy grail that Americans learned to be proud of. They even sport gung-ho license plates that whack us with 'Live Free or Die'.
The important point being that we live with and under rational principles that are the bedrock of our real security. As long as we live with these principles we can rest easy knowing the state or anyone else can't abuse us and get away with it. Life is unpredictable yes but predictable where it counts. We know we won't be jailed for political deviance and we know when we see injustice, we can fight back.
Not anymore.
Obama is keeping the Bushite template of state tyranny in place after portraying Bush and the Bush era as a period of dangerously uncontrolled folly into the realm where tin-pot dictators and large scale fascists do as they wish; unfettered. Obama is flirting with the idea of allowing preventive detention in the United States as a security measure to make up for the closure of Gitmo. As horrible as Guantanmo Bay is in terms of slamming a hard blow to the principles of freedom, crossing the line further into allowing the state to jail people domestically who are perceived to be a threat would be a fatal blow. Once that happens the pretence is over. We have already swallowed the kool-aid.
So then, where do we see change once we avert our collective gaze from the decor of the oval office and the charisma of Obama?
Much has been said and much has been done to mitigate the threat to America since 9-11. Ironically, the greatest threat to America is Americans; the Americans that cower under their beds waiting for the terrorists to strike providing tacit support for draconian laws and murderous aggression by the state. These 'Americans' are not only Bush and Obama and Cheney and they are not only Americans. The greatest threat to America is you and me and our collective cowardice.
Sunday, May 03, 2009
The Bankruptcy of Chrysler
This is an immensely historic event.
After 80 years of making cars and sitting as a cornerstone of American capitalism, Chrysler is closing its plants until August when it will announce its restructuring vision. What will emerge from this cocoon will be a pathetic ghost of what had been one of the great engines that not only produced cars, it produced a way of life. It was a driving force demanding massive quantities of raw materials to be shipped into its plants. It resulted in not only Chrysler workers demanding goods and services, it also allowed workers in factories that produce paint, glass, rubber, and wheel bearings to spend money. And so were the millions of workers that worked at providing goods and services to those workers. The car manufacturers in America have been the main engines of American and Canadian prosperity.
That is because capital is created in the process of turning raw material into buyable stuff. It is the workers that create the money the owners accumulate. The term 'car manufacturers' may be thought of as the investors but in reality, they are the men and women that manufacture cars.
Enduring Neo Liberalism
Neo Liberal policies are something we have been enduring for decades and it will itself endure for some time to come. It is far from dead as current attitudes about the economy show. Don't be hoodwinked into believing that America has gone socialist because they are bailing out large capitalists or promoting union stakes in failing companies. Nothing could be further from the truth. Obama is showing and will continue to show himself to be as married to neo-liberal voodoo economics as his disastrous predecessor. He is a slave to late monopoly capitalism, as was his predecessor. Obama's faith in reliance on the ultra wealthy that are somehow 'too big to fall' will endure.
Capital is a strange ethereal beast and has some dangerous characteristics that must be heeded. Especially now. As a result capitalists themselves must assume similar characteristics. He is slave to capital. He must abandon notions of patriotism and any concern for the economic health of the nation. He must turn away from his human impulse to care about human beings. He must care only about capital and its enhancement. It is more than just software. It is a virus. And that virus will seek out wealth where-ever it is found like a vulture ripping away at a diminishing corpse. It will take it from workers wages and pensions. It will take it from your pockets.
The very ideology that has brought America to the abyss remains unshaken. The underlying assumption is that wealth emanates, somehow, from the rich and 'trickles down' to the rest of us. That is why trillions are handed to the ultra wealthy in bailouts and workers wages and benefits are ravaged and others are left to the unemployment lines. This is in complete contradiction to the socialist view that wealth begins where work occurs and finds its way, rather quickly, to the owners.
Obama said that Chrysler will emerge stronger and more competitive. We have heard for years that with globalization we must become 'more competitive'. Pick this notion apart for a few moments and consider what that really means. It is a continuation of the race to the bottom that American and Canadian workers appear to be winning.
What has caused the crisis is being touted as the way to fix the crisis. This faulty logic is based in capitalists board rooms and with people that know better. They know exactly what they are doing. They are turning America into an economic wasteland in favour of new and more fertile markets.
The Great Sell Out
Chrysler's valuable assets will be sold to private scavengers and the liabilities will be handed to the taxpayer. In this equation we have winners and losers. The wealthy are always the winners and the middle class are always the losers.
The standard of living for Americans and Canadians has been sliding for decades now. Monopoly capitalism takes no prisoners. It is software that is programmed to increase profit and it will do whatever is necessary to that end. It has to pick the meat off the bones of the American and Canadian middle classes and that process has been ratcheted up in a big way during this economic crisis.
This 'restructuring' is a euphemism for a sell out. The workers of North America have been sold out by those they have seen as their bread and butter. The capitalists that are running the show today are different than capitalists that operated in the past. In the quaint past they had direct involvement in the company. Today, under mature monopoly capitalism where shares can be traded in a split second, they are more akin to gamblers in a casino. They don't care about making cars and they don't care about the plight of the nation. Capital accumulation is all that matters and if they could do it without manufacturing anything, that would be best for them. They are programmed software - a virus far more pernicious than Osama bin Laden or terrorism.
Now that Chrysler in sinking, it seems that it is suddenly a good idea for the workers (the UAW) to take some ownership of this sinking ship. What nobody is talking about is the possibility that this is an 'easing in' process to the bitter end of Chrysler. Consumers are not going to flock into Chrysler dealerships to help the company out. Consumers too are a virus and are not idealists. Consumers buy into deals and they buy products that they have faith in. The plants will close and we will wait until August when this depression is even more protracted, and Chrysler will make an announcement with little fanfare or attention. They will announce what we all expect.
Fight Back
What is most important now is that workers wages and benefits are increased. Not only with Chrysler but across the board. More wages means more demand for goods and services. As Henry Ford observed, the workers need to be paid enough to buy cars.
To get America and the rest of the world on track, it is vital that workers do what they had done in the early and middle part of the last century - and more. The situation now is more dire. Workers must fight back and take control. The means of production are shutting down and they are shutting down because capitalism is not working. It is work and it is workers that create wealth. It is in the hands of the working class to rebuild and re-tool without the benefit of being told what to do. And when we do get back on track, it will be a completely different track on a new trajectory. A trajectory to stability, peace and equality.
When and how we fight back is up to us. Obama isn't going to lead us and neither will the scam artists we have become conditioned to have faith in. Obama and the scam artists will tell you there are only two choices. We either must rely on the greedy impulses of the financial elites or we face totalitarianism.
It is up to us to forge a third way. We will soon have no choice.
After 80 years of making cars and sitting as a cornerstone of American capitalism, Chrysler is closing its plants until August when it will announce its restructuring vision. What will emerge from this cocoon will be a pathetic ghost of what had been one of the great engines that not only produced cars, it produced a way of life. It was a driving force demanding massive quantities of raw materials to be shipped into its plants. It resulted in not only Chrysler workers demanding goods and services, it also allowed workers in factories that produce paint, glass, rubber, and wheel bearings to spend money. And so were the millions of workers that worked at providing goods and services to those workers. The car manufacturers in America have been the main engines of American and Canadian prosperity.
That is because capital is created in the process of turning raw material into buyable stuff. It is the workers that create the money the owners accumulate. The term 'car manufacturers' may be thought of as the investors but in reality, they are the men and women that manufacture cars.
Enduring Neo Liberalism
Neo Liberal policies are something we have been enduring for decades and it will itself endure for some time to come. It is far from dead as current attitudes about the economy show. Don't be hoodwinked into believing that America has gone socialist because they are bailing out large capitalists or promoting union stakes in failing companies. Nothing could be further from the truth. Obama is showing and will continue to show himself to be as married to neo-liberal voodoo economics as his disastrous predecessor. He is a slave to late monopoly capitalism, as was his predecessor. Obama's faith in reliance on the ultra wealthy that are somehow 'too big to fall' will endure.
Capital is a strange ethereal beast and has some dangerous characteristics that must be heeded. Especially now. As a result capitalists themselves must assume similar characteristics. He is slave to capital. He must abandon notions of patriotism and any concern for the economic health of the nation. He must turn away from his human impulse to care about human beings. He must care only about capital and its enhancement. It is more than just software. It is a virus. And that virus will seek out wealth where-ever it is found like a vulture ripping away at a diminishing corpse. It will take it from workers wages and pensions. It will take it from your pockets.
The very ideology that has brought America to the abyss remains unshaken. The underlying assumption is that wealth emanates, somehow, from the rich and 'trickles down' to the rest of us. That is why trillions are handed to the ultra wealthy in bailouts and workers wages and benefits are ravaged and others are left to the unemployment lines. This is in complete contradiction to the socialist view that wealth begins where work occurs and finds its way, rather quickly, to the owners.
Obama said that Chrysler will emerge stronger and more competitive. We have heard for years that with globalization we must become 'more competitive'. Pick this notion apart for a few moments and consider what that really means. It is a continuation of the race to the bottom that American and Canadian workers appear to be winning.
What has caused the crisis is being touted as the way to fix the crisis. This faulty logic is based in capitalists board rooms and with people that know better. They know exactly what they are doing. They are turning America into an economic wasteland in favour of new and more fertile markets.
The Great Sell Out
Chrysler's valuable assets will be sold to private scavengers and the liabilities will be handed to the taxpayer. In this equation we have winners and losers. The wealthy are always the winners and the middle class are always the losers.
The standard of living for Americans and Canadians has been sliding for decades now. Monopoly capitalism takes no prisoners. It is software that is programmed to increase profit and it will do whatever is necessary to that end. It has to pick the meat off the bones of the American and Canadian middle classes and that process has been ratcheted up in a big way during this economic crisis.
This 'restructuring' is a euphemism for a sell out. The workers of North America have been sold out by those they have seen as their bread and butter. The capitalists that are running the show today are different than capitalists that operated in the past. In the quaint past they had direct involvement in the company. Today, under mature monopoly capitalism where shares can be traded in a split second, they are more akin to gamblers in a casino. They don't care about making cars and they don't care about the plight of the nation. Capital accumulation is all that matters and if they could do it without manufacturing anything, that would be best for them. They are programmed software - a virus far more pernicious than Osama bin Laden or terrorism.
Now that Chrysler in sinking, it seems that it is suddenly a good idea for the workers (the UAW) to take some ownership of this sinking ship. What nobody is talking about is the possibility that this is an 'easing in' process to the bitter end of Chrysler. Consumers are not going to flock into Chrysler dealerships to help the company out. Consumers too are a virus and are not idealists. Consumers buy into deals and they buy products that they have faith in. The plants will close and we will wait until August when this depression is even more protracted, and Chrysler will make an announcement with little fanfare or attention. They will announce what we all expect.
Fight Back
What is most important now is that workers wages and benefits are increased. Not only with Chrysler but across the board. More wages means more demand for goods and services. As Henry Ford observed, the workers need to be paid enough to buy cars.
To get America and the rest of the world on track, it is vital that workers do what they had done in the early and middle part of the last century - and more. The situation now is more dire. Workers must fight back and take control. The means of production are shutting down and they are shutting down because capitalism is not working. It is work and it is workers that create wealth. It is in the hands of the working class to rebuild and re-tool without the benefit of being told what to do. And when we do get back on track, it will be a completely different track on a new trajectory. A trajectory to stability, peace and equality.
When and how we fight back is up to us. Obama isn't going to lead us and neither will the scam artists we have become conditioned to have faith in. Obama and the scam artists will tell you there are only two choices. We either must rely on the greedy impulses of the financial elites or we face totalitarianism.
It is up to us to forge a third way. We will soon have no choice.
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