Social Mutations and Global Strain

There is nothing natural about much of the social and economic realities we struggle with. We can't conflate what is natural with what we have gotten used to. The social and economic order has been artificially altered for centuries for the convenience and pleasure of his majesty. Currently 'his majesty' is Barack Obama, the figurehead leading the Empire. Artificial contortions can only be maintained so long and eventually, something's got to give.

We are witnessing numerous fractures due to ongoing conditions of artificial social tension. North Africa and Middle Eastern States that have been carved up, artificially, by Western powers, whose populations have long been repressed are now demanding an end to the contrived dictatorships that have held them down. They want nothing more than a modicum of normalcy. They want their kids to be happy.

Western powers have a long history of creating conditions of arbitrary boundaries, malevolent alliances, and methods of turning local populations against each other. It is hard to think of a place, including places in close proximity to the core of empires that have not been victims of quite arbitrary social gerrymandering based on nothing more than cultural or religious differences. Even within national boundaries of the empire, people have been artificially pitted against each other. This was enforced and wilful favouritism to one group over another enhanced acrimonious relations. In most places on the globe, divide and conquer strategies ignited conflicts between people that had previously got along living in close proximity to each other.

What is happening today has been happening for a long, long time.

Class Strain

Historically, empires have favoured their own home team. They have been swayed by notions of patriotism and loyalty to some extent. Those of us that have lived within the belly of the beast, inside the Empire's hegemony have received favoured treatment until quite recently. To some extent, we have been a privileged class even if we were poor and unemployed. To be unemployed and poor north of the Rio Grande is nothing like being poor south of the Rio Grande. That is but one of many divisions that have set working class populations apart from each other. As a whole, we have turned a blind eye to the murderous rampages unleashed by politicians with the odd exception; like Vietnam. Generally, we gave the ruling classes a wide berth. The general consensus was, they know what they're doing and whatever it is they do, we're getting something out of it. Our standard of living legitimized them no matter how cruel and treacherous they were to people in the so called, third world.

But then came globalization and now that consensus is rapidly changing. The ruling classes and their political henchmen began to flirt with the Chinese, the Mexicans, and other third world populations. Those of us that read Marx knew they would. Like thieves in the night they silently and efficiently dismantled the manufacturing plants and stole them from under us. They took them to places where they could manufacture for less money. If we didn't see working class people in the third world as brothers and sisters before, we will now. Let's hope they forgive us.

We might want to look at the glass as half full. We might think for a moment, 'globalization will bring the people in the third world up to the standard of living we have become accustomed to'. A glimpse of our current situation shows that in fact, the glass really is half empty. Its only 'half full' for the banksters and corporations. Our current trajectory has non aboriginal North Americans entering, for the first time, the third world. It's a class thing. The original inhabitants of North America currently live in third world conditions in many areas.

If you had considered the ruling elites to be loyal to Americans, Canadians, or any other 'White country', a look at history shows that our standard of living was not as much a gift from the ruling elites as it was the result of long and hard struggles against them. It was also a conspiracy of sorts to dampen revolutionary sentiments. It was a very real fear. John Maynard Keynes exposed that fear when he spoke of the possibility of revolution within the heart of the Empire and the need to subvert it with redistribution mechanisms. Keynes was vehemently anti-communist. He said, "the class war will find me on the side of the educated bourgeoisie". He understood that the artificial social and financial strain that is a necessary condition to maintain wealth and power for the privileged few could give way to the citizenry taking control of the both the wealth of the land and the state. He worried, as did others, of the outcome that could result if this were to occur. To alleviate it, it was necessary to spend in order to develop healthy public infrastructure, especially when the going got rough. Keynes polices were a pressure relief valve. Between Keynesianism and intense unions battles, our standard of living had become the envy of the world and the reality of tension between the classes was out of sight - out of mind.

Building Tension

Since the 1980s, politicians, the media, and various collaborators with the ruling elites have managed to hide the increasing and latent enmity between the classes within the Empire's hegemony. They continue to do this as the strain increases to alarming proportions.

In the 1980s they began to dismantle manufacturing plants to send them abroad. That is when the politicians and mainstream media beat the free trade drum the hardest. The neo liberal economists said, in unison, America had been protectionist long enough, it's time to compete globally, to expand global markets. While the Empire's domestic leftists were screaming bloody murder, investors were making a killing.

As the capacity to squeeze a dime from a unit of labour diminished, the manufacturing heart of the Empire was contracted out . The catch phrase, 'what's good for GM is good for America' turned out to be a lie. Neither GM nor any other corporation has a patriotic bone in its ethereal body. Corporations are simple money making machines. It doesn't care how or where it does it. Those most loyal to the whole American dream must feel betrayed.

The whole thing was an artificial situation in the first place. There never was anything natural about the vast gap between the people of Tijuana and the people of San Diego. It was simply one more spurious division between people of what is in reality, the same working class. The fact that we were favoured by the hegemonic rulers does not change the reality that we all have far more in common with each other than we do with members of the ruling class. However, our realities are substantially different. It needs to be acknowledged that we have historically turned away from the plight of our brothers and sisters in the periphery of the American hegemony. Life for workers is very different, depending on what side of the Rio Grande you live on. But that is changing and it is changing fast. It is a matter of time when we all live in the same miserable circumstances.

The Empire has abandoned us after all the wars we fought for them, after all the wealth we created for them and after all the apologies we voiced on their behalf. In many ways, we had it coming. We should learn to be careful about the kind of scum we crawl in bed with.

While financial bubbles maintained an artificial economy, they only managed to hide the underlying rot beneath it. The bubble burst and the rot was exposed. And in spite of the fact that shocking and utterly soulless criminal behaviour was exposed, the criminals themselves were granted huge financial gifts from future taxpayers. The fact that the tax base has evaporated seems beside the point.

Currently, we hear the fantastic news that cars sales are up; which seems a mystery since jobs and decent wages have disappeared. Underneath the good news, again, we see they continue to try to maintain artificial economics and in so doing, they defy reality and increase strain. They can't keep kicking the can down the road forever. Subprime lending, quantitative easing and all the magic tricks and illusions they can come up with cannot defy reality. It's all over the place. And even though they continue, they can't change reality. Their latest magic trick is yet one more sub-prime scam. The same bubble strategy that caused the 2008 shock, is back. This time they are financing auto sales. The same slippery machinations are used to bury the risky credit and to repackage it as bonds.

In the USA, the jobs picture is improving, the recovery is taking hold, you might argue. The good news is that in February of 2011, 192,000 new jobs were created.

Paul Craig Roberts, former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration and past editor for the Wall Street Journal, points out:
"According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 152,000 of the jobs or 79% are in private services, consisting of: 11,700 jobs in wholesale trade, 22,000 in transportation and warehousing, 36,400 in administration and waste services (of which 15,500 are temporary help services), and 36,200 in ambulatory health care services and nursing and residential care facilities. Entertainment, waitresses and bartenders accounted for 20,000. Repair and maintenance, laundry services, and membership associations accounted for 14,000."
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=23541

Roberts goes on to suggest that not only are the calculations way off but according to statistician, John Williams, "the reported gain was overstated by about 230,000 jobs. In other words, about 38,000 jobs were lost in February."

The Empire

The Empire is constantly trying to create and maintain artificial social and economic mutations, straining her resources to the breaking point. Empires have historically put out enormous resources into plundering the periphery through the use of military or manipulative techniques. The USA is no exception and as Empires go, America outdoes all previous empires in its scope and greed. The United States of America outspends all other nations on the planet on its military, it's so called national security interests. (In fact it is class security they worry about.) They have over 700 military bases around the globe and have their fingers in the business in every country on the planet, including those that don't want them, like Cuba.

There was a time when we, the working classes within the hegemony, could turn a blind eye to all the harm the Empire had been doing, all over the planet. But now they have slotted the lot of us in the third world category. It is now more appropriate for us to refer to ourselves as 'working class' as opposed to, middle class. We need to make friends with reality.

They will try turn our attention to immigrants. They will do their utmost to have us wage war on each other. It is in their interests for us not to recognize them as the enemy. History shows this strategy works. Today however, we have the internet. We are getting quite familiar with each other. We cannot allow this tension to be reduced to mindless chauvinism and xenophobia. It is class war. That is reality.

And in reality, it is the labour of workers that has build their empires and wealth. Each and every dime the banksters own has either come from either the past toil of workers or the promise of future labour. We hold all the cards and we simply don't realise it. The war party and the capitalists that direct the politicians are nothing more than parasites. They owe us everything and give us nothing.

It is clear that the time has come for us to recognize that the working class is one. That whether we are workers in Iraq, Palestine, Israel, China or Wisconsin, we are all in this together. To quote anonymous wisdom on a famous poster, "Class consciousness is knowing which side of the fence you're on. Class analysis is figuring out who is there with you".

The $1,000,000,000.00 Photo Op

The G 20 and G8 meetings in Toronto and Huntsville, Ontario, scheduled for late June will cost Canadian taxpayers one billion dollars.

These meetings happen regularly and one thing they have in common is that nothing ever comes out of them. They are completely useless. Real Politik happens behind closed doors with lawyers and lobbyists. It does not happen at G 20 meetings. This is all aimed to spoon feed innocent bystanders enough pabulum to keep us docile.

And what of the Bay Street neighbourhood where the representatives of the ruling class will meet? It is, naturally, at the centre of where our twit masters do their business. The fact that it is our masters that have multiple financial crisis mounting on top of an archaic economic system might suggest their quisling political clowns and puppets should just hide. But no, they are paid good money to take it on the chin and take it on the chin they will.

The bourgeoisie have screwed us all and they are putting the iron state apparatus in place to ensure we learn out humble station. Working classes in the represented eight and twenty countries are not happy and those in economic hinterlands are starting to mix Molotov cocktails. There are hints of class warfare as one class batters and rapes the other.

As it is American workers can't find jobs while car manufacturing plants rust away. Scores are homeless while families have no place to sleep.

The twit class have sold the jobs away to squeeze that extra bit of profit for themselves. Jobs that North Americans and Europeans used to believe to be their rightful inheritance; a legacy of hard work and vision. All that is now dust and the 'leaders' will spell out the belt tightening measures that we must endure to ensure those that are too big to fall, don't. The large Bay Street banks at the centre of the G 20 meeting area may be more then tempting targets for anarchists and fed up citizens.

But One Billion dollars?

Just because billion sounds something like million, they are nowhere close. A billion is astronomical. A million seconds would take about 11 or 12 days to pass. A billion seconds would take 32 years.

A trillion, which is a number we hear regarding bailouts to the rich, would take 32,000 years.

So, in the case of numbers, don't let your intuition inform you. Let energetic logic inform you if you want to understand the nature of the situation we are all in at the moment.

Conveniently, a bank was recently fire bombed in Ottawa providing ammunition for the state to spare no expense for security. In 2007, police dressed as protesters were filmed trying to whip demonstrators into a violent frenzy during a North American leaders summit in Quebec.

Increasingly, since 2001, Western democratic states have incrementally notched their fascistic posture to the point they think nothing of arresting people with no charges, putting a bounty on the head of undesirables, and generally raising themselves (the state) above the rule of law. Corporations and the state have consummated their marriage in the most disgusting public porn display in history.

Prior to 2001 anti-capitalist protests were becoming common and no doubt, concerning. The state did react with brutality; as states naturally do. But nowadays we are sailing uncharted waters. Anything can happen.

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.