Many years ago John Savage, then Premier of Nova Scotia, informed several thousand of us who were holding audience with him just outside Province House that he has to cut social spending. Moody's of New York warned him of an impending less flattering credit rating for the province if he doesn't.
At the time, governments and newspapers were screaming bloody murder about social spending and the impact it has on the province's/country's finances.
The fact that Moodys or Standard and Poors can dictate social policy for a government is not easy to digest. It's pretty ridiculous that Canadian politicians must listen to what Moodys might say about their governance and abide by the credit raters directives.
Global Autocrats
It is similar to the IMF/World Banks power over developing countries where they demand privatization of vital necessities such as water.
The IMF, the World Bank, and the credit rating companies such as Moodys, Standard and Poors, and Fitch have a definite bent toward ultra privatization and laissez faire economics. A bent that has proven, over and over again, to be disastrous for human beings.
These rating companies are the maker or breaker for business and like the IMF or the World Bank, adhere to a model of business that is focused on the bottom line (profit) without concern for the impact business dealing may have on individuals, communities, or whole societies.
Governments need credit to operate. Back in the 1990s Canada's Prime Minister, Paul Martin, slashed social spending to the bone in efforts to placate Moodys who warned Martin that Canada is in danger of having its credit rating lowered if it didn't curb social spending.
In 1995 Canada's health care system was slashed to the point of criminal negligence by Martin to where it is now. Prior to this, Canadians bragged about having the best health care system in the world. Today, the system limps and private speculators (HMOs) salivate at the prospect of stealing the homes and savings of elderly and poor Canadians.
Paul Martin was faced with Moody's threatened cutting Canada's debt and the interest rate rose, Canada suddenly was paying an extra $300 million on its bonds.
At the time, Martin was critical of the bond rater and said, "It doesn't take a stroke of genius to understand that we have broken the back of the deficit and, in fact, that the rating agencies should have no concerns." The credit rater responded by lowering Canada's rating.
These credit rating agencies answer to no one but themselves. There is no international monitoring or control over them even though their scope is international and pervasive.
Keeping Them Down
While Canada may be uncomfortably vulnerable to the credit rating agencies, developing countries don't stand a chance. For example, in 2001 the Dominican Republic issued its first international bond to raise much needed money. They paid Moodys and Standard and Poors to rate them. They received a rating of B A 2. The rating companies cited their lack of foreign financial capital as the reason for the low rating ignoring a decade of relative strength.
In 2003 a banking scandal cost the country about 2 billion dollars. Their currency devalued and the cost of paying loans increased dramatically. The country was also hit with a poor rating. Since then the country has been on a downhill slide. Vital infrastructure projects were stopped in mid stream.
Who knows the extent of the sickness and deaths that have been caused by people forced to rely on filthy water.
The problem is that when a country is in difficulty, these credit raters draconian wave of malevolent wands makes the situation far worse.
The companys will say that their ratings are a reflection of a countries economic misery and not the cause of them. But it isn't quite that sharp or easy. These rating companies have far too much clout in the affairs of all human beings from New York to Shanghai.
They need to be purified and their business must be taken away from the back rooms of the private sector and out into the public spotlight. They're remit must change from myopic profit taking to comprehensive analysis of a societies best interests. Independent bodies must carry out impact studies on what a rating might mean for people that are sick, poor, as well as people that are carrying out business ventures.
Hidden Culpability
More recently the rating companies made determinations about whether certain mortgages were safe. Capitalists bundled hundreds of mortgages into a single security and the securities were given 'triple A' ratings.
Mortgages became a way to make a lot of money in the fast lane. Subprime mortgages flooded the stock markets. It was Moodys and Standard and Poors that gave the green light to re-packaging chunks of capital. It is these credit raters that hold much of the responsibility for the severity of the economic crisis even though the real structural problems are more fundamental than the scams that occurred over the past decade.
These credit rating agencies are over familiar with and cozy with many of the large business entities that are rated. Arthur Levitt, former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, stated that “the credit-rating agencies suffer from a conflict of interest, perceived and apparent, that may have distorted their judgment, especially when it came to complex structured financial products.”
If the rating companys had been doing their job, these rated firms would have been dealt fatal blows over the leveraging scams that had been carried out which caused a large false economy to rise and then come crashing down. Standard and Poors, Moodys, and Fitch knew - and Alan Greenspan knew - that the American economy was sitting on a foundation of sand. These rating companies, like Alan Greenspan, has been complicit in the economic fiasco that is unfolding and they should be held responsible.
It was the erroneous credit rating of the re packaged and risky loans that caused the sub prime crisis that contributed to the collapse of the phony bubbles that had kept capitalism perking along. Moodys were not complaining in the hey day of capitalist scams several years ago. Its profits tripled. Why would they?
Our collective trust of the private sector remains, inexplicably, strong and relatively unquestioning. That has to change. Hard questions must be answered and those that committed fraud must be held accountable. The people that were lucid, those that masterminded the economic disaster now unfolding, people like Greenspan, the credit raters and the large firms involved in the leveraging scams must be brought to justice. Theirs in no ordinary subversion. They have done far more damage than a plane load of Bin Ladens could ever hope for.
This blog is an archive of articles I've published in MWC News, Indymedia, and on Newsgroups.
Saturday, March 07, 2009
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
The Capitalist Religion
Capitalism has done a lot to rid the world of superstitious beliefs
and behaviours. But the rational paradigm is far from solid. If we
look at the irrational responses to the financial crisis we can see
that capitalism itself has replaced religion to a large extent as a
faith based belief system.
Part of this is cowardice on the part of the working/middle classes
believing that we need a powerful master in charge of things in spite
of the fact that the masters themselves are nothing better than
parasites and criminals.
But the knee jerk irrationality on the part of media, politicians, and
the general public is baffling in its acceptance of the worship of the
rich and powerful. The faith people have in a system that is
fundamentally flawed and on its last legs is something for social
psychologists to study for years to come.
Irrational cowards are in no short supply.
So far, the American taxpayer has handed over 300 billion to the rich
under the TARP program. Much more is coming. The belief is that if the
rich and powerful are well fed, they will feed the rest of us. Logic
that comes from the rich and powerful and filtered through CNN, CTV,
Fox etc.
Now Obama, a seemingly well meaning and intelligent man, is going to
continue to shovel massive amounts of tax dollars to the rich. In
other words, he is shoveling tax dollars into a black hole, never to
be seen again.
How can this all be explained?
Part of it has to do with the fact that it those very same rich and
powerful welfare recipients that are receiving the money are the ones
that are really at the helm of the American state. Obama might know
better but he also knows he'll wind up another dead Kennedy if he acts
as if he is the boss. Obama assures his betters that they have nothing
to worry about; that he believes that nationalization, if needed,
would only be a short term measure so the taxpayers can absorb the
losses. But when the season of profits mass profits returns, the very
wealthy can again collect the money. The rich collect, the workers
pay. Nothing new there.
In case you didn't notice, while this disaster is playing out, the
culprits are protected. The middle class and poor are not.
The upshot is, nothing has changed. The irrational and stupid neo
liberal thinking that has brought America and the rest of the world to
the brink and over the abyss is still entrenched against all logic and
rational thinking.
The middle classes in America, Canada, and the rest of the world will
bail out the rich. And what will the middle classes get in return?
There is no logic here. This is, as Deets coined it, the religion that
is America.
and behaviours. But the rational paradigm is far from solid. If we
look at the irrational responses to the financial crisis we can see
that capitalism itself has replaced religion to a large extent as a
faith based belief system.
Part of this is cowardice on the part of the working/middle classes
believing that we need a powerful master in charge of things in spite
of the fact that the masters themselves are nothing better than
parasites and criminals.
But the knee jerk irrationality on the part of media, politicians, and
the general public is baffling in its acceptance of the worship of the
rich and powerful. The faith people have in a system that is
fundamentally flawed and on its last legs is something for social
psychologists to study for years to come.
Irrational cowards are in no short supply.
So far, the American taxpayer has handed over 300 billion to the rich
under the TARP program. Much more is coming. The belief is that if the
rich and powerful are well fed, they will feed the rest of us. Logic
that comes from the rich and powerful and filtered through CNN, CTV,
Fox etc.
Now Obama, a seemingly well meaning and intelligent man, is going to
continue to shovel massive amounts of tax dollars to the rich. In
other words, he is shoveling tax dollars into a black hole, never to
be seen again.
How can this all be explained?
Part of it has to do with the fact that it those very same rich and
powerful welfare recipients that are receiving the money are the ones
that are really at the helm of the American state. Obama might know
better but he also knows he'll wind up another dead Kennedy if he acts
as if he is the boss. Obama assures his betters that they have nothing
to worry about; that he believes that nationalization, if needed,
would only be a short term measure so the taxpayers can absorb the
losses. But when the season of profits mass profits returns, the very
wealthy can again collect the money. The rich collect, the workers
pay. Nothing new there.
In case you didn't notice, while this disaster is playing out, the
culprits are protected. The middle class and poor are not.
The upshot is, nothing has changed. The irrational and stupid neo
liberal thinking that has brought America and the rest of the world to
the brink and over the abyss is still entrenched against all logic and
rational thinking.
The middle classes in America, Canada, and the rest of the world will
bail out the rich. And what will the middle classes get in return?
There is no logic here. This is, as Deets coined it, the religion that
is America.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Go Stimulate Yourself
The idea of stimulus is to put money in the pockets of consumers who will spend, creating demand for goods and services and as a result, stimulate the economy.
But America is a religion that worships the rich. They believe that wealth comes FROM the rich and 'trickles down' to the rest of us. They also believe that the rich know best and should be held in some paternal role in society.
These are irrational notions. Religious-like.
Stimulus bailouts to the rich are symptoms of that mentality. The rich are not going to spend any significant portion of that money. They will use it to secure, prop up, and increase the capital that they have.
It looked as if Obama was on the right track as far as stimulus goes with his homeowner affordability plan. But we can see now that it is just another gimmick to further bolster Fortress Twit Class.
The plan does nothing to decrease the principal on what people owe. With plunging house prices, many still owe more than their home is worth.
If you look at it, you can see that it is carefully designed to ensure that the money lenders carry none of the weight of the crisis whatsoever. It is just another scheme to move billions of tax dollars into the hands of America's elites.
The basic idea of Keynesian demand side economics is to give money to the average Joe so he can buy things. Henry Ford had the same idea. The stimulus packages have done the opposite. They have taken wealth from the average Joe (for a long, long time) and gave it directly to the very rich.
Why?
How is this supposed to help the economy?
The idiots trucked and shipped manufacturing jobs to where wages were cheap over the past 30 years to increase their profits. They are not patriotic Americans. They are moved only by wealth. They sold out America. They have done far greater damage than Bin Laden or a plane load of Bin Ladens could have done. They have been far more subversive than any communists, socialists, or anarchists could be. They have stole America's wealth and shipped it away - to themselves.
And now they are being paid large chunks of tax dollars for their efforts.
They have been eroding away the standard of living for decades and printing phony capital to make it look as if nothing is wrong. In one season, all the chickens have come home to roost. The big lie is over.
The most important lesson in all this is that the rate of profit generally decreases through time. One hundred years ago it was easy to make profit from a unit of labour. But now, capitalism has matured and for that reason, strategies that are obviously contrary to the citizens best interests are the only ones available to them.
Manufacturing is simply a necessary evil in the process of developing capital. If the capitalist can make capital without it, he certainly will.
And he certainly did in recent years. He did it through criminal leveraging and manipulation of other people's money. The phony housing bubble was the last kick at the can in efforts to pretend the American standard of living has mystical powers. It doesn't. Except maybe for the ultra rich who are still raking it in through stimulus packages and bailouts.
That well will also run dry.
Watch now for that class, with all its wealth, increase its control over the American state.
But America is a religion that worships the rich. They believe that wealth comes FROM the rich and 'trickles down' to the rest of us. They also believe that the rich know best and should be held in some paternal role in society.
These are irrational notions. Religious-like.
Stimulus bailouts to the rich are symptoms of that mentality. The rich are not going to spend any significant portion of that money. They will use it to secure, prop up, and increase the capital that they have.
It looked as if Obama was on the right track as far as stimulus goes with his homeowner affordability plan. But we can see now that it is just another gimmick to further bolster Fortress Twit Class.
The plan does nothing to decrease the principal on what people owe. With plunging house prices, many still owe more than their home is worth.
If you look at it, you can see that it is carefully designed to ensure that the money lenders carry none of the weight of the crisis whatsoever. It is just another scheme to move billions of tax dollars into the hands of America's elites.
The basic idea of Keynesian demand side economics is to give money to the average Joe so he can buy things. Henry Ford had the same idea. The stimulus packages have done the opposite. They have taken wealth from the average Joe (for a long, long time) and gave it directly to the very rich.
Why?
How is this supposed to help the economy?
The idiots trucked and shipped manufacturing jobs to where wages were cheap over the past 30 years to increase their profits. They are not patriotic Americans. They are moved only by wealth. They sold out America. They have done far greater damage than Bin Laden or a plane load of Bin Ladens could have done. They have been far more subversive than any communists, socialists, or anarchists could be. They have stole America's wealth and shipped it away - to themselves.
And now they are being paid large chunks of tax dollars for their efforts.
They have been eroding away the standard of living for decades and printing phony capital to make it look as if nothing is wrong. In one season, all the chickens have come home to roost. The big lie is over.
The most important lesson in all this is that the rate of profit generally decreases through time. One hundred years ago it was easy to make profit from a unit of labour. But now, capitalism has matured and for that reason, strategies that are obviously contrary to the citizens best interests are the only ones available to them.
Manufacturing is simply a necessary evil in the process of developing capital. If the capitalist can make capital without it, he certainly will.
And he certainly did in recent years. He did it through criminal leveraging and manipulation of other people's money. The phony housing bubble was the last kick at the can in efforts to pretend the American standard of living has mystical powers. It doesn't. Except maybe for the ultra rich who are still raking it in through stimulus packages and bailouts.
That well will also run dry.
Watch now for that class, with all its wealth, increase its control over the American state.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
The New Terrorists
There will be a new terrorist threat emerge in the next few years. And that threat will be you.
The new Director of National Intelligence for the USA, Dennis Blair, recently testified in front of a senate committee on intelligence. He said that the threats that are inherent with economic catastrophe are the major threat to state security. He might be right.
Previous to this, it was Al Queda or Muslim terrorists that made top billing as terrorist threats. But the paranoid keepers of the state apparatus seems to be casting a malevolent gaze toward the lot of us.
Blair is concerned about the security of places like Iceland, Ireland, as well as former second world (Eastern European) or present third world countries. He is also worried about the stability of what was thought of as first world countries and especially, the USA.
This report (linked below) indicates the developing state of paranoia that will emerge in the coming years within the security functionaries for the American state.
http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/PUB890.pdf
The report suggests that the resources that are employed abroad may be needed to take care of domestic security.
These are dark clouds but at the moment they are on the horizon. The American state will prepare itself to stem social upheavals associated with the turbulence financial insecurity that is coming.
Prior to 9-11 there were anti-capitalist protests in Seattle, in Quebec and other places. This was unique. Anti-capitalist protests in the USA were unseen since the dirty thirties. This was alarming to state security functionaries and their employers. 9-11 happened and the protests disappeared like magic. There was now a new mood in the USA.
9/11 has been used to excuse legislation that has placed rot under basic freedoms that were birthed by the Magna Carta almost 1000 years ago. These notions include such basics as the right to representation, to be charged with a crime, and to actually commit a crime before an arrest is made. The road has been paved with the Patriot Act and other similar types of legislation to an era of fascist type repression of the population.
If you believed that the USA and capitalism are natural bastions of freedom and democracy, you can't be blamed. The prosperity ensured by American plundering of resources from all over the planet as well as the voodoo practiced by Alan Greenspan and others provided an environment of what appeared to be natural security. We lived large under the umbrella of American hegemony. But America and the capitalist world are about to hit reality and the party that we all have enjoyed for many decades is just about over. It's time to sober up.
America will respond to threats to its security (read: the security of the upper classes/ American or not) with brute force. What Blair is saying and what is said in the report (linked above) are our first wisps of a coming ugly age of political repression and violence within the USA and other (post) industrialized countries (such as Canada).
Just as there was a phony economy based on nothing but capital, there is also a real economy based on production, use value, and work. And similarly, just as there is a state apparatus that is based in the security of the extremely wealthy and powerful, there is also real security concerns for the men, women, and children that need food, medicine, and the vital necessities to survive.
These are two very different worlds. The former will eat you if you have sustenance for them and does not care about you if you don't. The latter is the the real world of everyday life we live in.
If a war between the two occurs, we have no choice but to win.
The new Director of National Intelligence for the USA, Dennis Blair, recently testified in front of a senate committee on intelligence. He said that the threats that are inherent with economic catastrophe are the major threat to state security. He might be right.
Previous to this, it was Al Queda or Muslim terrorists that made top billing as terrorist threats. But the paranoid keepers of the state apparatus seems to be casting a malevolent gaze toward the lot of us.
Blair is concerned about the security of places like Iceland, Ireland, as well as former second world (Eastern European) or present third world countries. He is also worried about the stability of what was thought of as first world countries and especially, the USA.
This report (linked below) indicates the developing state of paranoia that will emerge in the coming years within the security functionaries for the American state.
http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/PUB890.pdf
The report suggests that the resources that are employed abroad may be needed to take care of domestic security.
These are dark clouds but at the moment they are on the horizon. The American state will prepare itself to stem social upheavals associated with the turbulence financial insecurity that is coming.
Prior to 9-11 there were anti-capitalist protests in Seattle, in Quebec and other places. This was unique. Anti-capitalist protests in the USA were unseen since the dirty thirties. This was alarming to state security functionaries and their employers. 9-11 happened and the protests disappeared like magic. There was now a new mood in the USA.
9/11 has been used to excuse legislation that has placed rot under basic freedoms that were birthed by the Magna Carta almost 1000 years ago. These notions include such basics as the right to representation, to be charged with a crime, and to actually commit a crime before an arrest is made. The road has been paved with the Patriot Act and other similar types of legislation to an era of fascist type repression of the population.
If you believed that the USA and capitalism are natural bastions of freedom and democracy, you can't be blamed. The prosperity ensured by American plundering of resources from all over the planet as well as the voodoo practiced by Alan Greenspan and others provided an environment of what appeared to be natural security. We lived large under the umbrella of American hegemony. But America and the capitalist world are about to hit reality and the party that we all have enjoyed for many decades is just about over. It's time to sober up.
America will respond to threats to its security (read: the security of the upper classes/ American or not) with brute force. What Blair is saying and what is said in the report (linked above) are our first wisps of a coming ugly age of political repression and violence within the USA and other (post) industrialized countries (such as Canada).
Just as there was a phony economy based on nothing but capital, there is also a real economy based on production, use value, and work. And similarly, just as there is a state apparatus that is based in the security of the extremely wealthy and powerful, there is also real security concerns for the men, women, and children that need food, medicine, and the vital necessities to survive.
These are two very different worlds. The former will eat you if you have sustenance for them and does not care about you if you don't. The latter is the the real world of everyday life we live in.
If a war between the two occurs, we have no choice but to win.
Sunday, February 08, 2009
The Times They are A-Changin
This isn't simply a natural down end of a business cycle. This is the real McCoy. These are the times most of us have only read about.
There will be a lot of unfortunate and ugly side effects of this economic disaster. It is argued that this crisis is more like 1914 then 1929 in some ways. Hopefully, the response won't come in the form of a major world war. But it might.
Then there will be some lesser but still nasty effects.
Early on we will see increased provincialist thinking and initiatives. Politicians will be begging private industry to invest in 'our' location. And if you do, you won't have to pay taxes, you will be subsidized, we will make your lives comfortable with kick-backs, prostitutes, and all the caviar you can eat. Don't worry about regulations or standards. You can do as you please in my hometown - you are the King.
Begging from the same thieves and criminals that are out to steal all they can is perhaps the most bizarre spectacle in history. In the future, when historians and social scientists look at this time, they will be amazed at how hoodwinked whole populations could be. The very same people that have sold us out and ran with massive profits will be the people that the victims will be begging to; Come back and exploit us some more.
This all has to do with the erroneous assumption that wealth emanates from the ultra rich. A forgivable assumption within the context of the extent of brainwashing that has occurred throughout the cold war and the fact that it was up to the whims of investors to say where a plant or an industry will be built. The psychologist Skinner would be fascinated by this attitude - like a pigeon pecking a key for food.
There is also a more fuzzy logic that is based on the reality that capitalism has the immense power to remove whole populations from miserable feudal existence to modern and comfortable lives. While capitalism has tremendous power and while capitalism is certainly the most radical and changing movement humanity has seen, it carries with it its own seeds of destruction and it also carries more inequality and violence than any other movement in history, including religion; and that's quite a stretch.
Capitalism is and has been an effective mechanism with severe limitations and with plenty of ugly side effects. It has set the stage for a new era. But until we get there, we will be suffering 'interesting times'.
We can't remain underneath a system that is as wildly unpredictable and volatile as capitalism has become. If capitalism is to remain the primary historical force for humanity, it has to be tamed and stabilized. All human beings vital needs must be guaranteed. Food, medicine, housing and anything that is required to sustain a human body has to be guaranteed. It must be free of charge. The necessity of paying money for life's vital needs keeps us pinned under a very real form of slavery. You might have the choice of who your master is to an extent, but the compulsion to give your life to somebody that will feed your children remains. It is not freedom.
At the point where vital needs are guaranteed, all human beings will be stable and secure. If capitalist mechanisms are utilized to that end, so be it. If they are a hinderance, to hell with them.
To get there though, the time when capitalists actually run the state and hold power over the citizens has to end. It is time that the upper classes are stripped of their privilege and power. We have no choice and we will soon have no choice but to take control. Up to now its as if the children have been running the household; party now and party loud with no view of the consequences. The time has come for adults to take the sharpe things away from little Johnny.
Wealth after all, is not equal to capital or money. You can't be blamed if you equate the two under the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. Wealth is the computer in front of you, the desk it sits on, the stuff all around you. We can't stop building this stuff just because the privileged class isn't making something from the process. We can build a stable and sane society without the selfishness, criminality, and greed that we have had to endure up to now.
If you don't believe that, you should seriously consider the possibility that your mind has been programmed.
------------------------------------------------------
Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.
Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who
That it's namin'.
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'.
Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'.
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'.
Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin'.
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'.
The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin'.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'.
- Dob Dylan
There will be a lot of unfortunate and ugly side effects of this economic disaster. It is argued that this crisis is more like 1914 then 1929 in some ways. Hopefully, the response won't come in the form of a major world war. But it might.
Then there will be some lesser but still nasty effects.
Early on we will see increased provincialist thinking and initiatives. Politicians will be begging private industry to invest in 'our' location. And if you do, you won't have to pay taxes, you will be subsidized, we will make your lives comfortable with kick-backs, prostitutes, and all the caviar you can eat. Don't worry about regulations or standards. You can do as you please in my hometown - you are the King.
Begging from the same thieves and criminals that are out to steal all they can is perhaps the most bizarre spectacle in history. In the future, when historians and social scientists look at this time, they will be amazed at how hoodwinked whole populations could be. The very same people that have sold us out and ran with massive profits will be the people that the victims will be begging to; Come back and exploit us some more.
This all has to do with the erroneous assumption that wealth emanates from the ultra rich. A forgivable assumption within the context of the extent of brainwashing that has occurred throughout the cold war and the fact that it was up to the whims of investors to say where a plant or an industry will be built. The psychologist Skinner would be fascinated by this attitude - like a pigeon pecking a key for food.
There is also a more fuzzy logic that is based on the reality that capitalism has the immense power to remove whole populations from miserable feudal existence to modern and comfortable lives. While capitalism has tremendous power and while capitalism is certainly the most radical and changing movement humanity has seen, it carries with it its own seeds of destruction and it also carries more inequality and violence than any other movement in history, including religion; and that's quite a stretch.
Capitalism is and has been an effective mechanism with severe limitations and with plenty of ugly side effects. It has set the stage for a new era. But until we get there, we will be suffering 'interesting times'.
We can't remain underneath a system that is as wildly unpredictable and volatile as capitalism has become. If capitalism is to remain the primary historical force for humanity, it has to be tamed and stabilized. All human beings vital needs must be guaranteed. Food, medicine, housing and anything that is required to sustain a human body has to be guaranteed. It must be free of charge. The necessity of paying money for life's vital needs keeps us pinned under a very real form of slavery. You might have the choice of who your master is to an extent, but the compulsion to give your life to somebody that will feed your children remains. It is not freedom.
At the point where vital needs are guaranteed, all human beings will be stable and secure. If capitalist mechanisms are utilized to that end, so be it. If they are a hinderance, to hell with them.
To get there though, the time when capitalists actually run the state and hold power over the citizens has to end. It is time that the upper classes are stripped of their privilege and power. We have no choice and we will soon have no choice but to take control. Up to now its as if the children have been running the household; party now and party loud with no view of the consequences. The time has come for adults to take the sharpe things away from little Johnny.
Wealth after all, is not equal to capital or money. You can't be blamed if you equate the two under the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. Wealth is the computer in front of you, the desk it sits on, the stuff all around you. We can't stop building this stuff just because the privileged class isn't making something from the process. We can build a stable and sane society without the selfishness, criminality, and greed that we have had to endure up to now.
If you don't believe that, you should seriously consider the possibility that your mind has been programmed.
------------------------------------------------------
Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.
Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who
That it's namin'.
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'.
Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'.
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'.
Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin'.
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'.
The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin'.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'.
- Dob Dylan
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Cowardly Canadians
Canadian politicians have been paid to shut up and do what they are
told by Washington. As Canadians we can't afford to allow this pack of
idiots and stooges to keep those seats functionally empty. We need to
assert ourselves as Canadians and we need to stop looking to the
Americans for direction. America is a sinking ship and we are tied too
closely to it. As a result, we are going down.
The most recent examples are the statements made by Canadian
politicians concerning the fishbowl slaughter in Gaza. In Gaza, a
population has been made defenceless and are confined to a very small
and crowded space and Israel is shooting them like fish in a barrel.
This is possibly the worst war crime that has occurred in a very long
time.
And how do Canadian politicians respond to this unbridled slaughter?
They, like the Israelis and the Americans, confine the context to the
firing of some pathetic little rocket out of Gaza, without having the
guts to ask why Hamas exists or why the rockets were fired, and say
'Hamas started it' like some schoolkid caught out.
The Canadian politicians mimic the Israeli/American line to the
letter. They say that they are not in favour of a ceasefire until they
can achieve a durable ceasefire. That is code for 'no ceasefire' under
circumstances where a whole population is imprisoned and confined to a
small space, under threat, murdered en masse, and with limited
everything.
There were Canadians stranded in Gaza during this slaughter and how
did the Canadian government respond? They didn't really. It was only
after the Americans evacuated their citizens that the Canadian
government contacted the Israeli government to evacuate them. Why?
Because those Canadians are Palestinians or they see Palestinians as
human beings.
On the way out, some Canadians witnessed the Israeli murder of a UN
truck driver, a so called error. (The Israeli and American practice of
making mistakes like this sends a message to the UN and the Red
Cross.)
Harper is predictably an apologist for American and Israeli war
crimes. Michael Ignatieff has show the same bloody colours with these
Gaza atrocities. He said that Israel is a democratic country and we
have to stand by Israel. Saying this he discounts the election of
Hamas as the representatives of the Palestinian people that were
elected by the Palestinian people.
And now, as this horrific war crime proceeds and drives the Gazans to
a deeper level of hell, the Israelis announce an increase in the
terror and blood in Gaza.
The time is here to usurp these paid clowns in Ottawa. They do not
represent Canadians, they represent those special interests with
enough money to buy expensive political whores
told by Washington. As Canadians we can't afford to allow this pack of
idiots and stooges to keep those seats functionally empty. We need to
assert ourselves as Canadians and we need to stop looking to the
Americans for direction. America is a sinking ship and we are tied too
closely to it. As a result, we are going down.
The most recent examples are the statements made by Canadian
politicians concerning the fishbowl slaughter in Gaza. In Gaza, a
population has been made defenceless and are confined to a very small
and crowded space and Israel is shooting them like fish in a barrel.
This is possibly the worst war crime that has occurred in a very long
time.
And how do Canadian politicians respond to this unbridled slaughter?
They, like the Israelis and the Americans, confine the context to the
firing of some pathetic little rocket out of Gaza, without having the
guts to ask why Hamas exists or why the rockets were fired, and say
'Hamas started it' like some schoolkid caught out.
The Canadian politicians mimic the Israeli/American line to the
letter. They say that they are not in favour of a ceasefire until they
can achieve a durable ceasefire. That is code for 'no ceasefire' under
circumstances where a whole population is imprisoned and confined to a
small space, under threat, murdered en masse, and with limited
everything.
There were Canadians stranded in Gaza during this slaughter and how
did the Canadian government respond? They didn't really. It was only
after the Americans evacuated their citizens that the Canadian
government contacted the Israeli government to evacuate them. Why?
Because those Canadians are Palestinians or they see Palestinians as
human beings.
On the way out, some Canadians witnessed the Israeli murder of a UN
truck driver, a so called error. (The Israeli and American practice of
making mistakes like this sends a message to the UN and the Red
Cross.)
Harper is predictably an apologist for American and Israeli war
crimes. Michael Ignatieff has show the same bloody colours with these
Gaza atrocities. He said that Israel is a democratic country and we
have to stand by Israel. Saying this he discounts the election of
Hamas as the representatives of the Palestinian people that were
elected by the Palestinian people.
And now, as this horrific war crime proceeds and drives the Gazans to
a deeper level of hell, the Israelis announce an increase in the
terror and blood in Gaza.
The time is here to usurp these paid clowns in Ottawa. They do not
represent Canadians, they represent those special interests with
enough money to buy expensive political whores
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Where has all the money gone?
$700 billion of taxpayers dollars went to the same criminals that made a killing using smoke and mirrors and phony money. We might have the audacity to ask; Where is the money?
http://www.propublica.org/feature/bailout-bucks-to-banks-1028
The Associated Press asked the question. Here's what they got:
They sent questionnaires to banks, recipients of more than $1 billion each in tax dollars and asked:
How much has been spent?
What was it spent on?
How much is being held in savings?
What's the plan for the rest?
They didn't answer.
J.P. Morgan Chase - a big winner of $25 billion in bailout money said, "We have not disclosed that to the public. We're declining to.
Isn't that clever of them. They are "declining" to.
Others declined to say and asked that the media not say that they refused.
An AP report shows that CEOs at firms which have received $188 billion in bailout money received an average of $2.6 million last year. These same firms also received many more billions in loans from the Federal Reserve.
The reason for it all - to put liquidity into the system - they say. They made the injection but the economy still tanks. The scheme didn't work. The whole idea is based on false premises. Do they know that? The ugly answer has to be, they have to.
Meanwhile, the lower classes are devastated through job losses and devaluation of their property.
And what do they get? Nothing.
The twit class in America are operating with the mind of a psychopath. They exhibit no conscience whatsoever and will continue to steal, lie, and demand nothing more from government than complicity and cowardice.
The explicit collusion of this grand theft by the American government, by all participants including the Democrats (including Obama) and Congress shows that the marriage of the corporate elite and the government is complete. The American government is run by these very same criminals.
And while this bonanza in tax dollars reaches the pockets of the extremely wealthy to spend with impunity, millions are thrown out of work across the USA and across the globe.
Until this upside down thinking and unbridled criminality gives way to an understanding of what it is that constitutes real wealth, the crisis will be with us.
http://www.propublica.org/feature/bailout-bucks-to-banks-1028
The Associated Press asked the question. Here's what they got:
They sent questionnaires to banks, recipients of more than $1 billion each in tax dollars and asked:
How much has been spent?
What was it spent on?
How much is being held in savings?
What's the plan for the rest?
They didn't answer.
J.P. Morgan Chase - a big winner of $25 billion in bailout money said, "We have not disclosed that to the public. We're declining to.
Isn't that clever of them. They are "declining" to.
Others declined to say and asked that the media not say that they refused.
An AP report shows that CEOs at firms which have received $188 billion in bailout money received an average of $2.6 million last year. These same firms also received many more billions in loans from the Federal Reserve.
The reason for it all - to put liquidity into the system - they say. They made the injection but the economy still tanks. The scheme didn't work. The whole idea is based on false premises. Do they know that? The ugly answer has to be, they have to.
Meanwhile, the lower classes are devastated through job losses and devaluation of their property.
And what do they get? Nothing.
The twit class in America are operating with the mind of a psychopath. They exhibit no conscience whatsoever and will continue to steal, lie, and demand nothing more from government than complicity and cowardice.
The explicit collusion of this grand theft by the American government, by all participants including the Democrats (including Obama) and Congress shows that the marriage of the corporate elite and the government is complete. The American government is run by these very same criminals.
And while this bonanza in tax dollars reaches the pockets of the extremely wealthy to spend with impunity, millions are thrown out of work across the USA and across the globe.
Until this upside down thinking and unbridled criminality gives way to an understanding of what it is that constitutes real wealth, the crisis will be with us.
Saturday, December 20, 2008
The Nature of Capitalism
It's going to stop feeding us. But it never had feeding us as a goal or even a priority.
We have to understand the nature of capitalism if you believe that tweaking or reforming this system will make everything all right again.
Capitalism has provided us with a very comfortable life style and we owe a lot to it. But it also has some very malevolent aspects. The upshot is, it has done its job. It has served its grand purpose. But now it is time to plan for it's death.
We can now see that the Lords of the New World Order are revamping the capitalist order. That means cutting wages, jobs, and generally making life more difficult for middle classes and working classes.
The point here is, it isn't capitalism that going to save us. It can't. Saving us isn't in the nature of the beast and, you should be forgiven if you think otherwise. It has pulled us out of feudalism and it has given us all this stuff. And it also has control of the media which is pathologically reluctant to criticize it.
The nature of capitalism isn't to feed you or anybody else. It isn't even about making cars, computers or Big Macs. Its about making capital. Making and selling commodities (stuff) is an inconvenient necessity to making capital.
You fit in this equation this way. Capital is used to own the manufacturing implements or the business that will be used as a tool to make money. It also buys you, the worker - the cost of your labour. This may be seen as a commodity - it is. The value of this commodity (your wages) is less than the value you contribute to the production process. This difference is the root source of capital.
The capitalist process cannot stagnate. It is a matter of necessitating constant growth and change. Profit accumulation depends on increasing the productivity of labour. The pressure to make the production process leaner and meaner drives manufacturing owners to buy and develop technology that will be more efficient (and drive you out of work). Your wages and your benefits are a drain on profit. A machine is more profitable and dependable than you are.
The problem is, for capitalists to sell products, workers must be paid a decent wage (as noted by Henry Ford). Credit is vital to this process, especially in our mature capitalist stage of development.
Credit allows us to buy things from a wage that doesn't yet exist. The idea being that when we make the money, we are good for it. But there are other problems and pressures developing in this process.
The capitalist needs more than to just squeeze more profit from a unit of labour (which gets increasingly difficult to do), he must also expand markets and this is accelerated as real wages decline (and with it, demand for goods and services). And as he does so, he becomes less reliant on domestic wages and more reliant on foreign wages. Workers are competing now with the lowest wage possible on a world scale.
In this process, capital itself becomes a commodity. This commodity is always, in reality, dependant on real profit which is based in real labour. Credit is based on labour that may not exist. For example, the trillions that the American taxpayer owes has to be paid from American taxes. But at this point the manufacturing sector has moved to China. Its like running credit cards to the max knowing you'll never pay it or, if you do, it will be a painful struggle.
So, capital suppliers (banks) provide capital and in return receive a portion of the money (profit) that was originally created by a worker (you). This is called interest.
The whole thing now is more to the capitalists liking. No more does he deal with the mess of a factory floor. Now he is dealing with stocks, bonds, and interest. He is buying and selling money. He is dealing in imaginary capital. The larger this world becomes, and it is a world of illusion, the more the profile of the worker is diminished. The less important he or she appears to be.
The recent money manipulations through sub prime mortgages and hedge funds are a clear example of this.
And now it appears to the capitalist that you are expendable. He forgot where he got his wealth in the first place.
The problem for the capitalists and for us all is that, for all its impressive gyrations and weight, imaginary capital is based in profit that is derived from skimming some profit from a unit of labour or selling products made from the labour. All the glitter of the gods of high capitalism isn't gold, it's made of rust.
The buying and selling of money; packaging it and breaking it up and repackaging it had become an industry on its own. It is an industry of schemes, illusion, and theft. Alan Greenspan and the neo con armies had believed that this is real, a real economy, or so it seemed. They had trillions in assets but the assets had no base in reality.
The real question now is; How much excess value can be derived from a unit of labour? How much wealth is there in the system?
The real answer is; Not much.
And as a result there will be an intensification in the process of squeezing an extra dime from a unit of labour. It will be called restructuring and a myriad of other new Orwellian terms that will surface to euphemize the degradation, the exploitation, and the impoverishment of the worker (you). They will have to expand the aggregate of surplus value (profit) through your degradation. There will also be considerable slashing and burning of capital and capitalist entities. We will be left with a bare bones and ruthless capitalist society.
What is most telling in terms of the de-valuing of workers and consumers and the worshipping of the criminals that have herded us to the edge of an economic abyss is the bailouts of the capitalists and especially the creditors. And, the ignorance of workers and consumers (you). Your tax dollars are meant to bail them out.
Many of them and many of you actually believe that wealth comes from the wealthy. The fact is, wealth comes from work and it comes from workers activity. This is the basis of wealth.
Until this fact is recognized by a critical mass, we will be marching in step as the Alan Greenspans and the thieves and billionaires that have caused this situation to occur.
And when it is recognized by a critical mass, we will take matter sinto our own hands. At that point the children stop running the household and we will develop an economic order based on human needs and based in basic sanity.
We have to understand the nature of capitalism if you believe that tweaking or reforming this system will make everything all right again.
Capitalism has provided us with a very comfortable life style and we owe a lot to it. But it also has some very malevolent aspects. The upshot is, it has done its job. It has served its grand purpose. But now it is time to plan for it's death.
We can now see that the Lords of the New World Order are revamping the capitalist order. That means cutting wages, jobs, and generally making life more difficult for middle classes and working classes.
The point here is, it isn't capitalism that going to save us. It can't. Saving us isn't in the nature of the beast and, you should be forgiven if you think otherwise. It has pulled us out of feudalism and it has given us all this stuff. And it also has control of the media which is pathologically reluctant to criticize it.
The nature of capitalism isn't to feed you or anybody else. It isn't even about making cars, computers or Big Macs. Its about making capital. Making and selling commodities (stuff) is an inconvenient necessity to making capital.
You fit in this equation this way. Capital is used to own the manufacturing implements or the business that will be used as a tool to make money. It also buys you, the worker - the cost of your labour. This may be seen as a commodity - it is. The value of this commodity (your wages) is less than the value you contribute to the production process. This difference is the root source of capital.
The capitalist process cannot stagnate. It is a matter of necessitating constant growth and change. Profit accumulation depends on increasing the productivity of labour. The pressure to make the production process leaner and meaner drives manufacturing owners to buy and develop technology that will be more efficient (and drive you out of work). Your wages and your benefits are a drain on profit. A machine is more profitable and dependable than you are.
The problem is, for capitalists to sell products, workers must be paid a decent wage (as noted by Henry Ford). Credit is vital to this process, especially in our mature capitalist stage of development.
Credit allows us to buy things from a wage that doesn't yet exist. The idea being that when we make the money, we are good for it. But there are other problems and pressures developing in this process.
The capitalist needs more than to just squeeze more profit from a unit of labour (which gets increasingly difficult to do), he must also expand markets and this is accelerated as real wages decline (and with it, demand for goods and services). And as he does so, he becomes less reliant on domestic wages and more reliant on foreign wages. Workers are competing now with the lowest wage possible on a world scale.
In this process, capital itself becomes a commodity. This commodity is always, in reality, dependant on real profit which is based in real labour. Credit is based on labour that may not exist. For example, the trillions that the American taxpayer owes has to be paid from American taxes. But at this point the manufacturing sector has moved to China. Its like running credit cards to the max knowing you'll never pay it or, if you do, it will be a painful struggle.
So, capital suppliers (banks) provide capital and in return receive a portion of the money (profit) that was originally created by a worker (you). This is called interest.
The whole thing now is more to the capitalists liking. No more does he deal with the mess of a factory floor. Now he is dealing with stocks, bonds, and interest. He is buying and selling money. He is dealing in imaginary capital. The larger this world becomes, and it is a world of illusion, the more the profile of the worker is diminished. The less important he or she appears to be.
The recent money manipulations through sub prime mortgages and hedge funds are a clear example of this.
And now it appears to the capitalist that you are expendable. He forgot where he got his wealth in the first place.
The problem for the capitalists and for us all is that, for all its impressive gyrations and weight, imaginary capital is based in profit that is derived from skimming some profit from a unit of labour or selling products made from the labour. All the glitter of the gods of high capitalism isn't gold, it's made of rust.
The buying and selling of money; packaging it and breaking it up and repackaging it had become an industry on its own. It is an industry of schemes, illusion, and theft. Alan Greenspan and the neo con armies had believed that this is real, a real economy, or so it seemed. They had trillions in assets but the assets had no base in reality.
The real question now is; How much excess value can be derived from a unit of labour? How much wealth is there in the system?
The real answer is; Not much.
And as a result there will be an intensification in the process of squeezing an extra dime from a unit of labour. It will be called restructuring and a myriad of other new Orwellian terms that will surface to euphemize the degradation, the exploitation, and the impoverishment of the worker (you). They will have to expand the aggregate of surplus value (profit) through your degradation. There will also be considerable slashing and burning of capital and capitalist entities. We will be left with a bare bones and ruthless capitalist society.
What is most telling in terms of the de-valuing of workers and consumers and the worshipping of the criminals that have herded us to the edge of an economic abyss is the bailouts of the capitalists and especially the creditors. And, the ignorance of workers and consumers (you). Your tax dollars are meant to bail them out.
Many of them and many of you actually believe that wealth comes from the wealthy. The fact is, wealth comes from work and it comes from workers activity. This is the basis of wealth.
Until this fact is recognized by a critical mass, we will be marching in step as the Alan Greenspans and the thieves and billionaires that have caused this situation to occur.
And when it is recognized by a critical mass, we will take matter sinto our own hands. At that point the children stop running the household and we will develop an economic order based on human needs and based in basic sanity.
Saturday, June 23, 2007
Screaming Good Bye
Tony Blair has the nerve to stand up and deliver a speech at Reuters Coroprate Headquarters in London to scream about cynicism in real (uncontrolled) media. He is aware of Reuters, BAE Systems, and the Saudi Royals incestous relations and has the cheek to utter the word cynicism in his criticism of the messengers. On top of that, he calls for controls on free media.
Tony Blair slipped Labour from its traditional placement on the left of the political spectrum to the new spread-eagle position of 'new labour'. One foot planted firmly to the right of centre and the other, very near the centre; the place where social democrats the world over have always rested easily. This appears to be an appropriate pose for the political whore he has proven to be.
Labour's days of resting easy have gone - thanks to the infamous Bush Poodle.
In his early days, he smiled and uttered the phrase "new labour" and managed to recover the UK from much of the horrible damage done to it my Maggie Thatcher. And as he did, he squirmed and slithered himself, Labour, and the UK well to the right. To Blair's credit, the social circumstances for Britain's poor are not bad, especially when contrasted with the cruel and stark situation for poor people in the USA or Canada. Canada has never recovered from the global slashing and burning that occurred during the Mulroney/Thatcher/ Reagan years. For Canadians it got worse under the watch of the Liberals in the 1990s.
But still, for Britians and the rest of the world, Blair's departure from 10 Downing Street can't come quick enough. Rather than merely saying good-bye, we are screaming it.
The reasons are obvious. Perhaps the most obvious is his sickening relationship with George W. Bush. Blair's expression is that of submissive patsy. Perhaps when all the evidence is in, we will see that he is not the innocent stooge, but a slippery piece of work in his own right. Perhaps before you finish reading this article you will come to that conclusion.
Blair's speeches promoting and furthering war suggest panic to save the noble Western way of life from backward Islamic hordes. Listening to Blair, the West hold the moral and enlightened upper hand. And if we don't wage war there, they will age war here. It isn't much wonder he is dubbed Bush's sock puppet. And no doubt he is. Blair is far too intelligent to actually believe what he says.
Nurturing Cynicism
As he exits stage right from the world scene, he has exposed the true nature of the Bushite New World Order. Blair has exposed the festering rot that sleeps beneath the slick veneer of global capitalism. A facade provided to you by the global capitalist media. Blair has shown us in spades that the real ideological struggle is not between Islam and The Occident or communism and capitalism. The salient and poignant struggle now is the struggle between capitalism and democracy. Capitalism is in the process of delivering fatal wounds to naive notions of democracy.
If we satisfied ourselves with the most minimal criteria for what it is that constitutes democracy, we'd still have a hard time arguing that there is life left in it. Every four or five years voters get to pick who they want to represent them. They can either pick Chevron or Exxon, Loughheed Martin or BAE Systems. Wal Mart or K Mart. This is not democracy.
Tony Blair, in recent weeks, has openly shown that there are laws for the super-rich and laws for the rest of us. He has shown clearly that the capitalist state is run by and for the wealthy classes and it doesn't matter what citizenship they hold.
He has defended the criminals and attacked those who talk about it.
First, there is his recent attack on the Independent, BBC, the Guardian. He also took aim at the likes of MWC News, Democracy Now, and Counterpunch or - 'alternative media'. Blair has called for controls to put in place as he delivered a speech from, appropriately enough, a corporate news venue, namely, Reuters in London.
He accused the media of "sensationalizing facts, breeding cynicism and attacking public figures". His opinion about the media may be most concisely summed up in his description of them (us) as "feral beasts". These feral beasts exposed his multitude of lies and contradictions and his hypocricy over his years as Prime Minister. We are still doing so. Britian, unlike the USA, has a critical and sophisticated media. For sure, the Indpendent, the Guardian, BBC, as well as the 'alternative media' that Blair derides can stand proud. If ever there was badge of honour, this attack by Bush's political lap dog is just that. We, at MWC, only wish we had been named directly. We will strive to do better in future.
If we report the facts on the likes of Tony Blair and Bush, it certainly breeds cynicism.
Something to be Cynical About
Reuters has Dick Olver on its board of directors. Olver is also Chairman of BAE Systems, the worlds 4th largest aerospace and defence company. BAE benefits directly from the powerful Israeli lobby in Washington that, in the 1980s, pressured prohibition of the sale of American people killers to the Saudis. Britain's BAE was next in line.
BAE systems is alleged, by British media, to have secretly paid Saudi Prince Bandar more than £1bn in connection with Britain's biggest ever weapons contract.
There have been demands for an investigation. In response to this, Tony Blair decided to stop the Serious Fraud Office from investigating alleged bribery relating to the BAE contract with Saudi Arabia. It involves a £43 billion arms deal. To put that in perspective in some way - there are 14 billion inches to the moon.
Blair said that such an investigation would damage the UKs relationship with the Saudi dictators (Blair has never referred to them as dictators, but that is what they are). Blair and Bush have 'special' realtions with the multi billionaire Saudi royals. Bandar's father is next in line for the Saudi throne.
Bandar's answer to the charges is that he has done nothing wrong. That marketing fees are a legitimate part of business. Bandar may be onto something. He is cynical enough to admit that capitalism is rife with kickbacks and corruption. It seems, Tony the Poodle agrees with him.
The people of the Middle East are used to this. They don't eat the pap delivered to American doorsteps each morning. They know that these America and democracy friendly regimes are as corrupt as the mafia - on a far grander scale.
Tony Blair, for all his blather about making the world safe from terrorism and for democracy has, in these recent weeks, shown the the world that the Western 'democracies' are far more corrupt than Saddam could have dreamed of being. And he has the unmitigated gall to defend it.
And he call us cynical.
Don't slam the door on the way out Mr. Blair.
Friday, March 23, 2007
Do Not Look Away
The Canadian military is guilty of handing detainees over to the Afghan military or police to be tortured or killed. The Afghan military and police admit that they torture them. This means, necessarily, that Canada is guilty of war crimes. Prime Minister Harper and the Minister of Defence, Gordon O'Connor, are taking the political lead and are leading by example when they implicitly green light torture. Canada has handed over scores of prisoners that have 'disappeared'. We all know what 'disappeared' means.
It is impossible for O'Connor and Harper to not know about what happens when Canada hands prisoners over to the Afghan military. They know and they don't care. What's worse is that they want us to know that they know and don't care. It's part of a cowardly new world. It is what their masters and Washington demand.
Amir Attaran
The Globe and Mail reported on March 9 of this year, "Even the Afghan government's own human-rights watchdog concedes that torture is 'a routine part of police procedures.' The techniques, according to the U.S. State Department, include 'pulling out fingernails and toenails, burning with hot oil, beatings, sexual humiliation, and sodomy.'
"Thus, when Canadian soldiers follow standing orders and transfer men to self-confessed torturers, they could be — through no fault of their own — aiding and abetting that offence, which makes them prosecutable for war crimes. Willful blindness has trumped caution and responsibility." This is according to Amir Attaran who is a "biologist and lawyer, and is currently Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair in Law, Population Health and Global Development Policy, of the Faculties of Law and Medicine at the University of Ottawa".
O'Connor and Harper admit that they lied to Parliament about prisoners being monitored by The International Red Cross and The Red Crescent Society. The Canadian Conservative government, we would hope, would be embarrassed. But no, they shrug a smirk and a slimy 'whoops' to the Canadian public.
O'Conner also refused Professor Attaran's invitation to discuss these matters. He also refused to meet with human rights groups.
Canadian Politicians in American Sewage
A profound shift occurred in the accepted ethic of western nations acceptance of torture camps, kidnapping and torturing perceived state enemies with no trial, the grim acceptance of massacres of civilians and so on. And this shift happened since 9-11; we all felt it whether we are aware of it or not.
Canadians have always taken great pride in being perceived in the world as essentially sane, decent, and perhaps a little innocent. This shift in the public relations spin that advanced capitalistic states is having a tremendous impact on the image Canada is promoting. The politicians are suggesting to Canadians that the Canadian State is getting its hands dirty and that Canadians should look away. That is exactly what Canadian politicians are doing. The implicit message is to allow the state to do its dirty work and not ask questions.
This was and is the political ethic of quasi fascist states and it is the ethic of states evolving toward fascism. Proper fascist states are explicit in their demands to look away. Failing to do so will result in imprisonment or death. But we are not there yet and now is the time to look directly at it and to do something about it. Canadians as well as Brits, Americans, Australians and all citizens in nations marching down this path toward hell must use whatever political power we still have to usurp this conspiracy of ugly silence.
There is a fable about two frogs. Both are killed in boiling water. The first frog is abruptly plunged into the hot water and before he dies, he panics and kicks, aware of what is happening to him. The second frog is sitting in the water as the heat is gradually turned up. Eventually he dies as the water gets too hot for his body to survive.
Hitler plunged the frogs into boiling water. There was a lot of panic and awareness of what was happening. Today, if you can't feel the water to be getting unbearably hot, consider those that disappeared or those that have been thrown into Guantanimo or some other, less known prison. Some of us are the second frog but there are many that are the first frog. We can't afford to look away.
Sunday, March 18, 2007
For Sale: Britain's NHS
That is, once the Conservative government is elected.
David Cameron, the leader of the British Tory part, is aiming to scuttle the NHS. The Tories are aiming to Americanize health care but they won't say that to your face. Britain should learn from the folly of being led down the neo-con path to misery and destruction. Brits should learn from the experience of Canada. The system in Canada isn't dead yet, but it has taken quite a beating.
The closer we reside, politically, geographically, and economically to the center of the American Empire, the more likely we are liable to be influenced by their ideological and financial pressures. Canadians for instance, understand what it means to have their governments policies dictated by the likes of Moody's of New York bond rating institution or similar and disparate influential capitalistic organizations. Canadians have been cut to the bone. In Europe, the people have so far been spared. Europeans appear to be more politically sophisticated than North Americans. Witness the trashing George Galloway handed his American accusers a year ago. The Americans were caught of guard. They were used to bullying Americans. Face with this fiery Scot, they were dumbfounded.
Oh Canada
Canadians know what it is like to have vultures circling high overhead waiting for the death rattles of the socialized medical care system. In Canada there was Albera's Premier, Ralph Klein, leading the charge against public health care in his efforts to sink the privatization wedge deep into the heart of the system. There were others, not least of which was the national Liberal government that, in the mid 1990s, axed, slashed, burned and cut about half the revenue to the system leaving it in shreds.
After that, the right wingers began to scream that the socialist medical system isn't adequate, that there are waiting lines for patients and service is horrible. Bear in mind, the so-called Liberal Party of Canada is top heavy with right wingers including the likes of Paul Martin, the man responsible for callously slashing the system to a dangerous level. The same man who is responsible for sinking the Canada Assistance Act, a structure that ensured no Canadian would slip through the social safety net. A structure placed beneath every Canadian by Paul Martin's father; a man who was not influenced by neo-liberal savages.
Canadians have been told, over and over and over again that social spending isn't affordable. Social spending in Canada has been cut and social programs have been gutted. Canada isn't as bad as the USA but it is getting there.
Next in queue: the UK.
Step up David Cameron and the Tories; perched to win the next national election. Already Cameron and the Tories are preparing the ground for widespread cuts to social programs and especially cuts to health care. Privatization is their business and they aim to see it happen.
Reading into the messages the Tories are putting out today will forecast when they will do tomorrow. What's important is to decipher their political code. They don't come out and say 'we are going to privatized health care so our rich friends can make a killing selling services to people'. Instead they speak in coded language.
At the Conservative spring conference in Noddingham, David Cameron said that he is making NHS (Britain's health care system) "a priority". Coming from a Conservative, these are ominous words indeed. According to Labour's Health Secretary, Patricia Hewitt, the Tories spending plans would cut £28 billion from services annually. That's a lot of pounds. For instance, there are 14 billion inches to the moon.
Brace yourself Britain. Tory times are tough times.
When David Cameron says that he is making health care system a priority, watch out. That is code for, 'we are going to slash it. We are going to burn it'.
George Osborne, the Tory health care hatchet man said that a Conservative government would "get a grip" on public spending. He said that he wants to show that the Tories are "disciplined, serious and responsible". If you are a Canadian you have heard this language before and you know that it is code for gutting programs to the commons in favour of the rich. It's been done, literally to death in Canada and many Canadians have died as a result of cutting spending to health care.
Mr. Osborne also said that a Tory government would cut red tape by simplifying the tax business code and ridding Britain of a complex system of tax relief. This would pave the way to deliver on the Tory aim to cut the corporate tax to make the UK, as they say, more competitive, and deliver on the party's publicised commitment "to shift from a tax as you earn to tax as you burn" way of doing it.
Speaking at the convention, David Cameron called for a "social responsibility" revolution. He envisions private firms, voluntary bodies and citizens taking control of the delivery of public services. Labour, as odious as they may be in some respects, maintains a belief in an elemental cover of socialism to protect the average Brit from possible financial devastation, worry, or unnecessary death. Tony Blair is advocating for better state supplied services to the commons. He's not all bad. It's too bad the man has been sleeping with the likes of George W. Bush.
The Tories are all bad though - bad to the bone. The Tories want to make the world safe for capitalism. They want to make the climate as friendly as possible for investors and privateers. The less social spending the better - less of a tax burden for investors. If they can provide tax breaks for the rich and heap the burden onto workers, the better the privateers like it. If they have the public purse spent on infrastructure to support private business, the more happy the speculators, gamblers, and privateers will be. Scrapping the health care system is especially delicious because there are billions to be made selling health to the sick, the dying, and the disabled. If they can't afford it, they can sell their houses. Again, another bonus for the privateers. They have swallowed the neo-conservative ideology hook, line, and deadly sinker.
So now in the UK, private business interests are drooling over the prospect of a Tory government cutting the system and privatizing it, one piece at a time. There is a bonanza on the horizon. A fortune to be made on the backs of the sick and the elderly.
Canadians remember a nightmare. And that nightmare has a name. His name is Brian Mulroney, clearly the most hated man in the history of the nation. If you look at David Cameron you will notice an uncanny resemblance, especially when he speaks. Has anyone ever seen those two in the same room?
David Cameron, the leader of the British Tory part, is aiming to scuttle the NHS. The Tories are aiming to Americanize health care but they won't say that to your face. Britain should learn from the folly of being led down the neo-con path to misery and destruction. Brits should learn from the experience of Canada. The system in Canada isn't dead yet, but it has taken quite a beating.
The closer we reside, politically, geographically, and economically to the center of the American Empire, the more likely we are liable to be influenced by their ideological and financial pressures. Canadians for instance, understand what it means to have their governments policies dictated by the likes of Moody's of New York bond rating institution or similar and disparate influential capitalistic organizations. Canadians have been cut to the bone. In Europe, the people have so far been spared. Europeans appear to be more politically sophisticated than North Americans. Witness the trashing George Galloway handed his American accusers a year ago. The Americans were caught of guard. They were used to bullying Americans. Face with this fiery Scot, they were dumbfounded.
Oh Canada
Canadians know what it is like to have vultures circling high overhead waiting for the death rattles of the socialized medical care system. In Canada there was Albera's Premier, Ralph Klein, leading the charge against public health care in his efforts to sink the privatization wedge deep into the heart of the system. There were others, not least of which was the national Liberal government that, in the mid 1990s, axed, slashed, burned and cut about half the revenue to the system leaving it in shreds.
After that, the right wingers began to scream that the socialist medical system isn't adequate, that there are waiting lines for patients and service is horrible. Bear in mind, the so-called Liberal Party of Canada is top heavy with right wingers including the likes of Paul Martin, the man responsible for callously slashing the system to a dangerous level. The same man who is responsible for sinking the Canada Assistance Act, a structure that ensured no Canadian would slip through the social safety net. A structure placed beneath every Canadian by Paul Martin's father; a man who was not influenced by neo-liberal savages.
Canadians have been told, over and over and over again that social spending isn't affordable. Social spending in Canada has been cut and social programs have been gutted. Canada isn't as bad as the USA but it is getting there.
Next in queue: the UK.
Step up David Cameron and the Tories; perched to win the next national election. Already Cameron and the Tories are preparing the ground for widespread cuts to social programs and especially cuts to health care. Privatization is their business and they aim to see it happen.
Reading into the messages the Tories are putting out today will forecast when they will do tomorrow. What's important is to decipher their political code. They don't come out and say 'we are going to privatized health care so our rich friends can make a killing selling services to people'. Instead they speak in coded language.
At the Conservative spring conference in Noddingham, David Cameron said that he is making NHS (Britain's health care system) "a priority". Coming from a Conservative, these are ominous words indeed. According to Labour's Health Secretary, Patricia Hewitt, the Tories spending plans would cut £28 billion from services annually. That's a lot of pounds. For instance, there are 14 billion inches to the moon.
Brace yourself Britain. Tory times are tough times.
When David Cameron says that he is making health care system a priority, watch out. That is code for, 'we are going to slash it. We are going to burn it'.
George Osborne, the Tory health care hatchet man said that a Conservative government would "get a grip" on public spending. He said that he wants to show that the Tories are "disciplined, serious and responsible". If you are a Canadian you have heard this language before and you know that it is code for gutting programs to the commons in favour of the rich. It's been done, literally to death in Canada and many Canadians have died as a result of cutting spending to health care.
Mr. Osborne also said that a Tory government would cut red tape by simplifying the tax business code and ridding Britain of a complex system of tax relief. This would pave the way to deliver on the Tory aim to cut the corporate tax to make the UK, as they say, more competitive, and deliver on the party's publicised commitment "to shift from a tax as you earn to tax as you burn" way of doing it.
Speaking at the convention, David Cameron called for a "social responsibility" revolution. He envisions private firms, voluntary bodies and citizens taking control of the delivery of public services. Labour, as odious as they may be in some respects, maintains a belief in an elemental cover of socialism to protect the average Brit from possible financial devastation, worry, or unnecessary death. Tony Blair is advocating for better state supplied services to the commons. He's not all bad. It's too bad the man has been sleeping with the likes of George W. Bush.
The Tories are all bad though - bad to the bone. The Tories want to make the world safe for capitalism. They want to make the climate as friendly as possible for investors and privateers. The less social spending the better - less of a tax burden for investors. If they can provide tax breaks for the rich and heap the burden onto workers, the better the privateers like it. If they have the public purse spent on infrastructure to support private business, the more happy the speculators, gamblers, and privateers will be. Scrapping the health care system is especially delicious because there are billions to be made selling health to the sick, the dying, and the disabled. If they can't afford it, they can sell their houses. Again, another bonus for the privateers. They have swallowed the neo-conservative ideology hook, line, and deadly sinker.
So now in the UK, private business interests are drooling over the prospect of a Tory government cutting the system and privatizing it, one piece at a time. There is a bonanza on the horizon. A fortune to be made on the backs of the sick and the elderly.
Canadians remember a nightmare. And that nightmare has a name. His name is Brian Mulroney, clearly the most hated man in the history of the nation. If you look at David Cameron you will notice an uncanny resemblance, especially when he speaks. Has anyone ever seen those two in the same room?
Sunday, March 11, 2007
The King of America Part 2: The Antichrist
The most bizarre tales we may have had the pleasure of reading may be found in the Bible and particularly the apparent hallucinogenic inspired tales revealed in the Book of Revelations. But as far fetched as it may seem, the prophecies are coming to pass. We are living in the days of the Antichrist. What is worse, the Antichrist is not only King of America, it is King period.
We generally think of feudal societies when we think of kings or monarchs. But there is an effective king and it rules America as surely as Henry the 8th ruled England hundreds of years ago. This king that has taken on the role of our overlord is no ordinary king however. It is as phantomological as a ghost, yet it is in real terms, a person with all the legal rights as you or I. But unlike you or I, it has immense power. It has the power to rule the USA, Canada, the UK and almost all nations. It controls and moves armies and it dictates whether we work or are unemployed. It is a king that impacts all of us very directly. No king of feudal times had such power. And no king of feudal times was as ruthless.
Money
Before we fill out the character of this King of America further, we may consider some of the curious characteristics of its father; capital or, money.
Money is completely useless in direct reality; that is, in the world that beasts and children live in. Money is just paper and metal and may useful in the toilet or in a slingshot. But it has no specific purpose in direct reality. It is certainly the single most useful commodity however in the world of the abstract. It's the means to freedom in capitalist society and its absence results in no freedom whatsoever. Its absence means, in strictly socialist-less and purely capitalistic societies that we cannot access medical care, housing, or food. We need money to talk on a telephone, to transport ourselves, or to do pretty much anything. If the King has his way, all societies activities, even drinking water or eating will require money.
And yet money is a phantom born of the real and energetic work and sweat of human beings. It is more than a means to exchange value however. Money's power and ghostlike qualities emerge from the moment it takes on excess value. The moment a larger price is demanded from the previous value of something a small demon is born. The aggregate of these demons is profit and this is the driving force and power of the King of America.
It is in the interests of capitalists and capitalism to be able to charge for every and all objects and activities that human beings want and need. The past few decades witnessed an explosion in information technology. People want and some need internet access, access to cable television, and access to the information and software to use this technology. Rather than it being a matter of simply setting up a dish to pull in the signals that exist in the space around us, the state has laws that require us to pay out money to look into this dimension of reality that exists in the space around us. If we are caught accessing this dimension without paying the legitimized providers, we will be stung and called thieves. The sting will require us to pay the state a sum of money. The state protects profit and the privateers run the state.
Capitalist society is a free society as long you have the means to pay. If you can pay, you are free. If you cannot, you are not.
The King
The King of America has taken on the role of the corporation. It could have just as easily been a private company or partnerships, but it is the corporation that has grown into the ruler of the planet. Like money itself, the corporation is well removed from existing in direct reality and from humanity. It is farther removed than a company. A company may have a human face and it may make decisions based on human sentiment. The same is true with a private business partnership. But the same is not true for the corporation. A corporation is far more like a virus; the kind of virus that may attack your computer. This virus however is a virus that is attacking humanity and it is programmed to kill the natural ecosystems that we are part of. It is programmed to kill us all.
Initially, corporations were formed to serve public interests. But capitalism, being what it is, discovered that the form of 'corporation' was far more useful and efficient than the private company at generating profit. A few adjustments would have to be made and they were. The most significant adjustment was that corporations were given the same rights as persons and were granted personhood by the courts. At that point we have generated very real phantoms in our midst. Phantoms far more terrifying than anything Stephen King could invent. Phantoms hell bent on controlling and destroying all of humanity. This may sound like hyperbole but if you examine it, you will see that it isn't the slightest of an exaggeration.
As a legal person, the corporation can buy things, sell things, it can sue and be sued. But is has limited liability. It is a very real member of society and a very powerful one.
Unlike flesh and blood human beings, the corporation cannot love and it has no conscience. It will operate only on the basis of maximizing profit for its shareholders. The individual shareholders may not want to kill or harm people in the name of profit, but what they care about doesn't influence the decisions made by the corporation. Like a virus, it is programmed to do one thing and everything else is subservient to that function. It will maximize profit and will make decisions to that end, it will destroy obstacles to that end and it will seduce facilitators to that end.
This King of America has no body, no fear, no soul, no brain. It is nothing but a virus, an abstract illusion. Like money, it has no substance in reality. It is as clever as the most clever lawyers on the planet. As its guiding hand, it extracts the most cold and calculating aspects of the minds of these lawyers and through this process, its power over societies is on the way to becoming total. It will dictate the policies and laws that politicians put in place because politicians are under the rule of this all powerful king. To this end, it will use us and it will use society to clean up its own mess and to pay its costs.
The corporation will use the state as its own private gopher. It will use the state to pay for structures and programs to facilitate optimizing its own profit. It has control of the powerful and potent American state as well as other weaker colonies of America. The American State will provide aid, for instance, to smaller colonies and the aid will be used to build infrastructure such a bridges and roads to facilitate the corporate theft of the colony's natural resources.
The corporation will also force the state to fight wars to ensure a profitable and brighter future for the shareholders. At the moment, a number of oil corporations as well as weapons manufacturers have dictated to the American State demands to wage war for oil in Iraq and take control of the oil resources there. On February 26 of this year, the American controlled and corporate controlled Iraqi cabinet of Prime Minister Nouri al-Malaki has adopted a bill to ensure that American oil corporations have free reign over Iraqi oil. The draft law aims to cut out French, Russian, and Chinese oil interests. The bill restores a colonial framework known as a production-sharing agreement. This allows foreign companies to have first dibs on the oil they help the nationalized industry extract of the massive sea of oil beneath the desert sand.
This is not completely detached from human involvement. If we look at Halliburton, for instance, we see that they have their Management Oversight Committee which meets in executive sessions to evaluate the performance of the Chief Executive Officer each December. The CEO may be fired if he is not up to snuff. They examine performance in such areas as "total stockholder return" and "development and implementation of initiatives to provide long-term economic benefit to Halliburton". Their "initiatives" have taken them, Dick Cheney, and America deep into the bowels of Iraq.
That's Halliburton. There are other corporate interests that salivate at the many billions waiting for them in the Middle East. Aside from oil, there are substantial weapons sales to consider. Weapons sellers and the American State are enjoying passionate bedtime relations that are almost as incestuous as the GOP and Halliburton. Lockheed Martin is the number one defense contractor on the planet. And Lockheed Martin spends millions of dollars each year lobbying Congress. Aside from that, the American State and these mammoth corporations have a myriad of disturbing and perverse relationships.
The Anti Christ
If we look at the morality side of corporations, what we see is the opposite of good. What we see is pure and unabashed evil.
If we are so inclined, we may use Jesus as a moral compass. Jesus isn't an unusual moral compass. He cursed those that are objectively harmful to other human beings and praised those that cared for other human beings. His morality was, and is, universal and elemental.
If we examine the King of America in this light, we will see that it is a particularly malevolent virus.
As a legal person, it has no morality whatsoever. It will kill and harm human beings in the interests of profit making. The bottom line is all that matters. There is no such thing as satisfaction. The King of America must grow and its hunger is insatiable. They must put profit above the public good.
Corporations have been likened to a psychopath in book form, "The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power" by Joel Bakan and in DVD form, "The Corporation", by the same author. They have no concern for the well being of others, they have no emotional affect, they will cause death and ill health in order to make money for the shareholders, they are deceitful and they have no capacity to experience guilt or any other human emotion. Even if the individuals, the shareholders, care about the plight of humans, the decisions are out of their hands. The virus runs pretty much on its own.
The disturbing truth is that what is good for the King is bad for the rest of us and vice versa. The privatization of water, electricity, education, health care, social assistance and so on is good for the King but it is detrimental to individuals, especially the poor and people that are disabled or otherwise disadvantaged. It is good for the rich and powerful and it is bad for the poor and those of us that are vulnerable (which is pretty much all of us). It is exactly the opposite of what Jesus preached and it boldly espouses these doctrines and ideological beliefs through corporate propaganda institutions such as the Canadian Fraser Institute, The American Enterprise Institute, The Heritage Foundation and so on.
When we examine this King, it propensities and its power in the world, we may be well advised to ask ourselves what the natural extension of this could mean for us.
The prognosis is dire. If corporation 'A' contains within it some shred of humanity, some sense of elemental morality, then corporation 'B', the more efficient and cost effective organization, will simply eat corporation A. In other words, the most fit, and that means the least humane, will survive. The tendency is to make things worse because the more wealth that is accumulated in the hands of the few, the worse off the rest of us are.
There is ample evidence to deem the King of America the Anti Christ. There is also logic and intelligence that cannot be refuted. The King has embraced and it promotes neo liberal and neo conservative ideology and it will kill and make war in order to feed shareholders.
The Anti Christ is most potent force on the planet but, at the end of the day, it is nothing more than a virus. A sociological and economic virus eating its way through societies. It operates in ways not much different than a computer virus. It is ethereal and it does not exist in direct reality. But then, neither does money.
We are in a bit of a mess.
We generally think of feudal societies when we think of kings or monarchs. But there is an effective king and it rules America as surely as Henry the 8th ruled England hundreds of years ago. This king that has taken on the role of our overlord is no ordinary king however. It is as phantomological as a ghost, yet it is in real terms, a person with all the legal rights as you or I. But unlike you or I, it has immense power. It has the power to rule the USA, Canada, the UK and almost all nations. It controls and moves armies and it dictates whether we work or are unemployed. It is a king that impacts all of us very directly. No king of feudal times had such power. And no king of feudal times was as ruthless.
Money
Before we fill out the character of this King of America further, we may consider some of the curious characteristics of its father; capital or, money.
Money is completely useless in direct reality; that is, in the world that beasts and children live in. Money is just paper and metal and may useful in the toilet or in a slingshot. But it has no specific purpose in direct reality. It is certainly the single most useful commodity however in the world of the abstract. It's the means to freedom in capitalist society and its absence results in no freedom whatsoever. Its absence means, in strictly socialist-less and purely capitalistic societies that we cannot access medical care, housing, or food. We need money to talk on a telephone, to transport ourselves, or to do pretty much anything. If the King has his way, all societies activities, even drinking water or eating will require money.
And yet money is a phantom born of the real and energetic work and sweat of human beings. It is more than a means to exchange value however. Money's power and ghostlike qualities emerge from the moment it takes on excess value. The moment a larger price is demanded from the previous value of something a small demon is born. The aggregate of these demons is profit and this is the driving force and power of the King of America.
It is in the interests of capitalists and capitalism to be able to charge for every and all objects and activities that human beings want and need. The past few decades witnessed an explosion in information technology. People want and some need internet access, access to cable television, and access to the information and software to use this technology. Rather than it being a matter of simply setting up a dish to pull in the signals that exist in the space around us, the state has laws that require us to pay out money to look into this dimension of reality that exists in the space around us. If we are caught accessing this dimension without paying the legitimized providers, we will be stung and called thieves. The sting will require us to pay the state a sum of money. The state protects profit and the privateers run the state.
Capitalist society is a free society as long you have the means to pay. If you can pay, you are free. If you cannot, you are not.
The King
The King of America has taken on the role of the corporation. It could have just as easily been a private company or partnerships, but it is the corporation that has grown into the ruler of the planet. Like money itself, the corporation is well removed from existing in direct reality and from humanity. It is farther removed than a company. A company may have a human face and it may make decisions based on human sentiment. The same is true with a private business partnership. But the same is not true for the corporation. A corporation is far more like a virus; the kind of virus that may attack your computer. This virus however is a virus that is attacking humanity and it is programmed to kill the natural ecosystems that we are part of. It is programmed to kill us all.
Initially, corporations were formed to serve public interests. But capitalism, being what it is, discovered that the form of 'corporation' was far more useful and efficient than the private company at generating profit. A few adjustments would have to be made and they were. The most significant adjustment was that corporations were given the same rights as persons and were granted personhood by the courts. At that point we have generated very real phantoms in our midst. Phantoms far more terrifying than anything Stephen King could invent. Phantoms hell bent on controlling and destroying all of humanity. This may sound like hyperbole but if you examine it, you will see that it isn't the slightest of an exaggeration.
As a legal person, the corporation can buy things, sell things, it can sue and be sued. But is has limited liability. It is a very real member of society and a very powerful one.
Unlike flesh and blood human beings, the corporation cannot love and it has no conscience. It will operate only on the basis of maximizing profit for its shareholders. The individual shareholders may not want to kill or harm people in the name of profit, but what they care about doesn't influence the decisions made by the corporation. Like a virus, it is programmed to do one thing and everything else is subservient to that function. It will maximize profit and will make decisions to that end, it will destroy obstacles to that end and it will seduce facilitators to that end.
This King of America has no body, no fear, no soul, no brain. It is nothing but a virus, an abstract illusion. Like money, it has no substance in reality. It is as clever as the most clever lawyers on the planet. As its guiding hand, it extracts the most cold and calculating aspects of the minds of these lawyers and through this process, its power over societies is on the way to becoming total. It will dictate the policies and laws that politicians put in place because politicians are under the rule of this all powerful king. To this end, it will use us and it will use society to clean up its own mess and to pay its costs.
The corporation will use the state as its own private gopher. It will use the state to pay for structures and programs to facilitate optimizing its own profit. It has control of the powerful and potent American state as well as other weaker colonies of America. The American State will provide aid, for instance, to smaller colonies and the aid will be used to build infrastructure such a bridges and roads to facilitate the corporate theft of the colony's natural resources.
The corporation will also force the state to fight wars to ensure a profitable and brighter future for the shareholders. At the moment, a number of oil corporations as well as weapons manufacturers have dictated to the American State demands to wage war for oil in Iraq and take control of the oil resources there. On February 26 of this year, the American controlled and corporate controlled Iraqi cabinet of Prime Minister Nouri al-Malaki has adopted a bill to ensure that American oil corporations have free reign over Iraqi oil. The draft law aims to cut out French, Russian, and Chinese oil interests. The bill restores a colonial framework known as a production-sharing agreement. This allows foreign companies to have first dibs on the oil they help the nationalized industry extract of the massive sea of oil beneath the desert sand.
This is not completely detached from human involvement. If we look at Halliburton, for instance, we see that they have their Management Oversight Committee which meets in executive sessions to evaluate the performance of the Chief Executive Officer each December. The CEO may be fired if he is not up to snuff. They examine performance in such areas as "total stockholder return" and "development and implementation of initiatives to provide long-term economic benefit to Halliburton". Their "initiatives" have taken them, Dick Cheney, and America deep into the bowels of Iraq.
That's Halliburton. There are other corporate interests that salivate at the many billions waiting for them in the Middle East. Aside from oil, there are substantial weapons sales to consider. Weapons sellers and the American State are enjoying passionate bedtime relations that are almost as incestuous as the GOP and Halliburton. Lockheed Martin is the number one defense contractor on the planet. And Lockheed Martin spends millions of dollars each year lobbying Congress. Aside from that, the American State and these mammoth corporations have a myriad of disturbing and perverse relationships.
The Anti Christ
If we look at the morality side of corporations, what we see is the opposite of good. What we see is pure and unabashed evil.
If we are so inclined, we may use Jesus as a moral compass. Jesus isn't an unusual moral compass. He cursed those that are objectively harmful to other human beings and praised those that cared for other human beings. His morality was, and is, universal and elemental.
If we examine the King of America in this light, we will see that it is a particularly malevolent virus.
As a legal person, it has no morality whatsoever. It will kill and harm human beings in the interests of profit making. The bottom line is all that matters. There is no such thing as satisfaction. The King of America must grow and its hunger is insatiable. They must put profit above the public good.
Corporations have been likened to a psychopath in book form, "The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power" by Joel Bakan and in DVD form, "The Corporation", by the same author. They have no concern for the well being of others, they have no emotional affect, they will cause death and ill health in order to make money for the shareholders, they are deceitful and they have no capacity to experience guilt or any other human emotion. Even if the individuals, the shareholders, care about the plight of humans, the decisions are out of their hands. The virus runs pretty much on its own.
The disturbing truth is that what is good for the King is bad for the rest of us and vice versa. The privatization of water, electricity, education, health care, social assistance and so on is good for the King but it is detrimental to individuals, especially the poor and people that are disabled or otherwise disadvantaged. It is good for the rich and powerful and it is bad for the poor and those of us that are vulnerable (which is pretty much all of us). It is exactly the opposite of what Jesus preached and it boldly espouses these doctrines and ideological beliefs through corporate propaganda institutions such as the Canadian Fraser Institute, The American Enterprise Institute, The Heritage Foundation and so on.
When we examine this King, it propensities and its power in the world, we may be well advised to ask ourselves what the natural extension of this could mean for us.
The prognosis is dire. If corporation 'A' contains within it some shred of humanity, some sense of elemental morality, then corporation 'B', the more efficient and cost effective organization, will simply eat corporation A. In other words, the most fit, and that means the least humane, will survive. The tendency is to make things worse because the more wealth that is accumulated in the hands of the few, the worse off the rest of us are.
There is ample evidence to deem the King of America the Anti Christ. There is also logic and intelligence that cannot be refuted. The King has embraced and it promotes neo liberal and neo conservative ideology and it will kill and make war in order to feed shareholders.
The Anti Christ is most potent force on the planet but, at the end of the day, it is nothing more than a virus. A sociological and economic virus eating its way through societies. It operates in ways not much different than a computer virus. It is ethereal and it does not exist in direct reality. But then, neither does money.
We are in a bit of a mess.
Thursday, March 01, 2007
The King of America
America, in many ways, is unique and increasingly separate from the rest of the world. Perhaps its political climate separates America from the rest of the world more than anything else. And more than anywhere else, its policies are dictated by a monarch rather than by elected representatives.
If we consider the differences between the Democrats and the Republicans, we can see that their differences are only superficial. One is well to the right within the context of world politics; the other, further to the right. If this was the case with any other nation, we may be forgiven if we ignored it. But this is America. The modern day version of the Roman or British Empires. They are Rome and Britain within a context of latter day capitalism, or, imperialism. It is capitalism addicted to crack. It is extremely dangerous and it aims to exploit the rest of us.
Not so long ago, America had a left consciousness. But today, even leftists in America seem to reflect an insular and arrogant world view. I recently read an article posted on usenet (Neil Kennedy) reflecting on "the religion" that is modern America. And when we think about it, it is a religion. It is a religion of greed, war, hedonism and selfishness that is a direct refutation of Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism and all other religions. It espouses the goodness in all those things Jesus preached against. And Ironically, it is the religious Christian zealots that are a vital driving force within the cult of America.
Potent Potential
The strain that is building between America and its colonies is growing and correspondingly and naturally, the strain between the classes in America grows. The latter is more latent then manifest due to the artificial dumbing down of the American population by the mainstream media, popular culture, and religious patriotism. On the one hand, we have a pull in the direction of increased profits for those with power and wealth. On the other hand, we have a growing awareness that this is unacceptable, especially in light of the fact that this addiction to wealth and power grows ever more hungry and prominent. People all over the world are becoming more intolerant of injustice and oppression and more aware of the nature of the addicts and addictions that have control of most societies. The trick is, connecting Americans class-wise to the rest of us. That will require them, naturally, to question their patriotism. And it will require he rest of us to befriend them.
A strong progressive political movement rests there, just beneath the surface. We need solidarity with the workers, the poor, and all the oppressed people in the USA. While that may seem far fetched while Jerry Springer and trash magazines enjoy their heyday, we must remember that there is a lot of tension within American society as a result of its homogeneous religious patriotism. The potential for revolution exists in America like nowhere else. It is a powder-keg. If you can remember the contrast between 1966 and 1967 in America, you will know that this is a nation where the climate can change very abruptly. What is needed is deprogramming from the indoctrination that has hypnotized them.
Progressive politics in the United States have been pushed to the margins to the point of irrelevance as the ruling class has increased its dominance over the will and the minds of the people. But latent energy is there as latent and dormant as it may be. Prior to 9-11 young people were collectively resisting global capitalism on the ground. For the first time since the 1930s, there was a significant movement against capitalism itself. The 60's also exposed a wealth of popular resistance against numerous specific issues of oppression. It will happen again and when it does, we, that is, non Americans, must be ready to exploit this energy and help them drive a dagger into the heart of the beast.
Contential Drift
In the 1930s the pain of starvation and oppression gave rise to a popular mass movement against capitalism.That class struggle was co opted by Roosevelt, who granted workers a law that made it illegal for employers to refuse to bargain with unions (the Wagner Act) and he passed the Social Security Act. Doing so placed the USA under the slippery dealings orchestrated by John Maynard Keynes. In other words - 'give the peasants scraps and crumbs or they will revolt'. It was a great pressure relief valve. A pressure relief valve that many European nations have apparently taken on as a permanent fixture. But the nature of capitalism is to plug up or remove altogether that pressure relief and it will tend toward a more fascistic modus operandi as capitalism becomes ever more mature and starved for capital.
The New Deal was not an appeasement brought on by the unions or working class movements. Instead, it was the capitalists themselves that dictated Roosevelt's benevolence. Historians Joel Roberts and Thomas Ferguson observed:
"At the center of [the New Deal Coalition] were not millions of farmers, Blacks and poor that have preoccupied liberal commentators, nor even the masses of employed or striking workers who pressured the government from below (and later helped implement some of the New Deal’s achievements) but something else—a new power bloc of capital-intensive industries, investment banks, and internationally oriented commercial banks." - Thomas Ferguson and Joel Rogers, Right Turn: The Decline of the Democrats and the Future of American Politics
The next four decades would see increased prosperity in the USA and throughout the industrialised world. The Fabian formula: the more the working classes have to spend, the more they will buy, proved to be a powerful impetus for liberalism and Fabian socialism. But the beast was growing large, hungry, and powerful. By the 1980's it became obvious that the party was over. The cry in the USA and in all modern capitalist nations was 'tighten your belts, we can't afford health care, social services, and opulent education for the masses'. The spending spree is over. The neo-liberalism of the Chicago School of was to take centre stage. And it did. It especially took centre stage in Latin America and as a result, the blowback is already being felt. The hypnosis of the neon lights of capitalism has turned to a nightmare, as it did in Argentina:
Grand Theft Argentina
If we consider the differences between the Democrats and the Republicans, we can see that their differences are only superficial. One is well to the right within the context of world politics; the other, further to the right. If this was the case with any other nation, we may be forgiven if we ignored it. But this is America. The modern day version of the Roman or British Empires. They are Rome and Britain within a context of latter day capitalism, or, imperialism. It is capitalism addicted to crack. It is extremely dangerous and it aims to exploit the rest of us.
Not so long ago, America had a left consciousness. But today, even leftists in America seem to reflect an insular and arrogant world view. I recently read an article posted on usenet (Neil Kennedy) reflecting on "the religion" that is modern America. And when we think about it, it is a religion. It is a religion of greed, war, hedonism and selfishness that is a direct refutation of Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism and all other religions. It espouses the goodness in all those things Jesus preached against. And Ironically, it is the religious Christian zealots that are a vital driving force within the cult of America.
Potent Potential
The strain that is building between America and its colonies is growing and correspondingly and naturally, the strain between the classes in America grows. The latter is more latent then manifest due to the artificial dumbing down of the American population by the mainstream media, popular culture, and religious patriotism. On the one hand, we have a pull in the direction of increased profits for those with power and wealth. On the other hand, we have a growing awareness that this is unacceptable, especially in light of the fact that this addiction to wealth and power grows ever more hungry and prominent. People all over the world are becoming more intolerant of injustice and oppression and more aware of the nature of the addicts and addictions that have control of most societies. The trick is, connecting Americans class-wise to the rest of us. That will require them, naturally, to question their patriotism. And it will require he rest of us to befriend them.
A strong progressive political movement rests there, just beneath the surface. We need solidarity with the workers, the poor, and all the oppressed people in the USA. While that may seem far fetched while Jerry Springer and trash magazines enjoy their heyday, we must remember that there is a lot of tension within American society as a result of its homogeneous religious patriotism. The potential for revolution exists in America like nowhere else. It is a powder-keg. If you can remember the contrast between 1966 and 1967 in America, you will know that this is a nation where the climate can change very abruptly. What is needed is deprogramming from the indoctrination that has hypnotized them.
Progressive politics in the United States have been pushed to the margins to the point of irrelevance as the ruling class has increased its dominance over the will and the minds of the people. But latent energy is there as latent and dormant as it may be. Prior to 9-11 young people were collectively resisting global capitalism on the ground. For the first time since the 1930s, there was a significant movement against capitalism itself. The 60's also exposed a wealth of popular resistance against numerous specific issues of oppression. It will happen again and when it does, we, that is, non Americans, must be ready to exploit this energy and help them drive a dagger into the heart of the beast.
Contential Drift
In the 1930s the pain of starvation and oppression gave rise to a popular mass movement against capitalism.That class struggle was co opted by Roosevelt, who granted workers a law that made it illegal for employers to refuse to bargain with unions (the Wagner Act) and he passed the Social Security Act. Doing so placed the USA under the slippery dealings orchestrated by John Maynard Keynes. In other words - 'give the peasants scraps and crumbs or they will revolt'. It was a great pressure relief valve. A pressure relief valve that many European nations have apparently taken on as a permanent fixture. But the nature of capitalism is to plug up or remove altogether that pressure relief and it will tend toward a more fascistic modus operandi as capitalism becomes ever more mature and starved for capital.
The New Deal was not an appeasement brought on by the unions or working class movements. Instead, it was the capitalists themselves that dictated Roosevelt's benevolence. Historians Joel Roberts and Thomas Ferguson observed:
"At the center of [the New Deal Coalition] were not millions of farmers, Blacks and poor that have preoccupied liberal commentators, nor even the masses of employed or striking workers who pressured the government from below (and later helped implement some of the New Deal’s achievements) but something else—a new power bloc of capital-intensive industries, investment banks, and internationally oriented commercial banks." - Thomas Ferguson and Joel Rogers, Right Turn: The Decline of the Democrats and the Future of American Politics
The next four decades would see increased prosperity in the USA and throughout the industrialised world. The Fabian formula: the more the working classes have to spend, the more they will buy, proved to be a powerful impetus for liberalism and Fabian socialism. But the beast was growing large, hungry, and powerful. By the 1980's it became obvious that the party was over. The cry in the USA and in all modern capitalist nations was 'tighten your belts, we can't afford health care, social services, and opulent education for the masses'. The spending spree is over. The neo-liberalism of the Chicago School of was to take centre stage. And it did. It especially took centre stage in Latin America and as a result, the blowback is already being felt. The hypnosis of the neon lights of capitalism has turned to a nightmare, as it did in Argentina:
Grand Theft Argentina
Introducing: The King of America
America is ruled less by politics and more by economics. Whether democrats or the GOP are in power doesn't matter. The face of the President may change, but the King is always the same. And it is the King of America that calls the shots.
As a result of the maturation of capitalism, the dictator of American politics turned away from the slick wisdom of Keynes in the mid-seventies. That is, capital was becoming increasingly difficult to accumulate and there was a decline in profit taking. The sense that things will keep getting better was lost in the boardrooms and a bitter new deal would have to be forged. The expectation that prosperity would continue would have to give way to a newer and meaner future. Since that time, real wages have fallen steadily.
Welfare to citizens would have to be cut and so would corporate welfare. The arrangement where employers were subsidized for paying wages had to give way. Since then, unions cozy relationship with employers was poisoned and unions have been under siege ever since.
Fiscally, Jimmy Carter was more right wing than his Republican predecessors and Bill Clinton was more right wing than his. That is because it is not the president, but the King in American that calls the shots. Clinton ratified the NAFTA, a move that has neo-liberalized policy not only in the USA, but in Canada as well. NAFTA was aimed at radically altering the terms of exploitation that the monarch demanded of Roosevelt five decades prior. Clinton also forced welfare reliant parents to work for wages by passing regressive bills aimed at curbing welfare expenditures.
The King of America, or perhaps better, the dictator, has no problem with military expenditures. The sky's the limit. And his right minions march in step, hypocritically screaming bloody murder when five dollars is paid out to poor people but happy as a clam when many billions are paid out to the military machine to slaughter foreigners for control of oil.
And the next President, a Democrat, will continue to slaughter those unfortunate enough to be born on a sea of oil whether she wants to or not.
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Climate Change and Anarchistic Capitalism
On February 2nd, three hundred government appointed delegates from 113 countries were unanimous in agreeing, unequivocally, that the earth is warming and humans are almost certainly to blame.
To get such a statement from so many countries with so many competing interests seems a miracle. But it happened; suggesting that the problem is likely far worse then they can say and maintain a consensus.
But here is what they didn't tell us:
Two years ago, climate scientists, including the researchers that contributed most to the Feb. 2nd report, got together in Exeter, in England, to discuss climate change. According to the publication, "New Scientist", "They identified a series of potential positive feedbacks and "tipping points" not included in current models of the earth's climate system that could accelerate global warming or sea level rise. These included the physical collapse of the Greenland ice sheet, rapid melting in Antarctica, a shut down of the gulf stream in the Atlantic, and the release of carbon dioxide and methane from the soil, the ocean bed and melting permafrost."
Ice sheets will fracture when they melt and this will accelerate the melting process.
The slowing of the Gulf Stream may have the most devastating consequences of all. In 2005, researchers at the UK's National Oceanography Centre reported that the Gulf Stream slowed by 30% from 1957 to 2004. The gulf stream is a climatic conveyor belt and its cessation will have devastating consequences causing massive and radical changes to the climate all over the world.
The Exeter sessions also warned of "carbon-cycle feedbacks" which will also increase the speed of global warming.
The report states that global warming contains "a deadly time lag" because 80% of the heat that is being trapped in contained in the oceans.
The summary is available at: http://www.ipcc.ch
It's not hard to imagine why those on the right have declared war on what the scientists are finding. The implications are devastating for global capitalism.
The days of wrapping commodities in cardboard, cellophane, and plastic will have to end. The days of advertising to sell goods that people don't need must come to an end. The days of throw away lighters, throw away clothes, and throw away paper must come to an end. Paper will have to give way to electronic information sharing that is powered by gravity or solar energy.
The future will look very different.
The capitalistic order of things must come to an end; the anarchy of modern capitalism cannot be sustained.
The scientists are at odds with the political right wing. The political right wing cannot swallow the truth that in the future we must abandon capitalism, we must abandon selfishness and greed, and we must abandon affluence:
http://leftlite.blogspot.com/2005_05_09_archive.html
To get such a statement from so many countries with so many competing interests seems a miracle. But it happened; suggesting that the problem is likely far worse then they can say and maintain a consensus.
But here is what they didn't tell us:
Two years ago, climate scientists, including the researchers that contributed most to the Feb. 2nd report, got together in Exeter, in England, to discuss climate change. According to the publication, "New Scientist", "They identified a series of potential positive feedbacks and "tipping points" not included in current models of the earth's climate system that could accelerate global warming or sea level rise. These included the physical collapse of the Greenland ice sheet, rapid melting in Antarctica, a shut down of the gulf stream in the Atlantic, and the release of carbon dioxide and methane from the soil, the ocean bed and melting permafrost."
Ice sheets will fracture when they melt and this will accelerate the melting process.
The slowing of the Gulf Stream may have the most devastating consequences of all. In 2005, researchers at the UK's National Oceanography Centre reported that the Gulf Stream slowed by 30% from 1957 to 2004. The gulf stream is a climatic conveyor belt and its cessation will have devastating consequences causing massive and radical changes to the climate all over the world.
The Exeter sessions also warned of "carbon-cycle feedbacks" which will also increase the speed of global warming.
The report states that global warming contains "a deadly time lag" because 80% of the heat that is being trapped in contained in the oceans.
The summary is available at: http://www.ipcc.ch
It's not hard to imagine why those on the right have declared war on what the scientists are finding. The implications are devastating for global capitalism.
The days of wrapping commodities in cardboard, cellophane, and plastic will have to end. The days of advertising to sell goods that people don't need must come to an end. The days of throw away lighters, throw away clothes, and throw away paper must come to an end. Paper will have to give way to electronic information sharing that is powered by gravity or solar energy.
The future will look very different.
The capitalistic order of things must come to an end; the anarchy of modern capitalism cannot be sustained.
The scientists are at odds with the political right wing. The political right wing cannot swallow the truth that in the future we must abandon capitalism, we must abandon selfishness and greed, and we must abandon affluence:
http://leftlite.blogspot.com/2005_05_09_archive.html
Sunday, October 22, 2006
Badfellas
We have been witness to the USA flaunting elemental standards and legal principles in recent years. It has arbitrarily imposed its will and wishes on nations and individuals. The fundamental principles that have existed since the Magna Carta have been perverted. We have entered a very dangerous time and the danger will remain long after the soldiers drag their tired bodies out of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Tyranny flourishes unbridled in the world of street gangs, organized crime, and in fascistic dictatorships. Those with the most violent means rule. They use fear to impose their will on others. There is no notion of democracy, justice, or fair play. Imagine a world run by the Mafia or the Hell's Angels.
The modern world has developed systems and legal principles to ensure that power cannot be used arbitrarily. The founding fathers in America developed a system where checks and balances prevent any individual or group of individuals from exercising arbitrary and tyrannical power. But, as we have seen in America and in other societies, a determined group of leaders can run roughshod over these legal principles and render them meaningless.
There may be some good that comes out of these dark days. Bitter experience may provide us with wisdom if we examine the causes and take steps to prevent future recurrences. The bitter experience of the Nazi horror of the 30s and 40s have provided us with insight and legal principles to help prevent the same thing from happening again. The arbitrary abuses of monarchs through the ages have provided us with the wisdom to embrace democratic principles. Tyrants have compelled us to covet and embrace freedom.
And now, today, we have yet another horrific series of episodes ongoing. We must find the gold in this cesspool of murder, torture, and oppression.
Resuming the Authority of Law
When authority is abused there must be a means to deal with that. We must develop the means to stand up to the war pigs and the cruel tyrants of the world. We must develop an international body based in strict legal principles and unwavering responses to ensure that no person must endure the pain of helplessness in the face of cruelty. If an assessment indicates that there is a moderate or high risk, the authority of the offender must be curtailed or removed.
Generally, the state and state functionaries have no problem is stripping power that has been granted to people that are otherwise powerless. Parents, for instance, and especially parents with little economic means, may have their authority over their children removed if they abuse that privilege. In cases where the risk of abuse or neglect is assessed to be high, parents may lose all their authority and the children may be removed from the home. While this example may not be ideal, it makes the point. And the point is, those granted with power and authority must be curtailed if they abuse what has been granted to them.
Then there is George W. Bush and the American State. They can do what they want with impunity. They thumb their noses at the law and run amok like the genuine gangsters they are. And the rest of us sit back and watch, hardly able to digest this grotesque display of murder and mayhem. Helpless.
But we are only helpless because we believe it is so.
We only need to return to the most basic notions of universal justice to remedy this situation. To take a step back. The alternative is a future of savagery.
The stripping away of capricious and arbitrary rule for those that abuse it is a principle that must be universalized. No society and no person should be afflicted by the horror of being forced to live under their cruel dictates of an abusive tyrant. If a police force or a police officer tends to abuse Asian or Black people, the force must be altered to the point the risk is either low or non-existent. If an individual officer does it, he should no longer have that power. If a teacher abuses students, his or her power must be removed. And so on.
And if a state deems itself ruler of the planet, we must have the courage to not only remove them, but to install systemic processes that will prevent it from happening in the future.
As it is, the United Nations and the World Court are ineffective and that must be changed. The influence and power that some nations have at the United Nations renders the organization toothless. The status quo is not protecting people from terror and abuse.
The United Nations and World Court must be endowed with a strict set of legal principles regarding governance of nations, waging war, and the abuse of power. It must not be subject to political meddling. It must be endowed with the means to strip away power from the individual or set of individuals that have used their priviliged position to bully societies and individuals. America must be unseated from its assumed throne. And all other tyrannical states must be called to answer for their crimes. We do not have to tolerate this.
We simply cannot accept a future where those with the most firepower, money power, and psychotic minds get to rule the rest of us. It is the stuff of nightmarish futuristic fiction. But it is not fiction. We have entered the nightmare. The line has been crossed.
Tyranny flourishes unbridled in the world of street gangs, organized crime, and in fascistic dictatorships. Those with the most violent means rule. They use fear to impose their will on others. There is no notion of democracy, justice, or fair play. Imagine a world run by the Mafia or the Hell's Angels.
The modern world has developed systems and legal principles to ensure that power cannot be used arbitrarily. The founding fathers in America developed a system where checks and balances prevent any individual or group of individuals from exercising arbitrary and tyrannical power. But, as we have seen in America and in other societies, a determined group of leaders can run roughshod over these legal principles and render them meaningless.
There may be some good that comes out of these dark days. Bitter experience may provide us with wisdom if we examine the causes and take steps to prevent future recurrences. The bitter experience of the Nazi horror of the 30s and 40s have provided us with insight and legal principles to help prevent the same thing from happening again. The arbitrary abuses of monarchs through the ages have provided us with the wisdom to embrace democratic principles. Tyrants have compelled us to covet and embrace freedom.
And now, today, we have yet another horrific series of episodes ongoing. We must find the gold in this cesspool of murder, torture, and oppression.
Resuming the Authority of Law
When authority is abused there must be a means to deal with that. We must develop the means to stand up to the war pigs and the cruel tyrants of the world. We must develop an international body based in strict legal principles and unwavering responses to ensure that no person must endure the pain of helplessness in the face of cruelty. If an assessment indicates that there is a moderate or high risk, the authority of the offender must be curtailed or removed.
Generally, the state and state functionaries have no problem is stripping power that has been granted to people that are otherwise powerless. Parents, for instance, and especially parents with little economic means, may have their authority over their children removed if they abuse that privilege. In cases where the risk of abuse or neglect is assessed to be high, parents may lose all their authority and the children may be removed from the home. While this example may not be ideal, it makes the point. And the point is, those granted with power and authority must be curtailed if they abuse what has been granted to them.
Then there is George W. Bush and the American State. They can do what they want with impunity. They thumb their noses at the law and run amok like the genuine gangsters they are. And the rest of us sit back and watch, hardly able to digest this grotesque display of murder and mayhem. Helpless.
But we are only helpless because we believe it is so.
We only need to return to the most basic notions of universal justice to remedy this situation. To take a step back. The alternative is a future of savagery.
The stripping away of capricious and arbitrary rule for those that abuse it is a principle that must be universalized. No society and no person should be afflicted by the horror of being forced to live under their cruel dictates of an abusive tyrant. If a police force or a police officer tends to abuse Asian or Black people, the force must be altered to the point the risk is either low or non-existent. If an individual officer does it, he should no longer have that power. If a teacher abuses students, his or her power must be removed. And so on.
And if a state deems itself ruler of the planet, we must have the courage to not only remove them, but to install systemic processes that will prevent it from happening in the future.
As it is, the United Nations and the World Court are ineffective and that must be changed. The influence and power that some nations have at the United Nations renders the organization toothless. The status quo is not protecting people from terror and abuse.
The United Nations and World Court must be endowed with a strict set of legal principles regarding governance of nations, waging war, and the abuse of power. It must not be subject to political meddling. It must be endowed with the means to strip away power from the individual or set of individuals that have used their priviliged position to bully societies and individuals. America must be unseated from its assumed throne. And all other tyrannical states must be called to answer for their crimes. We do not have to tolerate this.
We simply cannot accept a future where those with the most firepower, money power, and psychotic minds get to rule the rest of us. It is the stuff of nightmarish futuristic fiction. But it is not fiction. We have entered the nightmare. The line has been crossed.
Saturday, September 09, 2006
Canada's Shame
Imperialist history is rife with buried and known stories of young men sacrificed for nothing. Not for freedom, not for democracy, not for defense. They die for rulers that are hell bent on increasing their own wealth and power.
Those that die reside on a social margin that is similar in some respects to the marginal utility curve economists use. They live on a concentric circle that is neither too far away from or too close to the center of power. This particular class of young flesh is utilized because sacrificing young men too close to the centre of power is too bitter a pill for the rulers to swallow. It is unseemly, politically, to send youngsters that reside on an upper rung of the social ladder to their deaths. Those that are too far away from the ruler, politically, economically, and socially, will simply not fight. But the suffering young men and women in Afghanistan and Iraq are neither too close or too far away from the epicenter of American hegemony.
Human Sacrifices
Today's unfortunates in Afghanistan are Brits, Canadians, Dutch and Americans that are working class for the most part. And of those, Canadians and Brits are increasingly relied on to take part in suicide of either the mind or body. On top of that there are soldiers from about 30 nations making minimal contributions. They are paying lip service to the Great American War Machine because they have politicians with enough courage to at least push back when Uncle Sam tells them to kill.
Several months ago British and Canadian soldiers were ordered to place their minds and bodies in Kandahar and Helmund Provinces in Afghanistan. They were ordered to do so by George W. Bush; Blair and Steven Harper are mere mouthpieces. These politicians are not men. They are simple mindless lackeys that willingly sacrifice young men and women for no other reason than to further their own personal ambition; to curry favour with their betters. The Canadians and the Brits replaced American troops that had been in these volatile provinces. Undoubtedly, American intelligence informed the Americans to push more ideal sacrifices on front line. Bush needs to sacrifice more foreigners and less Americans. It's a political thing. There is no doubt Canadians and Brits would be in Baghdad if the Americans had the power to put them there. But they don't and for that we can thank Blair and Cretien. More to the point, we can thank British and Canadian opposition to Bush's madness.
Afghanistan is now facing the deadliest violence it has seen in five years. That's when the Americans invaded. The Taliban are back and they are determined to drive out the invaders. The same people that have driven out the mighty USSR and the same people that have driven out any and all foreseen invaders throughout history are angry, determined, and more sophisticated than ever. The heat is ratcheting up. These past few months have seen British and Canadian soldiers attacked and dying with increasing regularity. In Kabul, just this past week, a suicide bomber hit a convoy of American military vehicles killing at least 16 including American soldiers. The powerful blast delivered a concussion that shattered windows throughout downtown Kabul. Afghanistan is becoming another Iraq. Another killing field. Another hell on earth. It will get worse.
German soldiers are fortunate enough to have sufficient opposition to German meddling in Afghanistan to place them a step back from the more unfortunate British, Canadian, and Dutch troops. As a result, they are placed in the more placid north where the risk is minimal. They are unfortunate enough to have politicians that are willing to dance to King George's tune to the extend they can get away with it.
The strain is bound to increase and pressure will be placed on Merkel, by Bush, to send Germans and other NATO members into hell and into suicide. There will also be pressure as a result of strained international commitments in Lebanon, thanks to Bush's stupid foray where he ordered Israeli sacrifices to crush Hezbollah. Pressure will be especially applied to Harper in Canada to increase troop commitments in the heat of the battle.
Last week NATO defense lords agreed to bolster military resources in Afghanistan. These lords, like the politicians in the imperialist hinterland, are mere servants to big oil and weapons manufacturers. NATO is only fulfilling 85% of America's demand in Afghanistan. They are demanding an additional 2,500 troops as well as attack choppers.
Lest We Forget
On July 1, 1916 the Newfoundland Regiment was ordered, by British imperialists, to suicide themselves on the Somme and attack a well fortified German army. It was a suicide mission that would make Osama bin Laden blush. In half an hour the Newfoundlanders were decimated. Of the original 801 soldiers only 68 made it back. Most were slaughtered before they even got over their own front lines. By November, 620,000 of allied forces were killed to gain 10 kilometers of territory. The Newfoundlanders didn't know at the time that they were the most disposable in the eyes of French and British commanders. One Newfoundland soldier, Frank Mayo, wrote, “Tell all friends that the 1st Newfoundland is O.K., and never feels downhearted. We will make you all proud of us some day.” It would be the last thing he ever wrote. They were sent over the top a few days later.
As a result of this, Newfoundlanders, loyal citizens in a British colony, felt deeply betrayed. They were used as cannon fodder. They died in vain. They were sacrificed. This is but one of many examples of young men (and today, women) that have been ordered into death for no other reason than they were the most expendible.
Canadian, Dutch, German and British politicians are in the midst of a tug of war. On the one hand, the Americans are pulling them in one direction, screaming demands to get in there and die and kill. On the other hand, there is you and me, the people on the street pulling in the other direction. This is a struggle we can't afford to lose. We can't allow the quislings, the Blairs and the Harpers, to sacrifice the lives of young men and women in America's efforts to slaughter and dominate Islamic countries - for oil and oil pipelines.
Canada had done rather well over the years. Canada has stood the pressure from the war machine to the south when they demanded that Canadian blood be shed for big oil in Iraq. Canada said 'no'. Neither did Canada allow itself to be bullied into the slaughter in Vietnam. Canada had won respect the world over for being a voice of reason and peace. But now, today, all that is being torn to shreds. Canada has shamefully allowed itself to use its sons and daughters to slaughter Afghan sons and daughters. And for what?
This is nothing but political cowardice and it is a reflection on more than just the politicians.
Those that die reside on a social margin that is similar in some respects to the marginal utility curve economists use. They live on a concentric circle that is neither too far away from or too close to the center of power. This particular class of young flesh is utilized because sacrificing young men too close to the centre of power is too bitter a pill for the rulers to swallow. It is unseemly, politically, to send youngsters that reside on an upper rung of the social ladder to their deaths. Those that are too far away from the ruler, politically, economically, and socially, will simply not fight. But the suffering young men and women in Afghanistan and Iraq are neither too close or too far away from the epicenter of American hegemony.
Human Sacrifices
Today's unfortunates in Afghanistan are Brits, Canadians, Dutch and Americans that are working class for the most part. And of those, Canadians and Brits are increasingly relied on to take part in suicide of either the mind or body. On top of that there are soldiers from about 30 nations making minimal contributions. They are paying lip service to the Great American War Machine because they have politicians with enough courage to at least push back when Uncle Sam tells them to kill.
Several months ago British and Canadian soldiers were ordered to place their minds and bodies in Kandahar and Helmund Provinces in Afghanistan. They were ordered to do so by George W. Bush; Blair and Steven Harper are mere mouthpieces. These politicians are not men. They are simple mindless lackeys that willingly sacrifice young men and women for no other reason than to further their own personal ambition; to curry favour with their betters. The Canadians and the Brits replaced American troops that had been in these volatile provinces. Undoubtedly, American intelligence informed the Americans to push more ideal sacrifices on front line. Bush needs to sacrifice more foreigners and less Americans. It's a political thing. There is no doubt Canadians and Brits would be in Baghdad if the Americans had the power to put them there. But they don't and for that we can thank Blair and Cretien. More to the point, we can thank British and Canadian opposition to Bush's madness.
Afghanistan is now facing the deadliest violence it has seen in five years. That's when the Americans invaded. The Taliban are back and they are determined to drive out the invaders. The same people that have driven out the mighty USSR and the same people that have driven out any and all foreseen invaders throughout history are angry, determined, and more sophisticated than ever. The heat is ratcheting up. These past few months have seen British and Canadian soldiers attacked and dying with increasing regularity. In Kabul, just this past week, a suicide bomber hit a convoy of American military vehicles killing at least 16 including American soldiers. The powerful blast delivered a concussion that shattered windows throughout downtown Kabul. Afghanistan is becoming another Iraq. Another killing field. Another hell on earth. It will get worse.
German soldiers are fortunate enough to have sufficient opposition to German meddling in Afghanistan to place them a step back from the more unfortunate British, Canadian, and Dutch troops. As a result, they are placed in the more placid north where the risk is minimal. They are unfortunate enough to have politicians that are willing to dance to King George's tune to the extend they can get away with it.
The strain is bound to increase and pressure will be placed on Merkel, by Bush, to send Germans and other NATO members into hell and into suicide. There will also be pressure as a result of strained international commitments in Lebanon, thanks to Bush's stupid foray where he ordered Israeli sacrifices to crush Hezbollah. Pressure will be especially applied to Harper in Canada to increase troop commitments in the heat of the battle.
Last week NATO defense lords agreed to bolster military resources in Afghanistan. These lords, like the politicians in the imperialist hinterland, are mere servants to big oil and weapons manufacturers. NATO is only fulfilling 85% of America's demand in Afghanistan. They are demanding an additional 2,500 troops as well as attack choppers.
Lest We Forget
On July 1, 1916 the Newfoundland Regiment was ordered, by British imperialists, to suicide themselves on the Somme and attack a well fortified German army. It was a suicide mission that would make Osama bin Laden blush. In half an hour the Newfoundlanders were decimated. Of the original 801 soldiers only 68 made it back. Most were slaughtered before they even got over their own front lines. By November, 620,000 of allied forces were killed to gain 10 kilometers of territory. The Newfoundlanders didn't know at the time that they were the most disposable in the eyes of French and British commanders. One Newfoundland soldier, Frank Mayo, wrote, “Tell all friends that the 1st Newfoundland is O.K., and never feels downhearted. We will make you all proud of us some day.” It would be the last thing he ever wrote. They were sent over the top a few days later.
As a result of this, Newfoundlanders, loyal citizens in a British colony, felt deeply betrayed. They were used as cannon fodder. They died in vain. They were sacrificed. This is but one of many examples of young men (and today, women) that have been ordered into death for no other reason than they were the most expendible.
Canadian, Dutch, German and British politicians are in the midst of a tug of war. On the one hand, the Americans are pulling them in one direction, screaming demands to get in there and die and kill. On the other hand, there is you and me, the people on the street pulling in the other direction. This is a struggle we can't afford to lose. We can't allow the quislings, the Blairs and the Harpers, to sacrifice the lives of young men and women in America's efforts to slaughter and dominate Islamic countries - for oil and oil pipelines.
Canada had done rather well over the years. Canada has stood the pressure from the war machine to the south when they demanded that Canadian blood be shed for big oil in Iraq. Canada said 'no'. Neither did Canada allow itself to be bullied into the slaughter in Vietnam. Canada had won respect the world over for being a voice of reason and peace. But now, today, all that is being torn to shreds. Canada has shamefully allowed itself to use its sons and daughters to slaughter Afghan sons and daughters. And for what?
This is nothing but political cowardice and it is a reflection on more than just the politicians.
Monday, August 28, 2006
Jon Benet's Reflection
Try to avoid garish and crude American trash mags if you can; fact is, you can't. We can't escape the horrible display of the exploitation of the murder of little JonBenet Ramsey. Since the spotlight has shined on an alleged killer, this story is impossible to avoid. It's everywhere. The question that comes to mind is; Why?
The child was murdered. The same media that serve to sexualize children, to exploit them, are all agog now over the arrest of her alleged killer. But it is not JonBenet Ramsey they are concerned with. It is the murder of, as they say, the little "beauty queen". The real JonBenet was a little girl with all the same attributes of any. Naturally, she went along with the attention and the demands that she performed for the adults around her. She naturally and innocently found direction from the adults in her world. She had no way of knowing that she was being shamelessly exploited as a child sex object. Underneath all the grotesque tack, she was a real child who trusted the adults around her. Erase the tack, the paint and make-up, and we would naturally find a wonderful little girl.
We can't blame everything on capitalism; not everything. But the exploitation of JonBenet Ramsey as well as the exploitation of her murder is married to capitalism. More generally, we can blame the cult of personality, the worship of tacky idols, and the drive to turn children into plastic people and to sexualize them for a buck. How capitalism owns the blame may not be as straighforward as we may think. It may be a little deeper, a little more complex, than the simple drive to make money.
The Alienated Identity
It's a fairly safe assumption to suggest that the child would have grown, had she not been murdered, to learn to value herself as a commodity.
To make the point, let's consider two opposing social poles. First, let's consider small hunter gatherer societies. We can also think of family, local community, or any intimate social grouping. In hunter-gatherer societies, human beings are valued for their intrinsic humanness. There may be small pecking orders of authority and so on, but even individuals that provide little or no product or services maintain value simply for being who they are. Just 'being' is qualification enough to be valued. The same is true of families. Babys and the old are given loving care and attention with no expectation of reciprocity. Human nature on its own is truly an honourable and compassionate phenomena.
On the other end of that spectrum is capitalism.
How humans are valued within the world of capitalist culture is rooted in the process of developing capital. From the get-go, all participants and processes are mere means to the end, which is profit. And in the process, humans learn to value only that which contributes to the acquisition of money.
If we consider money itself, we may notice that it is without any tangible value. Its value is completely abstract. It has only exchange value and no use value. It is of the world of phantoms and illusions. It is not part of the tangible world of things and people.
The relationship between money and identity and status is complex and it begins in the process of the manufacture of commodities. As commodities themselves are valued within this context for their potential to make profit - money, so too is the worker him or herself valued and commodified for exactly the same reason. To the extent that we accept this identity, we become alienated from ourselves. We also become alienated from other people and from the tangible world of things, family, and community.
The aspect of the individual that is 'worker' is constrained, owned, exploited, and enslaved. But it is through this psychological construct that the human individual is most valued. He or she may or may not have a good credit rating, or a lot of money, or be poor. The difference has perhaps the greatest impact on who we are, how we get along, and especially, how we are valued in capitalist society. The worker has no choice but to sell his or her labour and time to an owner who has immense control over the workers life.
Beyond that, the individual accepts and owns this key aspect as a defining characteristic of who he or she is. The worker is a cop, a plummer, a teacher, or a lawyer. It has tremendous impact on the identity of the individual. Aside from mere psychological affect, the role of the worker and his or her status in capitalist society has more tangible aspects. That is, depending on how much we make will mean whether we can do things and have things - or not. To be with money in capitalist society means that we are secure, free, and valued. People treat us well if we have money and display status symbols such as jewelry and expensive cars. On the other hand, if we are without it, the state will demand to know the intimate details of our lives and demand to know them in order to grant subsistence for ourselves and our children. There is no freedom for people that must rely on the dole in capitalist society. Poverty in modern capitalist society is brutal.
There is a price we must pay for status; for buying into the face and role that capitalism has provided for us. That price is alienation.
Like the ethereal phantom that money is, so is the identity that emanates from it. It is alienated from the world of human emotion, compassion, and human value. This identity is at odds with human value and will act in the interests of profit to the point actually harming or murdering people to that end. Unfortunately, there is no need to point out examples. We see them every day.
The Rich
Workers strive, in many cases, to shed worker identities and to get real. Look behind the scenes in any workplace and you will see the phony face of 'thank you ma'am' and 'can I take your order' replaced with swearing, comical antics, and human revelry. It is an alien and imposed facade and imposed by a force that is explicitly in control and demanding. It isn't much wonder workers resent it.
But then there is little JonBenet Ramsey.
JonBenet was being fitted with the workers cloak before she could read. She was to be exploited like a sideshow clown.
But there is a big difference. The clown suit and face paint was never to come off. It was aimed at actually becoming her. JonBenet would eventually contort her desires, habits, and behaviour, to meet the most unnatural of standards. Her future was to actually become that beauty queen. As a female in that world, she would eventually be a coveted prize that rich men would bid for so they could have a status symbol with them at dinner parties. She would become a human Porche or Rolex watch. The plastic smile that was being carved into her face would have to stay, no matter how torn up, confused, and alienated she actually felt inside.
From that, she would find no escape. There would be no back room antics where she could let her hair down. She would eventually assimilate the characture into who she actually is. And like all rich people, she would learn to value others based soley on their status and wealth.
She would find, in this world, the strange irony of having the freedom to buy and own what she wants and at the same time, experience no freedom at all. Trapped she would have been in a world of vulgar values, overt pretense, and deceit. Strange it is that this is coveted by workers and non workers in the very human world of the lower classes. Stranger still is the desire for working classes to clamour for details of the hidden lives of these human aberrations. Perhaps it is the betrayal of the of the mirage of the gods of capitalism that sells. The media fascination of the rich has much to do with the fact that media is owned by them. But there is also the appetite within the lower classes to see them, to be close to them, and the desire to become one of them.
The rich are living embodiments of that strangest of all commodities; money. Their personalities and their grotesque facades are just as ethereal and paradoxically, as powerful, as money.
If we are proletariat, we may think the wealthy classes are rife with happy inhabitants. After all, they are rich. But then, when we read those contemptible rags, filled to the brim with stories about Donald Trump, Michael Jackson, or any rich person that they uncover, it doesn't look so un-human or plastic. In reality, they are all exactly the same as the rest of us. Their human-ness will never go away; try as they may. They will be lonely, they feel pain, and they will all die. Reality is inescapable. And for those that aim to distance themselves from reality, we may assume that their lives are marked with tremendous suffering. Their foe (reality) never loses and it always wins.
And in reality this little girl was murdered. Not a beauty queen. And it is likely her vulgar sexualized and imposed facade had something to do with it. In reality, some monster thought he was killing a beauty queen. But he killed an innocent little girl.
The child was murdered. The same media that serve to sexualize children, to exploit them, are all agog now over the arrest of her alleged killer. But it is not JonBenet Ramsey they are concerned with. It is the murder of, as they say, the little "beauty queen". The real JonBenet was a little girl with all the same attributes of any. Naturally, she went along with the attention and the demands that she performed for the adults around her. She naturally and innocently found direction from the adults in her world. She had no way of knowing that she was being shamelessly exploited as a child sex object. Underneath all the grotesque tack, she was a real child who trusted the adults around her. Erase the tack, the paint and make-up, and we would naturally find a wonderful little girl.
We can't blame everything on capitalism; not everything. But the exploitation of JonBenet Ramsey as well as the exploitation of her murder is married to capitalism. More generally, we can blame the cult of personality, the worship of tacky idols, and the drive to turn children into plastic people and to sexualize them for a buck. How capitalism owns the blame may not be as straighforward as we may think. It may be a little deeper, a little more complex, than the simple drive to make money.
The Alienated Identity
It's a fairly safe assumption to suggest that the child would have grown, had she not been murdered, to learn to value herself as a commodity.
To make the point, let's consider two opposing social poles. First, let's consider small hunter gatherer societies. We can also think of family, local community, or any intimate social grouping. In hunter-gatherer societies, human beings are valued for their intrinsic humanness. There may be small pecking orders of authority and so on, but even individuals that provide little or no product or services maintain value simply for being who they are. Just 'being' is qualification enough to be valued. The same is true of families. Babys and the old are given loving care and attention with no expectation of reciprocity. Human nature on its own is truly an honourable and compassionate phenomena.
On the other end of that spectrum is capitalism.
How humans are valued within the world of capitalist culture is rooted in the process of developing capital. From the get-go, all participants and processes are mere means to the end, which is profit. And in the process, humans learn to value only that which contributes to the acquisition of money.
If we consider money itself, we may notice that it is without any tangible value. Its value is completely abstract. It has only exchange value and no use value. It is of the world of phantoms and illusions. It is not part of the tangible world of things and people.
The relationship between money and identity and status is complex and it begins in the process of the manufacture of commodities. As commodities themselves are valued within this context for their potential to make profit - money, so too is the worker him or herself valued and commodified for exactly the same reason. To the extent that we accept this identity, we become alienated from ourselves. We also become alienated from other people and from the tangible world of things, family, and community.
The aspect of the individual that is 'worker' is constrained, owned, exploited, and enslaved. But it is through this psychological construct that the human individual is most valued. He or she may or may not have a good credit rating, or a lot of money, or be poor. The difference has perhaps the greatest impact on who we are, how we get along, and especially, how we are valued in capitalist society. The worker has no choice but to sell his or her labour and time to an owner who has immense control over the workers life.
Beyond that, the individual accepts and owns this key aspect as a defining characteristic of who he or she is. The worker is a cop, a plummer, a teacher, or a lawyer. It has tremendous impact on the identity of the individual. Aside from mere psychological affect, the role of the worker and his or her status in capitalist society has more tangible aspects. That is, depending on how much we make will mean whether we can do things and have things - or not. To be with money in capitalist society means that we are secure, free, and valued. People treat us well if we have money and display status symbols such as jewelry and expensive cars. On the other hand, if we are without it, the state will demand to know the intimate details of our lives and demand to know them in order to grant subsistence for ourselves and our children. There is no freedom for people that must rely on the dole in capitalist society. Poverty in modern capitalist society is brutal.
There is a price we must pay for status; for buying into the face and role that capitalism has provided for us. That price is alienation.
Like the ethereal phantom that money is, so is the identity that emanates from it. It is alienated from the world of human emotion, compassion, and human value. This identity is at odds with human value and will act in the interests of profit to the point actually harming or murdering people to that end. Unfortunately, there is no need to point out examples. We see them every day.
The Rich
Workers strive, in many cases, to shed worker identities and to get real. Look behind the scenes in any workplace and you will see the phony face of 'thank you ma'am' and 'can I take your order' replaced with swearing, comical antics, and human revelry. It is an alien and imposed facade and imposed by a force that is explicitly in control and demanding. It isn't much wonder workers resent it.
But then there is little JonBenet Ramsey.
JonBenet was being fitted with the workers cloak before she could read. She was to be exploited like a sideshow clown.
But there is a big difference. The clown suit and face paint was never to come off. It was aimed at actually becoming her. JonBenet would eventually contort her desires, habits, and behaviour, to meet the most unnatural of standards. Her future was to actually become that beauty queen. As a female in that world, she would eventually be a coveted prize that rich men would bid for so they could have a status symbol with them at dinner parties. She would become a human Porche or Rolex watch. The plastic smile that was being carved into her face would have to stay, no matter how torn up, confused, and alienated she actually felt inside.
From that, she would find no escape. There would be no back room antics where she could let her hair down. She would eventually assimilate the characture into who she actually is. And like all rich people, she would learn to value others based soley on their status and wealth.
She would find, in this world, the strange irony of having the freedom to buy and own what she wants and at the same time, experience no freedom at all. Trapped she would have been in a world of vulgar values, overt pretense, and deceit. Strange it is that this is coveted by workers and non workers in the very human world of the lower classes. Stranger still is the desire for working classes to clamour for details of the hidden lives of these human aberrations. Perhaps it is the betrayal of the of the mirage of the gods of capitalism that sells. The media fascination of the rich has much to do with the fact that media is owned by them. But there is also the appetite within the lower classes to see them, to be close to them, and the desire to become one of them.
The rich are living embodiments of that strangest of all commodities; money. Their personalities and their grotesque facades are just as ethereal and paradoxically, as powerful, as money.
If we are proletariat, we may think the wealthy classes are rife with happy inhabitants. After all, they are rich. But then, when we read those contemptible rags, filled to the brim with stories about Donald Trump, Michael Jackson, or any rich person that they uncover, it doesn't look so un-human or plastic. In reality, they are all exactly the same as the rest of us. Their human-ness will never go away; try as they may. They will be lonely, they feel pain, and they will all die. Reality is inescapable. And for those that aim to distance themselves from reality, we may assume that their lives are marked with tremendous suffering. Their foe (reality) never loses and it always wins.
And in reality this little girl was murdered. Not a beauty queen. And it is likely her vulgar sexualized and imposed facade had something to do with it. In reality, some monster thought he was killing a beauty queen. But he killed an innocent little girl.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)