Convergence ?
It is admittedly very hard to wrap ones head around the matrix of unstable forces at play both locally and globally at this juncture and come up with scenarios, possibilities, analysis or synthesis. There is LOTS going on. US media has totally given up; after Egypt I have seen no effort at contextualizing beyond the simplest frames. For example, here is Doyle McManus in LA Times:
"Here's a modest proposal; the administration and Congress should choose a country to turn into a real success story and make sure it gets all the help it needs."
Like choosing an Ethiopian poster child to adopt and "save", the US could unleash the Institute for Democracy and USAID and the New Chicago Boys and a few Mormon missionaries and create a model society! Conservatives rant just as idiotically about Caliphates and Islamic Socialists. Meanwhile one senses panic in foreign policy circles because the implications for not just Middle Eastern but wider, global revolt against "austerity" bumps up against the reality of a massive global economic slump. Capitalism has little MOJO at the moment and oil prices are running into municipal bond defaults and further lay-offs and rising food prices and on and on and on. Germany is balking at having to bail out the European periphery and the Saudis don't have nearly as much reserves as they have claimed."Perfect storm" is a bit of a cliche and yet..
Then there is Madison Wisconsin, the protests spreading to other states and the general hatefulness towards the working class and poor here in the home of the brave. That very Puritan "living within our means" when a penny saved is no longer a penny earned. Is this disgust at the status quo linked in any way to unrest around the globe? Michael Moore, Tea partiers, unionists, enviros and Middle Easterners all seem to be calling out for an as yet nebulous, idealized, but unformed notion of political democracy based somehow on rights and constitutions and greater equality and access and justice.... but still...It is all rhetoric with no real theory behind it. We aren't going back to FDR or Ronald Reagan, we are moving forward into the unknown. Scary, indeed. Flux. Fissures.
One thing we know is that history is suddenly on the move and the opportunity to widen the cracks in capitalism is increasing daily. This use of the battering ram can happen on two fronts I think, one, the active, "billion incessant stings" as Kalle Lasn describes it, relentless, bold criticism and loud displays of subjectivity. The other is a more passive encouragement of capitalisms debilitating death spiral, support for Orin Hatch's "Health Care Plan", support for all "Free Market Solutions" and Privitization of All Spheres, Bigger Wars, Bigger Tax Cuts, Ayn Rands head carved into Mount Rushmore, till our "political-economy" is such a reeking, ridiculous, pornographic mess Rand Paul will be forced to take Rupert Murdoch and Barak Obama on that long ride into the wilderness. Perhaps after that Death Drive we can park the car for awhile?
posted by troutsky @ 9:34 AM
17 comments
17 Comments:
If things go the way you want them to go, Troutsky, we'll have to park the damn car, because we won't have the money to buy the damn gas for it, unless of course somebody comes up with a windmill powered car.
"Here's a modest proposal; the administration and Congress should choose a country to turn into a real success story and make sure it gets all the help it needs."
Here's a candidate for ya. The USA.
I know that pisses off the internationalist One-Worlder's of all stripes, but hey... it could work so long as the "Troutsky-ites" stopped undermining the effort.
-FJ/ et al
"Free market solutions", I always associate that ass hattery with Giuliani. Maybe it was Romney, I tuned him out when he was governor.
Meanwhile the Bagger douchebags have pushed too hard once again and people aren't lining up behind them in Wisconsin. Polls indicate that the standard 20% buys it but we realize this has all gone too far.
The Wisconsin budget is in balance, no deficit, Budgie Boy comes into office and gives his corporate masters a bunch of tax cuts and SHAZAM ... deficits. Everyone but the Baggers is starting to get it.
One dollar - one vote only goes so far before common sense cuts in. Meanwhile, parts of the country continue to turn into downtown Beirut, the Democratic party is being destroyed (not that it's worth much in its current form) and the Baggers are so freaking stupid they think they aren't going to get the plank shoved up their ass along with the working poor and middle class.
Oh well, the moron governor in Florida turned down funding for high speed rail and Massachusetts is lobbying to grab the money for a link between Boston and Fall River. It ain't Eden but I'm sure glad I live in New England, even after that January.
Ren's correct, we need a worker's party with a genuine program.
A union worker, a member of the Tea Party, and a CEO are sitting at a table. In the middle of the table there is a plate with a dozen cookies on it. The CEO reaches across and takes 11 cookies, looks at the Tea Party-er, and says, "look out for that union guy, he wants a piece of your cookie."
"Waiter... another dozen cookies please!"
Contrary to your assertions, it ain't zero-sum duckmeister.
-FJ
Politically this is the most exhilarating period in decades. People are cheering in Cairo, and dying in Tripoli. Revolution will last for years. The real struggle is still ahead. What has been solved by Mubarak's overthrow? Or Ben Ali fleeing? Nothing has been solved. 90% of people in Tahrir Square were there for bread, not democracy.
They are fighting for things, no capitalist government can give them.
Here we go again
The developmentally disabled exploiter of trout claims that others have idiotic rants. As a Communist you are by definition a expert on idiotic rants as you have never had a rational thought in your life. The only good Commie was Jim Jones who practiced class genocide on himself.
Capo Ren as usual has zero knowledge. Most of the people are young and want jobs or hoses. These are commodities that a variety of failed Marxist hell holes have not delivered. A nice exile with Hugo is the cure for communism. Of course Capo Ren can also take obese Americans to Zimbabwe and tell us all how a touch of Marx turned a food exporter into a famine zone.
What I "want" Pagan, is for people to suddenly understand the old models like "zero-sum" or "rising tide"no longer apply. But apparently this won't happen through good old argument, so it will have to be demonstrated. Harshly. We will all suffer but some a great deal more than others. I don't enjoy the prospect but see no alternative if my children are to have a future.
As for "One-World", how about one watershed? One atmosphere? One nuclear cloud shared by all? We tried isolation, didn't work out ( see 20th century) No one here is saying one government or culture but yes,one responsibility.
Uneven development, not "zero-sum", is what capitalism has produced.
I would do a workers party, I'm easy, but what would be the platform? What demands?
Ren: Very well put.The pictures of all those under-employed young men (and women) have the State Dept. shitting razor blades.
Troutsky you live in a country where your children have a shot at whatever future they decide to go for. Notice I said they have a shot, not a guarantee. If you're after guarantees you're living in the wrong dimension.
Yeah, things are bad, but whose fucking fault is that? You can't spend your whole lifetime blaming those evil capitalists or "the man" because you might have some rough patches here or there. Shit, I don't have everything I want either. Nowhere close. But that's in part my fault, and in part the system. But that system has nothing to do with liberty or capitalism. There's a cancer in our society that's taken hold since way back. Cancers don't happen overnight, it takes a long time for them to metastasize. When they do, you either let them eat you alive, or you take radical steps to excise the cancer and hope the process doesn't kill you. That's where we're at now.
If you want to see where we're headed if we don't excise the cancer, you need look no further back in history than to any of your friendly neighborhood "People's Republics". They never seem to end well, do they?
Pagan, "rough patches" may mean not driving a Lexus or not feeding your family because of the commodity prices.
I shit on the first and suggest we need to focus on the second and not conflate the two.
So how many people were unable to feed their families at any given time in any given one of the People' Republics I mentioned. Compare the lives of their citizens with those of ours and you tell me honestly which comes out on top.
I can already predict the response I'm going to get. I'm going to hear about how those weren't real socialist states and how nobody here is advocating turning the US into North Korea or the Soviet Union of whatever.
And that's fine, I get that. But what YOU don't get is that it always-ALWAYS-turns into that, and all your good intentions aren't going to keep it from happening.
Pagan: Intentions have nothing to do with this discussions. I don't even own an Intention-Meter or even a Sincerity-Meter.
Start with the material world. A country like the US doesn't have scarcity like 1923 Russia or 1950 North Korea. The basis for Stalinism is over.
This period was supposed to be the end of history. Here we are talking about socialism.
Funny how Russia never had that big of a problem feeding its people until the Bolsheviks took over. Same with North Korea. Same with Vietnam. And then there's Zimbabwe, which as Beak pointed out had previously been a food exporter. Even China, with all its people, never had a problem with constant starvation and related problems on any kind of on-going scale. Mao turned the place into a basket case. Now with capitalist market reforms things are getting better. Explain this. India has always had this problem, and lo and behold turns out they were a socialist democracy after their independence under Gandhi. Funny how greatly things have improved there when they instituted capitalist reforms. Man I don't know but that seems to be an awful lot of coincidences.
Could it be that when people start to figure out socialism doesn't work (and never has) the only way the socialists can stay in power is through force and terror?
Sure seems that way to me.
So your argument,Pagan, is "that was socialism" and it sucked but "this isn't capitalism" and the day it is, all will be well.
That's fine.Take your version of history and run with it.
Its a kind of capitalism, but its too damn hamstrung by government regulations. And don't hand me this bullshit that its meant to protect the people, cos I ain't buying it. Government doesn't give two shits about the people. Its all about the power with them, the people are just a fucking excuse. You know it. I know. I'll just leave it at that.
It's the classic cop out when Libertarianism fails, trout. It failed because we don't have enough Libertarianism.
Actually, it failed because there's been too much quasi-socialism injected into it without adequate controls. If you're going to have a welfare state, you have to be willing and able to pay for it. If you don't, you have deficits and before long it starts to unravel. Common sense would suggest the answer is less, not more socialism.
Bottom line, nobody wants it to the extent they're willing to pay for it, so it can't work by definition.
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