Swiss People's Party (SVP): Racism and Zenophbia at its finest

SVP is the Swiss People's Part, a far right-wing party that has the largest number of seats in parliament, not enough for sole rule, so it will have to form a coalition of some sorts. But the party has campaigned around a purity theme and fear of increasing non-white immigration. Their major push is deportation of criminals and their families if they are immigrants.

On top of this one must realize that non-natives do not have the right to vote unless the states or municipalities within Switzerland allow them to gain voting rights after a certain length of residence. I am sure denying foreigners the right to vote sure makes them feel wanted and included in society. Great tactic for integration.

SVP campaign video
For those who cannot read Swiss, one of the titles partway through reads "Heaven or Hell"



Other campaign posters.


The tagline reads"to create security." Notice how the white sheep are kicking out the black sheep?

Live Earth and the Ecological Crisis

In honor of Live Earth I felt it was my duty to write an article dealing with the ecological crisis brought on by “carboniferous capitalism” and its desire for endless accumulation. Live Earth was a very decent left/liberal attempt at raising environmental consciousness through both explication of the existing climate crisis and the concrete actions, both local, national and global that are necessary to reduce our ecological footprint - focusing on the small: switching to CFL light bulbs [which are more efficient and therefore produce less carbon contain mercury and thus must be recycled in a special manner - is the tradeoff worth it?], turning off and unplugging lights and electronics when not in the room or in use. And focusing on the large: using renewable energy such as hydro, wind, solar, taking mass transit or the bike instead of the automobile to decongest downtown.

Yet, I want to raise some 'outside the box' questions that were not addressed in the portions of Live Earth that I watched. For Live Earth failed to adequately, in my view, link the ecological crisis to the basic premises of industrial society and more so capitalism, but also the dialectic of the enlightenment. Live Earth, through its all day coverage by Sundance and partial coverage by Bravo and other assorted new channels provided an excellent opportunity to articulate a viable critical ecological message, even an anti-capital ecological orientation. Live Earth had the attention of millions of individuals around the globe. It was a perfect time to articulate a well-constructed message emphasizing the extent of the ecological crisis and linking it to the cultural foundation of bourgeois society – that of capitalism, the enlightenment, and liberal democracy. While I saw one speech discussing how “corporations put profit before people”, this is a generalization and such an abstract reference that it hardly grasps the major foundations of capitalism. Principally since the production for profit is not a unique incentive to capitalism, particularly to the current form of late capitalism.

What is unique to late capital is the mode of production and organization of labor [wage-labor] that is used to accumulate capital. Additionally, capital is premised on the continual accumulation of capital founded upon the production of surplus-value extracted through unpaid labor. Additionally, industrial society [which is capitalist] is fueled by a protestant work ethic and the enlightenment exaltation of science as the mechanism to free humanity from the limits of nature. These cultural foundations have lead to the domination of humanity by a philosophy of continual economic growth and expansion, but more importantly the obsession with work in general and that work is inherently a morally good and worthwhile activity. Moreover, industrial society is constructed upon the belief that humanity is not a part of nature, but is in fact destined to be in control over nature and should use it to further the greatness of humanity. This is the main argument of the book Dialectic of Enlightenment by Max Horkheimer and Theodore Adorno. That the enlightenment via science was to take over humanity’s desire to free itself from nature and its fear that nature controlled humanity. Before the enlightenment there was myth, which tried to control nature through mimesis – imitation. Through imitating nature humanity sought to control nature’s power and subsequently humanity’s fear by reversing the historical relationship, placing humanity in power over nature. However, myth failed in its quest and so the enlightenment prophesized science as the mechanism to continue this project and fulfill its aspirations.

Skipping forward over two hundred years, the culmination of endless work and capital accumulation is the pursuit of perpetual economic growth while science has created industries whose primary byproduct is the severing of ecological constraints, evidenced via the mass pollution of the air, water, land and the creatures that inhabit the ecosystem of earth. Thus, capitalism’s continual expansion of an economic system that is anti-ecological has fueled a mode of life that is inherently anti-life, as it breaks down the life processes and eco-structure necessary to support complex life - i.e. human life. The failure of Live Earth to address this exemplifies the failure of the left/liberals to adequately conceptualize the deep-rooted nature of the ecological crisis and the need to fundamentally restructure not only the economic and political institutions of today but the culture which reproduces these institutions.

Furthermore, when I accessed the Live Earth website I became even more disappointed. The website fails to radically inspire the big questions in how we live and work, how society, particularly the urban-suburban relationship is structured. Is a nonsustainable economy really worth saving or being dominated by? Should we be subordinate to a mode of production that is fundamentally negligent of the most basic and precious of systems - that of the ecological system, whose healthy functioning is a precondition for complex life - i.e. human life.

We need to understand and recognize that the utopian quest for freedom, its realization via an emancipatory politics must not address only capital and its destruction of material welfare – in terms of extended working hours for full-time workers, its preference for part-time contingent low paid labor, technological unemployment, and the destruction of the welfare state, etc., but must tie the ecological crisis and oncoming ecological scarcity to the failure of capital, industrial society and liberal democracy to provide the solutions to this self-made crisis. Moreover, the fundamental principles of capitalist industrial society and liberal democracy are at odds with an ecological and symbiotic relationship between humanity and nature. In fact, it is only through the creation of a post-capitalist post-liberal democracy post-industrial society that the emancipatory project of freedom can be realized. Realized through the creation of a decentralized, deindustrialized society premised on communalism and direct democracy using local/regional social economies and ecotechnology, as well as automation and computerization to reduce working hours and therefore increase both the quality and quantity of freetime, while deemphasizing material relations and obsessive commodity ownership over social relations and creativity and ultimately the replacement of the welfare state and top-down authoritarian welfare with universal basic income and bottom-up local/communal welfare.

Emancipation and liberation cannot occur under carboniferous capitalism and liberal democracy: we must rethink human-nature relations, how we live, and how our political and economic institutions are structured and their basic principles.

The End of Work and the Reactionary Middle Class

Powerful words by Jeremy Rifkin:

"Rising technological unemployment and declining purchasing power will continue to plague the global economy...the middle class, long the voice of reason and moderation in the political life of industrialized nations [as long as the economy is booming, and even then that is questionable], finds itself buffeted on every side by technological changes. Squeezed by reduced wages and rising unemployment, growing numbers of the middle classes are beginning to search for quick solutions and dramatic rescue from the market forces and technological changes that are destroying their former way of life. In virtually every industrial nation, fear of an uncertain future is driving more and more people from the mainstream to the margins of society, where they seek refuge in extremist political and religious movements that promise to restore public order and put people back to work.

Rising levels of worldwide unemployment and the increasing polarization between rich and poor are creating the conditions for social upheaval and open class warfare on a scale never before experienced in the modern age. Crime, random violence, and low-intensity warfare are on the rise and show every sign of increasing dramatically in the years immediately ahead. A new form of barbarism waits just outside the walls of the modern world. Beyond the quiet suburbs, exurbs, and urban enclaves of the rich and near-rich lie millions upon millions of destitute and desperate human beings...

Still our leaders talk of jobs and crime, the two great issues of time, as if they were only marginally related, refusing to acknowledge the growing nexus between technological displacement, job loss, and the rise of an outlaw class for whom crime is the last means to secure a piece of a shrinking economic pie...This much we know for sure: We are entering into a new period in history where machines will increasingly replace human labor in the production of goods and services...The service sector, while slower to automate, will probably approach a nearly automated state by the mid-decades of the next century. The emerging knowledge sector will be able to absorb a small percentage of the displaced labor, but not nearly enough to make a substantial difference in the rising unemployment figures. Hundreds of millions of workers will be permanently idled by the twin forces of globalization and automation. Others, still employed, will work far fewer hours in order to equitably distribute the remaining work and provide adequate purchasing poweer to absorb the increases in production. As machines increasingly replace workers in the coming decades, the labor of millions will be freed from the economic process and the pull of the marketplace. Unused human labor is the central overriding reality of the coming era and the issue that will need to be confronted and addressed head-on by every nation if civilization is to survive the impact of the Third Industrial Revolution (Rifkin 1995[2004]: 289-291)."

As my past few blogs have emphasized, we are seeing a reemergence of Neo-fascism across Western Europe and the United States as the middle class, itself born of collective bargining through powerful unions and Keynesian economics, continues to try and retain its material and economic security under the continual frontal attack by corporate capital under Neoliberal restructuring. Beset by continual wage stagnation or outright decline, increasing cost of living (the inflationary prices of education, housing, health care, energy, etc.) and rising unemployment or underemployment the middle class is begining to lash out at the poor, underclass and minorities who are being blamed for taking 'middle class' or 'native' jobs. These economic occurrences and their 'causes' appear to be a qualitatively new emergence of a problem that flarred up during the early and mid twentith century and lead to the birth of WWI and WWII, will their exacerbation lead to WWIII? Only time will tell.

However, these tendencies of the middle class currently expressed, although qualitative unique, are not in themselves new nor historically undocumented. Writing back in 1830s, Alexis de Tocqueville wrote of his travels to America and the historic tendencies he foresaw in the emerging democracy. One of the tendencies was America's obsession with individualism and the pursuit of material wealth in the market place would lead to privitization of the individual and the decline of local/community political associations that would check the democratic tendency toward the centralization of power under a federal government. Under the threat of losing their economic standing and power in society the middle class, a byproduct of an emerging industrial democracy will give up its political freedoms, rights and autonomy to a centralized federal/state authority in exchange for economic security. Tocqueville argued that once initiated, this tendency would continue unabated unless citizens understood that political liberty is a precondition for all other freedoms and that economic liberty and security cannot truely exist without a base of political autonomy, an autonomy that is continually eroded under democracy due to a conservative and reactionary middle class. A class that mistakenly aligns itself with the interests of the capialist class rather than asserting their own demands or aligning themselves among the other 'lower' classes - the working class, poor, and underclass.

Even though the middle class continually erodes their political power they still reside in a society referred to as democratic, so the leaders must at least give face value to the democracy and therefore hold elections and gather public support for their policies, no matter how absurd or reactionary they are, but as long as these policies are linked to maintaining the material welfare of the middle class, the later tends to support them. Thus, much like in Germany, France, Italy and the U.S. in the 1920s-1950s and again today in these very same countries you are seeing the reemergence of an authoritarian nationalism fueled by social conservatives and used by corporations to regain or entrench their power while feeding scrapes to the middle class, all in an attempt to by them off and prevent them from actually pursuing not radical but even mere reformest proposals.

As Rifkin addresses in his book, it is time to move past the old welfare state and laissez faire models for society. We need to push forward with a shorter hours higher wages movement and rebuild social capital through moving away from the public and private sectors and enlarging the 'third sector' of the social economy, one not founded on principles of efficiency, the profit motive or the continuous accumulation of capital. It is premised on the building of and strengthening of social relationships between individuals and therefore the community as well. It is designed on reducing the bureacracy of everyday life and the alienation that is born from institutions that are not subject to the everyday control of the people who are directly affected by them. It is also designed to reduce the stranger phenomenon that is a constant problem of everyday life under late capital. Through volunteer work and community organizing the social economy is premised on rebuilding social capital and the relationships necessary for a vibrant and meaningful life. Relations that are not primary nor even necessary under a market economy, where buyer and seller exchange goods so that each can maximize their own personal desires, an exchange that can then somehow create a greater social good.

In a world with increasing technological unemployment, underemployment in the form of part-time contingency labor, or elongated 40+ hour workweeks for those fulltime employees it is crucial that we as a global community organize and push for shorter hours higher wages to spread the work around and ensure everyone an income, but we also need to reprioritize our values and realize them in everyday life. A realization that will only occur through persistence and the repoliticization of everyday life, which means the reduction of institutions that exist over and above the individuals that constitute them or that they are supposed to serve. The increasing productivity brought on by increasing automation and computerization allows humanity to severe the historic tie between labor and income while reducing the work week for everyone. However, an opposite tendency appears to be developing, where fulltime high paid employment exists for only a small perecentage of humanity while the rest is subjected to either unemployment or deskilled parttime contingent labor: fueling the increasing polarization of society between those who can guarantee their children high quality education and for the rest whose educational attainment does not cut the mustard in a post-industrial society premised on intellectual property rights.

Works Cited
Jeremy Rifkin, The End of Work (New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin, 1995[2004]), pp. 289-291.

Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (New York: Penguin Books, 2003)

France and Regression Part II

Sarkozy's response to his election win in France:

"[Voters] have chosen to break with the habits and the ideals of the
past so I will rehabilitate work, authority, morality, respect,
merit!"

I have previously addressed, albeit in a short-hand manner [France and Regression Part I], my general objections to this quote based on its logic of a society of scarcity. Within this critique I will excentuate to a greater extent Sarkozy's and the Right's perpetuation of the myth of personal responsibility and individual will, its ability to overcome all social impediments, and the outright denial of the existence of large scale social-structural factors.

Sarkozy's quote, or the logic behind it, emphasizes personal responsibility and individual meriotocracy turns away from economic and political restructuring post 1970s that has significantly affected the social relations affecting access to and quality of employment and allegiance to the state, which continues to reduce its legitimating functions of social service provision while increasing its coercive function of social control through overt violence or legal rangling.

Behind his logic is the assumption that people should help themselves, 'pick themselves up by their bootstraps' and rely less on the government for assistance. Sarkozy has bought into and perpetuated the myth that upward social mobility is solely the product of hard work and individual effort: that those who make it and end up on top have achieved these positions solely based upon their own efforts, while those at the bottom are lazy and maladjusted to the social norms and values conducive to upward mobility. Through doing so Sarkozy ignores the extensive academic literature whose findings support the social-structural arguements documenting that social (im)mobility is highly correlated with parent's socioeconomic position and educational attainment, which is itself highly correlated with parent's socioeconomic position. Furthermore, access to high quality social networks and the cultural capital conducive to upward mobility is highly correlated with parent's socioeconomic position and residential segregation that reinforces class and race segregation and therefore highly stratified and unequal acess to the resources conducive to upward mobility.

Moreover, Sarkozy's logic attributes joblessness, or weak labor force attachment and increased welfare recipients largely to a "declining commitment to the core values of society and therefore that the incentives for idleness or the factors that lead to a lack of personal and family responsibilites ought to be removed (Wilson 1996-97:570)." This argument has been systematically disproven through extensive ethnographic and qualtiative studies which find a majority of the underclass and poor desire work but are unable to obtain employment for numerous reasons - lack of educational qualifications, social networking, transportation, and cultural capital.

What is more insidious is that Sarkozy's argument, which focuses attention onto individuals and away from structures, is articulated with the explicit/implicit desire to destroy the welfare state and reduce public policy intervention into solving poverty and unemployment that result from structural factors brought on by global Neoliberal restructuring. He has attempted to argue that it is not the government's job to address social inequality because it is not a social-structural factor; for Neoliberals and social conservatives like Sarkozy social inequality is purely the result of individual choice and the defects of the individual. When in fact research consistently displays that social inequality is largely the result of the concentration and exploitation of wealth and power, which is used to perpetuate a specific structure of power to the detriment of social groups that lack economic and/or political power. A structure that deprives the working class, poor and underclass of high quality education, social networks and the cultural capital necessary for job advancement - deprivation resulting from residential segregation and the destruction of social services and the welfare state, which is itself the byproduct of capital [acting through corporations, the Right, and Left] systematical defunding the public infrastructure by reducing taxes on corporations and the rich.

The decline of social services to and residential segregation of the poor and underclass has resulted most recently in France in the massive riots among the ethnic slums in and around Paris. These riots are the byproduct of Neoliberal restrucuting which has lead to the social isolation and exclusion of minority groups from mainstream society. Coinciding with the Neoliberal destruction of the welfare state, which produces these urban slums in Paris but also in Baltimore, New York, Chicago, Newark, Detroit and Buffalo in the US, but in far worse numbers and severity throughout Latin America, India, and China, is the reinforcement of the claim that the state has the sole legitimate right to the use of force/violence.

Therefore, Neoliberalism is premised on the hollowing out of the state, the destruction of its traditional legitimating functions for the provision of social services and the rearticulation and heightening of its mechanisms of social control and cohersion. Therefore, when Sarkozy calls for a return to authority he means that the masses need to obey the state and therefore the demands of capital, if obedience does not occur, than the state will use its force to ensure that you are either a worker, prisioner or a prisioner who works - which under capital is the existence of most of the human race.

In summation, Sarkozy's quote needs to be deconstructed and upon doing so his words reveal their true meaning:

I will rehabilitate work = I will enforce degraded working conditions upon the mass of France: reducing work wages, the social wage, and job security while enforcing extended work hours.

I will rehabilitate authority = I will keep the poor and underclass [which Neoliberalism has increasingly created and perpetuated] under control through incarceration and social isolation/exclusion in ghettos.

I will rehabilitate morality and merit = I will move all blame for increasing social inequality onto the individual and deny the existence of large-scale social, economic and political factors, seeking to reproduce Thatcher's famous quote: "there is no society, only individuals!"

I will rehabilitate respect = I will enforce the myth of state neutrality and reinstigate allegiance to the state and capitalist class, who deserve their riches and political power based not on exploitation but because of hard work and individual effort.

Works Cited
William Julius Wilson, "When Work Disappers," Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 111, No. 4 (Winter, 1996-1997), pp. 567-595.

Lou Dobbs and the Politics of Reactionary Class Warfare

CSPAN 2, promptly following congress’s 64 to 35 vote to reopen the immigration debate, broadcasted Lou Dobbs response to the vote and dramatically displayed the fragmentary and reactionary tendencies of his populist rhetoric. This essay will highlight the important tendencies and problems that he addresses, issues that are largely ignored by the mainstream press, particularly on the TV format, while highlighting that how Lou conceptualizes these tendencies, their causes, their solutions and who they directly affect signals his illusionary and politically oriented verbiage, language that is designed to increase his own status and reinforce the tendencies fueling the problems he directly claims to be attempting to solve. Lou claims to be against the de-facto one-party system through his populist stancebut is in fact reproducing a fractured from of knowledge that fails to adequately conceptualize the totality of today’s socio-historical existence, especially that of capital. Lou’s logic is ultimately exclusionary and celebrates the white American middle-class while forgetting the working-class and underclass in the United States but more so in the Global South.

Even though Lou Dobbs draws attention to several disturbing trends:
- Increasing power and control over the democratic process and its institutions by corporations.
- Lack of public process and debate over policies and active citizen involvement in politics.
- The declining quality of media and the freedom of the fourth estate
- That the Democrats and Republicans are nothing more than two wings on the same bird; that they are proxies of corporations and special interests.
- The Bankruptcy Protection Act of 2005 as harmful to the middle class.
- Attributing the decline of the middle class to corporate control over government.

There are several disturbing statements within his speech:
First, he links ethnocentric interests [code for Latino interests] and corporate interests together and opposed to those of the middle class [code for whites]. Now, this is fundamentally misconstruing the relationship between corporations and Latinos. Corporations want cheap, temporary, and contingent labor, meaning easily expendable labor with no legal and or political protections. Latino’s, particularly non-American Latino’s want access to jobs that will guarantee them a higher quality of life then they currently experience. However, they also want political and economic rights so that they are not exploited. To conflate these two groups as in cahoots against a middle class is illogical, as the interests of corporations and workers are rarely on the same side. In fact, in most of the industries where these undocumented workers would obtain employment is where corporations are most active in reducing wages, the social wage and worker rights.

Furthermore, attempting to link the decline of the middle class to the rise of illegal immigration is dubious at best and displays Lou’s inability to adequately critique Neoliberal restructuring since the 1970s. Through emphasizing illegal immigration as a major component in the destruction of the middle class he fails to address the elimination of manufacturing jobs [high quality jobs in terms of a social wage and security] with service sector jobs [not all but a majority of which are low quality in terms of a social wage and security], offshoring, automation and/or computerization, anti-union practices, and the vehement attack by corporations on the social wage in general, all of which have a far larger negative effect on the U.S. working and middle class then illegal immigration, which is itself the byproduct of Neoliberal restructuring of Latin America post 1950s. The IMF and World Bank restructured their economies, assuming unilateral economic growth [development] was possible for all countries and in return created massive debt programs that inhibited these governments and their attempts at creating welfare states and basic social service infrastructures for its citizens and instead fueled the privatization of national resources and industries so American and European multinational’s could buy them, exploit the countries natural resources, and funnel the profit out of the Latin America; leaving Latin America without any benefits to show for the exploitation of their natural resources and the inability to pay off their mounting debt. Two factors which have lead to massive populist resistance to America and neoliberal policies during the 1950s-1970s in Cuba, Panama, Guatemala, Nicaragua and a rebirth post 9/11 in Venezuela, Argentina, Bolivia and Brazil. The failure of Neoliberal restructuring is most prominent in Africa, which was subjected to IMF and World Bank policies post 1940s, policies that have exacerbated civil war, corrupt governments, authoritarian regimes, coups d’etat’s and the general economic collapse of Africa.

Lou’s inability to understand or if he does, honestly attribute the decline of the middle class to the collapse of Keynesianism and the reemergence of Neoliberialism leads his audience and followers away from the fundamental culprits, capital and the left’s disintegration in the face of the far-right onslaught post 1970s. The collapse of Keynesian in the 1970s signaled not only the end of American economic dominance since WWII, as Europe and Japan had regained their economic competitiveness but moreover the radical separation of productivity and wages. The hallmark of Keynesianism was collective bargaining and the agreement to harness the power of labor in capital’s favor only if labor was adequately rewarded. The result was that labor shared in the gains of economic growth and increased productivity not only in the form of increased wages but in the form of a radically expanded social wage – state and employer subsidized mass higher education, social security, health insurance, and generous pensions. Yet, with the 1970s oil crisis and the reemergence of global competition the U.S. corporations launched an attack against U.S. labor through the delinking of productivity and wages, now productivity gains are shifted away from workers towards corporations, therefore leading to increased profit margins and stagnating or declining real wages. Combined with this decoupling of productivity and wages capital’s continued attack via the state against labor’s power to unionize and strike has resulted in a fragmentary work force unable to unite against capital’s demands for continued concessions in the form of social wage cuts – elimination of pensions, increased employee contributions to healthcare coverage, increased work hours and productivity levels, increased cost of higher education and loan interest rates – while either automating or computerizing jobs in addition to their offshoring to Latin America and/or Southeast Asia.

Merely, cutting off the flow of illegal immigration, which is highly improbable in the first place, as Dobb’s policies do little to address the social, economic or political factors leading to this immigration in the first place, will do little if anything at all to halt the decline of the middle class, as it does not address the root of the problem – Neoliberalism and the collapse of the left and anti-capital forces. Lou’s logic also does not address the increasing rate of structural unemployment, which is being feed by automation and computerization. Structural unemployment has increased precipitously in each decade in the 20th and now 21st century, from 3% to 7% or higher. Not to mention that the U.S.’s incorrect tabulation of unemployment means that the current figure of around 5-6% is actually closer to the European levels of 10-12%. Lou is still locked in the belief of full employment, which is an historical impossibility. Structural unemployment will only become an ever-increasing reality for U.S. citizens, meaning that a universal basic income and shorter-hours higher-wages should be at the forefront of any labor struggle against capital.

Additionally, illegal immigration depresses wages because these workers are excluded from having the legal and political rights of citizens, the capacity to unionize themselves or join existing unions or organizations for labor. Thus, illegal immigrants become second-class citizens; if these individuals were brought into society, the collective power of labor as an inclusive movement predicated upon the shorter hours higher wages motto would be beneficial to whites and nonwhites, men and women, rather than the existing exclusionary movement premised on high wages for some by denying employment to ‘outsiders.’

Another problem with Lou’s take is that he focused largely on the unification of Democrats and Republicans behind big business, the political manifestations of the economic base of capital. He never attacks the economics of capital, only the politics of Republicans and Democrats and never gets the root of their compliance with corporations. Capital is premised on the increased concentration and centralization of power and under late capital this results in the creation of a hollow state whose function is largely not of providing social services to its citizens but in maintaining the status quo of capital accumulation through a repressive state apparatus of coercion and violence. As the political process is dominated and currently dependent upon massive monetary funds to run campaigns and win the electoral vote parties are dependent on corporations to feed their bank accounts and therefore control the hands of politicians. Democrats and Republicans will not choose the interests of ‘the people’ [Lou’s words] over corporations until the political process is fundamentally altered through the eradication of gross inequalities in political and economic power, which requires the total public financing of political campaigns, making election day a national holiday, proportional representation and an instant runoff provision, worker control over industries, local autonomy for municipalities, a progressive income tax and the reduction in the work week, so that people can become educated and politically active. Thereby, creating the preconditions for ‘radical’ direct democracy rather than the existing ‘liberal’ representative democracy. Lou does not address nor call for any of these provisions, which are necessary for the liberation of the individual and their ability to achieve emancipation.

Finally, Lou’s whole focus on the middle class goes to show his subjective and biased nature, his call and attention is on only a certain percentage of the electorate, one that will probably buy his book and watch his show, consequently lining his pockets with money. Lou’s systematic exclusion of the working class and underclass exemplifies his liberal democratic ideology and his belief in the middle class and reform of the capitalist system. He pander’s to the middle class, which is itself the byproduct of Keynesian economics; the turn away from Keynesian economics has subsequently resulted in the decline in terms of the quantity of the middle class and the quality of their lives. Yet, he fails to address this in his lecture: the middle class will not be reborn without an all out frontal attack on Neoliberalism and capital. Moreover, the middle class is only now subjectively and objectively experiencing what has been an everyday experience for the American working class and underclass for the past 100 years: temporary and contingent labor without living wages, healthcare, pensions, home ownership and economic security. Once again, the middle class, in its reactionary logic, will seek to guarantee its own continued existence and leave the working classes and underclass to fend for themselves. Rather than uniting together and realizing their similar class interests the middle class will try to stuggle against capital by itself, a struggle it will ultimately lose unless it allies with its class brethern. Without historical knowledge of the continual struggle of the working class and underclass against capital Lou will naively believe that the middle class can return to its glorious past solely through electoral politics and not based on direct action. Additionally, the gains of the white middle class he cherishes so well were largely founded on the exclusion of political and economic power to women and minorities in the US, and the denial of sovereignty to nations whose interest do not correlate with US hegemony, facts that can no longer be tolerated if America is to fulfill the claims of its liberal democracy – claims that I feel it cannot fulfill, nor will it choose too, under the current formation of society.

France and Regression Part I

The new French president is the symbol of world regression. Rather than moving forward and realizing the potential of a post-scarcity society, i.e. reducing work hours, allowing for decentralization, severing the tie between work and income, conservative's are trying to reinforce the attributes of a society of scarcity.

The regressive qualities of the 'New' France are explitict with Sarkozy's response to his election win:

"[Voters] have chosen to break with the habits and the ideals of the past so I will rehabilitate work, authority, morality, respect, merit!"

Excuse me, rehabilitate work and authority, why? We can now reduce work and authority is no longer needed. Authority is only required to maintain hierarchy, domination and subjugation. Authority is necessary to enforce work and its extension, rather than automating work and decentralizing society those in power seek to maintain their privilege. They seek to enforce the existence of social relations conducive to the perpetuation of a system of domination that can be transcended. You must realize that all these qualities are those of a society of scarcity and are feed by a mindset of enforced society. Free your mind of social constraints and realized that these are defunct values that need to be transcended. Of course Sarkozy wants to rehabilitate work and authority, capital is forced work and needs to extend work hours to increase its profit levels and in order to extend work hours it is much easier if people have internalized the work ethic and manifest social-discipline on themselves rather than forcing the state to enforce social control upon them.

Instead, we should be rejecting enforced and inhumane work and unnecessary authority. We need to decentralize power relations, we need to free work from capital, we need to eliminate domination and hierarchy.

No Gods, No Masters!

Creative Maladjustment

With the U.S.'s attempt to spread a missle-defense system across Eastern-Europe (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-missile4apr04,1,409648.story) I believe it is important to visit the past and embrace the concept of creative maladjustment.

"There are certain technical words within every academic discipline that soon become stereotypes and cliches. Modern psychology has a word that is probably used more than any other word in modern psychology. It is the word "maladjusted." This word is the ringing cry to modern child psychology. Certainly, we all want to avoid the maladjusted life. In order to have real adjustment within our personalities, we all want the well-adjusted life in order to avoid neurosis, schizophrenic personalities.

But I say to you, my friends, as I move to my conclusion, there are certain things in our nation and in the world which I am proud to be maladjusted and which I hope all men of good-will will be maladjusted until the good societies realize. I say very honestly that I never intend to become adjusted to segregation and discrimination. I never intend to become adjusted to religious bigotry. I never intend to adjust myself to economic conditions that will take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few. I never intend to adjust myself to the madness of militarism, to self-defeating effects of physical violence. But in a day when sputniks and explorers are dashing through outer space and guided ballistic missiles are carving highways of death through the stratosphere, no nation can win a war. It is no longer the choice between violence and nonviolence. It is either nonviolence or nonexistence, and the alternative to disarmament. The alternative to absolute suspension of nuclear tests. The alternative to strengthening the United Nations and thereby disarming the whole world may well be a civilization plunged into the abyss of annihilation.

In other words, I'm about convinced now that there is need for a new organization in our world. The International Association for the Advancement of Creative Maladjustment--men and women who will be...maladjusted."

Martin Luther King Jr.
1963 WMU Speech

Newt Gingrich's Racism Card

Before I critique Newt for his ineptitudes let me repeat a line from David Cross, which is most apropos for this situation.


"I am not a Republican. Why would you think I was a republican? I am not a member of the party of inclusion. A long list of wonderful, tolerant, inclusive, people. That's what Bush had to say. They were the party of inclusion and nobody called him on his shit. Remember when all that shit was going down with Trent Lott and Rick Santorum and Orin Hatch all at once and not spread out over a matter of weeks like it usually is. Nooo, Republicans got some awesome racists, great racists, great sexists, ah, homophobs, A number 1. Absolute A number 1. Crazy, crazy homophobic crazy people. And look, listen, listen. I am not saying that all Republicans are racist sexist homophobs, just the people they choose to elect into office to represent them are. That's all."

Newt was making a speech to the National Federation of Republican Women. But to me it sounds more like supporters of the KKK who are worried that their white culture is becoming tainted and diluted by the coloreds. That their 'pure' blood is becoming defiled by the evil-doers. Those non-white poor minority groups who are the downfall of American society.

Newt's own words:

The American people believe English should be the official language of the government. ... We should replace bilingual education with immersion in English so people learn the common language of the country and they learn the language of prosperity, not the language of living in a ghetto.

Yet, this hate speak is nothing for Newt.

In 1995, for example, he said bilingualism poses "long-term dangers to the fabric of our nation" and that "allowing bilingualism to continue to grow is very dangerous."

First off, most other countries in the world have forms of bilingual education and so should the U.S., confining yourself to one language in a global world is the most limiting and debilitating thing a person could do. Since Newt is so pro-capital and pro-laissez faire economics he should know that it is in the workers best interests to know more than one language.

Furthermore, he clearly has no conception of how capitalism works and that the ghetto is a result not only of the class structure but racism. Racism which is clearly evident in the rhetoric he uses, "that non-English is the language of the ghetto." His understanding that bilingual students are not learning English if flat-out not true. I have spent time in bilingual classrooms and they are trying to learn English, but there are not enough structural supports systems in place. One of the reasons is that schools are underfunded, a direct result of policies advocated by Newt's Republican party. My girlfriend taught English Language Learners who were in high school and she had recent immigrants in her classroom from six different countries: Russia, Laos, Mexico, Liberia, Guatemala and Niger.

Now, with only one student aid coming in once a week for a couple hours to help her try and teach them English please explain to me how she is supposed to give each of these students enough one-on-one time to master the English language, as Newt wants them too. It simply cannot be done with the current lack of resources provided to the faculty. Each student has a different native language and so comes to this country with different skills levels of English and different problems related to learning English. Also, due to government defunding of education there are no after-school programs that can provide intensive English education that would assist these students in learning English. Add on the fact that the parents of these students probably do not speak English themselves or are not fluent speakers it leaves the student dependent on the school or friends to help her learn the language.

Newt's inability to conceptualize that a class structure exists leads him to perpetuate the myth that English is your ticket to prosperity, which is simply not true. The fact that he focuses on the ghetto clearly shows his racist attitudes. He fails to address the rampant poverty in rural white America. Which cannot be blamed on the lack of English speaking abilities, as these individuals are predominantly white Americans, born and raised. Even if these immigrants/'ghetto' youth speak English they still have the stigma of being labeled as 'ghetto' kids and being non-white. He fails to realize that just because the students learn English does not protect them from racial profiling or racist attitudes by both prospective employers, the police or worried whites. The individuals will still be culturally influenced by the neighborhoods they grew up in, one which scares Newt and his Klan, although it should not.

Moreover, the ghetto's were created by whites, with white flight to the suburbs in the 1950s-1970s the cities fell into disrepair at at the same time that blacks where just beginning to win their civil rights. Therefore, they were left behind to fend for themselves as all public services left those areas - police, fire, education, health care - and all prospective employers closed down shop and moved to the suburbs as well. Thus creating the ghetto. I am sick and tired of Newt and individuals like him failing to own up to his Racist attitudes and placing all the blame on non-whites for situations that are structurally forced on them by whites. Especially when inner city residents are not given the adequate structural support to lift them out of the situation that they were born into. The quality of education and other social services they receive is far below that of white suburbia, so they are structurally disenfranchised compared to whites from the start.

I do not see him advocating to fix 'Honky' English or 'Appalachia' English. No, Newt is trying to whip up a fan base of hatred against non-whites so whites have someone to blame for their problems rather than looking at the real culprits for their declining economic status: corporations and capital. This routine of blame the immigrant, blame the non-white is nothing new for America. We have done it throughout time: from Mexicans and Africans, to Middle Easterners, to the Irish and Polish to the Indians. The Race card is a major factor in keeping the working classes from forming solidarity across class lines and will remain so as long as people remain unaware of their social-historical existence.

On top of this, I do not see him advocating for either himself or his Klan to volunteer their time and help these 'ghetto' dwellers to learn English. Nope, he just wants to keep this country pure and clean. Next thing you know he will setting up segregated non-white only towns where non-whites are forced to live in inhuman poverty conditions - oh wait, that is the ghetto. So Newt's plan is to rally support by blaming America's downfall on the 'ghetto' while at the same time cutting all funding towards transforming the ghetto into a beacon of light. This underfunding ensures that the ghetto will never improve which as a result creates an 'other' that he can continually use to bolster his own political ambitions.

Fascist Poland

President Kaczynski of Poland

You need to go read this blog.

Highlights:

The right-wing government headed by the gay-baiting Kaczynski twins -- President Lech and his brother, Prime Minister Jaroslaw (LEFT) -- announced it was planning to pass a sweeping bill that, under the guise of interdicting “the promotion of homosexuality,” would ban discussion of, or teaching about, homosexuality in the schools.

If you do not discuss 'the gay's' they dissapear, right? This is the same type of lack of educational empowerment that dooms future generations to teenage birth because they do not learn about birthcontrol or sexuality, both of which are natural parts of life. We must repress who we really are!

Vice Minister of Education Miroslaw Orzechowski told reporters that the main goal of the law is to “punish whomever promotes homosexuality or any other deviance of a sexual nature in educational establishments,” and that any teacher who violated the law could be fired, fined, and even imprisoned.

Little does he know that sexual nature is of a polymorphous nature and that homosexuality is natural. Homosexuality is now becoming more visible because the repressive apparatus used to either kill or marginalize homosexuals is begining to weaken in certain areas.

“Europe needs changes,” Giertych affirmed in his March 1 Heidelberg speech, saying that abortion -- which he called “a new form of barbarism” -- “must be banned,” and demanding that “homosexual propaganda must also be limited so children will have the correct view of the family.”

I am sorry, but 6 billion people is too many. I cannot be anti-abortion when the the ecological balance of earth is being flushed down the tubes. Not to mention there is no correct view of the family, only historically varying configurations.

Sub-Prime Market in Freefall

What do I see all over the L.A. Times today, huge problems within the sub-prime market due to delinquincies and foreclosures. Well, I called this 'collapse' of the sub-prime market a long time ago, it was only a matter of time, and is a manifestation of the inherent contradictions in the accumulation process of capital and the dialectic of class struggle.

Below is from an article I drafted back in 2006.

Historically, within the Marxist literature on housing the concern has been over the conditions of housing for the working class, lack of affordable housing and the crisis in terms of inability to provide housing for all. The first being an issue of quality and the later two issues of quantity. These main concerns were first highlighted in Engels’ “The Question of Housing”, where he outlined three main thesis of housing under a capitalist economic system, affordable housing will never exist in abundance because mass housing is not profitable enough, affordable housing is secondary to issues of income distribution and the issue of affordable housing will never be solved without ending capitalism and it is these three thesis that continue to hold the focus of Marxist’s with respect to the question of housing. However, I would like to shift attention away from the first issue – the conditions of housing - and indirectly towards the latter two - the inability to provide housing for all and the lack of affordable housing. I wish to specifically focus on how capital uses these two realities to its advantage in the accumulation process.

I write this paper with a few assumptions about capital that I must make explicit: (1) capital not only seeks the accumulation of capital but to guarantee this accumulation process, (2) capital seeks to expand the accumulation process, (3) capital seeks to prevent overproduction generally [although overproduction can also be used as a crisis mechanism to reduce to cost of labor], (4) capital seeks to minimize the existence of the white elephant – to minimize the time span between production and consumption and (5) different capitals can compete for the same total piece of the pie – (workers wages). I must also make clear that when I speak of capital I understand that capital can only act through human action and that although it may appear that I speak of capital as an inanimate entity I am merely referring to the internal logic of capital and the laws that guide its movement, which are typically manifested in reality through human actors.

These five assumptions underlie the foundation of my thesis, that Alternative A (Alt-A) loans are one attempted solution concocted by the industries of housing construction and mortgage lending to the problem of capital accumulation in the housing market. Through an investigation into the trends of wages, housing construction in aggregate numbers and sale price, alternative loans, default rates and bankruptcy laws this paper will demonstrate the my thesis holds true: that through the creation and extension of Alt-A loans capital seeks to expand the accumulation process, minimize the white elephant of unrealized exchange-value and prevent overproduction in the housing industry while through the legislative process capital seeks to guarantee its accumulation process through the passage of stricter bankruptcy laws.

Any capitalist industry is confronted with roadblocks at one time or another in its quest for the valorization of capital, and when these events occur capital will seek to overcome these roadblocks in several ways, depending on the industry – within this article I will display that the Alt-A market emerged as one avenue to address the problems of capital valorization in the housing market. Yet, this attempted solution also creates its own problems or risks that must then be dealt with to minimize the interruptions that might occur in the process of accumulation. One way was to counteract the higher rate of delinquincy and foreclosure that exists in the sub-prime and Alt-A marekt is to charge higher interest rates on the loans.

However, the sub-prime companies failed to realize that or did not really care that with interest rates at historic lows they were bound to only go one way, up! And that the individuals taking out these loans whould not be able to afford such increases, since the only way they can afford a mortgage in the first place is through the opening up of these sub-prime markets. If you do not pay the worker enough, they cannot afford to own a home and therefore produce capital for your through interest payments. On top of this, the whole conception that since the worker already gets paid a shitty wage and therefore lacks savings and credit etc., they are thus forced to pay higher interest rates is ridiculous - in essence the worker gets jacked twice. Yet, this problem of trying to ensure demand while limiting disposable income, which is intrinsic to capital, may not be perceived as a problem with the tough consumer bankruptcy bill that was passed 2006, as these lenders are guaranteed their money some way or another, so who gets screwed in the end, again, the working classes.

LA Times Articles
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-subprime14mar14,0,7406728.story?coll=la-headlines-business
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-mortgage14mar14,0,4068976.story?coll=la-headlines-business
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-market14mar14,0,4631202.story?coll=la-headlines-business

Antonio Gramsci's Notion of Hegemony

What we can do, for the moment, is to fix two major superstructural “levels”: the one that can be called “civil society”, that is the ensemble of organisms commonly called “private”, and that of “political society” or “the State”. These two levels correspond on the one hand to the function of “hegemony” which the dominant group exercises throughout society and on the other hand to that of “direct domination” or command exercised through the State and “juridical” government. The functions in question are precisely organizational and connective. The intellectuals are the dominant group’s “deputies” exercising the subaltern functions of social hegemony and political government (12).

These comprise:
1. The “spontaneous” consent of the given by the great masses of the population to the general direction imposed on social life by the dominant fundamental group; this consent is “historically” caused by the prestige (and consequent confidence) which the dominant group enjoys because of its position and function in the world of production.
2. The apparatus of state coercive power which “legally” enforces discipline on those groups who do not “consent” either actively or passively. This apparatus is, however, constituted for the whole of society in anticipation of moments of crisis of command and direction when spontaneous consent has failed (12).

The function of organizing social hegemony and state domination certainly gives rise to a particular division of labor and therefore to a whole hierarchy of qualifications in some of which there is no apparent attribution of directive or organizational functions...The democratic-bureaucratic system has given rise to a great mass of functions which are not justified by the social necessities of production, through they are justified by the political necessities of the dominant fundamental group (12-13).

The modern State substitutes for the mechanical bloc of social groups their subordination to the active hegemony of the directive and dominant group, hence abolishes certain autonomies, which nevertheless are reborn in other forms, as parties, as trade unions, cultural associations. The contemporary dictatorships legally abolish these new forms of autonomy as well, and strive to incorporate them within State activity: the legal centralization of the entire national life in the hands of the dominant group becomes ‘totalitarian’ (54).

This study also leads to certain determinations of the concept of State, which is usually understood as political society (or dictatorship; or coercive apparatus to bring the mass of the people into conformity with the specific type of production and the specific economy at a given moment) and not as an equilibrium between political society and civil society (or hegemony of a social group over the entire national society exercised through the so-called private organizations, like the Church, the trade unions, the schools, etc.); it is precisely in civil society that intellectuals operate especially (56).

The supremacy of a social group manifests itself in two ways, as “domination” and as “intellectual and moral leadership”. A social group dominates antagonistic groups, which it tends to “liquidate”, or to subjugate perhaps even by armed force; it leads kindred and allied groups. A social group can, and indeed must, already exercise “leadership” before winning governmental power (this indeed is one of the principal conditions for the winning of such power); it subsequently becomes dominant when it exercises power, but even it if holds it firmly in its grasp, it must continue to “lead” as well (57-8).

A class dominates in two ways, i.e. ‘leading’ and ‘dominant.’ It leads the classes which are its allies, and dominates those which are its enemies. Therefore, even before attaining power a class can (and must) lead; when it is in power, it becomes dominant, but continues to ‘lead’ as well…there can and must be a ‘political hegemony’ even before the attainment of governmental power, and one should not count solely on the power and material force which such a position gives in order to exercise political leadership or hegemony (57).

The ‘normal’ exercise of hegemony on the now classical terrain of the parliamentary regime is characterized by the combination of force and consent, which balance each other reciprocally, without force predominating excessively over consent. Indeed, the attempt is always made to ensure that force will appear to be based on the consent of the majority, expressed by the so-called organs of public opinion-newspapers and associations-which, therefore, in certain situations, are artificially multiplied (80).

Undoubtedly the fact of hegemony presupposes that account be taken of the interests and the tendencies of the groups over which hegemony is to be exercised, and that a certain compromise equilibrium should be formed – in other words, that the leading group should make sacrifices of an economic-corporate kind. But there is also no doubt that such sacrifices and such a compromise cannot touch the essential; for though hegemony is ethical-political, it must also be hegemonic, must necessarily be based on the decisive function exercised by the leading group in the decisive nucleus of economic activity (161).

(Gramsic, Antonio. 1971[2005]. Selections from the Prison Notebooks. NY: International Publishers).

Laissez-Faire Liberalism

The ideas of the Free Trade movement are based on a theoretical error whose practical origin is not hard to identify; they are based on a distinction between political society and civil society, which is made into and presented as an organic one, whereas in fact it is merely methodological. Thus it is asserted that economic activity belongs to civil society, and that the State must not intervene to regulate it. But since in actual reality civil society and State are one and the same, it must be made clear that laissez-faire too is a form of State “regulation”, introduced and maintained by legislative and coercive means. It is a deliberate policy, conscious of its own ends, and not the spontaneous, automatic expression of economic facts. Consequently, laissez-faire liberalism is a political programme, designed to change – in so far as it is victorious – a State’s leading personnel, and to change the economic programme of the State itself – in other words the distribution of the national income.

In the case of laissez-faire liberalism, one is dealing with a fraction of the ruling class which wishes to modify not the structure of the State, but merely government policy; which wishes to reform the laws controlling commerce, but only indirectly those controlling industry.

(Gramsic, Antonio. 1971[2005]. Pp. 160 in Selections from the Prison Notebooks. NY: International Publishers).

Denmark: The Police State

Squatter's beware, you are not wanted in Denmark, they would rather fill the youth centre you occupy for leftist politics and housing with a Christian Fundamentalist Group. And if you do not comply, you get the iron law of oligarchy slapped down on you.

Can't find any 'illegal' immigrants to pick your crops, just make the convicts do it.

This article highlights the extreme degree that capital and its enforcer, the state, will take to obtain cheap labor. If they lose access to one social group that lacks political rights (illegal immigrants) and therefore can be easily intimidated, controlled and forced into degrading, inhumane and unjust working conditions state-capital jumps all over the next subservient, controlled population that lacks political rights – prisoners. Yes, Colorado passes a strict illegal immigration bill, causing all the “illegal’s” to flee the state. Guess what happens, the crops go bad because they do not have anybody to pick them. So what is the solution, have the Department of Corrections set up a program where the prisoners pick the crops for 60 CENTS A DAY. Yep, 60 cents a day, now if that does display how exploitative the working conditions are for migrant farm workers I do not know could.

But guess what, the cost to pay the prisoners and the guards to watch them supposedly will cost more than paying the “illegal’s” how pathetic and disgusting is that.

"Prisoners who are a low security risk may choose to work in the fields, earning 60 cents a day. They also are eligible for small bonuses. The inmates will be watched by prison guards, who will be paid by the farms. The cost is subject to negotiation, but farmers say they expect to pay more for the inmate labor and its associated costs than for their traditional workers."

If capital decided to pay workers who performed these jobs living wages than you would have a lot more people lining up to perform them. When you pay someone less than ONE DOLLAR A DAY and a Taco Bell taco costs 80 CENTS, the job will only be taken by lose lacking any better alternative, the marginalized and exploited individuals at the bottom of the social hierarchy, a population that capital is dependent upon.


http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-inmates1mar01,0,7469220.story?page=2&coll=la-home-headlines

Whose Freedom?

Sidney Mintz: "The choice between a ‘Danish’ pasty and a ‘French’ doughnut during a ten-minute coffee break is a choice, but the circumstances under which this choice is made may not be freely chosen. Like the choice between a McDonalds hamburger and a 'Gino’ chicken leg during a thirty-minute lunch hour, the choice itself is far less important than the constraints under which the choice is being made...[t]he proclaimed freedom to choose meant freedom only within a range of possibilities laid down by forces over which those who were, supposedly, freely choosing exercised no control at all (Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History, PP.182-83)"

The Autonomous Working Class in Mexico

MEXICO CITY - Some 75,000 unionists, farmers and leftists marched to protest price increases in basic foodstuffs like tortillas, a direct challenge to the new president's market-oriented economic policies blamed by some for widening the gulf between rich and poor.(1)

Once again, capital attempts to cause a shift in the transfer of money from the working class to the capitalist class through an increase in food prices. An increase in basic food prices not only decreases the overall wages paid to workers, while increasing the amount of money paid to agri-capital, but it highlights how the working class needs to own its own means of food production. Working class ownership over food production is crucial as capital control over food is a key ingredient in the class struggle and a basis for forcing individuals to work, as they have to purchase food as commodities.

The marchers are angry about tortilla prices that have doubled over the last year to roughly 45 cents a pound, causing hardship among the millions of poor Mexicans for whom they are a staple…with the new prices, workers earning the minimum wage of about $4 a day could spend a third of their earnings on tortillas for their family.(2)

The activity was also unaffiliated with leftist leader Obrador:

[The protest] was also a setback for his archrival, leftist leader Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who protest organizers prevented from speaking at the demonstration in Mexico City's Zocalo plaza. He held his own rally afterward, and most of the crowd stayed to hear him.(3)

It was very good to see that Mexico still has autonomous working class activity that is spontaneous and not instigated from the top down through some bureaucratic organization. This is another sign that working class activity does not have to be ‘mediated’ through the party but occurs through direct action. This autonomous activity is most clearly articulated here by this corn farmer

"This is a spontaneous people's movement, with no political affiliation," Olivaria said. "Lopez Obrador can participate, but he should not head the march. He should not even speak about it."(4)

The protestors also had additional demands beyond the scope of basic food prices and plans for future action.

The protestors are also demanding wage increases as well as an agricultural policy to promote the cultivation of basic foods such as corn, beans and grains.(5)

Labor unions and leftist groups also plan a "Day Without a Tortilla" on Friday as a show of defiance against major tortilla firms.(6)

IDEOLOGY



ACTUALITY

Critique of the WEF and the environmental or 'green' concern upcoming.

The End of Protest (Pt 2)

(2)Continuing the theme of protesting, next time you march in a protest look around you, are the individuals there because they believe in the cause or are they getting paid to do a job. Yes, a job! Well apparently the expansive commodification of reality has hit a new low, with a German company finding the uncommodified niche of protesting and turning it into a profit-oriented activity. “Good-looking protestors can help an organization get its political message to the public for as little as €145 a day.”

Talk about the end of protest and the growing commodification of rebellion. Protest as a form of political action has waned in the western world, particularly the U.S. since the 1960s and 70s, but now protesting as a job, this is another low for capitalism. Turning another activity that historically has been relatively spontaneous and a manifestation of the autonomous struggle for power by the downtrodden into work, into a profit orientated activity. That is the goal of capital, to enforce work and the commodity form upon individuals, as this is the only way it can realize surplus-value (profit). Without commodities capital cannot accumulate capital. Additionally, these pseudo protestors are not down for the cause nor will they be militant long-term followers willing to be engaged in the movement. They are merely the entry-level short-term temporary functionaries in a bureaucratized organization that is attempting to grab a little bit of the cheese from the system.

This is just another step in the dominance of one-dimensional thought and the decline of protest. Now actual protest of the system strengthens the system, through its commodification no longer is protest commodified solely into consumption [which can be seen as labor/work designed to strengthen the domination of capital], but now actual protest is commodified into work. Capital will not let any activity not be commodified or fall outside the system. Capital must commodify all productive and consumptive relative activities, productive for the creation of surplus value and consumptive for the realization of surplus value.

The End of Protest (Pt 1)

(1)The U.S. government finally unveiled technology that has long been rumored to be in existence. The technology is a heat-ray gun called the Active Denial System (ADS). How does it work? It shoots an invisible millimeter-wave beam at individuals, penetrates the skin to 0.4mm and heats up the water underneath the skin at a ‘gentle’ clip up to 130 degrees, at which point the individual is supposed to run away.

Ok, a few things, now the manufacturer and the government say there are no long-term effects, that it is a relatively harmless event. Are we to trust this, they said the same thing with Agent Orange in Vietnam and Depleted Uranium in both Iraq wars. This is because either (1) they do not conduct tests before hand, wait until enough outside research is conducted and years later they go back and run tests of their own or (2) they conduct tests and know the adverse effects but do not release them because it would not be profitable to the corporation or government to do so. With the short production times of technology like this, conducting years of tests to determine their health risks is not conducive to the bottom-line of the corporation and will of course not occur for this reason. In reality it is probably a mix of both reasons.

Secondly, they say this is largely for military purposes to stop ‘suspicious’ individuals or clear a crowd with gunmen. Come on, this technology will definitely be used against civil disobedience and protestors. The U.S. used water cannons and tear gas against civil rights protestors and anti-war activists during the 1960s and 1970s and this technology will be used by the police-state against anti-war protestors, free-trade protestors, etc. Saying the government will not turn this technology against its own citizens flies against recorded history, where technology that was once ‘only’ for military purposes against ‘foreigners’ is then brought to use against the country’s own citizens who refuse to tow the line of totalitarianism, imperialism etc.