PRECIPICE OF PESSIMISM

The otherwise anemic news media has almost united to conspicuously celebrate, with iron rich blood, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the disintegration of the Soviet Union some twenty years.

Of course the detail is largely visual with a simple narrative of American good prevailing over communist evil and includes the optimism of the moment, the sense that anything was possible.  Yes, its seemed without the menace of the Soviet Union gone forever that the United States could now divert its resources to the purposes of  peace and prosperity.  Yet it all was squandered and the Pentagon budget relentlessly climbed.


The optimism and triumphalism of that moment, and in particular Reagan'prideful strutting, seems even more cartoonish and idiotic than it did then.  Today the one and only superpower is poised for failure in two overwrought wars that never would have happened in a world led by competent leaders.

Or course the Republicans were optimistic back twenty years ago and said, "Anything is possible!" Today the Republicans are pessimists and ask, "Is anything possible?", then answer, "No!"  Of course it is not only they who are pessimistic, but it is the Republicans and Republican-like Democrats who led us to this precipice of pessimism.

What happened between the end of the Cold War, when the United States seemed on top of the world, and today when the United States is in chaos, crisis and sometimes seems on the edge of civil war? Perhaps it suggests that the opportunities of that moment, twenty years ago, were not seized by American leaders. The benefits of the once obvious "peace dividend" never emerged because the United States was revealed to be something of a military dictatorship, at least when it comes to spending more and more on the military regardless of the existence or nonexistence of external military threats.

Of course the comprador bourgeoisie of the United States continued to transfer production to lands with the greatest rates of exploitation, China, Indonesia, etc..  Consequently American workers
ultimately wound up with lower wages and fewer jobs to go around.  This is the most powerful reason for the decline of the United States which is becoming more of an enforcer for the international bourgeoisie than  a tool of U. S.  national bourgeoisie.

 

The United States focused on invading Iraq and Afghanistan as well as promoting a remarkably delusional plan which included worldwide subservience to the whims of Washington.


G. W. Bush wrecked the credibility of United States leadership.  Europe and Asia are rising.  Latin America has stood up.  The American Century is over.

CAPITALISM IS A BAD HABIT, NOT A MORALITY BASED FORM OF LIVELIHOOD

Since my first comment on how capitalism is losing its moral authority I think it can be said with great confidence that what George Soros calls " free market fundamentalism" has lost its moral authority completely.
Republicans, Wall Street hustlers, the Federal Reserve and the whole financial cast haven't notice, haven't really apologized and simply want to be saved by a massive fascist intervention to save them from the same
markets upon which they have crucified humankind for decades.

So why is Obama trying to restore the status quo ante, save the ruinous Credit Default Swap market and preserve the stranglehold that the financial elites have engineered into an economy that they run at everyone else's expense? Obama is a tool of the rich man's rule, unfortunately. In other words, Obama is no Chavez, no Morales and no
Martin Luther King.

Trillions of dollars are being concocted, supposedly to be paid back by us, the working class and its allies. Why? To insure and guarantee the ruinous rule of capitalist parasites who are dedicated to the continued destruction of the ecosystems that we all need to survive. The so called bail outs in fact only intensify the economic and social exploitation of the overwhelming majority of the world's peoples on every continent. Obama's "quick fixes" mask the reality of soaring social injustice and ecnomic inequality on a world wide scale.

As of today Obama and the financial elitists that constitute his administration have deliberately engaged in a huge cover-up of the corruption and fraud that has been visited upon the American people and the peoples of the world in the name of "free markets", so-called economic efficiency" and the elevation of greed and selfishness from sinful and evil things into the greatest virtues.

Capitalism or Socialism for the Rich

The remarkable yet undeniable crisis of capitalism has led to some obvious violations of capitalist ideology. For one thing the average taxpayer is being screwed in order to provide extensive socialist programs for the rich, huge corporations and the financial elite.

If the so-called free market ideology of the last twenty years enriched the few and impoverished many it is now ruining may who were seduced into the financial manipulations of the capitalists. Now the whole bottom has fallen out the capitalist Ponzi schemes but the rich still expect to get richer. Only now, it's all about doing with the mechanisms of state intervention what was being done under the banner of free enterprise, making sure the rich get richer and screwing the rest of us.

Yet even the remarkably dull and apolitical American citizen has started to scratch his almost unused head. Yes people are pissed. They are going under or their relatives and friends or neighbors are getting screwed because of all the financial manipulations of the ruling class and its band of collegial cut throat professionals.

Joe Sixpack is wondering why the rules are suddenly changed and the
rich now get a free pass, all the money in the middle of the monopoly game and a new chance to screw the general public again! Remember, the bailouts are so they can do it again. They just want to get back to screwing us the old fashioned way, socialism for them being an embarrassing expedient.

Meanwhile Joe and the family may be trying to sneak a beer into the homeless shelter or out on the street. Where are all the Marxists and socialists and anarchists? Shouldn't they all be teaching Joe and learning from Joe? People still think in old capitalist terms even though the evidence suggests that capitalism is a transient historical stage that has now become unworkable and is also incredibly unjust.

Yeah, we should have socialism all right but not for the rich and we need a socialism that preserves our ecosystem and our planet's ability to sustain human life. Capitalism is destroying not only the future of tens of millions of Joe Sixpack families but Capitalism is also destroying our prospects as a species for survival.

The injustice cuts and millions bleed. Meanwhile the capitalists and their political elite continue to subsidize the wealthy and try to save the crappy system that is screwing almost all of us today and dooms all of us tomorrow.