In case you’re not video enabled, here’s a transcript of a portion of the conversation between 60 Minutes’ Leslie Stahl and Bill Clinton’s Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright on May 12, 1996:
Lesley Stahl on U.S. sanctions against Iraq: “We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?”
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright: “I think this is a very hard choice, but the price–we think the price is worth it.”
What Stahl and the ghastly gasbag Albright are discussing are the economic sanctions imposed on Iraq allegedly in order to compel Saddam Hussein to withdraw from Kuwait and pay reparations, but more likely the unstated plan was to induce the people of Iraq to rise up and overthrow Saddam.
Economic sanctions are the weaponization of money. Government talking heads call this “soft power,” because apparently arranging for the slow, wasting death by starvation and disease of hundreds of thousands of children is a lot nicer than bombing them or sending soldiers to terrify and shoot them.
Richard Nixon’s Secretary of Agriculture, Earl Butz had a particular gift for expressing the barely repressed beliefs of the most reprehensible people in the country. According to Wikiquote, Butz said two memorable things while Secretary, one was the tasteless, racist joke that got him fired, the other was the following:
“Food is a tool. It is a weapon in the U.S. negotiating kit.”
There can be no doubt that the diet devised for Gaza – much like Israel’s blockade in general – was intended as a form of collective punishment, one directed at every man, woman and child. The goal, according to the Israeli defense ministry, was to wage “economic warfare” that would generate a political crisis, leading to a popular uprising against Hamas.
While these are shocking, overt uses of the power of economic systems, there are more subtle and refined means of using economic power to coerce and subjugate peoples that are often brought to bear. Economic sanctions, by depriving people of their means of survival through the manipulation of money and goods is a means of an elite asserting control over a population. While these techniques are used as a tool of foreign policy or in tandem with wartime goals, this is far from the only situation under which these techniques are used by elites.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: This essay is in part a reply to AoT’s “No, you don’t want another OWS”– I agree we don’t need another, but not entirely with the author’s reasoning why…)
People who were involved with Occupy Wall Street have an understandable emotional attachment to what they experienced within the movement. In fact, for many in this age of electronica and isolation, it was their first experience in ground level activism and social work. People cooperated, they exchanged food, medical services and felt unity. By sheer numbers, they managed to enter the concept of the one percent versus the rest of us into the National dialogue. That cannot be underrated.
In any discussion of what is next, we have to look with an unemotional, analytical eye at whether or not Occupy was or was not a success.
I realize our group here in the halls of orange-land are small. I think most dKos readers are truly interested in the general betterment of humankind. Most of the problem is that Capitalism has always sold itself as a merit system. Its really not. I am going to try and show you why.
First and foremost, the most basic thing Capitalism is, is an EXTRACTION SYSTEM. Buy low, sell high. Make cheap, price at the highest the “market” will bear. These are the common sense adages we have been taught since birth. How else can you make a dollar, right? Without money, how in the world would anything work; buying a place to live, food, clothing, and any amenities we enjoy for leisure time.
Yet, if you think about it – the collapse of the market, and the austerity being imposed on the people while the rich make record profits is no aberration. Its the system doing exactly what it is supposed to do. What it always does. It extracts from the bottom to fill the top. What they told you is a lie to make you work against your own interests.
The Western commercial system is extractive. It exists to extract more from consumers than it supplies in products and services. Its goal is profit, and profit literally means to make more (pro-ficere). Its goal has never been to improve the human condition but to exploit it. It works like this:
Consider two water tanks, initially each partially full, one above the other. One gallon of water is dumped from the upper tank into the lower one for each two gallons extracted from the lower tank and pumped into the upper tank. Over time, the lower tank ends up empty and the upper tank ends up full. The circulation of water between the tanks ends.
Extraction Capitalism is real, and it is you they are extracting from.
The Business Insider just reported “Profits Just Hit Another All-Time High, Wages Just Hit Another All-Time Low.”
You may, or may not have seen the viral video about income inequality. People generally think they would like to make more. But somehow they have convinced us the system is fair. Worse? They have kept it where few of us have any idea what is really going on.
“In one of the worst economic downturns since the Great Depression, the billionaire Koch brothers who habitually rail against government’s unfair burden on the wealthy, have almost doubled their net worth to a combined $64 billion.”
How much do they really need? They could give every kid a cool Mill, and still be the fattest cats on the block. But they won’t. They are Capitalists.
Its not just “broken at the moment.” It always has been.
Some of you may remember the kinder, gentler Capitalism that Workers demanded after the 1st Depression. But it is also plain to see the cycle began anew. In history, Empires always fall because people get tired of serving Elites. And every gain made by workers has been violently opposed by the PTB – and won with the blood of the workers.
Remember too, that while “regulation” may have been highest in the 1970’s and wages the most fair, there was still a broad segment of our society that has always endured poverty. Urban blacks, Appalachian whites, recent immigrants all have had to live on the most meager of wages because in order for profits to work, somebody has to make next to nothing. Miners. Railroad builders. The people in the fields that pick your food for you. Textile workers. Sweat shops.
There has never been a time there were not slums in this country. It is NOT because some people “don’t work hard enough.” It is not because “some people are inherently less suited to succeed.”
It really is obvious that wealth begets wealth, and poverty begets poverty. The American Dream they sold you is largely myth. It is not only the lower education system being “locally tax based” thus inherently inferior in low income neighborhoods; but higher education is economically slated to be accessible only to those with high incomes, or those who borrow from those with high incomes (bankers) and are willing to enrich them even more in both interest rates paying off that loan, and as lower level lackeys working for them to pay it off. Its more. There is a class cronyism involved.
If perhaps you have ever been, or been privy to the Upper Middle Class’s affairs: Country Club meetings, high end Golf Outings, perhaps a Gallery Opening… you understand it is who you know more than what you know. Consider that there is an almost exponentially tighter cronyism in the Millionare’s club, and the Billioniare’s? You can’t get within a “billion” miles of it.
They share opportunities among themselves, like builders in the UMC share contracts among themselves. No matter how good a architect or builder your low income cousin is? He will never get the city contract to create the new stadium unless he knows someone. Classes really help keep the next layer down, which serves the top just dandy.
This brings up a sub-point to this section. In the US the white middle to lower middle class uses the same cronyism to exclude people of color, except hiring them for the very lowest wage jobs. For extraction capitalism to work? Racism (and sexism) is part and parcel of the mechanics of it.
We have always had a caste system here, the dots are as just as indelible, but painted with the supposedly invisible ink of racism and classism. The land of opportunity keeps opportunities rare for the poor.
The Myth of Repression.
The myth says we have the “greatest system on Earth” and “no other system can work!” We hear it all the time: Look at how repressive Russia was, how evil China is, how it brings dictators and loss of personal freedom. Those were never truly non-capitalist states, they just became state capitalists with different elites. I’ll let the scholars argue that one. This is just you and I here, regular people, considering the sanity of thinking Capitalism sucks.
I’m not going to bore you with why I think they failed. I’ll just plant one idea. If I started a company in Michigan to give away free electricity, how long do you think I would last before somehow my company imploded by outright sabotage, bad press, failed inspections via payola, if not assassination attempts on me? Nothing happens in a vacuum – and to a whole world of Elites living large? There was nothing more dangerous than the idea of sharing the wealth. They were up against that.
Now, instead? Think of the worst human rights violators in recent history. For me, Saudis come to mind. Women are stoned for being raped. The poor have their hands cut off for stealing a loaf of bread. That place is as Capitalist as they come. The rich sell the oil and live in Palaces, the poor starve.
Pinochet who killed and tortured bazillions of his own? Not only a Capitalist, but OUR Capitalist!
I’m sure if you think about it – you can think of many more.
You really cannot have a Dictator without Capitalism – because it needs an untouchable Elite with the military might to keep people from rising against it. If people are free enough to control their own destinies, they would never vote for their own oppression.
(until here and now….)
Nothing Else Can WORK!
I know, for most of you, hearing the wisdom of dead guys from a time that is nothing like what we live in now makes your eyes roll back in your head. I get it. I’ve been reading some Marx, and if nothing else he was a dry and pedantic fucker who always took a thousand words to say what could be said in few. Yet, for his time, he was brilliant and comprehensive.
Without getting all economic professor and mathy? Its pretty simple. I figure we ourselves not only create ALL wealth, we ARE wealth. Or value, or both. You get what I mean, even as an average Joe. They haven’t got shit without us.
If you light your grill with a matchstick? Hours of work went into making it, and chances are only a couple people are getting rich off of it. But matchsticks don’t grow on trees, they are made from them. Someone cut the wood, someone else milled it down, someone trucked the raw materials, someone ground the toxic chemicals for the burn tip, someone ran the machine to dip them in, someone boxed it and someone shipped them out.
A lot of hours in that puppy, which lasts only seconds. POOF! Matches are cheap, but trust me, even with mechanization, all kind of hands are on that match before you touch it. And the companies that make them make a good profit, or they no longer would.
Now the CEO of that company probably takes in 500k a year. He didn’t invent it. He didn’t design the machines. He doesn’t run the machines. He never even touches them. All he does is find ways to pay less to make the matches, and make more off of selling them. He is rewarded solely for screwing the people who make them, and the consumers into paying more than they are worth. He doesn’t “work.” He is paid for being a predator. You see, there are only 2 materials more or less (simplifying for example) so there is little budge room on that – the money is made on the fact matches don’t exist without human labor. There is no product without us; hence we are really the real producer of all wealth. All of it. We just don’t get to keep it.
So, the “greatest system on Earth” is one in which we work our asses off to get a few guys rich, while begging to be paid enough to live on while creating the products that make them rich? It doesn’t reward by merit and hard work. Really. It rewards whoever is the biggest greedhead.
Ponder it for a second: If every time you had another couple over for dinner, they raced to get the biggest steak, power-slammed your beer, ate all the dessert before your kids could even have a tiny slice… I guarantee you would not invite the assholes over again. Yet this is who we willingly serve with our work. Greedheads. Dig?
But competition is healthy!
Ahhh, the John Wayne theory of rugged individualism and the hardy pioneer. They competed, the Indians died, and they “deserve” our respect for becoming ranchers and farmers. Cue the cattle drive rushing to be the 1st to get your cattle to market! Lets be faster, tougher, smarter, work harder! Which all sounds fine and dandy until you are hungry and reaching for that biscuit you cooked, and some overstuffed idiot snatches it quicker than you, and you go hungry. That is what competition is, what Capitalism does.
Actually, deep down, you know this is bullshit. Sharing is good. You learned it in kindergarten. Thats why we donate to charities. But wouldn’t it be nice to eliminate poverty instead? We can’t get there by making more greedheads, that is, lifting the world into our aggressive form of industrial competition. To have winners, someone HAS to lose.
Here’s a thought. Maybe work isn’t the sainted ethic you think it is. Maybe we could work way less and no one would go hungry. Maybe all this work and consume, make crappy products that wear out so you have to buy more, and work to have the money to buy more is illusion – simply to keep the money pouring upward into that tower of which we spoke above.
We are in an age of extreme pollution, overpopulation and quickly dwindling resources. The Capitalist model would rather have your local grocery chain throw out half their produce every week than lower prices. Heck, some places have made it illegal to collect rainwater, and certainly Monsanto wants it to be impossible to grow your own food. Remember Victory Gardens? They were before my time – but now you couldn’t plant one to feed your kids without paying someone royalties. Does this seem sane to you?
We have the technology to produce lasting products, to create free renewable energy. We have the capacity to not only grow, but deliver food to every person on Earth. Picture buying a car or refrigerator than never broke. A battery that would last forever. Less landfills, no payments. There is a reason we cannot have these things. There is no profit for the very few in it.
There is a reason in the US, we send jobs to places like Bangledesh and let them toil for pennies in factories that kill them. More profit for the few.
Here’s a question. When garments were made in the US by Unions, they were still cheaper than they are now made for pennies. Where did the “value” of their abuse go? To you? Hell no. To the rich, and we enabled it on their blood.
Socialism means Too Much Government
The government you have now? Or the government by and for the People? I see nothing wrong with using our collective pool of money (and that is what taxes are supposed to be) to serve ourselves the things we could not have alone.
No one but the insane would want more of their already dwindling money to pay for taxes, right? Yet, it is true that places with the highest taxes have the highest happiness ratings. They never worry about illness – they have free healthcare. They get free education. They have no homelessness, while we now have more empty foreclosed upon homes than homeless here.
Right now, nearly every Social agreement we have has been PRIVATIZED – and we are doing worse than ever. How is that “market” working out for you? Not only that? The profits – are theirs alone (private gains) while we bail out their losses! (publicize loss) What a rip off!
You are not getting your money’s worth now for a reason. The rich not only aren’t paying taxes, they are taking the lion’s share of our collective bank account out in subsidies and overblown contracts, all abetted by the Politicians they have purchased.
This what Capitalism does. It funnels to the top, then uses that money and power to codify laws to keep the power and money flowing to the top.
Socialism is DEMOCRATIC. It does not allow for a system where private, self-interested people can accrue that much power. Now, it doesn’t make you nationalize your small flower shop. It does create laws where you have to pay fairly and caps profits to a reasonable level. It does nationalize the things that meet our basic needs: BANKING, (so it cannot be predatory) utilities, education, health and housing.
To ever get to a more Communist world, Socialism is a necessary step. People need to feel safe enough and become educated enough to create their own systems of cooperative effort. I know, I know, the Capitalists are cringing and the pure Marxists are annoyed by that. This is my opinion. While the idea of people taking over factories is good, and owning their labor and sharing the fruits of what they create is grand – Marx was working toward Industrialization as a goal. We need to become post-industrial. Once we are, there will be less need for a Centralized Goverment.
Once we have a system that is more green, based on stability and sustainability, owning production would be a natural result. Instead of “making a profit” for town A and competing for the market with town B – the goal should be providing said product A for their area and receiving product B in return for our own.
Still? Less is more. There is no reason in the world that people need to work more than 20 hours a week – either in a field of their “calling” or as rotating voluntary service to keep infrastructure running. While no model will ever cover the shoe fetish of some, nor the video-game addiction of others? These extras could be “paid for” with labor.
I realize this is simplistic – but my goal here is to open eyes to the possibilities of another way, not argue to dust the minutia of implementing it.
But what of the lazy leeches?
“I want to do nothing when I grow up!” ~ said no child ever.
Prior to the industrial age, people had what I lovingly dub “callings.” Healing, mechanical, building, music, art, a love of animals, or growing things. I don’t think anyone ever wanted to be a miner. But think – the need to dig in the earth for fossil fuels would be gone, and the value of rocks for pretty things – gold, diamonds, etc – all symbols of classology – would become far less valuable. In a better world, who are you and what have you done to improve the world would be the bastion of esteem over what trinkets you own.
Sure, there will always be less desirable jobs. Garbage removal. Sewer maintenance. Cleaning. Those should be either paid a premium, or be mandatory volunteer for a short period in everyone’s life to access the benefits of society. If you think that is ridiculous, the model of restaurant management makes sure that to be hired to that position, you do every job in the place for weeks before you get to manage it. You have to have hands on empathy and the ability to provide the service to run a restaurant. Mostly done in case someone calls in? It has created respect for the people they manage.
If you are using the public education system to be a brain surgeon? Wonderful. It won’t kill you to have to serve as janitorial staff for a semester part time while starting in your field. See how that works? Everyone begins to have mutual respect for the shoes of others.
Most people who do not work would prefer to. They are just ill-fitted or ill-suited for the dehumanizing, unappreciated work they do. Marx called this alienation. I call it round peg in square hole syndrome. I would love to teach teenagers science, but never had the money for college. I love working as a gardener, though it doesn’t pay well. I have enjoyed working in inventory management and tool repair for the big three. I am now too old and sore, but rocked out waitressing. I hate cubicles and offices – I am entirely unsuited for sedentary work. I prefer to have to move around during my day. I used to love to work on cars, and can fix nearly everything.
Yet? I cannot find work that will provide for my son and I in any of those fields. Capitalism made them all too low paying. Again, it’s what it does.
Instead, most of us are related to producing or selling crap we don’t need to people who can’t afford it, who in turn have to do the same. All to never really be SECURE in our homes or food or illness – so some few can be Bazillionaires.
A safety net for the infirm or those with special needs is a wonderful thing. Is a person born with disabilities less worthy of food than you?
Its Capitalism that is crazy, not we, the Anti-Capitalists.
Consider two water tanks, if you will, sharing an endless cycle of refreshing one another.
Thats what we are about, really.
Its not scary.
Its not rocket science.
Its not un-doable, though those in the top tank would love you to think so.
Its having security, self-worth, cooperation, more free time and a greener planet.
Its about never, ever stamping someone into poverty to get ahead.
We have to end this insane extraction system and unify to “all of us”.
President Obama has done a brilliant job for the 1%.
Under Mr. Obama’s leadership, after a tremendous, near utter collapse of the economy brought about by a corrupt finance sector, trillions of public dollars have been poured into the coffers of bankers. One recent study showed that the big banks got an annual government subsidy of $83 billion dollars a year – equal to the amount of their alleged profits. Hold onto your hats, another recent study, by Chris Whalen and endorsed by noted economist Nouriel Roubini demonstrates that the subsidy is much larger, at least $780 billion dollars a year:
$360 billion in Federal Reserve subsidies, by creating an artificial “spread” in interest rates
$120 billion in federal deposit insurance (through the FDIC, backed by the Treasury)
At least $100 billion in government-guaranteed loans, especially mortgages
At least $100 billion in monopolistic advantages in the secondary market for home mortgages
More than $100 billion in fees in the over-the-counter (OTC) derivative market. (The lack of capital required in these transactions and other special dispensations from the Fed provide the zombie banks with unlimited leverage and almost no public scrutiny.)
The first study indicates that the too big to fail banks are barely breaking even and they are getting fat and demanding on our largesse; the second study indicates that they are indeed not profitable at all. They are nothing but corporate welfare queens with a large budget to purchase politicians.
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Its the First of April, and we are being played as fools. I wish it were something so blythe as a prank. The Ruling Class of this country have initiated and succeeded in Sedition against every principle we were taught our country stands for; every action is Sedition against you, me, we the People.
State by State they illegally restrict our rights and our ability to redress our complaints. They outlaw Unions, they restrict aid, threaten our very right to representation.
Nationally, the Uniparty blows smoke up our collective hineys, while continuing the process of extraction upward to move the wealth of the land into a few Oligarch’s hands.
Internationally, the Military Industrial Complex continues its march toward hegemony and terror.
All the while the people continue to be distracted by shiny lies, false-flag enemies and the kabuki theater of Good Cop/Bad Cop that our two-party system has become. The Left, as well as the Right continue to believe that a D or an R is their only option, rather than trashing the corporate funded lot of them, and rallying behind a new Party, in some twisted logic of “lesser evil” that makes the Rich squeal in delight.
You fight fire with fire, and sedition with sedition. Only is it really sedition to defend ourselves and refuse to comply with those who have co-opted our government; demand freedom, health, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?
We are being FORCED down this road. To live as slaves or die as free men.
Game On.
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So here’s the deal. Grab your bootstraps and pull as hard as you can. Elbow everybody else out of the way, and climb over any mountains of bodies in your way. Or stomp them if they won’t be reasonable and just die.
Do unto others before they do unto you, and you too can make the big time. Baby.
The top of the mountain waits for you! The shining city on the hill where the streets are paved with gold and you’ll never have to look another whining starving emaciated worthless shiftless lazy ass bum in the eye again and all the beautiful people look like they just walked off the cover of a magazine.
God loves you and he wants you to live a rich life in heaven on earth.
Believe, my friends. Believe, and you too can live the American Dream. Jeezus loves you too and this is God’s Country my friends!
Give up your whining socialist fantasies and screw the suckers. Be a real self made man or woman. The brass ring is there just waiting for you to grab. You can do this!
Buck up, straighten up, and fly right. If you miss it you have only yourself to blame for being so worthless. The world doesn’t owe you a living. You have to get out there, grab a live baby, and rip it’s heart out with your teeth if you want to live the blessed life of a fulfilled human being.
The only winners are those who die with the most toys. You know this in your heart of hearts, and everyone else is a loser. Just fertilizer. Shit. Made to serve you. The ground upon which you strut in silver slippers, my friends.
So here’s the deal. Grab your bootstraps and pull as hard as you can. Elbow everybody else out of the way, and climb over any mountains of bodies in your way. Or stomp them if they won’t be reasonable and just die.
Give up your whining socialist fantasies and screw the suckers. Be a real self made man or woman. The brass ring is there just waiting for you to grab. You can do this!
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