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Originally published by Common Ground Magazine.
By Daniel Pinchbeck
Witnessing the unraveling of the global financial system, I find myself gripped by contrasting emotions. While part of me feels like heading for the hills and hoarding cans of sardines, another part of me is giddy, almost celebratory. The tyrannical rule of Wall Street is ending, along with the self-serving free market ideology of Neoconservatives. The massive amounts of fictitious capital created by our corrupt financial system must be destroyed, so we can address our immediate situation on this planet.
I feel sorry for the millions of people who may suffer during a transition that will be extremely difficult. On the other hand, our rapacious economic system is destroying the integrity of the biosphere, threatening our future as a species. Taking a wider perspective, we can see a new social structure that creates sustainable patterns of behavior is necessary, if we want our descendents to continue on the earth.
In my last book, I looked at many predictions of systemic financial dissolution at this time. I discussed the possibility that a financial H-bomb could melt down the economic system while leaving the “tangible assets” — people, infrastructure, land — still standing. I suggested this could be the best thing to happen to our world. Such a systemic collapse is a tremendous opportunity to change the direction of our society. Those who believe civilization can be run according to different principles — humane, equitable, and collaborative ones — need to step forward now with concrete proposals and put ideals into practice.
Several factors made the collapse of the global financial system inevitable. One problem with capitalism is that it is not self-sufficient, but depends on the constant availability of new markets, forcing expansion by creating ever-increasing amounts of debt. We now have a globalized world market, so exploitation of new territories can no longer take place. As Naomi Klein analyzed in The Shock Doctrine, this led to a policy of “disaster capitalism,” where cataclysms like hurricanes and terrorist acts were seized as opportunities to redevelop internal markets. Such a practice is inherently unsustainable.
Another crucial element that is rarely discussed in the media is the connection between the current financial meltdown and peak oil. Just as our debt-based economic system needed new markets to penetrate, it also required an ever-increasing supply of cheap energy to fuel its expansion. The decreasing supply of fossil fuels relative to global demand has brought the second law of thermodynamics into play, breaking the delusionary spell cast by the financier-sorcerers, who decoupled financial value from real value back in the early 1970s. When we consider the permanent reduction in the supply of cheap energy combined with the lack of new markets, it is obvious the amassed debts will never be repaid. Read the rest of this entry »
A petition by Friends of the RNC 8 has been put together calling for the Ramsey County Attorney Susan Gaertner to drop all the charges against the RNC 8. Defend The RNC8! Dismiss the Charges! : http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/defendthernc8
The goal is 100,000 signatures. Please take a moment to sign the petition. Then help get the word out by forwarding the petition to friends and family.
For updates on the case visit: http://rnc8.org . To get automatic email updates, sign up here: http://rnc8.org/get-updates/
The legal costs for the RNC 8 are estimated at $250,000. Donations can be made via PayPal or you can mail in a check (there is even a tax deductible option). All the information you need is at: http://rnc8.org/donations/ Donations of all sizes are greatly appreciated.
Recent article:
RNC Terrorists? Or just young people speaking their minds?
Three activists nabbed in pre-convention raid deny any plans for violence
At times, they laugh at how ridiculous it seems.
But Monica Bicking and Garrett Fitzgerald weren’t laughing when police broke down the door of their South Minneapolis house before 8 a.m. Aug. 30, stormed inside and pointed guns in their faces.
“I was woken up out of a deep sleep to screaming and banging,” Bicking said. “It’s scary.”
Max Specktor was not there when police came to his house two miles away. But he was arrested two days later, on Sept. 1. “I was leaving in a car, and they pulled the car over right away,” he said.
Bicking, Fitzgerald and Specktor are three of eight young Minneapolis residents charged in Ramsey County with conspiracy to commit riot “in furtherance of terrorism,” allegedly to disrupt last month’s Republican National Convention in St. Paul.
The unusual charge stems from a 2002 Minnesota terrorism law, a version of the federal Patriot Act passed after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
“These charges are an effort to equate publicly stated plans to blockade traffic and disrupt the RNC as being the same as acts of terrorism,” said Bruce Nestor, an attorney with the National Lawyers Guild who is representing Bicking, in a recent statement. Read the rest of this entry »
US Senate — Working for Wall St., not us
Jerry Silberman, Oct. 2, 2008
The Wall St. Rescue bill which gained new life with the Senate rubber stamp yesterday will neither halt the decline of the US economy nor penalize the financial gamblers who have been the most immediate cause of this disaster.
Here are two important historical comparisons —
In the late 70’s and early ’80’s, the offensive by big business against workers took the form of demanding concessions in wages and benefits mostly from industrial unions, claiming that if factories weren’t made more “competitive” through reduction of labor costs, they would go out of business. Of course, no employer guaranteed the future of the plant of the job, we were supposed to trust them. Of course, it was a scam. Plants that took concessions closed. Plants that didn’t closed. The economic transformation was based in much larger issues. In plants that closed after concessions, the bosses simply walked away with more, and the workers were left with less. The money stolen by the bosses as a result of concessions helped fund the elimination of thousands of jobs through automation, as well as the transfer of manufacturing plants out of the country. The labor movement at the time was unprepared to fight back, since it bought into the general principles of the bosses, and is still suffering, despite renewed energy in certain unions.
The several “bail outs” that have happened over the past year are identical to those concessions — big business is threatening us with dire consequences if we don’t protect them, while making no promise that anything will get better if we do. Each bailout is bigger than the last, and more futile — except for the corporate executives who are continuing to stash the cash. Each bailout imposes more costs on us, now and in the future, as positive government programs are sacrificed and more debt is imposed on our tax dollar. Right now about 51 cents of every tax dollar goes to the military. Interest on the national debt, that is tax dollars which go directly to pay the government bond holders is the third largest item in the federal budget, right now one half trillion per year. Since about 140 million people file federal income tax returns annually, this means that on average, about $2000 of your taxes are already going to pay off bondholders on Wall St, in Saudi Arabia, China, and many other countries. This number will jump as a result of this bailout. That’s all money not available for schools, health care, environmental protection, etc.
In the early ’30’s the economy collapsed in what is commonly referred to as the Great Depression. Unlike this collapse that began early in the term of Herbert Hoover. By the time of the next presidential election, millions of Americans were impoverished and beginning to organize to fight back. They were marching in the streets for unemployment insurance, refusing to allow people to be evicted from their homes by blockading homes from the sheriff, WWI vets marched on Washington demanding relief and were fired on by current troops under the command of Gen. MacArthur (later of WWII fame) Radical political movements were growing. The new president recognized that some concessions had to be made to the working class by big business or the US would risk a revolutionary situation. Roosevelt, pressured by those movements of ordinary people who couldn’t take it any more, finally convinced Congress to enact several reforms, including unemployment insurance, Social Security, and tough banking regulations (repealed in the Reagan and Bush administrations) to stabilize the economy.
Although there are many very important differences in the current situation from those historical times, there are some very important common threads, the most important being that collective action by working people to challenge the rich and powerful is the key to any change which can create a more stable, secure and healthy life for us. And our goal must be based on a comprehensive vision of a just society, not just trying to protect a niche for ourselves.
With Congress giving in to this historic power-grab by Secretary of the Treasury and former CEO of Goldman Sachs Paulson and his friends in the banking industry, to seize control of the country’s finances (despite loud and obvious public opposition), it appears the end of capitalism is at hand. [alex]
Originally published by CNN.com, Oct. 3, 2008.
Stocks slump despite bank rescue
Dow suffers worst weekly performance since the week after 9/11 attacks, as investors remain fearful about the economy.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Stocks slumped Friday, as a brutal week ended with President Bush signing the historic $700 billion bailout plan after weeks of contentious debate.
Credit markets remained frozen, despite the vote, with two measures of bank jitters rising to record highs. Investors also looked to Wells Fargo’s planned purchase of Wachovia and a dismal job market report.
The Dow Jones industrial average (INDU) lost 1.5% Friday and 7.3% for the week. On a point basis, the Dow lost 818 points this week, its biggest weekly point loss in seven years and the third biggest weekly loss ever.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 (SPX) index lost 1.4% Friday and 9.4% for the week. On a point basis, the S&P lost 114 points, the worst weekly point loss in seven years and the third biggest weekly loss ever.
The Nasdaq composite (COMP) lost 1.5% Friday and 10.8% for the week. The 10.8% decline was the worst in seven years and fifth worst ever. But the weekly point drop of 236 points fell outside the ten worst in history. Read the rest of this entry »
I’ve reposted a nice article which highlights the class dynamics at the heart of the current financial meltdown and potential bailout. It gives a very simple and straightforward summary from a revolutionary point of view, so I’m reposting it.
This is by no means a complete analysis however – for example it overlooks the critical role of oil, which is the lifeblood of the US capitalist economy and motivates many of its military aggression around the world. Specifically, there is a need to understand how the peak in global oil production has affected and continues to undermine the US-led industrial capitalist system, particularly in regards to the bursting of the housing bubble in the first place, along with the rising gas prices, food prices, heating costs, and subsequent inflation of the failing dollar.
Because oil production will never recover to its 2005/6 level, but will continue to decrease more rapidly, there can be no long-term recovery of the global financial markets, and for that reason I disagree with the declaration here that “Capitalism will not collapse…” On the contrary, it WILL collapse, because any system that structurally depends upon constant growth and speculation-upon-that-growth cannot coexist forever on a finite planet where necessary and crucial resources are in permanent and deepening shortage.
The current economic crisis is often compared to other historical crises of capitalism, where after appearing on the verge of death, the system restored itself and came back stronger than ever. Thus we are warned that capitalism is a self-destructive beast, but not a suicidal one. On its face this is solid logic but it overlooks the specific nature of the current crisis and its roots in the global peak oil phenomenon. It is my contention and the purpose of this website to demonstrate that the oil crisis is sucking global industrial capitalism dry like the vampire it is, and that there is no combination of “alternative” energy sources – whether coal, gas, nuclear, ethanol, wind, solar, whatever – that can do for this system what oil does.
Oil is not only the largest energy source, it also provides the material for 99% of pesticides (along with the entire industrial agriculture system), all plastics, almost all pharmaceutical drugs and chemicals, and a massive array of other products and components that keep the industrial economy chugging along. But the real killer is that oil literally fuels almost all transportation of materials and people for this system, including 95% of transportation in the US itself, as well as essentially ALL global air and sea transport. There is simply no way to keep this monster running without more and more petroleum.
Now, just because we’re confident that capitalism won’t recover from the current death-blows doesn’t mean a more vicious and destructive system won’t replace it, which is why this article’s conclusions are relevant and necessary. If we’re headed in the US towards fascism – which is where the rich and their Washington cronies seem to want to take us to protect their wealth and power – the only solution, which will become more and more apparent daily, is to organize a massive resistance here in the US that can stop the vampires and build towards a society based on freedom, justice and democracy.
[alex]
SOME TALKING POINTS ON THE FINANCIAL CRISIS
By Kate Griffiths and Isaac Silver
1. The era of the United States as a “the world’s only superpower” is ending.
The United States economy has not been this bad since the Great Depression. The rulers of the US hoped to retain global power militarily, through the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as the country’s raw economic superiority slipped. But these wars cannot be won: opposition among the occupied populations, and growing dissent within the military, prevent any victory on US terms even as the death toll climbs.
2. Beginning during the 1970s, manufacturing stalled, while government and investors focused on the financial sector: banks, real estate, and insurance.
Increasing competition, strong unions, and victories of the Black freedom movement had begun to limit the profits made by US corporations and threaten the power of the ruling class. In response, employers shifted good-paying manufacturing jobs overseas and to nonunionized areas of the USA. As wages stagnated, and workers’ purchasing power declined, workers maintained a precarious hold on our livelihood through working longer hours, sending more household members to work, and buying extensively on credit. The globalization of US capitalism and growth of credit both fueled the financial sector, which provided fluid economic resources that could be quickly moved and re-invested – unlike a physical investment such as a factory or railroad.
3. In 2008, years of government policies favoring the rich provoked instability and sparked collapse of major Wall Street institutions.
As the cost of the basic necessities went up, and wages failed to cover them Read the rest of this entry »
Today the U.S. House of Representatives voted DOWN Bush’s $700 billion Bailout for Wall St. by 205-228. Surprisingly, the bill was killed by Congressional Republicans, 2/3 of whom voted AGAINST the bailout, while a majority of Democrats supported it. Public outrage of Wall Street’s massive robbery attempt must be running so high that constituents in those red states are rediscovering their Populist roots. This is a major victory for the grassroots. Over the past week there have been many hundreds of protests around the country against the bailout.
Meanwhile, this news helped trigger the Dow Jones’ largest plummet in history, as the industrial markets fell by almost 780 points. The Nasdaq also fell by over 9%.
All of this was preceded by the news that Wachovia stocks had fallen by 80% and the giant bank would be bought out by Citigroup, as the financial industry moved one big step closer towards private monopoly.
Under the shadow of the bailout, a similarly-sized and similarly-horrible bill was passed last week in the US Senate by a vote of 78-12, after passing the House by 370-58. This was a $634 billion spending bill that included such utter garbage as eliminating the 26-year offshore drilling ban, more money for the perennial energy-waster of shale oil in the West, a very regressive $25 billion bailout for the auto industry, and the largest-ever Pentagon budget of half a trillion dollars.
This is just the latest in a series of events that seem to indicate a move towards fascism in the US by financial and political elites. Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, founder of the fascist model, famously declared that “Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power.” Following in his footsteps, the fascists of today apparently aim to handover complete control of the government to private corporations and financial interests, by cracking down on dissent and civil liberties, cutting all social programs, stirring up racism to divide the public, and putting the country on a permanent war footing. This will all be much easier to accomplish once the banking industry has been allowed to pillage the US Treasury and put the entire country in debt to Wall St.
Today’s victory over the bailout plan will not be permanent if Bush and the Democratic Leadership have the last word. Also, it should be clear that both McCain and Obama are firmly in support of giving this humongous sum of taxpayer dollars over to the world’s largest and richest companies, all rhetoric of “protecting Main St.” aside.
Their real opposition as always will be ‘we, the people’, who are fed up with Washington’s crooked deals with Wall St. As we did this past week, we must continue to send in thousands upon thousands of letters and emails and phone calls, and organize hundreds of protests until this absurd bailout plan is dropped or completely transformed into a bailout for those losing homes, health care, access to education, and jobs, the real victims of the economic downturn.
Our hope is that despite those at the top seeking to entrench their power, the failure of the capitalist system will open up a window of opportunity for all those of us who believe in justice, freedom and democracy to create a new world. Today, we say “Enough!”
See this website to find the nearest Emergency Rally, or organize one yourself!
Originally an email by Arun Gupta of The Indypendent, September 22, 2008.
Forward widely….
Everyone,
This week the White House is going to try to push through the biggest robbery in world history with nary a stitch of debate to bail out the Wall Street bastards who created this economic apocalypse in the first place.
This is the financial equivalent of September 11. They think, just like with the Patriot Act, they can use the shock to force through the “therapy,” and we’ll just roll over!
Think about it: They said providing healthcare for 9 million children, perhaps costing $6 billion a year, was too expensive, but there’s evidently no sum of money large enough that will sate the Wall Street pigs. If this passes, forget about any money for environmental protection, to counter global warming, for education, for national healthcare, to rebuild our decaying infrastructure, for alternative energy.
This is a historic moment. We need to act now while we can influence the debate. Let’s demonstrate this Thursday at 4pm in Wall Street (see below).
We know the congressional Democrats will peep meekly before caving in like they have on everything else, from FISA to the Iraq War.
With Bear Stearns, Fannie and Freddie, AIG, the money markets and now this omnibus bailout, well in excess of $1 trillion will be distributed from the poor, workers and middle class to the scum floating on top.
This whole mess gives lie to the free market. The Feds are propping up stock prices, directing buyouts, subsidizing crooks and swindlers who already made a killing off the mortgage bubble.
Worst of all, even before any details have been hashed out, The New York Times admits that “Wall Street began looking for ways to profit from it,” and its chief financial correspondent writes that the Bush administration wants “Congress to give them a blank check to do whatever they want, whatever the cost, with no one able to watch them closely.”
It’s socialism for the rich and dog-eat-dog capitalism for the rest of us.
Let’s take it to the heart of the financial district! Gather at 4pm, this Thursday, Sept. 25 in the plaza at the southern end of Bowling Green Park, which is the small triangular park that has the Wall Street bull at the northern tip.
By having it later in the day we can show these thieves, as they leave work, we’re not their suckers. Plus, anyone who can’t get off work can still join us downtown as soon as they are able.
There is no agenda, no leaders, no organizing group, nothing to endorse other than we’re not going to pay! Let the bondholders pay, let the banks pay, let those who brought the “toxic” mortgage-backed securities pay!
On this list are many key organizers and activists. We have a huge amount of connections – we all know many other organizations, activists and community groups. We know P.R. folk who can quickly write up and distribute press releases, those who can contact legal observers, media activists who can spread the word, the videographers who can film the event, etc.
Do whatever you can – make and distribute your own flyers, contact all your groups and friends. This crime is without precedence and we can’t be silent! What’s the point of waiting for someone else to organize a protest two months from now, long after the crime has been perpetrated?
We have everything we need to create a large, peaceful, loud demonstration. Millions of others must feel the same way; they just don’t know what to do. Let’s take the lead and make this the start!
AGAIN:
When: 4pm – ? Thursday, September 25.
Where: Southern end of Bowling Green Park, in the plaza area
What to bring: Banners, noisemakers, signs, leaflets, etc.
Why: To say we won’t pay for the Wall Street bailout
Who: Everyone!
Just in time for the collapse of the capitalist economy, the folks in charge are gearing up for fascism. More comprehensive post coming soon, but this stuff is scary [alex]
Originally published by Democracy Now!
Beginning in October, the Army plans to station an active unit inside the United States for the first time to serve as an on-call federal response in times of emergency. The 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team has spent thirty-five of the last sixty months in Iraq, but now the unit is training for domestic operations. The unit will soon be under the day-to-day control of US Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command. The Army Times reports this new mission marks the first time an active unit has been given a dedicated assignment to Northern Command. The paper says the Army unit may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control. The soldiers are learning to use so-called nonlethal weapons designed to subdue unruly or dangerous individuals and crowds.
The End of Capitalism 
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