Neo-liberal
capitalism has transformed the social democratic capitalism that followed the
Second World War into a more oppressive and destructive form with greater
accumulation of minority wealth and majority poverty than the world has ever
seen. The present stage in the usual boom-bust cycle of market forces under
private profit rule now multiplied by a still unperceived factor, seems nearer
total failure and more frightening than ever. This is leading to incredibly
reactionary programs to assure minority rule while at the same time unleashing
revolutionary possibilities for the global majority which threaten minority
power as never before.
In
America, fading from dominance as the center of the global system but still frighteningly
powerful militarily and thus a menace to all humanity, voices are raised in
opposition to that power, but so far successfully divided into minorities of relatively
less social impact which only rewards segments of the population to keep in
power the smallest minority with the greatest state control: the wealthiest 1%
who own and operate what passes for a democracy but is no more so than the one
which elected Hitler and the Nazis in Germany in the last century.
And that doctored historic memory of political
fascism is constantly used to keep current populations in line, warning them against
suffering the horrors of pre-second world war capitalism, rather than becoming
aware of that system’s present horrors kept nearly secret by consciousness
control and mind management techniques to maintain the prevailing disorder of our
social life in maintenance of the dominating order of their private profits.
Capitalism
ruled Germany before and after Hitler and still rules up to the present moment,
as it does in the USA and most of the global community. Food, clothing,
shelter, war, peace, health, illness, pets, tattoos and everything else are for
sale at the market and available to any who can afford the price, and to none
who cannot. If there is a private profit to be made, the product will be available.
If only the public good will be served, forget about it. That is why we spend
more than 700 billion a year on war and more than seventy billion on pets while
hundreds of thousands live in the street and medical workers and the entire health
care community are criminally over-worked and suffering breakdowns leading to
death by disease and suicide during the present capitalist pandemic.
Germany in
the 1930s, like the United States, was in the grips of an economy near collapse
and moved to total ruling class domination without pretense of democratic
values by putting the commanding heights of that economy under control of the
state. That state, always an arm of ruling power, was a force to keep the peace
among the rich and poor by having elections to maintain wealth and poverty in
as polite terms as possible, even creating the world’s first national health
care system long before the collapse.
The USA
was also in economic chaos with as much as 25% unemployment and communist and socialist
parties demanding real democracy, which would have meant radical transformation
of the economic system.
While more
overtly oppressive fascist capitalism took power in Germany, the social
democratic form prevailed in the USA, as cooler ruling class heads saw that the
market left alone, under religious belief that freedom would flower under the
idiotic doctrine that buying cheap and selling dear was the word of god, was a
bit more dangerous than minority wealth could rely on. It could lead to social
revolution.
The capitalist
war saw the USA triumph and after millions of deaths and incredible destruction
the social democratic model took hold in the western world and market interference
was allowed to the extent that dreadful poverty would not be visible to most of
the population and confined to relatively invisible-by-design communities in
national and foreign ghettos.
For some
fifty years now that phase has been under assault by a return to free market
fanaticism as an answer to the only slightly higher taxes and lower profits of
the social democratic form, with practitioners of both schools preventing the
people from seeing that it is the system itself and not the way it is arranged
that guarantees failure for most at tremendous benefit to only some.
The 21st
century has seen the enormous inequality
of previous periods expand to proportions that only those confined to a mental
concentration camp could see as a system of democracy and equality, though
idealized as such by majorities reduced to accepting the purchase of elections by
a wealthy minority under the guise of choice for the working majority. In the
past, thousands of multi-millionaires were somehow rationalized as healthy
aspects of capitalism since they would invest in businesses and thereby create
jobs and prosperity for the toiling masses and their professionally trained
upper classes.
At present, there are some 700 earthly creatures called
billionaires, having amassed such incredible wealth and power over perverse
democracies that past tyrants seen as deities by their subjects might in
present terms amount to no more than what were once called rich peasants. These
incredibly wealthy individuals shame the very notion of democracy and are
treated as more royal than past deities in hopes that they will invest in “my”
identity group’s security and that will somehow represent success for the
millions left out of “my” group. Viva capitalist democracy.
At a time
when the most incredibly massive state and personal debt ever accumulated have
the system tilting precariously on a mountain of symbolic finance with roots in
a foundation of substantial fiction, a capitalist pandemic has both aggravated
the situation further while also making radical change necessary not just to
overcome the pandemic but ultimately capitalism itself. So, the people are
bombarded anew into fear of political fascism bringing on further deprivation
leading many to be swept up in fake-left and phony-right political excuses for
the preservation of the moral toilet of an economic system which must be
changed for humanity, which is composed of far more earthly beings than our
relatively tiny American numbers.
There are
more than 7.5 billion humans on earth and the shockingly anti-democratic inequality
in America is far more horrifying on a global scale, but the American numbers
are bad enough to provoke social revolution once the public finds out, which
will never be the case as long as bi-partisan capital owns and operates both
major political parties.
The class
differences which have existed since organized states began have taken on far
more malevolence and created greater threats to the future of humanity under
the rules of market capitalism which have rewarded many while destroying far
more. The seemingly good life enjoyed by some under alleged democracy are
really no different than they were under slavery, when many lived in a degree
of comfort even though not owning slaves, just as a shrinking middle class now
survives without owning any capital, let alone exercising any control over it. And
rest assured that being privileged enough to own some stock in a major
corporation will not mean the 1% will be phoning you asking your advice before hiring
cheaper immigrant labor or laying off more expensive American workers in
pursuit of still greater private profits.
The next
American election will offer the usual lesser evil choice to be accepted by a
minority of the electorate in a supposed exercise of democracy that would make
sense only in a world where pimping meant true love and starvation meant being
on a diet, the organizing and action that must take place to end the virus of
con-19 and its parent capitalism will need to take on greater efforts than ever
to avoid potential disaster not only for America but humanity itself.
Democracy,
in material reality and not continued rape of language, is more necessary than
ever, to bring about another world and not just a different America. We will all
need to think globally while acting locally, and then not just politically but
economically before that, lest our politics continually reinforce rather than
transform social reality. And the lives of the American and global majority
matter more than ever but will amount to less than nothing if we only think of
ourselves as nationals or different-than-human members of subjugated groups,
and not our class of humanity which is now, as always, the overwhelming
majority of working people on the planet.
Thanks for thhe post
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