Tuesday, January 24, 2017

The collapse of the Left, finally

George Orwell would be proud to see what is happening now.

From http://www.oftwominds.com/blogjan17/collapse-Left1-17.html

Also see http://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2017/01/the-protected-privileged-establishment.html

The Collapse of the Left

January 23, 2017
The Left is not just in disarray--it is in complete collapse because the working class has awakened to the Left's betrayal and abandonment of the working class in favor of building personal wealth and power.
The source of the angry angst rippling through the Democratic Party's progressive camp is not President Trump--it's the complete collapse of the Left globally. To understand this collapse, we turn (once again) to Marx's profound understanding of the state and capitalism.
We turn not to the cultural Marxism that is passingly familiar to Americans, but to Marx's core economic analysis, which as Sartre noted, is only taught to discredit it.
Cultural Marxism draws as much from Engels as Marx. In today's use, cultural Marxism describes the overt erosion of traditional values--the family, community, religious faith, property rights and limited central government--in favor of rootless Cosmopolitanism and an expansive, all-powerful central state that replaces community, faith and property rights with statist control mechanisms that enforce dependence on the state and a mindset that the individual is guilty of anti-state thinking until proven innocent by the state's own rules.
Marx's critique of capitalism is economic: capital and labor are in eternal conflict. In Marx's analysis, capital has the upper hand until the internal contradictions of capitalism consume capital's control from the inside.
Capital not only dominates labor, it also dominates the state. Thus the state-cartel version of capitalism that is dominant globally is not a coincidence or an outlier--it is the the only possible outcome of a system in which capital is the dominant force.
To counter this dominance of capital, social democratic political movementsarose to  wrest some measure of control out of the hands of capital in favor of labor. Social democratic movements were greatly aided by the near-collapse of the first version of cartel-capitalism in The Great Depression, when writing down the bad debt would have brought down the entire banking system and crippled capitalism's core function of growing capital via expansion of debt.
The decimated owners of capital realized that they faced a bleak choice: either resist and be toppled by anarchism or Communism, or cede some of their wealth and power to the social democratic parties in exchange for social, political and economic stability.
Broadly speaking, the Left favored labor (whose rights were protected by the state) and the Right favored capital (also protected by the state).
But over the past 25 years of globalized neoliberalism, social democratic movements have abandoned labor to embrace the self-serving wealth and power offered by capital. The essence of globalization is: labor is commoditized as mobile capital is free to roam the globe for the lowest cost labor. In contrast, labor is far less mobile, and unable to shift as fluidly and frictionlessly as capital to exploit scarcities and opportunities.
Neoliberalism--the opening of markets and borders--enables capital to effortlessly crush labor. The social democrats, in embracing open borders, have institutionalized an open immigration that shreds the scarcity value of domestic labor in favor of lower cost immigrant labor that serves capital's desire for lower costs.
Globalization and neoliberal financial / immigration policies signify the collapse of the Left and the victory of capital. Now capital completely dominates the state and its cronyist structures--political parties, lobbying, campaign contributions, charitable foundations operating as pay-for-play cash vacuums, and all the other features of cartel-state capitalism.
To mask the collapse of the Left's economic defense of labor, the Left's apologists and PR machine have substituted social justice movements for economic opportunities to acquire economic security and capital. This has succeeded brilliantly, as tens of millions of self-described "progressives" completely bought the left's Great Con that "social justice" campaigns on behalf of marginalized social groups were the defining feature of Progressive Social Democratic movements.
This diversionary sleight-of-hand embrace of economically neutered "social justice" campaigns masked the fact that social democratic parties everywhere have thrown labor into the churning propellers of globalization, open immigration and neoliberal financial policies--all of which benefit mobile capital, which has engorged itself on the abandonment of labor by the Left.
Meanwhile, the fat-cats of the Left have engorged themselves on capital's largesse in exchange for their treachery. Bill and Hillary Clinton's $200 million in "earnings" come to mind, as do countless other examples of personal aggrandizement by self-proclaimed "defenders" of labor.
Please examine this chart, which depicts labor's share of GDP (economic output), and tell me the Left hasn't abandoned labor in favor of personal wealth and power.


The Left is not just in disarray--it is in complete collapse because the working class has awakened to the Left's betrayal and abandonment of the working class in favor of building personal wealth and power. Anyone who denies this is still in the fatal grip of the Left's Great Con.

Friday, January 20, 2017

President Trump vs. the establishment


President Trump’s brief inaugural speech was a declaration of war against the entirety of the American Ruling Establishment. All of it.

As Paul Craig Roberts details, Trump made it abundantly clear that Americans’ enemies are right here at home: globalists, neoliberal economists, neoconservatives and other unilateralists accustomed to imposing the US on the world and involving us in endless and expensive wars, politicians who serve the Ruling Establishment rather than the American people, indeed, the entire canopy of private interests that have run America into the ground while getting rich in the process.

If truth can be said, President Trump has declared a war far more dangerous to himself than if he had declared war against Russia or China.

The interest groups designated by Trump as The Enemy are well entrenched and accustomed to being in charge. Their powerful networks are still in place. Although there are Republican majorities in the House and Senate, most of those in Congress are answerable to the ruling interest groups that provide their campaign funds and not to the American people or to the President. The military/security complex, offshoring corporations, Wall Street and the banks are not going to roll over for Trump. And neither is the presstitute media, which is owned by the interest groups whose power Trump challenges.

Trump made it clear that he stands for every American, black, brown, and white. Little doubt his declaration of inclusiveness will be ignored by the haters on the left who will continue to call him a racist just as the $50 per hour paid protesters are doing as I write.

Indeed, black leadership, for example, is enculturated into the victimization role from which it would be hard for them to escape. How do you pull together people who all their lives have been taught that whites are racists and that they are the victims of racists?

Can it be done? I was just on a program briefly with Press TV in which we were supposed to provide analysis of Trump’s inaugural speech. The other commentator was a black American in Washington, DC. Trump’s inclusiveness speech made no impression on him, and the show host was only interested in showing the hired protesters as a way of discrediting America. So many people have an economic interest in speaking in behalf of victims that inclusiveness puts them out of jobs and causes.

So along with the globalists, the CIA, the offshoring corporations, the armaments industries, the NATO establishment in Europe, and foreign politicians accustomed to being well paid for supporting Washington’s interventionist foreign policy, Trump will have arrayed against him the leaders of the victimized peoples, the blacks, the hispanics, the feminists, the illegals, the homosexuals and transgendered. This long list, of course, includes the white liberals as well, as they are convinced that flyover America is the habitat of white racists, misogynists, homophobes, and gun nuts. As far as they are concerned, this 84% of geographical US should be quarantined or interred.

In other words, does enough good will remain in the population to enable a President to unite the 16% America haters with the 84% America lovers?

Consider the forces that Trump has against him:

Black and hispanic leaders need victimization, because it is what elevates them to power and income. They will turn a jaundiced eye toward Trump’s inclusiveness. Inclusiveness is good for blacks and hispanics, but not for their leaders.
The executives and shareholders of global corporations are enriched by the offshored jobs that Trump says he will bring home. If the jobs come home, their profits, performance bonuses, and capital gains will go away. But the economic security of the American population will return.
The military/security complex has a 1,000 billion annual budget dependent on “the Russian threat” that Trump says he is going to replace with normalized relations. Trump’s assassination cannot be ruled out.
Many Europeans owe their prestige, power, and incomes to the NATO that Trump has called into question.
The financial sector’s profits almost entirely flow from putting Americans into debt bondage and from looting their private and public pensions. The financial sector with their agent, the Federal Reserve, can overwhelm Trump with financial crisis. The New York Federal Reserve Bank has a complete trading desk. It can send any market into turmoil. Or support any market, because there is no limit on its ability to create US dollars.
The entire political ediface in the US has insulated itself from the will, desires, and needs of the people. Now Trump says the politicians will be accountable to the people. This, of course, would mean a big drop in their security in office and in their income and wealth.
There are a large number of groups, funded by we-know-not-who. For example, RootsAction has responded today to Trump’s forceful commitment to stand for all of the people against the Ruling Establishment with a request to “ask Congress to direct the House Judiciary Committee to open an impeachment investigation” and to send money for Trump’s impeachment.
Another hate group, human rights first, attacks Trump’s defense of our borders as closing “a refuge of hope for those fleeing persecution.” Think about this for a minute. According to the liberal-progressive-left and the racial interest group organizations, the US is a racist society and President Trump is a racist. Yet, people subject to American racism are fleeing from persecution to America where they will be racially persecuted? It doesn’t make sense. The illegals come here for work. Ask the construction companies. Ask the chicken and animal slaughter houses. Ask the vacation area cleaning services.
This list of those on whom Trump has declared war is long enough, although there are more that can be added.

We should ask ourselves why a 70 year old billionaire with flourishing businesses, a beautiful wife, and intelligent children is willing to give his final years to the extraordinary stress of being President with the stressful agenda of putting the government back in the hands of the American people. There is no doubt that Trump has made himself a target of assassination. The CIA is not going to give up and go away. Why would a person take on the grand restoration of America that Trump has declared when he could instead spend his remaining years enjoying himself immensely?

Whatever the reason, we should be grateful for it, and if he is sincere we must support him. If he is assassinated, we need to take up our weapons, burn Langley to the ground and kill every one of them.

If he succeeds, he deserves the designation: Trump the Great!

Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, and any other country on the CIA’s hit list should undersand that Trump’s rise is insufficient protection. The CIA is a worldwide organization. Its profitable businesses provide income independent of the US budget. The organization is capable of undertaking operations independently of the President or even of its own Director.

The CIA has had about 70 years to entrench itself. It has not gone away.

But, as Jeremiah Johnson explains (via SHTFPlan.com), it will take a complete sea change to rectify the course this country has been heading in the past eight years.  These are some of the problems that Trump will need to reverse when he becomes President Trump, many of which he promised to either change or end completely:

The (Un)Affordable Health Care Act, now law, termed “Obamacare” that is the most heinous piece of legislation…a law that mandates a requirement for a citizen to have health care coverage as dictated by government requirements.

“Differentially permeable” borders: where foreigners, such as Mexicans and Canadians can come and go as they please, and illegal aliens have free access…but Americans are confined until a full cavity search is conducted.

An economy based not on true GNP, but on consumer spending (almost 80%); convincing one company not to pick up and relocate overseas is an illustration of the concept, and not the implementation…not yet.

A reversal of the true unemployment rate, that hovers between 15 and 20%, depending on what paid “parrot” (such as Labor and Statistics) announces the phony figure.

A reversal of the Entitlement Nation: the EBT and Food Stamp users, the unemployment collectors, the Social Security Disability recipients whose corpulence from overeating is termed a “disability,” the illegal aliens on the dole for all of the above, plus free healthcare, the almost 100 million no longer “in the work force.”

Knocking the knees off lobbyists, NGO’s, and NPO’s who have been holding administrations hostage (the 1st), or acting as if they were a government agency (the 2nd), or with executives profiting immensely while running on slave labor using socially misfortunate people and writing it all off (the 3rd).

Revitalizing a military whose Air Force is forced to scavenge parts from “the Boneyard,” and where levels of service members in terms of numbers and readiness have fallen to their lowest point since before WWII.

Resetting an abysmal foreign policy where (for the past eight years) we have instituted coup d’états, undermined relations that worked throughout the world, placed ourselves in position to start a new Cold War, and turned the Middle East and Eastern Europe completely upside down.

Revitalizing a crumbling infrastructure of roads, bridges, and buildings very dangerously in disrepair…where maintenance charges and fees continue to rise with very little return on taxpayer dollars and nothing changing on our highways, ports, and bridges.

Permitting (yes, permitting) and encouraging American businesses to be able to start up, operate, and produce in the United States without Soviet-style restrictions, regulations, and an army of bureaucratic “flying monkeys” inserting themselves into the business’s “fourth point of contact,” preventing U.S. businesses (especially the small proprietorships and Mom-and-Pop concerns) from either starting, or succeeding.

The Supreme Court: just look at them…and nothing else really needs to be said: Except that a branch of the U.S. government meant to be a “check and balance” does not need to circumvent the Constitution and be the sole arbiter and (in essence) a lawmaker to institute policy for a presidential administration.

Bring about a change in the hearts of the American people.

Perhaps the most important item in that list is the last one.

When Reagan took office, we (and he) faced double-digit unemployment, double digit inflation, and enormous taxation and loss of liberties.  We faced a crumbling infrastructure, a military that was in shambles (Desert One to free the Iranian hostages, conducted with helicopters in a sandstorm as Carter approached the midnight hour to lose the election should never be forgotten).  The Soviets were strong, and we were not…having recently ended the war in Vietnam.  We weren’t doing too well, in the world and in our own minds and hearts.

Then Reagan came, and he turned it around.  He was not perfect, but he made up for his imperfections by surrounding himself with an excellent staff.  He had a heart for the United States, and the fortitude to stand up for it.  His leadership staved off the fall of the U.S., and turned things around for us.  Do you remember that Lake Placid victory of the amateur U.S. hockey team in the semifinals against the professionals of the Soviet hockey team?  Remember the moment…a small thing, perhaps, and many may discount it as being “completely unimportant” or “unrelated to problems we now face.”

But that victory was neither one of those disparaging remarks.  It was something that we all could focus upon, to form some kind of cohesive unity and think of ourselves together as Americans…to take pride in accomplishment in something…for once, after four years of Carter.  There was a sea change made.  Did it last?  Perhaps it didn’t, and yet, if the memory of those years is still alive in even one person with the hopes of a repeat…then maybe others can feel the same.

This is still the best country in the world.  Trump’s campaign slogan was “Make America Great Again.”  Cliché, perhaps, but we must start somewhere.  Last time I checked, the preamble to the Constitution starts out with “We the people.”  Yes, we the people need to do the best we can with what we have, to be vigilant in our undertakings to prevent another eight years akin to the ones we are just emerging from, and to move forward and improve our lives.  Many will say that it doesn’t matter, and that there are forces that are out of our control that will prevent us as a nation from overcoming obstacles.

Such may be for a while, as it was under Obama.  Those times cannot last forever, and eventually the change has to occur.  We have perhaps a bigger job than those 12 items I listed for Trump to accomplish.

Number 12 is not all on him: it’s also on us.

In order for the country to succeed, the people have to return to core values of family, hard work, respect (for self and others), and faith, with one another and in God.  Trump can do a great deal, but in the end, it is we the people who will enable him to turn it around or not.  Change can’t be forced upon you by some jerk with a perfect smile who tells you that change is a movement “we can believe in,” and then assumes the role of a dictator and forces it on you.  Change is something that comes from within, precipitated by a feeling that is in one’s heart.  We have our chance to change it all, and let us wish success for this man who will become the president of the United States in a couple of days.  Let us hope that he has that feeling inside of himself and holds onto it…to unite the United States of America again.