From Revolution to Devolution

Aaron responded to yesterday’s post about his post. My response is under the comments of the first link.

Talk about revolution

I was just reading This article about foreclosure ghost towns (via Consumerist). Essentially the gist is that this family lives in a ghost town where a large number of houses lay repossessed and vacant. They haven’t been paying their mortgage for several months because they can’t afford it and the bank is going through too many repossessions, too many to even go after them. So the Sinclair family lives in their house for free (for the time being…?).

Aaron had blogged earlier about the timing of the revolution from an organizers’ prospective. I agree that a revolution is a process, but I also don’t think you can see it until you’re well within it. With that in mind I don’t think it is possible for us to claim we’re going to start a revolution.

“the Revolution” (note the big “R”) will come when the objective conditions are right. The conditions being our (as in Americans) unquestionable financial collapse. I always used to bet people the Revolution would take place by 2015 (a ten year bet I started in 2005), and I don’t think that I’m going to be all that far off. I’m not going to list all of the incredulous things going on economically (like how our service sector is finally starting to get hit as the other dominoes tumble), or even how this crisis is almost a mirror of the 1920’s depression.

So if the start is going to be external, why bother? This is a philosophical question that has plagued lazy marxists and general defeatests for generations. Because! The organizing we (by we I mean people who actually do organizing, not me) do now sets us for the time John Q public has lost that last shred of the logogramic programing (our societal programing to obey authority and to do as we’re told). It helps us build a kernel of the new world within the embryo of the dying one.

marxist.com

In a recent article in The Observer (June 8, 2006), Paul Harris had this to say:

“Over the past few decades there has been a fundamental shift in the structure of the American economy. The gap between rich and poor has widened and widened. As it does so, the ability to cross that gap gets smaller and smaller. This is far from business as usual but there seems little chance of it stopping, not least because it appears to be government policy.

“Over the past 25 years the median US family income has gone up 18 per cent. For the top one per cent, however, it has gone up 200 per cent. A quarter of a century ago the top fifth of Americans had an average income 6.7 times that of the bottom fifth. Now it is 9.8 times.

“Inequalities have grown worse in different regions. In California, home to both Beverly Hills and the gang-ridden slums of Compton, incomes for lower class families have fallen by four per cent since 1969. For upper class families they have risen 41 per cent.”

This growing gap between rich and poor is confirmed by the staunchest defenders of the capitalist system themselves, The Economist:

“Thanks to a jump in productivity growth after 1995, America’s economy has outpaced other rich countries’ for a decade. Its workers now produce over 30% more each hour they work than ten years ago. In the late 1990s everybody shared in this boom. Though incomes were rising fastest at the top, all workers’ wages far outpaced inflation.

“But after 2000 something changed. The pace of productivity growth has been rising again, but now it seems to be lifting fewer boats. After you adjust for inflation, the wages of the typical American worker – the one at the very middle of the income distribution – have risen less than 1% since 2000. In the previous five years, they rose over 6%. If you take into account the value of employee benefits, such as health care, the contrast is a little less stark. But, whatever the measure, it seems clear that only the most skilled workers have seen their pay packets swell much in the current economic expansion. The fruits of productivity gains have been skewed towards the highest earners, and towards companies, whose profits have reached record levels as a share of GDP.” (Inequality in America. The rich, the poor and the growing gap between them, June 15, 2006)

And it concludes with this frank statement:

“All in all, America’s income distribution is likely to continue the trends of the recent past. While those at the top will go on drawing huge salaries, those in the broad middle of the middle class will see their incomes churned.”

Delphi, more of my fame

I was reading this amazing article at marxist.com, then I realized that I wrote it.

To see the marxist.com article I wrote, go here:

http://www.marxist.com/usa-squeeze-delphi291105.htm

POKER

El Cheap-o Poker Tournament at Joe M.’s (t00ls0b3r) tonight.
$5 dollars to get in
NO BUYING “BACK” IN.
10 PM

Call my phone or leave me message or leave a post here if you’re showing up.

Noteworthy News:
General Strike Begins in British Columbia
http://www.marxist.com/general-strike-begins-bc171005.htm

In a matter of days, all of the contradictions that have been building
over the last four years in British Columbia have come to the fore. Gordon
Campbell’s mis-named Liberals have spent their time in power attacking the
working class. This has been met with several waves of unrest. Now this
battle is reaching new heights. The province stands on the brink of an
all-out general strike.

How’d I miss this one?

This is one of the best articles on art I’ve read in a while. One of the few Alan Woods articles where he starts talking about one thing (Breton) then goes off on a tangent (to surrealism, then to marxism/art).

Surrealism expresses a contradictory (illogical) view of reality. It seeks to express the element of violence and savagery that lurks underneath the thin veneer of bourgeois civilization. The polite manners and “good taste” of bourgeois society is really just a façade that conceals the most terrible suffering, exploitation and repression. Surrealism tears aside the veil of polite hypocrisy and reveals the ugly and repulsive reality that lies behind it.

Paradoxically, the man whose name is most frequently associated with this revolutionary school, Salvador Dali, was a servile defender of the status quo, politically right wing, an admirer of Hitler and Franco, a monarchist and a lackey of the wealthy establishment. Luis Bunuel, by contrast, was a genuine revolutionary. He was sacked for making an atheist film, from which Dali typically disassociated himself, for which Bunuel rewarded him with his fists.

The rest of the article:
http://www.marxist.com/death-andre-breton-revolutionary290905.htm

A city underwater

http://media.putfile.com/OlbermannSwings

From imbrium

Birth Control Control, Looters steal bread, One Million “counter-productive” dollars

http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,68726,00.html

“I have spent the last 15 years working to ensure that science informs good health-policy decisions,” Wood, director of FDA’s Office of Women’s Health, wrote in an e-mail about her departure to agency colleagues. “I can no longer serve as staff when scientific and clinical evidence, fully evaluated and recommended by the professional staff here, has been overruled.”

It was an unprecedented public show of discord for the FDA, and prompted lawmakers to call for congressional hearings into whether the nation’s leading public health agency allowed politics to trump science in determining the fate of the morning-after pill called Plan B.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4207202.stm

Troops have been given a shoot-to-kill policy to quell lawlessness in New Orleans, where desperation is growing.

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By the way, in regards to the last story. If you need to “STEAL” to survive the aftermath of a hurricane. Feed your family, get fresh water and the like, THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT WOULD RATHER PUT A BULLET IN YOUR HEAD THAN ALLOW PROPERTY RELATIONS TO BE ALTERED, even for a moment. PROPERTY BEFORE PEOPLE, you understand.

Also, Hugo Chavez, Venezuela’s democratically elected popular president offered to donate $1 million dollars (U.S.) to help Hurricane Katrina victims. THE STATE DEPARTMENT TOLD HIM “UNSOLICITED” DONATIONS ARE COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE. Why? Because when the U.S. government lead a coup against Chavez, it really pissed them off when millions of Venezuellans overthrew their phoney government and demanded the person they elected back in office.

You may remember Chavez from last weeks news when Pat Robertson said someone should pop a cap in Chavez’s head. Chavez calling Bush the “Vacation President” isn’t going to help him live longer, but damn is he accurate. There was a much more scathing review, but I couldn’t find it. Here’s the closest I could find:

http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=45767

It is incredible, (Hugo) Chavez Frias says, that the world’s greatest power with its planes, helicopters, scientific advances did not have any evacuation plan.

Pushing the knife in a bit deeper, the Venezuelan President urges the USA to copy Cuba that has developed the capacity to move 2 million people in the event of any meteorological event.

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UPDATE: After writing that whole post, John Peterson said it in a far more succinct way: http://www.marxist.com/new-orleans-disaster-capitalism020905.htm

Hugo Chavez offers to help U.S.’s poor!

www.venezuelanalysis.com/news.php?newsno=1738

More details provided on Chavez’s offer to help U.S. poor

Venezuela’s CITGO to Provide Cheap Gas for U.S. Hospitals, Nursing Homes and Schools
Monday, Aug 29, 2005
By: Cleto Sojo – VenezuelAnalysis.com

Caracas, Venezuela. August 28, 2005 (VenezuelAnalysis.com).

- Rafael Ramirez, president of Venezuela’s oil company PDVSA, offered some details of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s offer to provide cheaper gasoline and heating oil to U.S. poor communities.

Speaking shortly after a press conference held by President Chavez and U.S. Reverend Jesse Jackson, Ramirez said that CITGO Petroleum Corp., the wholly owned subsidiary of PDVSA, is currently refining up to 664.000 barrels of oil through the refineries it owns and operates in the United States.
Venezuela is the world’s fifth largest oil exporter and the fourth largest supplier of oil to the United States. Venezuelan oil accounted for 12% of U.S. oil imports.

Ramirez said that under the Venezuelan government plan, CITGO will set aside up to 10% of its refined oil products to be sold directly to organized poor communities, and institutions in the U.S. without intermediaries.
The plan calls for the sale of heating oil and gasoline to hospitals, nursing homes, schools and organized poor communities in U.S. soil, according to Ramirez.

Other Venezuelan government officials, who asked not to be named, said that Venezuela will not lose any money with this program because the idea is to “cut the middle-man”, the intermediaries.

Ramirez said the beneficiaries will see a price reduction of about 30%.
Ramirez, who is also Venezuela’s Minister of Oil and Energy, denied that Reverend Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow/PUSH Coalition would be the recipient of the cheaper oil.

The Minister said Reverend Jackson’s organization could helpVenezuela identify those who are in need, but that they will not be the recipients of the products.

Ramirez was confident the program will be implemented before the U.S. winter begins.
CITGO Petroleum Corp. owns and operates eight refineries in the United States.

It is unclear how the CITGO gas will reach the consumers, as CITGO does not own any of the 14.000 CITGO-branded gas stations operating in U.S. territory through franchising.

“Impact on seven to eight million persons”
“There is a lot of poverty in the U.S. and I don’t believe that reflects the American Way of Life. Many people die of cold in the winter. Many die of heat in the summer,” said Chavez on Sunday during his weekly TV show, explaining why Venezuela was interested in providing discounted heating oil to the U.S. poor.

“We could have an impact on seven to eight million persons,” Chavez added.
Venezuela’s ambassador to the U.S. Bernardo Alvarez, had told Chavez that the embassy in Washington DC has already received over 140 requests about the plan, even though it has not been formally announced yet.
Venezuela also plans to provide free surgery for certain eye conditions for U.S. poor.

US Troop Deaths in Iraq to be Condemned at World Youth Festival

US Troop Deaths in Iraq to be Condemned at World Youth Festival

Caracas, Aug 12 (Prensa Latina) Fernando Suarez del Solar, father of US soldier Jesus Alberto Suarez del Solar, will accuse the US administration of the death of his son in Iraq at the Anti-imperialist Tribunal of the 16th World Festival of Youth and Students in Caracas.

Suarez del Solar told Prensa Latina that the US governmental system was based on the use and abuse of Latin and African youth, and the poor.

“None of the children of members of the George W Bush administration has joined that war,” asserted Solar.

He said neither US political officials nor army officers visited his family after he was informed of his son´s death on March 27, 2003, and army authorities frequently lied to young immigrants to get them to join the armed forces.

“My son was proud when he was drafted in 2001 but following the training, he told me, dad, I was wrong, I was discriminated against, humiliated and abused for being Mexican by birth,” he said.

The case of Jesus Alberto, who was the father of an eight-month baby, will be among those delegates will condemn at the two-day Anti-imperialist Tribunal opening at the Caracas Polyhedron on Saturday.

Venezuelan-US Attorney Eva Goolinger will chair the tribunal divided in four topics: economic blockades, sanctions and embargos; deterioration of the environment; wars, aggressions and occupations; and exploitation as the main cause of world poverty.