Under the Economy is the Proletarian Body

The Corporeal Body

 
If you wondered about the contradiction between the needs of capital and the corporeal needs of human beings, the pandemic certainly shows it up.  The idea that selling (any)thing rules all – the ‘economy’ - is shot to hell.  The idea that we are not part of nature or animals is shot to hell.  Corporeal materialism is true.  Magic does not suffice.  The idea that things like nail-salons, sports events and religious services are ‘essential’ is over.  Prayer doesn’t prevent pandemics and of course it never did.  Even though right-wing armed European-Americans think they are somehow immune because of their skin color, they are not. Now we see that a capitalist economy that prioritizes commodification – exchange value over use value – is fragile and somewhat ridiculous.  Small businesses that are supposed to be the outlet for our dreams are revealed as rickety fronts.  Their debt rot is visible.  Even the over-profusion of restaurants says something corrupt and sad. Bankruptcy awaits them.

"16 Tons" - "Muscle and Blood, Skin and Bones" - All Good for Labor

Lurking under this, besides the vulnerability of our bodies to sickness and death, is hunger, another corporeal need.  Workers, mostly minorities, jammed together to process pigs are now sick, while migrant workers in the fields in California don’t even get protective gear.  The Bacon Eaters fear for their pork, but we should all fear for the food supply, as this basic fact of life has become estranged from the population.  Very few in the U.S. can grow their food anymore, unlike during the Depression, because corporate agriculture has moved so many proletarians off the farms and the land.  Growing corn for ethanol?  You can’t eat or drink that.

Let the old people, the poor, the African Americans and Latinos die say the hard-rightists, channeling libertarian capitalist logic.  We must give trillions to the banks, oil companies, airlines and cruise ships through the Federal Reserve and the Treasury.  We must save the bogus GDP.  Forget paying workers 80% directly through their employers, as in Denmark and Britain.  Forget free health care – you get sick, it’$ on you!   Here’s $700-$1,200 - your Trump change.  Large connected businesses and franchises get the small business loans and good luck, boys, getting unemployment in time.  Credit card debt to the big banks and mergers by big capitalist outfits are the future. Hey, did we swindle Nancy and Chuck and Sanders on the various bailout bills!  Yet they wanted to be swindled.  It is called bipartisanship.

This is another recent terminal embarrassment for the bipartisan rulers after Iraq and the 2008 meltdown.  It is another embarrassment for the Democratic Party, which thinks it can go back to ‘normality’ – cruel capitalist normality. Hating China is their new bipartisan Biden / Trump / Pentagon slogan, as if this is something new.  Forget the Republicans, they are merely a crime syndicate at this point.  In November the bill will come due and the hard-right will be armed.  If they lose, their billionaire Republican backers will have a choice.  Bloody faction fight or not.

Be prepared!  Time to unite and fight.
**Related to this point is a recent meeting of Constitutional scholars on a 'civil war' scenario this November...https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/election-doomsday-2020-heres-how-scholars-fear-the-trump-biden-race-could-go-terribly-wrong/

Red Frog

April 24, 2020