Gonzo is Here, Now and Forever

“Vultures’ Picnic – In Pursuit of Petroleum Pigs, Power Pirates and High-Finance Carnivores,” by Greg Palast, 2011

It’s a good time to be an investigative journalist. Funny or crazy guys like Thomas Frank, Matt Taibbi, John Perkins, Michael Lewis and yes, Greg Palast, are bringing the spirit of Hunter S. Thompson into the fucked-up ‘modern’ age. Are they going to run out of crooked disasters and lies? No! After this book, I’m thinking Palast is the craziest and most dangerous of all.

This bald-headed left-wing gumshoe gets into every big disaster since the Exxon Valdez – or at least he starts there historically. He pulls the pants off of the lies, fraud, cover-ups, crooked schemes, conspiracies and hair-pieces of modern corporate America. He focuses first on our friends the oil companies - you know, those vampires who only think about ‘shareholder value’ – or perhaps, just their own value. He starts with the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf and goes from there.

Palast had to go to work for an actual public television/radio station in another country, the BBC, to be partially paid for his time. And an actual newspaper, the British Guardian. National Petroleum Radio – home to the same talking heads as CBS/ NBC/ ABC/ CNN/ FOX – wouldn’t touch him. Who wants a guy who doesn’t believe a comforting, cliché’d lie when he hears one? If all the ruling class big shots and newspapers say something, Palast figures it can’t be true. And he’s nearly always right. NPR reporters are trained to lob softball questions in unctuous, kind voices to every corporate, political and military hack they interview. Palast does not fit in. As he puts it: “Must U.S. reporters submit to hypnosis before interviews? Lobotomies? Or are they just drugged by careerism and lazy-fuckism?”

Palast, son of a frustrated furniture salesman, started out lying his way into the University of Chicago and got to be friends with Milton Friedman and the Chicago Boy’s ‘economics’ department. What is up with that? Then he got side-tracked by union commies like Frank Rosen in Chicago, who put his economic analysis skills to work digging up dirt on corporate Chicago energy entities like Con Ed and People’s Gas. And the rest is history.

I’m not going to detail every incriminating fact Palast digs up, but the list of targets is long – oil companies British Petroleum, Shell, Chevron, Exxon; nuclear construction and maintenance companies Stone & Webster and NRG; rapacious power companies Entergy, Southern Company and Reliant; international hedge funds that rape small weak countries like Greece and Liberia; large banking cartels that get the public to pay for their scams; the IMF and the World Bank in cahoots with the banking industry; incompetent construction behemoths Halliburton, Shaw Construction and Brown & Root; government bureaucrats and whole governments on the take; phony journalistic outlets, corrupt judges, front-groups for corporations, companies that buy Inuit islands for $1 in the modern age – the list is endless. Hell, he even uncovers the fraud about Fukushima.

A note to readers of “Collapse” – here is the real story of those sainted entities Chevron and Shell that Mr. Mainstream Green Diamond does not tell. (Review of “Collapse” below.) After all, Chevron named one of their ships the “Condoleezza Rice” after her sterling work for them in Kazakhstan. In other words, if you think the word ‘conspiracy’ is not nutty, but factual too much of the time, you will understand Palast’s angle. He knows there is a smoking gun under every conventional explanation.

Just one set of facts to whet the appetite as a prelude to the whole sorry oil story. We all remember the simple old tale of the “Exxon” Valdez – about a drunk captain who ran onto a reef and leaked 32 million of gallons of oil into the water and land. Bad man. Case closed. Here is what Palast dug up:

The Alyeska Cartel (which was really run by British Petroleum, who hid behind Exxon) had promised to the State, the U.S. government and the native villages that, if they got permission to build an oil port in Prince William Sound, they would:
A, use ‘state of the art’ radar on their ships to avoid the very dangerous reef in Prince William Sound. What was the state of the radar at the time the Exxon Valdez ran aground? Not working.
B, have oil spill equipment set up in case a disaster happened. Where was the equipment? Missing and its absence concealed.
C, have spill containment barges on standby. Where were the barges? Not operating, not usable, condition concealed.
D, have trained ‘spill response teams.’ Where were the teams? The jobs terminated, the teams disbanded and this was also concealed. They ignored native pleas to have a station on the island near the reef to warn ships. Alyeska ignored employees and others who warned about these failures before the disaster struck. To cap it off, all the partners in Alyeska privately agreed to these violations of their contract to save money. I.E. – it was a conspiracy. We’re talking RICO.

According to Palast, it is only the actions of courageous inside individuals who told their stories in spite of real or threatened economic and physical retaliation that any of these facts came out, and any court or journalistic victories won. As Palast puts it, the U.S. media totally dropped the ball on that spill in 1989. BP took that lesson and did the same thing in the Gulf in 2010. Nothing had changed 20 years later.

When you get done with these multiple stories, you will understand that much of modern day capitalism is nothing but a literal criminal enterprise – not just bad people who make serial mistakes. It strengthens any argument for immediately nationalizing the oil, banking, construction, auto and energy industries as anti-social and anti-environmental organizations.

Palast is a funny, easy, personal read, and perhaps his aging hat act wears a little too thin around the sexual and alcoholic edges. But so what – we’re all human. At least that is what they say.

And I bought it at Mayday Books!
Red Frog, February 24, 2012

Bad Habits Die Hard

“Collapse – How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed,” by Jared Diamond, 2005

Jared Diamond has written a wonderful anthropological story about the failure of certain societies based on environmental collapse. His political approach, however, reminds me of a scientist who has just discovered that God did not create the world – yet still believes in ‘him.’ The “him” in this instance is the inevitable ‘shareholder-centered’ capitalist corporation.

Diamond, the author of “Guns, Germs & Steel,” is a professor and officer of the World Wildlife Fund ("WWF"), which some Greens call one of the “Big Green” organizations. Big Green organizations live on donations, but have no members or membership meetings, only a group of bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. who seek to influence policy. Diamond mars his telling of the collapse of societies in Easter Island, Pitcairn Island, the Anasazi, the Maya, and the Greenland Norse (and by implication Ankor Wat, pre-Incan civilizations and others) by having, like Christian Parenti (see review of ‘Tropic of Chaos,’ below) a weak solution to societal collapse. His is ‘consumer power’ - it’s almost laughable actually. The real meat of this book, however, is his very careful dissection of environmental catastrophe and problems, past and present. And here he knows what he is talking about.

Diamond maintains that there are 5 main issues that impact the environment and destroy societies. 1. Damage societies inflict on the environment, intentionally or otherwise. 2. Climate change due to various causes. 3. Hostile neighbors. 4. Lack of support by formerly friendly neighbors. 5. The society’s response to their problems. Here, he highlights the role that social elites play in squandering the environment and labor, or in refusing to change course or learn from mistakes.

Diamond starts the book in Montana, USA, a place he is personally familiar with. He explains the multiple environmental problems of a state that most people think is quite perfect – including the poisonous legacy of gold and copper mining in Butte. (Also covered by Jeffrey St. Clair in “Born Under a Bad Sky,” reviewed below) His most shocking point is that more money comes into Montana from outside the state (via government / private monies) than are generated within Montana by various agricultural, tourist or mining concerns. Essentially, Montana is on welfare.

Diamond moves on to study the effects of deforestation, monument building, erosion, over-fishing, reef-destruction, over-population, internal war and extinction on Easter Island in the Pacific. He considers this an almost pure example of ecological social collapse. He links this to another study of Polynesia – at Pitcairn and Henderson islands far to the west of Easter. Then Diamond moves to the Southwest and the Anasazi societies of Mesa Verde and Chaco Canyon, and their failed response to deforestation, drought and over-population. The Maya of Guatemala, Honduras, and several states of Mexico figure in the next story. The Maya were an advanced society that developed a calendar, writing and an intricate social structure. However, they failed to adjust to population increases, climate change, deforestation and violence caused by their own rigid society. Like Easter Island, environmental and social goods were squandered in temple-building and war by Mayan rulers, leading to social collapse.

Diamond’s history of the Greenland Norse, who for 400 years occupied two areas in southern Greenland, is very detailed. First settled by Eric the Red, the Norse came to Greenland as pagans, converted to Christianity, and attempted to live an economic and social life similar to their former life in Norway and Iceland. Eric was kicked out of Iceland (which faced its own serious environmental degradation that still exists to this day…) and after discovering this land mass, called it ‘Greenland’ to get fellow Norwegians to join him. It is not for the most part green! Diamond shows how the effort spent on maintaining Christian churches was actually counter-productive to the survival of the society; how the Norse chiefs gradually pauperized segments of the former Viking community; how the Norse refused to learn anything from the Inuit people, like kayak making, and instead only killed them. And, incredibly, never ate fish, which teamed in abundance right off shore, because they were focused on cows, sheep, pigs, goats and seals, as in the old country. This from a society that eventually starved to death due to environmental damage in the fjords where they lived. As Diamond put it, the chiefs gained the right to starve last.

Diamond reviews recent ecological situations in China, Australia, Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Rwanda that are repeating the deadly patterns of prior systemic failure or prove to be successful attempts to counter it. He illustrates how one Pacific island, Tikopia, successfully banned pigs because they were eating the undergrowth and denuding the land, and this decision saved the soil that the agriculture of Tikopia was based on. The pigs in Tikopia were a valued food, obviously, so this shows the kind of foresight the society had – to deny themselves something in order to save something more important. (Note to carnivores...)

His history of recent events in Rwanda is enlightening, as he links the ‘genocide’ and violence there to over-population, deforestation, drought, erosion, and not just ethnic/class antagonisms. In one study of the Kanama area, he describes how landed Hutus killed other, poorer Hutus because there was not enough land to go around. Rwanda is one of the most populous places on earth, and as he quotes Rwandans themselves, it was no secret that ‘killing’ was a way to reduce that population, and allow the survivors to raise enough crops to live.

Diamond finishes his book with a panegyric to Shell Oil / Chevron Oil, and an oil field they built in Kutubu in Papau New Guinea. Diamond worked with the WWF and Chevron to certify this oil field as ‘green’ – one which did not damage the environment. And from his description, the immediate impression is that this is the best way to build a well field, if you have to do so. Chevron was reacting to pressure from the government and surrounding people of Papua New Guinea, who might have closed the wells if they did damage the environment. Diamond believes that profit-making companies will build ‘clean’ wells in order to make more profits, if consumers and governments pressure them.

However, this oil field seems to be somewhat of a Potemkin Village, if we look at Shell/Chevron’s other oil fields. Shell is involved in pumping oil out of the Arctic to Prudoe Bay on the continually leaking pipeline, has negotiated a concession to drill in the Arctic in Inuit lands when the ice melts; is involved in the destructive Alberta Tar Sands project, and is part of the massive oil spills and police state in Nigeria. Shell also has its refineries on Cancer Alley in Louisiana. Chevron is invested in the corrupt Azerbijan government with BP, and the polluting Azeri oil fields, and is a defendant in the lawsuit brought by native peoples in Ecuador against the massive oil spills there. Chevron helped fire the head of the Louisiana Hurricane center at LSU, as he recommended restoring wetlands south of New Orleans to stop hurricanes. There will be more next week, as I finish Greg Palast's book, "Vultures Picnic."

Will ‘consumer’ choices change the bloodthirsty, corrupt and environmentally destructive policies of various societies? Will capital be restrained if I buy from Chevron (or Citgo) instead of BP or Koch? Or from the handful of certified wood providers over the rest? Or from organic foods over factory-farmed food? Well, a bit. But, again, if we face ‘collapse’ on a global scale – then obviously the slow, incremental changes that this method involves (and that is assuming enough “consumers” will do so) is insufficient to finally stop self-destruction. Something more is needed – eco-socialism.

A final good word from Diamond, showing how travel informs political views. He wrote this book as another warning to the global North. In response to critics who think environmentalism is a ‘luxury’ only for upscale yuppies, I quote: “This view is one I have heard mainly from affluent First World yuppies lacking experience of the Third World. In all my experience in Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Africa, Peru and others …I have been impressed that their people know very well how they are being harmed by population growth, deforestation, overfishing and other problems. They know it because they immediately pay the penalty…”

In a sense, understanding the environment is essential to survival - quite clearly the intellectual workings of Darwinism on the human social scale. Political and cultural ideas that are maladaptive are incompatible with the continued existence of the human species, which is why even in the realm of ideas, the battle for survival continues.

And I bought it at Cheapo Books, now down in the basement of Cheapo Records.
Red Frog / February 19, 2012

WHO PAYS

Dear Fellow Commodity,

On payday, should you thank the boss or should the boss thank you? Owners seem generous to some. After all, they take some of their money and share it with you. But the money they “share” comes from your labor. YOU provide the money they pay out!
LABOR CREATES ALL WEALTH!

The following piece was written when Governors Walker of Wisconsin, Daniels of Ohio, Snyder of Michican and others enacted harsh legislation against their states' workers. This triggered an unprecedented explosion of anger; and there's much more to come.
So...

...when your boss or Governor tells you to take a pay cut or pay more for your healthcare or retirement, etc. tell them you already pay for everything! Your labor pays for your wages, your pension, your health care, your vacation, your sick leave, your PTO and your labor pays for the building you work in, the heat, water, electricity, gas, real estate taxes, advertising, bribes to public officials AND it pays for his Cadillac, his mansion, his alimony, his world travels...your labor pays for EVERYTHING!
Tom Dooley - St. Paul, MN

Land of the Lotus Eaters

“News From Nowhere – An Epoch of Rest (Being some chapters from a Utopian Romance),” By William Morris (1890)

William Morris was an early supporter of Marx in England - and a poet, novelist, publisher, designer, craftsman, socialist activist, conservationist and businessman. This Renaissance man would be an odd duck to some modern folks – philosophically a multi-talented lover of romantic medievalism and socialism too. Morris was an activist in various Socialist organizations starting in the 1870s while keeping up other practical and intellectual pursuits. Besides British Marxism, Morris influenced the English National Trust, the Arts & Crafts movement, modernist architect Walter Gropius, town planner Lewis Mumford and the English Green Party.

Like Tolkien, Morris had a love for the small English village and its life. This love infuses “News From Nowhere,” a Utopian vision set in the year 2102, after a successful English communist revolution in 1952. The happy inhabitants of 2102 England can barely remember the crude, poor and violent society from which they emerged so long before. The narrator – ‘Guest” - goes to sleep in the 1800s - and wakes up in 2102 in a guesthouse along the Thames. Outside is a vision of gorgeous nature, beautiful men and women, quietude, health, happiness, physical abundance, mental care, artisanal technology and a lack of classes. The living modern equivalent might be a visit to the Renaissance Festival – minus the King, his Knights and the Mud Wenches. Time traveler Guest is impressed by the beautiful clothes that everyone wears in 2102, the detailed quality handwork gone into architecture and town planning, the communal sharing of food, goods, housing and transport, the physical strength and skills of the citizens, the leisurely pace of life, the almost complete lack of violence, and the personal consideration of citizens for each other. The rich and the poor no longer exist, nor do prisons, marriages or any government. Of course, the old geezer Guest gets a crush on one tanned beauty, which he must relinquish when he is thrown back into the 1800s at the end of the book.

Morris carefully shows how Marxist ideas like the ‘contradiction between town and country’ have dissolved, as the city of London is now no more than a rather large town, spread-out, with green-fields about. Another Marxist concept, of ‘non-alienated’ labor is shown for all it is worth, as each citizen – or neighbor, as they call themselves - does what he can for the general good, working on the tasks he is best at. This accounts for the high quality of the work surrounding everyone. Work itself has become a joy, not a burden. The leisurely pace of work is a nod to Marx’s son-in-law, Paul LaFargue, and his idea of the “right to be lazy” - or at least, relaxed. War and crime in 2102 barely exist – crimes of property no longer do. One man is killed in an act of self-defense during the book, due to jealousy, but that is all. Decisions are made by counsels, which work towards agreement, but if no agreement can be reached, then by majority vote.

3 SECTIONS
The book is divided into 3 sections – two journeys by horse cart and boat - surrounding a long question and answer session with an old learned man, Hammond, who knows history. The Revolution of 1952 is described by Hammond in terms that are familiar. The revolution starts with a general strike, which leads to the rise of dual power – the ‘Committee for Public Safety” (The same name as the revolutionary organization during the French Revolution of 1792), then fights with groups of roving rich kids - who I would say are the fascists in this situation. The arming of the revolution is prompted by a massacre, now put in 1952, which leads to a civil war. This was based on Morris’ own experience of ‘Bloody Sunday’ – a real 1887 massacre of workers in London’s Trafalgar Square by British soldiers using Gatling guns. Eventually the majority of the English Army sides with the revolutionaries and the civil war is won by the communists. After all Morris, for all his romanticism, was not a head-in-the-clouds pacifist. He knew that capital would not give up power without a fight, even if it lost an election or a series of elections.

The most interesting thing about this vision of the communist future is the view of nature and technology. Marx called some of Morris’ friends ‘medieval socialists’ due to their views that technology was inherently evil. Marx believed that machines could overcome drudgery and increase human productivity, thus leading to more leisure time and a sufficient material basis of life. Under capitalism, machines are used to both increase unemployment and to increase the intensity of labor, while also adding to the burden of fixed capital. Under Morris, technology has returned to the artisan stage, with handcrafts and human labor being the main forms of production. For instance, haying in this utopia is done by large groups of people in a festive atmosphere, living in tents, using scythes, not tractors. Buildings are constructed by groups of neighbors, much as in American pioneer life. Horses, wagons and water skiffs provide transport. While ‘mills’ line the Thames, they all seem to be run by water power. One mysterious barge has some kind of power, but Morris is unable to explain how it works. Electricity and steam are not in evidence in this natural paradise, nor is coal - mills and factories belching fumes have disappeared. Nor are there any windmills or solar collectors, things perhaps too high-tech for Morris.

Morris understood the negative effects of technology on nature, and this understanding is something modern socialists, if they are scientists, must accommodate. Marx’s environmentalism is being re-discovered - see the reviews of “Marx’s Ecology” and “The Ecological Revolution,” both by John Bellamy Foster, below. For those socialists whose vision of communism is something along the lines of George Jetson, this book is a nice contrast. It is inevitable that socialists might have to accept a lower standard of living in the matter of goods to deal with global climate change, population and peak oil, if no clean energy source is available. And one is not yet on the horizon. I have suggested the year 1947 in a prior post – prior to the development of suburbia and the mass use of the automobile – as a year in which it would be possible for millions to live on a technological basis, while still retaining all social goods. Morris himself chose, oh, probably 1825 or maybe even 1625, prior to the development of railroads and the modern capitalist economy, as his years of inspiration. I see no reason why this kind of life could not also partially exist under socialism, much as it does under capital, i.e. the Amish, if people wish to live that way, or if these methods are actually more sustainable.

Morris portrays people in 2102 England as not going to school, but educating themselves in small groups, in training on the job, and on their own. Many do not read a lot, and instead value physical work and skills. The picture here reminds one of the cult of physicality in the USSR in the 30s and later, and the experience of the cultural revolution in China, where people from the city were sent to work as peasants. Morris here illustrates another Marxist point – that physical/manual and intellectual labor have to be combined, and both appreciated. Under capital, physical work is not compensated well, is looked down on, and so are the people doing it. Some call them ‘stupid.’ Many of the present middle-class people putting workers down have no physical, mechanical, artistic or emotional intelligence themselves – though these 'geniuses' never recognize this. Morris himself was a sterling example of the opposite – that intellectual and practical physical skills can be combined. In the U.S. the modern middle class has few practical skills, and must rely on buying the labor of others to do the simplest things. Conversely, many blue-collar and white-collar workers do not crack a book, or get any real intellectual training - which is one reason why the U.S. is so politically backward. That is one of the reasons for the existence of May Day Books.

And I bought it at May Day Books, where it is
NOW ON SALE for $8 in the Used Area

Red Frog, February 10, 2012

Bradley Manning

Bradley Manning should be
set free and awarded the
MEDAL of FREEDOM!

Liberty for Capital

Who is Ron Paul?

Ron Paul is running for President in the Republican Party primaries, but he’s more important for what he means outside the Republican Party than in it. He’s appealing to independents, youth and even some anti-war people. He might run as an independent again, like he did once before in 1988 as the Libertarian candidate for president, though I doubt it. If he or his son develop a long-range independent political organization, he could claim part of the political space that a populist party might claim. What is clear is that his newly prominent status is due to a vast failure of the Left to provide an alternative to capitalist policies, either of the Democratic Party kind or of the Republican kind. A vacuum needed to be filled, and it is being partly filled by Paul.

Paul also draws on the collapse of the economy - and the growth in sectors the ideologists of capital like to call 'entrepreneurial' - independent consultants, entrepreneurs starting cupcake stores, people with tech and internet start-ups. This even involves the hipster zone - artists of various kinds, yoga instructors, craft brewers and bicycle-makers, etc. - all provide a seeming alternative to the drab life of a cube dweller, retail salesperson or factory hand. "Being your own boss" seems to be a way to escape wage slavery - without a revolution. This is a great draw for young people coming out of college, and those unemployed or hating their present jobs. Of course the success rate for entrepenuers over 10 years is 29%, according to Scott Shane.

Two ideologists of Libertarianism are Ayn Rand and Friedrich Hayek. Ayn Rand was a refugee from the revolution in Russia. Her views were completely shaped as a reaction to Marxism. Fredrick Hayek grew up in Austria, and also developed in reaction to European socialist theoreticians and later, the partly planned economies in Eastern Europe. Both developed a sort of extreme right-wing anarchism in response. This has been adopted by American Libertarians, who blend it with long-time American ethics of individualism and proprietorship, and sometimes other ideologies, like Agrarianism, classic liberalism and evangelical Christianity.

The key thing in the analysis of a politician is, A, what class he represents, and B, what class backs him. 'A' is primary. So looking at Paul, it is pretty easy to see he represents the simon-pure ideas of a small businessman. And that is what Libertarianism is. His opposition to international imperialism reflects most small businessmen's views – because for the most part they only do business in the U.S. His opposition to the government’s growing police & other powers reflects the fact that small businessmen do not benefit as much from the government as large capital. The government is seen by them as being in big capital’s pocket, and for good reason. In the case of the drug war, I think many small businessmen are salivating at the legalization of pot, at least. Apply this logic to almost everything he says, and you will see it is from the view of a shoe-store owner in Muncie, Indiana. But not exactly Wall Street – until you draw out the implications. Then even large capital benefits by libertarian ideas – as they both embrace the myth of the ‘free’ market, among other things.

You can see this class outlook even here in Minneapolis when Libertarians in the Minneapolis Republican Party and some Greens coalesced around the mayoral campaign of Papa John Kolstad, a small businessman on Lake Street. Kolstad made the center-piece of his campaign the onerous regulations on small businessmen. (Kolstad’s 2009 campaign reviewed below.)

Is Paul backed by the ruling class right now? No, even though he’s running in the Republican Party primaries, a party dominated by a wing of the ruling class. The establishment Republican Party ‘black shirts’ (as I call them) do not support him. The establishments of both parties have never lost control of the nominating process in the recent past – except in the cases of Goldwater and McGovern. I do not think it will happen this year either. The Republican Brownshirts – Bachmann, Perry, Cain – and the fake Brownshirt, Gingrich – are all dropping one by one.

Politics should not be like a bad Chinese restaurant, where you pick one policy from column A, and 3 from column B and don’t order from column C, and then you ‘vote’ for the politicians with the ‘best’ policies. Once you understand the class roots of a politician, his seemingly ‘good’ policies (or perhaps just words…) become transparent as to their source. This applies to both Paul and Obama. That is what a class analysis does – it allows you to see beneath the hype and hope.

Paul represents the area around Galveston, Texas and was a doctor. His district is one of the top recipients of federal money in the country - $31B since 2000. This is similar to the rest of Texas, which got twice as much from the Federal government due to things like Fort Hood, the biggest employer in Texas. In 1988 he ran on the Libertarian Party ticket. Paul was one person who understood that deficit spending on the Vietnam war ended the gold standard, and brought large federal deficits. (See review of “Debt – the First 5,000 Years” on the role of war in creating government debt – reviewed below.) He gets 48% of his money in small contributions – with a few corporations, small businesses and professionals donating too. In a new development, Paul has relied on the kindness of PayPal founder Peter Thiel , a like-minded libertarian in favor of the smallest government possible, who gave $900,000 to Paul’s “Endorse Liberty” Super PAC. So like other candidates, he has a rich sugar-daddy.

Many members of the US military donate to Paul, which is interesting, given his stand on the wars. Paul also has supporters who are neo-Confederates, white supremacists and Nazis. He has been endorsed by Klansman David Duke, among others. His newsletters reprinted racist material, and Paul doesn’t understand how that material got in there. Right. Paul is also a former member of the John Birch Society. And the Republican Party today is, if nothing else, a giant Birch Society.

So what would Paul’s election mean for workers? Selections from Menu A:
* Ron Paul’s website doesn’t mention either “jobs” or “unemployment” under the category of “issues.” Nor is there one word about foreclosures. Think about that for awhile. In the middle of the greatest job and house losses since the 30s, not a word! The closest he gets is advocating the passage of more anti-union “right to work” laws. So he’s anti-union. In other words, he’d be on the side of Walker in Wisconsin. He does not support the theory of unemployment insurance or its extensions or ANY benefits for working-class people. But in his program, he does bow a bit to the existence of social security, veteran’s benefits and Medicare/Medicaid, and does not openly call for the end of unemployment yet. He thinks unemployment insurance should eventually be ‘privatized.’ He’s against NAFTA (managed trade) … but for free trade. Again, reflecting his support of small business, who were not the drivers of NAFTA.

Oddly enough, the Libertarian Party itself wants to repeal the National Labor Relations Act ("NLRA") and state right-to-work laws. But they oppose the closed shop or collective bargaining too. They also support child labor, oppose the minimum wage and all welfare programs of any kind. Some people in the labor movement have also called for abolition of the NLRA, which would cut the legal rationale of government controlling union and labor affairs.

* Paul opposes the Civil Rights acts of the 1960s because they infringe on private property, and hence he would also oppose affirmative action in hiring. So black, women and brown workers would not be able to get a leg-up against discrimination. Much of the hiring in government or government-contracted jobs in the past would have been much whiter if Paul had been in control. Implicit in this is support for a return to Jim Crow and ‘white only’ businesses and employment.

* He wants to lay off 10% of government workers and privatize many parts of government, closing 5 Departments. I guess Perry borrowed his ideas from Paul, though he can't remember. Laying off 10% of government workers was also the position of Obama’s Deficit Commission. Paul wants to allow young workers to opt out of Social Security, which would slowly destroy the program. He wants to deregulate Wall Street even more, and get rid of even the most timid attempts at regulation, so the early appearance of Paulites in the OWS protests is basically dishonest. Their only interest was ‘abolishing the Fed’ and did not go beyond that. He wants to eliminate capital gains taxes and those on large estates.

* He supports privatized medical care and does not want a mandate. The latter benefits big insurance and corporations, but might be rough on small businessmen. Like all the other candidates, he wants to cut the federal budget, this time by $1T in just ONE YEAR. Remember the Deficit Commission wanted $3.5T of cuts over many years. He supports home schooling, charter schools and vouchers, all which will undermine public education, union jobs and decent educations for working-class children, but will benefit business by privatizing education. This position is similar to all the other candidates in this race, including Obama and his dreadful Education Secretary, Ernie Duncan. Think about that, teacher union members.

*Re: immigration, he wants to ‘end the welfare state,’ (a direct quote) which he incorrectly thinks is being ‘used’ by immigrants from Mexico. Immigrants pay more into the system then they ever get out of it actually. He also wants to end ‘birthright citizenship.’ His position on immigration will mean an even more oppressed section of the U.S. working class. Abortion? He’s agin’ it. So women workers will be forced to have children if there is a slip-up.

* Paul mentions nothing about using the state against the working class. His whole program is based on the legal sanctity of private property by the State, so I do not think Paul would be against the courts if they acted against strikers to 'protect private property.' He does not want to repeal Taft Hartley, in other words. Paul unsurprisingly thinks global warming is a ‘hoax.’ So I guess you could say he wants workers to cook, and not just in the kitchen.

And from Menu B - here are some of the good things Paul supports: Quote from Paul in 2007: "We're not moving toward a Hitler-type fascism, but we're moving toward a softer fascism," he said. "Loss of civil liberties, corporations running the show, big government in bed with big business." Hmmm.

Paul opposes the drug war, some of the encroachments of government on civil liberties, and the broader imperial military & foreign aid project. So workers would not be sent overseas to die, and this approach would partly de-militarize the U.S. However, he does not have an industrial plan for what to do with all those laid-off workers – nor does he believe in one. Paul’s plan would lower the massive racist incarceration rate for poor working people, who are usually the ones jailed for drug crimes. This might weaken the for-profit incarceration industry. It would also weaken the ‘total police state’ that has been developing, which is used against strikes and the working class, as well as any other protest movements. The very term ‘terrorist’ in fact has been applied to strikers. Paul is against most farm subsidies – many of which benefit corporate farms and large farmers. Paul comes from a part farm district, and I’m guessing there are some small farmers there who do not benefit so much from Big Agriculture welfare. Paul wants to audit the Federal Reserve, which IS a secretive banker’s cabal, and should be audited - and ended. He’s actually for more alternative medical treatments to be available, like acupuncture and homeopathics. He does mention, like the UE, that his salary will be that of a worker’s median income - $35,000. Of course, his earnings on investments, like Mr. Romney's, will make sure Paul is not too poor.

So what would really happen if Paul was actually elected? Quite simply, the ruling class would prevent those parts of his program they don’t like from going into effect, while endorsing the others. It could basically drag the U.S. back to the late 1800s – even prior to Wilson and Teddy Roosevelt. His positions share much in common with the rest of the Republican candidates, and with some parts of Obama’s program too. However, his ‘base’ of young college people and small businessmen is not sufficient to actually win power in the U.S.

Many think he’s running interference for his son, Rand Paul, who is already bending on certain libertarian/Ron positions. Rand once said, “there are no rich or poor people.’ Ok, let the laughter die down.

We’ve already had a Libertarian in high places, remember? Alan Greenspan, chair of the Federal Reserve from 1987 to 2006 – 20 years! – re-appointed under both Republicans and Democrats. An exemplar of laissez-faire capitalism and a personal friend of Ayn Rand to boot. What did this great Libertarian do? Greenspan supported the ending of Glass-Steagal, along with Clinton/Reich/ Schumer and the whole Republican Party. (Their motto? “We’re all Libertarians now!”) This created ‘too big to fail’ banking institutions, and brought gambling into the normal ‘banking’ world. The Fed’s low interest rates destroyed interest-rate products, and pushed people into the stock market. The rates also provided fuel for the bubbles of housing and derivatives, commodities and gold. (the latter, no surprise for a Libertarian.) Greenspan came out for adjustable rate mortgages (“ARMs”), and believed that Wall Street could be ‘self-regulating.” In essence the ‘low doc/no doc’ mortgages being sold as the basis for derivatives were to be treated with a position of ‘buyer beware’ - and not regulation. That is an Ayn Rand position on fraud, by the way – ‘caveat emptor.’ If you get ripped off, it is your fault. Government has no role in protecting you. Greenspan supported privatizing social security and opposed tax cuts for the wealthy. Unsurprisingly, he worked at a Wall Street Bank prior to the Fed. Greenspan's cheap money allowed the banks to make high interest rate loans on public funds - it was a no-loss proposition for the banks. The policy was followed by Bernanke, another bi-partisan Fed chairman after the 2008 crisis, and continues to this day. Greenspan never called for an audit of the Fed, however, unlike Paul.

Some anti-war activists are voting for Paul in the primaries, and I don’t see much wrong with this tactic, as it could fuck-up the Republicans a bit. But as a general strategy against war, it will be a failure. And as a general plan for society, Paul would be a failure too.

Red Frog
February 4, 2012

I'm a Refugee

“Tropic of Chaos – Climate Change and the New Geography of Violence,” by Christian Parenti, 2011

Well, this book shoots that theory of ‘super-imperialism’ all to hell. (Super-imperialism – oligarchic corporations completely control world market with no national issues remaining.) Instead, Parenti describes a world where the violent patterns of the old ‘cold’ war, neo-liberalism and climate change are combining to produce failed states, massive migration and violence in the global ‘South’ - and an armed life-boat mentality among the imperial states of the ‘North.’ In other words, a centrifugal world – not a centripetal one. Parenti concentrates on the situation along the equator between the two longitudes – hence his title.

He traveled around the world to tell this story – spending time in Kenya, Afghanistan, India, Kyrgyzstan, Brazil and Mexico. He could have looked at Asia too – Burma or Indonesia would have given him plenty of support for his thesis. This book is a companion to Mike Davis’ “Planet of Slums” (reviewed below – use search). They both start by looking at U.S. Defense Department military planning, which visualizes combating guerrilla war in crowded slums – like Baghdad and Mogadishu – while dealing with millions of climate refugees. A look at the British film “Children of Men” gives an idea of what lifeboat militarism might look like. As the unstated assumption goes, if the corporate politicians never talk about it, it’s not because their armed forces aren’t fully aware. The situation along the Mexican border using high technology, massive force, fences and reactionary politics all illustrate what is happening even now. Mexicans are not merely looking for 'better pay,' as refugees from neo-liberalism - many are refugees from climate change too.

Parenti uses examples of individuals caught up in the present violence of climate change. He tells the story of a dead cow herder in Kenya, killed trying to keep his cows from tribal raiders because the water holes are drying up. He interviews poppy growers in war-torn Afghanistan, who can’t grow anything else except poppy due to the string of droughts there. (Poppy uses very little water.) The Taliban supports poppy, taxing it, while American policy is to destroy it. He talks to an ex-fisherman squatting in murder capital Juarez, Mexico, who’s livelihood was lost because of red algae in the over-heated Pacific ocean. Neo-liberal Mexican government policies which got rid of government supports for fish prices and fishing also played a role – combining to put him out of work. Farmers in northern India, who’s wells and rivers are running dry, tell him how they can no longer pay the usurers and banks for expensive Monsanto seed and chemical fertilizers. (AKA, the end of the Green Revolution.) Parenti points out that these are also grievances of the revolutionary Naxalites, whose base in among farm and forest people. (See Arundhati Roy’s “Field Notes on Democracy,” reviewed below – use search.) Parenti travels to northern Brazil to talk to landless peasants squatting on unused land, using local ‘green’ techniques to bring back the soil and crops. The violent favelas of Sau Paulo and Rio are full of people from the Northeast who can no longer farm due to economic and climate conditions. Parenti notes that Lula, while redistributing wealth in Brazil, has not changed the basic class relations. Parenti tells the tale of ethnic violence in Kryghistan. One main reason is because the hydro-electric river dams no longer have enough water to power the city and countryside, resulting in escalating conflicts between Uzbecks, Tajiks and Kyrgyz. Formerly, the USSR provided economic support to all three now 'independent' states, and this enabled them to blunt negative effects like this.

Parenti describes climate change due to global warming as gasoline on the economic failure of market solutions and the arms issues of the ‘cold’ war. The collapse of Somalia is precisely where the cold war and later, American military priorities to control that part of the oil world, come together. Climate change is producing floods and droughts, tsunamis, melting glaciers, poor crops, dying animals, poor soil, dropping water tables, raging fires and disappearing forests. Neo-liberalism has already made water, trees, people, animals, land and crops commodities to be bought, sold and controlled only in order to make a profit. Which is why sustainability is being sold to the highest bidder. The cities of the ‘South,’ and increasingly the ‘North,’ are full of refugees from decaying eco-systems and eroding economies or classes. This book is another warning to those who don’t actually believe climate change will have any effect, or will ever impact themselves. I think this includes many Democrats, not just Republicans.

The weakest part of the book, of course, is the last chapter. Endings reveal underlying ideologies. Parenti, after roaring like a lion for chapters, ends squeaking like a mouse. He sounds basically like Al Gore – not that Al Gore hasn’t said some good things about climate change – but the Al Gore of the Democratic Party establishment. Parenti does not talk about conservation as a strategic response, or the limitations of the capitalist market – his fixes are mostly technological. He directly opposes eco-socialism’s idea that capital’s method of eternal growth is wrong. He visualizes capital growth in the direction of wind turbines and solar arrays. In that, he and Al Gore are in the same lifeboat. He thinks an enlightened market, seeking profits in green technology, can mitigate climate change to an acceptable degree.

I would disagree.
As Bill McKibben said recently: "What ... the energy-industrial elite are denying, in other words, is that the business models at the center of our economy are in the deepest possible conflict with physics and chemistry."

This point in history is unlike any other ‘catastrophic convergence’ (Parenti’s own term). There is a ‘clock’ running and, even by his own standards, the present 390 ppm of carbon is already on the slope towards irredeemable global climate change. Capital may well be able to convert in ordinary timescales, after much destruction and squandering – but unfortunately, continuing to use market methods and ‘market’ politics in this situation will allow profit-making via destructive technologies and practices to continue long past the time when the clock stops. Since it is basically profit that drives this system, anything that makes money, no matter its inherent destructiveness (Rhino horns!) will survive. The people who control those industries will defend their positions on the normal terrain of the capitalist state for years to come. In other words, the solution to a ‘catastrophic convergence’ is not gradualist market politics and policies.

Parenti correctly points out that the main problem is a political problem, and the U.S. is the premier roadblock to tackling these issues. However, both U.S. political parties are dedicated to military solutions in many cases - just the thing Parenti warns against. They both preside over the largest military and arms dealer in history. Yesterday, Obama even admitted that military spending will still increase, only more slowly. (!) The ‘protected enclave’ is already U.S. military policy. Both parties embrace a status-quo picture of handling immigration and Mexican politics, with minor variations, continuing to make a chunk of the working class in the U.S. illegal. Both parties support the continuation of the drug war. Both parties have essentially done almost nothing about climate change, though the Democrats have made a few small moves in the right direction. Both parties support different versions of neo-liberal economic policies. So if the main problem is political – what is the ‘political’ answer to this morass? Parenti has none. Absolutely none. And reveals himself to be an excellent reporter, but not much more. His own facts condemn his politics.

And I bought it at Mayday Books!
Red Frog, January 22, 2012

Sado-Capitalism

“The Invisible Handcuffs of Capitalism – How Market Tyranny Stifles the Economy by Stunting Workers,” by Michael Perelman, 2011.

I imagine you are not a fan of bondage or S&M. They say that rich people like it. Since most working class people exist in some kind of handcuffs all the time, they don’t relish putting on real ones. The only time that happens is when they are arrested by Officer Friendly. Perelman understands this. His play on Adam Smith’s ‘invisible hand’ of the market is … logical. After all, invisible hands create invisible handcuffs too.

Perelman is a professor of political economy at Chico, California, and proves that there actually are a few professors in the U.S. that do not smile kindly on capital. This book is a calm, somewhat detailed look at capitalism’s sorrier ideological aspects. Perelman takes an in-depth look at, among other things: Adam Smith’s real theory and history; the creation of the modern economics profession; how bourgeois economic theology makes work and the working class invisible; how control over workers is more important than unleashing the creative potential of human beings; the massive fraud that is the “GDP” statistic; how the Federal Reserve enables the capitalists; and the enormous waste embedded in the ‘rational’ corporate market system.

Controlling the working class is key to Perelman’s book. He frames it around the Greek legend of Procrustes. Procrustes was a bandit in Attica, who waylaid travelers and made them spend the night on his iron bed. There he stretched short men to fit the bed, or cut off the legs of tall men, so that all men eventually fit the bed – and died of it. His sadism made the surrounding countryside desolate. Eventually Theseus, who became King of Athens, subjected Procrustes to his own treatment. Perelman thinks that capitalism is like this Procrustean iron bed. As Frederick Winslow Taylor, the founder of Taylorism said, “The system must be first.” Even Margaret Thatcher, much beloved feminist, said of the market: “There is no alternative.” And, like all classically trained political economists, Perleman poses an alternative - Michelanglo’s “Bearded Slave” – partially encased in rock, yet attempting to free himself from the restraints of the stone.

Enough classicism. I actually do not think the ‘invisible handcuffs’ of ideology would be as strong if it were not for the real handcuffs that underlie them. Perelman has a good section on the ‘guard economy’ – the millions of economically useless jobs now invested in security guards, prison guards, border guards, CIA, FBI, Department of Homeland Security, NIA employees and contractors, military contractors, home security consultants and systems, the military, the National Guard, police, judges, attorneys, ad nauseum. Quite clearly, if these people stopped doing their jobs as enforcers of the myriad political rules against working class people, the invisible handcuffs of belief would slowly disappear. 

The 'rational' market, the “American Dream” the made-up ‘middle class” and the magical ‘invisible hand’ are all comforting things we tell ourselves at night - because to believe otherwise is to face our own comeuppance. It is precisely the inability to successfully act against the capitalist state and corporations that fuels belief in imaginary things. This is why successful strikes and a successful populist labor party movement are the most feared things in the U.S. They have the possibility of cutting through both kinds of handcuffs. But, as Zizek points out, the class war does not just exist on the real battlefield – it is also an intellectual war, which is why Perelman wrote this book.

I won’t go into each aspect of this book, but one thing struck me. Perelman discusses how the only agency a working person in a capitalist society gets, according to bourgeois theory, is through being a consumer. Work and its costs are kept hidden behind a dark, unspeakable curtain. Odd for an economy based on making ‘commodities’ eh? Like black people, working people are invisible too - until they enter a store to buy something. Then they are rational, valued ‘guests.’ But at work they are expected to sleep in the Procrustean bed, for the most part, with no health care, low wages, little respect and bad hours, just like that Target worker who dresses in red shirts and beige pants.

And I bought it at Mayday books!
Now buy it, Dammit, Gumby.

Red Frog, January 18, 2012

That Weird Little Country in the Middle of Europe

Hungary Heads Into the Horthyite Past

If the EU, Bloomberg and oh my, Paul Krugman are talking about you, something must be right – or wrong. Hungary’s Fidesz government, lead by reactionary Viktor Orban, is making waves by heading towards bankruptcy and authoritarian rule. Of course, for Hungary, this is nothing new.

Counter-Revolutionary Horthy Reviews the Troops

Known as an enlightened empire back around 1900, Budapest and environs boasted a Parisian-style life. However, anti-Semitism and rural nationalism were rising at that time in response to the domination of Hungary by urban capital - which many reactionaries saw as "Jewish." The revolutionary wave of 1919 in Europe brought the Hungarian Communist Party to power under Bela Kun for 6 months – the only successful revolution after the 1917 Bolshevik revolution. The radical Marxist Gyorgy Lukacs was Commissar for Culture in this government. Romanian troops entered Budapest in August 1919 and crushed the workers republic. Lukacs organized a Communist underground while Bela Kun left the country and went to the USSR. After the Romanians left, a White terror followed, sponsored by Admiral Horthy (yes, in a country with no seaport…). Horthy, on his white horse, took over Hungary, and oversaw an authoritarian right-wing dictatorship from 1919 until 1944, lastly as an ally of the Nazis. A Hungarian army was one of those encircled and defeated at Stalingrad by the Soviets. (See “Enemy at the Gates,” reviewed below.) Kun, who fled to the USSR, was later executed by Stalin as a Trotskyist in the 1930s. For his part, Lukacs was at one point put under Budapest house arrest by the Hungarian Communist Party, and served in Imre Nagy's government during the 1956 uprising..

Horthy was removed by the Nazis in 1944 for insufficient loyalty, and the “Arrow Cross” Hungarian fascists put in charge. They carried out the deportation of the Jews of Hungary to the death camps. The German Nazis did not even have to do it – few were in Hungary anyway. It was Hungarians who stocked the death camps at the end of World War II - a point surviving Hungarian Jews consider significant. However, today the Budapest museum of the “House of Terror” (headquarters for the Arrow Cross and later the Communist secret police) celebrates the period prior to post-war communism – the Horthy period - and the reign of the Catholic Church. This is the period that Orban would also like to return to.

A new Constitution took effect January 1, 2012 that gave Fidesz control over the news media, the courts, religion, and the central bank. Orban has ‘decertified’ 348 religions – although not the Catholic Church, which is now one of 14 ‘state-recognized’ religions. This in a country where only 21% of the population attends church at all. The government has even nationalized pension funds and put the unemployed to work digging ditches. Abortion is now illegal and hetero-sexual marriage is the only form of marriage. Christianity is now recognized as the ‘foundation of the nation.’ Fidesz appointees will hold key government positions for years in the future. Major decisions can now be made by a bare majority of the Parliament. The courts have been packed with Fidesz appointees. The press must now pass articles by a Board of Censorship, and 'violating' papers can be shut down. This is all based on a 53% Fidesz win in the elections – similar to George Bush’s idea of a mandate with 50.5% of the vote. Hungary now has 10.7% official unemployment, 14% of retail loans are defaulting, and working class people who got loans in Swiss francs or the Euro are now suffering the plunge of the forint.

The EU is only protesting government control over the central bank - their main interest, of course. Yet defeat of Orban by the Hungarian working class is what is really needed, similar to what they did in 1919 and 1956. 10s of thousands of demonstrators lead by the Hungarian Solidarity Movement recently forced Orban to leave his new Consitution event by the back door of the Buda palace, which is a start.

Hungary’s government bonds have just been declared ‘junk’ by 3 credit agencies, although these same agencies are suspect due to their own blindness before the 2008 U.S. crash. Hungary was able to get a massive loan from the EU in October 2008, just prior to the recent meltdown in Europe, which has saved it until now. Now Hungary is part of that very same meltdown, as the strapped IMF and the ECB are balking at more loans. Hungary is not in the EU zone, after all. The forint has dropped precipitously in value due to Hungary's difficulties. While some parts of the European populations are moving to the left, others are moving to the right, as the bourgeois ‘middle’ collapses along with its credit ratings and its fat wallets. Hungary provides an example of the latter.

What is the opposition? The Hungarian “Socialist” Party (“SP”) is what is left of the former Communist Party. It is a neo-liberal organization rife with corruption and prostration before Brussels - though it barely lost the last election. However, Fidesz has now passed laws making the SP liable for transgressions by the former Communist Party. The Communist Party has been branded a ‘criminal organization’ and the SP is legally identified as their successor. In other words, anti-communism continues, even against liberals. Sound familiar?

The other main party in Hungary is Jobbik – a far-rightist party that silently murders Gypsys, makes anti-Semitism a plank in their program, and trains with weapons. They have several seats in the European Parliament. For all practical purposes, they are the reincarnation of the Arrow Cross, as Fidesz is Horthy in a suit.

When old Jewish ladies in Budapest worry again – is it any wonder that they might wonder what capitalism has again brought to Hungary?

Red Frog
January 13, 2012

There's Actually Something on Television?

“Tremé” – Season One, 2010

High-end pay cable has always been off limits as some kind of frivolity expense, where you waste money paying for TV, of all things. For years I’ve been reading reviews about shows I’ve never seen – authoritarian shit like “24,” gangster love story “The Sopranos,” and the swear-fest “Deadwood.” Now I’ve read and seen bits of the faux-authenticity of Mad Men, the standard sad cop drama “The Wire,” breasts and blood pulp Tolkien follow-up “Game of Thrones” and the biker-thug fantasy “Sons of Anarchy.”

Mardi Gras "Indians" practice

However, one program stuck out. Just one. “Tremé.” (pronounced “TremAY”) So I rented the first season.

Faubourg Tremé is a neighborhood in New Orleans, just west of the French Quarter, across Rampart Street. It is what remains of Storyville, the neighborhood that invented jazz and was behind the development of the blues in the 1920s. (see review of “Birth of the Delta Blues,” below.) It is full of musicians, and is mostly black. The series takes place 3 months after Katrina. It is filmed in a standard Robert Altman ensemble style, following the weaving stories of Treme residents - black Indians, bar owners, restaurateurs, musicians, music-lovers, attorneys and professors – all coping with the dead water left by Katrina. While somewhat romantic and familiar, (indeed, the theme song is a knock-off of “Lovelight”) I think it captures the best parts of the city well.

Tremé pulls few punches politically or culturally. It is the first show I’ve seen on television that takes black culture seriously, as something other than lumpen or buffoonish. The portrayals attempt real people, not thugs, not saints and not comedians. One of the Mardi Gras Indians stands up to the notorious New Orleans PD. He squats in abandoned federal housing untouched by the flood so as to re-open the apartments to the black NorLins displaced from those buildings. Another story follows the mysterious death of a black youth in police custody just after the flood hit. A third tracks the life of a session trombonist trying to still make it.

Tremé, and by extension New Orleans, is a music city, and musicians are all over this series. Which is extremely rare on television. There are cameos and appearances by Steve Earle, (who actually plays a character), Allen Toussaint, Trombone Shorty, Dr. John, Kermit Ruffins, Elvis Costello, Rebirth Brass Band, Tremé Brass Band, even McCoy Tyner and Ron Carter. I’d say this is a better introduction to New Orleans jazz than the painfully sincere efforts of Ken Burns. Tremé filmed on Jackson Square among street musicians, on Frenchmen Street, and in the clubs of Rampart and others, catching the musicians in the real. Odd and knowledgeable DJ’s on the radio, Japanese jazz benefactors, second-line parades, impromptu concerts and jazz funerals punctuate the episodes.

Another theme is politics, though here the series pulls punches. John Goodman rages on ‘You Tube’ as an angry Tulane professor attacking ‘Katrina Fatigue”, NO Mayor Ray Nagin, Bush, the U.S. government, FEMA, NPR, the Po-Lice, the Army Corps of Engineers and various shit-faces. Another character, angry at the police and the city government, starts a dope-addled campaign in his ward against the slickster politicians, and gains support. One of his slogans? To legalize “Pot for Potholes.” This campaign, however, is dropped like a hot potato in Season One, albeit humorously. The Mardi Gras Indian tells his ward boss to get some housing, and when only one FEMA trailer shows up, he tells him to stuff it. Later he spends Mardi Gras in jail – a sad event for a resident of the city - for defending himself from the police. A lawyer locates a prisoner who died from blunt force trauma in police custody, but the family decides not to go further. There is little united, consistent, organized action – although you can tell the progressive population hates the ruling elite of New Orleans. After all, this is still HBO. And HBO is never going to promote mass organizing against the system.

There is even a food subtext befitting this city. Some famous New York chefs do a cameo drop-in on a local Creole restaurant run by a talented female chef at the end of her wits. I don’t know who they are, but she sure does. Another meme is how “New York” is where you go to make it. The son of the Mardi Gras Indian plays cool jazz and bebop, not New Orleans style. He’s always running between the cities, trying to escape his past. Another character claims to want to move to New York. The capital of the 10% and NO silently duel.

The trajectory of the first season is down, however. Three of the characters spiral into failure and worse. One loses a restaurant. One becomes a drug addict and drops out of music. And, in a false note, one commits suicide. The missing black youth finally turns up the way you might expect.

Would like to watch just one pay-series? It’s Tremé. Although few programs can carry themselves for years. Even Dickens ended his written serializations when the story was done. Attempting to keep a story going after it’s ‘done’ is typical of profit-based American television, which is why so many programs die a slow death. It is quite possible Tremé attempts the same thing, but here they have started with a bang. 

Red Frog
January 5, 2012

The Song of the Non-Industrious Poor

“Debt – the First 5,000 Years,” by David Graeber, 2011

This magisterial work by a pro-Occupy professor from Goldsmiths University in the U.K. has gotten praise from, of all places, Bloomberg and the New York Review of Books. And that is odd for an anti-capitalist book that takes a hard-line against modern financial debt. Graeber sees communism as the basic human relationship between people, in much the same way that CLR James (see review, "Facing Reality, below) announced that socialism already existed everywhere among the western working classes in the 1950s. The book, however, promises more than it delivers.

Graeber’s contention is that debt – in various forms – has been in existence since the times of ‘primitive’ communism – among tribal societies, slave societies, mercantile societies, serfdom, early capitalism and now, modern monopoly finance capital. He makes the point that ‘debts’ are central to human society. The only issue is what kind of debt it truly is - social or private. This book is a work of economic anthropology that re-visits the cultural and economic history of society up to the present day, ‘re-imagined’ through the lens of debt – be it mystical, moral, social or monetary. Graeber approaches the debt issue on a world-scale, comparing cultures in China, India, Africa, Mesopotamia, the Americas and Europe. He focuses most on China, India and the Near East, and only later, on Europe.

Why should we care? Unlike ‘salt’ or steel, in the modern period, impersonal financial debt has become a central feature of the present structure of finance capitalism and its economic crisis. Graeber thinks the present U.S. treasury bill debt will never be repaid - it is instead functioning as a kind of imperial tribute to the U.S. government. He carefully delineates the issue of interest over time – including the successful use of bans on usury by Islamic markets and even early Christian ones. The complete collapse of laws against usury in the U.S. in 1980, allowing rates up to 120% on payday loans, marked a significant change in how this issue was handled. In essence, it made every U.S. bank a loan shark. Debt peonage continues to exist across the globe – even among U.S. college students who have forfeited many years of earnings to pay their loans – or homeowners that will never own their houses free and clear.

Graeber contends that debt is intimately connected to war and slavery. Slaves were one of the first forms of payment in tribal societies, along with cattle. In fact, the end of slavery marked a certain diminuation in the idea that everything is a commodity - although insurance companies still like to put a price on human life. Like Marx’s point about primitive accumulation, he locates the origin of impersonal markets in theft itself, usually during military conquest. He dismisses theological arguments by various religions that the debt we owe is to a ‘god,’ ‘nature,’ morality or some mystical entity. Real debts can only be between equals, or those within some approximation of legal equality.

Graeber takes aim at several modern free-market shibboleths. He divides the nature of markets between modern impersonal markets and intimate local markets, showing how early markets were really a function of social exchange, not profiteering against strangers. This point is a familiar one from pro-capitalist anarchists. He punctures Adam Smith’s myth of barter as existing prior to the development of money. Indeed, no anthropologist has yet located the barter system that Smith made up in his creation myth about money. He repeatedly hits the free-market libertarian fantasists who think gold and silver are not also ‘fiat’ money. Graeber says that money has never had any intrinsic value, even prior to the U.S. going off the gold standard in 1971. It has always been a social construct. Even a cow - one of the original measures of value - is worth more than gold. He spends a lot of time on the creation of money, showing how money originated out of debt, not barter. And how national governments adopted money for their own uses. The ‘market’ did not create money.

Graeber takes aim at the present legal definitions of property - which originated in Roman era law, then were transmitted through English law to U.S. codes. Rome was a society that supported slavery, and that 'logic' actually crept into its idea of property law.

Among many historical stories he tells is a significant one about the mining of gold and silver in Peru and Mexico by the conquistadors lead by Cortes. After slaughtering the Aztecs, millions of native peoples were used in the mining process. After dying in the mines, their dead bodies were left heaped around the mines like slag rock. While Cortes and his men never got free of debt – even though sitting on an ocean of gold and silver – most of these precious metals went to European bankers, and ultimately were sold to the Chinese so their governments could prop up their monetary system. Ordinary Europeans saw very few coins even at that time.

Graeber dates 1971 as the year that a new – and unknown - modern capitalist period started. When Nixon went off the gold standard that year it was an attempt to pay for the national debt of the Vietnam war. Graeber shows how war has been the chief driver of generalized debt since the beginnings in Sumerian Mesopotamia. The modern capitalist national debt was not created until the formation of the Bank of England in the 1600s, which itself reflected the King's war spending. Paper money, used in China and several other places, came into generalized use in England only after the intentional destruction of informal, local credit systems, part of what I consider the 'enclosure of the commons.' That grocer that used to let you run a tab? Now a distant memory. Trust and personal knowledge of people you knew was replaced by cold hard cash.

Marx himself saw debt as arising from class society and the accumulation of surpluses.  For a Marxist, Graeber’s most interesting point is about ‘free’ wage labor not being the universal standard after the development of modern capitalism. While wage labor certainly is the primary form labor took in most advanced countries - rural and urban debt peonage and other forms of pre-capitalist functioning continue to exist in mass forms under imperial capital to this day. Indian farmers are so in debt to usurers and banks for Monsanto seed and chemical fertilizers (which have destroyed the soil) that they commit suicide in consistent numbers. Many people are still tricked into working for free. Thievery and crime form the earnings of countless others. marginal peddlers working on credit are endemic to massive third-world cities. Virtual slavery still exists in sections of the world economy. 

 As he puts it:
“We could no more have a universal world market than we could have a system in which everyone who wasn’t a capitalist was somehow able to become a respectable, regularly-paid wage laborer with access to adequate dental care. A world like that has never existed and never could exist.”
He follows that up by pointing out that the post WW2 Keynesian compromise between capital and labor has broken down – and will not return.

Solutions? After putting in a good word for the Sadrists in Iraq as perhaps having answers like their early Mesopotamian cousins, Graeber pulls up short. What popular movement will provide the answer? Graeber’s answer: “Who’s to say?” (!) He does call for a debt Jubilee, much like those under Hammurabi and others. And, interestingly enough, the ancient Mesopotamians seem to be to the left of the IMF, the World Bank and the U.S. political pygmies of both parties. The latter only take a haircut when the blood no longer runs from the stone. Who says history only goes forward?

Jubilees of this kind have been used in human society many times in order to prevent the population from overthrowing the rulers. Graeber consistently points to the pressure of the masses against debt during nearly all periods of history. However, a debt Jubilee still leaves the impersonal debt machine in place. While fulfilling its function of relieving the pressure of an angry population, and counting as a significant reform, it allows the machine to live, and the original communism of the human population to remain submerged.  In this context, debt returns.

And I bought it at Mayday Books!
Red Frog
January 1, 2012

Counter this Culture!

The Dharma Bums, by Jack Kerouac, 1958

Jack Kerouac wrote a bunch of books in the fifties, using his ‘automatic’ writing style, like a jazzman. No re-writes, only one time to get it right. The Dharma Bums (‘dharma’ means ‘truth’) is one of these books, which included “On the Road.” Kerouac’s writing style inspired a younger poet named Gary Snyder to adopt that same zen. Some critics would call Kerouac an amateur, but when you think of it, laboring over each word or sentence with a nail file might be easier than letting it all come out well the first time. Ask John Coltrane.

Gary Snyder, under the pseudonym “Japhy Ryder,” is Kerouac’s fellow ‘bum’ in this book – along with other pseudo-nonymous fellows like Allen Ginsberg (“Alvah Goldbook”); Michael McClure (“Ike Oshay”); Neal Cassady who appears in “On the Road” too (here as “Cody Pomeroy); Kenneth Rexroth (“Reinhold Cacoethes” – don’t laugh); Alan Watts (“Arthur Whane”) and John Montgomery (“Henry Morley” – a truly eruditely odd individual and Berkley librarian). And who knows, maybe Ferlinghetti or William Burroughs are buried in here too somewhere, under some verbal rock.

The younger Snyder actually teaches Kerouac a thing or two. Like orthodox Buddhism, which was in fashion among the literati of San Francisco in the 50s. They’d done got sick of Jesus evidently. And mountain-climbing. And camping. Both had a thing for nature, and really the ‘high’ points of this book are Kerouac’s meditations on mountain-tops, in deserts, under trees and on the beach. Snyder gets Kerouac to buy a little tent, sleeping bag and cook set. Kerouac eventually sleeps more in the sleeping bag outdoors than inside his shack at Cortes Madera in Marin County, just over the hill from Muir Woods.

The book has a simple layout. First the greatest poetry reading of American time - the October 13, 1955 Six Gallery poetry reading in San Francisco. Ginsberg read “Howl” and Snyder read “A Berry Feast.” Kerouac encouraged the crowd and bought wine for all. Then Snyder, Kerouac and Montgomery go up and down 'Matterhorn' Mountain in 2 days – and that says something for amateurs. Snyder finally makes it, while Kerouac enjoys the Buddha of quitting just before the peak. Kerouac follows that with a cross-country hitch-hiking and hopping-trains trip back to North Carolina, where his family lives, to test his camping skills. And if you’ve ever let yourself be guided by the accidents of the road while hitching, you will enjoy his description.

After that, Kerouac and Snyder settle into a shack at Cortes Madera, have naked, drunk bongo parties, savor their simple foods and do that Buddhist thing, or at least talk the Buddhist talk. You see, Snyder is scheduled to go to Japan and join a Zen monastery of some sort, and that hangs over most of the book. Snyder encouraged Kerouac to become a fire lookout as he had done, so Kerouac gets a job on Desolation Mountain up in the Cascades near the Canadian border, the same place as Snyder. Kerouac spends two months alone on a mountain above the clouds doing everything but seeing fires – mostly getting close to nature and satori. There the book ends.

How real was Kerouac’s Buddhism? Kerouac is really a very American soul, and his Catholicism saturated his Buddhism, which he saw as one thing. Watts, the ortho-Buddha-boy, said Kerouac had “Zen flesh but no Zen bones.” Even in the Dharma Bums, Kerouac (who’s pseudonym in this book is “Ray Smith”) gives Snyder’s Buddhism a running critique. Later, of course, Kerouac dropped the Buddha talk and walk. He later died of alcoholism, which is a sub-note lurking in this book like an infestation of ants.

Kerouac’s writing, if you’ve never read the beast, veers between colloquialism and poetry, in long drawn-out sentences. It is always accessible. He’s child-like and childless. This book gives a good picture of American life in the artsy margins. A bunch of refugees from capitalism - like Snyder, who was basically an anarchist - refuse to do an honest day’s work if they can help it, and live to enjoy life instead. When money, perhaps, was not the only thing. A lost time, indeed. When regular people had some standing, and simplicity was not a curse-word.

And I bought it at Mayday Books.
"HOWL" is also on sale at the Mayday.
(written with as few edits as possible, K-style.)
Red Frog, December 17, 2011

Look Who We’re Calling 'Comrade!'

The 5% and the 10% and the 20%

The well known 1% figure used by Occupy Wall Street was first popularized by Joseph Stiglitz, a Keynesian. He said the 1% own 35-40% of the U.S. economy. That, however, is not the majority of the economy, nor the only people who made money over the last 30 years from Wall Street. A 35% stake in a company is not the same as outright control. That would be 51%. Nor is it overwhelming control – 70%-80%. The U.S. is quite frankly 'owned' just like a large corporation. Thinking that our problem is only the 1% obscures the allies of the 1%.

Nearly half (47%) of all members of Congress are millionaires - and two-thirds of the Senate. Democrats are actually wealthier than Republicans in both houses. Al Franken has assets of nearly $13M. Even Michelle Bachmann is a millionaire, but not on that level -Yahoo News, 11/16/2011 and Center for Responsive Politics.

“The average income of the richest tenth of the world population is now about nine times that of the poorest tenth, the Paris- based OECD said today in a report. The gap has increased about 10 percent since the mid 1980s. Mexico, the U.S., Israel and the U.K. are among the countries with the biggest divide between rich and poor, while Denmark, Norway, Belgium and the Czech Republic are among those with the smallest gap. – Bloomberg, 12-5-2010

In the world, 10% of the population owns 85% of the wealth – Wikipedia

The top 10% owns 71% of the U.S. economy – Ron Paul, Think Progress and Fairfield Academy.
The top 10% own 66% - Oberlin Revue.
The top 20% own 85% - Domhoff.

Academics favor looking only at the 1%, the ‘400 individuals’ of the 1% and the quintile (20%) methodology. I think, frankly, this obscures a more accurate analysis of the U.S. class structure. But it comes up with gems like this: 6 members of the Walton family (Wal-Mart) own as much as the bottom 30% of the U.S. population - Sylvia Allegretto, an economist from UC – Berkeley, 12/8/2011

“President Bush said during the third election debate last October that most of the tax cuts went to low- and middle-income Americans. In fact, most - 53 percent - will go to people with incomes in the top 10 percent over the first 15 years of the cuts,” - Primer-Wealth

“The top ten percent of households owned 82 percent of all stock-market wealth... The top ten percent of the U.S. population owns 81.8 percent of the real estate, 81.2 percent of the stock, and 88 percent of the bonds. (Federal Reserve Bank data in Left Business Observer, No. 72, Apr. 3, 1996, p. 5)”. - Primer-Wealth. Also Richard Wolff.

The top 9% increased their earnings in the last 25 years, while all other groups lost. – 673Bn increase for top 1%; $140bn increase for top 4%; $29Bn increase for top 9%. - Mother Jones, “It’s the Inequality, Stupid.”

Everyone but the top 10% has lost an average of $900 on pre-tax income -Wikipedia

In 1998 the top 5% owned 59% of the wealth – Richard Wolff

Bottom 90% of population have 73% of debt. – My Budget 360. At least we lead in something!

WHAT IS A MILLIONAIRE?

“In 2006, 7% of all households were millionaires - 9.3 million people were in these households.” – Wikipedia.

What is the number of millionaires now? (based on net worth over $1M - Financial Assets - minus household value, car/household goods value) There are 3.1 individual millionaires re financial assets - High Net Worth Individuals - in the U.S. If each household is 4 people, that means 12.4% of the population; 3 people, 9.3%. Some are children, of course. And remember – this is a MINIMUM of a $1M. Most have over that.
- based on Wikipedia 2010 / WSJ 2011 figures.

Re: Blacks and Hispanics – since 2006, wealth fell 66% among Latino families and 53% among black families. So the wealth ‘gap’ is also an ethnic / national origin gap. – PEW Center.

“There are about 5.5 million U.S. households with at least $1 million in assets (excluding home, etc.), or about 5 percent of the population. Millionaires control 56 percent of the country’s wealth” - Fidelity, second-largest U.S. mutual- fund company. – Bloomberg, 11/6/2011

The Millionaire "Next Door"?

From Obama, yesterday pretending to be Teddy Roosevelt, all the while never having busted a trust: “Look at the statistics. In the last few decades, the average income of the top 1 percent has gone up by more than 250 percent to $1.2 million per year. I’m not talking about millionaires, people who have a million dollars. I’m saying people who make a million dollars every single year.” – Obama, 12/7/2011

Note the distinction between those who earn a million a year, and those who ‘have’ a million dollars in some form. Bloomberg noticed this right away. Obama does not use the method of most analysts who look at this metric. These analysts do not include the value of the house, car, furnishings or contents when they estimate millionaires. Only capital from other sources. Having a real million in assets is not the same as earning a million a year either. Evidently both kinds of millionaires - those who have a real million and those who have a million in all assets - are in Obama's desired base. Only those, rhetorically at least, who make a million a year are not. I won't go into a description of the Democrat's donor base at this point - suffice it to say many make a million a year. Obama and the Democrats are still #1 in donations from Wall Street this year, or perhaps a near #2.

Here Obama makes a play for the upper middle and upper class vote – you know, people who are lawyers, managers, doctors, professors, some small businessmen, even teachers, but who aren’t quite in the real millionaire club. And even the real millionaires. This has been a solid voting base for the Democrats. Obama himself is actually in the not-quite-a-true-millionaire club, if you include the value of his large home in Chicago's Hyde Park. And evidently he's also making a play for the real millionaire' next door.' The one 90% of the population probably don't live next to.

December 8, 2011
A Tip of the Hat to Rick and his Wonder Dog
Red Frog