The center will not hold (tags)
The existing late capitalist ideology in the center of society, the tattered national identity, is being driven to barbaric extremes in reaction to the crisis. Neo-liberalism, with its social Darwinism and economic nationalism, provided the springboards that the new right used.
The Enemy and the Libidinal Economy of the Apocalypse (tags)
The West continues to avoid introspection by invoking the Other as pure evil. While the terminal crisis of capitalist civilization is truly global, and no emancipatory model can be seen on the geopolitical chessboard, it is also evident that today’s anti-Russian sentiment stems from a consolidated ideological framework. To West, Russians have always been an inferior race,
Multiple crisis and catastrophe (tags)
The official self-image of bourgeois society remains strangely untouched by crises. They are understood as improbable and short-lived interruptions of what are actually successful processes. Disruptions and crises are denied, are considered technical and, through a variety of individual measures, if not solvable, then at least postponable into the future.
Our Zone of Interest: The Noise of Permanent Warfare (tags)
Wars (especially when marketed as humanitarian, defensive, or “against terror”) are, in essence, criminal means to “easy money”, which is what keeps today’s financial bubbles inflated to record-breaking highs while the actual economic conditions of millions of workers (or “inactive workforce”) are cratering at an equally record-breaking pace.
Trust in Institutions and the War Dividend (tags)
Even if almost no one wants to admit it, our “system” is obsolete, and for this reason it is now morphing into a “closed system” – totalitarian in nature. It is equally clear that the few who continue to benefit materially from the capitalist system (the 0.1%) are willing to do whatever it takes to prolong its obsolete existence. Debt is issued from one door and purchased from another.
Capitalism is not in a position to solve the social and ecological crisis that it is causing. An open-ended transformation of the system is inevitable, and a struggle for transformation will be waged – especially against the fascist threat. Conscious reflection on the systemic crisis is the best antidote to the conspiratorial crisis talk of the New Right.
Corporations are also using their profits to repurchase their own shares (thereby boosting stock indices to record levels), to finance mergers and acquisitions (which increase concentration, but not investment, and often involve cutting jobs)...
Qualitative Break: Why a Radical Critique of Work is Necessary Today (tags)
Capital has increasingly decoupled itself from directly expended labor and accumulation is now taking place predominantly on the level of financial markets... In large parts of the Global South, the majority has long since been declared ‘superfluous.’
Russia's victory in an economic war (tags)
If perspectives for ways out of the increasingly worsening crises of capitalist socialization are to emerge, it is indispensable to look at the whole of conditions and their complex entanglements. It is necessary to break with the myths and life lies of the 'free West' as well as with those of a mission for a Russian empire or any other autocratic fundamentalism.
Climate catastrophe and `freedom of consumption' (tags)
It is not five to twelve, but five past twelve, as philosopher Slavoj Žižek writes. The fact that climate change is a fact (the details may well be debated) and poses a serious threat to humanity is something that the last fool should have realized by now.1 It is also clear that the emission of CO2 and other greenhouse gases must be radically and rapidly reduced.
Welcome to post-democracy! (tags)
In the current systemic crisis, this capitalist pseudo-democracy is producing a real dystopia on a par with the nightmares of George Orwell and Aldous Huxley: the apparently responsible citizen (in reality a powerless object in the heteronomous process of capital exploitation) chooses the way in which his intensified exploitation and alienation is to be concretely organized and perfected.
The pace of business rationalization has accelerated to such an extent that in the core sectors of world market production, fewer and fewer workers are needed despite growing output of goods. Thus, the development of productive power has reached a point at which it makes absolutely more labor superfluous in each period.
The contradictory capitalist mode of production is thus not only the driving force[11] behind the mounting debt and economic crises,[12] it is also the cause of the unfolding climate catastrophe. “Man-made” climate change is in large part the result of the social system.
Pause for Thought: Money without Value in a Rapidly Disintegrating World (tags)
The tanking economy is the cause of these “misfortunes”. What we are sold as external threats is in fact the ideological projection of the internal limit of capitalist modernity. In systemic terms, emergency addiction keeps the comatose body of capitalism artificially alive
"One must expect a tsunami of global inflation, further impoverishment and mass migration (of cheap labor) - and all of this will be blamed on Putin. One must expect the return of pandemic threats that support ongoing efforts to globalize vaccine passports and the digitization of life."
Against the cannabilism of capital (tags)
The subjectless rule of capital and Working class hero (tags)
Fortunately, his death did not silence him. The opposite is the case. Because John Winston Lennon became more immortal through the assassination than he already was as a member of the most successful band of all times. Not a martyr - but a working class hero.
Spiral downward and No exit! (tags)
The austerity dictates imposed on the Eurozone are only exacerbating the crisis they are supposed to be fighting. The austerity measures are leading to a collapse in domestic demand.
Total Competition or Repressive Administration of People (tags)
An awareness of the monstrosities of our glorious capitalist society is the first prerequisite for thinking beyond that society.:..The regularities of capitalist society are not laws of nature, so they can be abolished in principle. With such abolition, a new society can become possible.
Making yourself comfortable in capitalism (tags)
"Whoever has a wife should behave as if he had none, ... whoever buys as if he were not the owner, whoever makes use of the world as if he did not use it" (1 Cor 7:29f). Paul is speaking here to people who were "called" as slaves into the messianic church (1 Cor 7:21).
Myths of the Crisis and Enemy Images in the Media (tags)
The Ukrainian ambassador was quoted in the FAZ as saying: "All Russians are now our enemies". This rhetoric is classic enemy image cultivation... This homogenization is so pre-Enlightenment and always wrong.
The work critique of millenials and A new universalism of emancipation (tags)
The 4-Hour League, an alliance founded in 2016 to campaign for the 4-hour day is concerned with pushing back wage labor to have more time for a good life, for a gender-just redistribution of care activities and putting an end to the over-exploitation of nature.
A new quality of crisis (tags)
From the systemic urge to self-destruction arises the survival necessity of the emancipatory overcoming of capital. The capitalist regime of constraint must be transformed into history. The struggle for the transformation of the system has to be the central moment of left practice.
The 1960s, when incomes rose for almost all workers, ended with a massive wave of strikes. Since the 1980s, the incomes of most Americans have fallen, working hours have risen massively, and job security has become a foreign word. But strikes have been extremely rare.
Ukraine: A war for the disintegrating world order (tags)
The consequences of rearmament and economic sanctions are foreseeable: among other things, the aggravation of crises through higher economic burdens. They can already be seen in the form of price increases for heating oil, fuel and gas.
Interview on The Black Book of Capitalism (tags)
The book is: 1) a history of the three great industrial revolutions (introduction of the manufacturing system with the steam engine at the beginning of the 19th century, Fordist “self-mobilization” with the assembly line and the rationalization and the microelectronic revolution.
The true costs of capitalist wealth (tags)
What drives the capitalist mode of production is the endless compulsion to increase abstract wealth, or, put more simply, the compulsion to turn money into more money... Society is richer than it knows, because it does not take all kinds of wealth factors into account in GDP.
System Transformation or Barbarism (tags)
Overcoming capital is thus a necessity for survival. Consequently, the climate question is not a question of burden sharing, it is not a question of social security. The global exploitation process of capital, in which resources and energy are burned to make more money...
The 1.5 target calls for an eco-socialist revolution (tags)
The only responsible way forward is the IPCC's P1 scenario, which envisages rapid and radical interventions in existing production, transport and consumption structures, i.e. a massive industrial transformation and deconstruction in the main capitalist countries (15ff.).
Capitalist dilemmas and The Greed for More (tags)
The overexploitation of nature did not remain without resistance. However, these were ignored by both the left and the right. The "requirements of shipping and agriculture" destroy original functions of the floodplain landscapes. "And if solutions within the system are so impossible to find,maybe we should change the system"
The war on the virus is a crucial backdrop for destabilization and fear, before which vast amounts of public funds are siphoned off in the name of saving lives, saving the environment, and saving people's livelihoods - all of which are attacked by the arbitrariness of this very capitalist rule.
Corona containment and capital utilization (tags)
In the Corona crisis, it became obvious that our capitalist economic system is not suited to protect human life. There must finally be an end to eternal growth, the exploitation of nature and people and the shortage of time, an end to "more & more, faster & faster and further & further."
Workout. The Crisis of Labor and the Limits of Capitalist Society (tags)
The Third Industrial Revolution represents a qualitative break in the history of productivity growth. This is because microelectronics facilitated a radical reorganization in production overall such that labor lost the central importance that it previously had and the application of knowledge became the main force.
The present crisis means that, to a degree previously undreamt of, ever-greater numbers of human beings will simply be declared “superfluous.” The much-invoked “new role of the state” has not the slightest chance of recreating a 1960s style social welfare capitalism, with full employment and a rising standard of living.
Climate Crisis and Social Transformation in the Age of Corona (tags)
The temporary moratorium on economic activity in large parts of the world has done nothing at all to change the fundamental logic of the capitalist mode of production, which is driven by the end-in-itself motion of endlessly reproducing abstract wealth, represented by money.
Capitalism is not natural (tags)
Political programs in the 20th century, then, were meant to create equality, not merely alleviate poverty. How we live collectively, what we value as a society, and how we want to conceive of ourselves - all these questions were politicized by these programs...
Criminal banks and criminal capitalism (tags)
Since the 1970s, the real economy and the financial economy have been increasingly diverging. Gigantic assets vagabond around the globe, desperately looking for profitable investment opportunities.
Shrinkage means the voluntary downsizing of the national economy, including a reduction in gross domestic product. "Voluntary" here indicates a preference for voluntaristic solutions - though not as individualistic and unplanned where well-to-do opt out of the consumerist market model.
Alternatives to capitalism: Buen vivir (tags)
Capitalism is seen primarily as a system of institutional and racist oppression, and it implies a way of life that sees nature only as a raw material to be exploited. The claim is thus to break with the capitalist mode of production and life in order to create "other forms of life."
What does socialism mean in the 21st century? (tags)
"Socialism" should be much more than a mere buzzword. In light of the fact that current capitalism is in the process of destroying our planet and our prospects for a free, democratic, and good life, "socialism" must become a genuine systemic alternative.
What kind of conditioning will we be subjected to after being stripped of our natural relationships? I want to live a life that breaks the invisible cage and firmly reaches out to nature and humanity.
Life Lies of the Islands of Prosperity (tags)
The embarrassing secret of the 'Western' model of society and development is that it only works under very specific political and economic, ecological and social conditions. Preconditions that lie essentially outside this model and are hidden or made invisible by the social actors of its glorifying preservation. '
Many Crises-One System: Counter Power in Catastrophe Capitalism (tags)
A revolution does not come out of nowhere, but emerges from the struggles in the here and now. The point is that we can only fight for social or ecological progress against capitalist principles.
Self-reference in capital and in ourselves (tags)
"Lateral thinkers" defend their freedom. Capital serves no other purpose than the irrational end in itself of the multiplication of itself.
Climate crisis and social transformation in times of corona (tags)
Companies go bankrupt, workers are laid off, and because the sources of income dry up, millions of people can no longer even buy the most basic necessities... What counts is whether the things produced can be sold on the market and make a profit.
The discussion about Corona (tags)
Corona can only become a kairos if we gain the theoretical capacity of recovery and create the conditions for a transformation. Taking the healthcare system away from the markets and obliging large companies to be oriented in the common good would be steps to infrastructure socialism.
Capitalism, Coronavirus and the Road to Extinction (tags)
The only way to ‘re-embed’ our economies and save our lives from ecological collapse is by intervening in the very heart of the beast: land and human beings need to be taken out of the market. The beast is not tameable; it needs to be killed.
The economy for faith healers (tags)
Due to the sharpening contradictions of late capitalist socialization, barbarism, not reason, is increasing. Reason is not advancing in the overall historical movement, as once postulated by Hegel. Only the overcoming of this false whole, would offer humankind a chance of survival.
The contagion of revolt spreads…Revolts everywhere! (tags)
On the Power of Money: Three by Eugen Drewermann (tags)
Only faith (as in a religion), the "invisible hand," the "law" of the "free" market can judge everything. State interventions can only be annoying. The market itself is allegedly "social". Everyone acts according to his advantage. The system is not social but criminal and unjust.
Bernie Sanders in Las Vegas: Being free, being high and eminent domain (tags)
The proclamation of a national climate emergency, the ban on oil and gas exports and the import of cheap medicines from Canada are to be implemented by means of the so-called "Executive Order"
The Social State in the Age of Global Capitalism (tags)
Welcome to techno-corporate feudalism-where the richest three Americans have more wealth than 160 million, where the wealthiest 86 have more wealth than 3.6 billion, where the foul-mouthed cancelled free school lunches for 1 million and where market distortions rule.
The Gigantic Chasm Between Democratic Rhetoric and Capitalist Reality (tags)
When we lose the idea of community and solidarity, we lose our capacity for collective action.
The Crisis of Democracy (tags)
Decisions affecting social development are in the hands of private investors and state policy depends on their actions. The increasingly unequal income and wealth distribution was the result of a strategic government policy that reacted to a capitalist crisis.
Addendum: Benjamin Tucker American Mutualist: Tucker Did Not Advocate Voting in Businesses (tags)
This series is supposed to present the ideas of Tucker in an accurate fashion. So this article will focus on how Tucker himself intended businesses to be operated.
Crisis Regulation in Global Capitalism (tags)
The globalization euphoria waned with the 1997 Asian crisis. Hundreds of billions were needed to bailout bankrupt banks. The US with its high solvent demand stabilized the world economy for a long time. The US could become indebted in its own currency.
Capital as Climate Killer (tags)
The growth pressure of the world economy makes a resource-sparing social order only possible beyond capital. The seeming rationality of capitalist goods production serves an irrational end-in-itself - the multiplication of capital.
The System Question as a Survival Question (tags)
A fundamental social alternative to the permanent capitalist chaos is sought. A rational social discourse on system alternatives would be an antidote to populism and to the irrational identity-mania that spreads. The public discusses headscarves while late capitalism sinks in crisis
Social Policy as Social Infrastructure (tags)
Work and income must be uncoupled. In Germany, thanks to higher productivity and information technology, 30% more was produced from 1970-2010 with 30% fewer workers. Demonizing China will not resuscitate the Rust Belt. Social policy is crucial.
The Beam in the White House (tags)
Iran is the "greatest supporter of terror," declared president Donald Trump. With that, he justified his peace-endangering cancellation of the nuclear agreement with Iran. Reducing foreign policy to scapegoating is Hitlerian.
Against The Capitalist Catastrophe (tags)
Leaflet to copy spread for the 1st of may
There is outrage over the nationalist economic policy of "America First." The parallels to the 1929 system crisis are obvious. The unstable house of cards could now finally collapse. Credit-financed demand is created for a goods-producing system that suffocates in its own productivity.
The October 1917 Revolution and Lenin (tags)
Contribution to the Discussion on the Centinnial of the October 1917 BolsheviK Revolution
Survival instead of Profit (tags)
Capital is a powerful machine of commodification. Since the capitalist market economy became autonomous and "separated" from society, capital has only functioned according to its own laws, the impersonal laws of profit and accumulation.
Statement of The Revolutionary Tendency on Britain's Snap Elections (tags)
No support for capitalist candidates.
Capitalism as Regressive Descent Society (tags)
The escalator is going down and no longer up as in the "social modern age." The social trend drives toward precariousness and the accompanying social descent. Social institutions and securities are being cleared away.
Benjamin Tucker: Individualist Libertarian Market Socialist (Updated 2017) (tags)
American Individualist Libertarianism is a form of market socialism with self-employed individuals, co-operative businesses, and socialist employers. 1. (If your interested, please see: Benjamin Tucker’s State Socialism and Anarchism: Where they Agree and where they Differ) It differs from Mutualist market socialism because mutualist market socialism also has an agro-industrial federation and a regulated market (regulated market by the community or federation) to ensure equality of opportunity. 2. (If your interested, please see: Proudhon’s Principle of Federation)
Indybay Censorship, Sabotage, and Defamation (tags)
In organizing "Justice for Sean Arlt and Luke Smith protests, the Revolutionary Tendency works in a non-sectarian manner with protest co-sponsor Homeless United for Friendship and Freedom and with participation and support from Santa Cruz Food Not Bombs, 15-year-old Luke Smith’s mother, Luke Smith’s class mates, and with food and coffee provided by Joe Schultz of India Joze. As these are grass-roots community events, one would think that the “non-hierarchical” censors at Indybay could look beyond their unexplained and seemingly irrational hatred, censorship, sabotage, and defamation of these community events demanding justice for Sean Arlt and Luke Smith. Yet, this is not the case.
To Defeat Trump … And the Democrats, Fight for Workers Revolution (tags)
After all the media hype, suddenly it turned out that Republican Donald Trump was elected. The racist, sexist, immigrant-bashing, woman-molesting Trump would be the next CEO of the United States and commander-in-chief of U.S. imperialism. In deep shock and disbelief, tens of millions asked, how could this happen? In Muslim, Latino, African American and immigrant families there was raw fear. Soon mass protests began, with many chanting “Not My President” (as if Democrat Clinton, a certified warmonger, would have been?). At the same time, racist incidents multiplied. It is urgently necessary to fight back, but the question is how? The answer depends on understanding what happened, and why. Trump certainly mobilized the hard-core racist vote, and better-off middle class voters. But what put him over the top was the vote of residents of dying small towns and white workers in the Rust Belt, who have seen their jobs destroyed and cities devastated. The fact is that with their economic policies, the Democrats pushed millions of workers into the arms of Trump. What is urgently needed is to break from the Democrats, Republicans and all capitalist parties and build a class-struggle workers party. Such a party would fight for a program of mass workers action against the deportations, for workers defense guards against racist attacks, and to oppose the imperialist war drive in a struggle leading to workers revolution.
Ethics and the Profit System: Global Change of Values Necessary (tags)
Profit-making is not profit-maximizing. From the magic word profit-mongering is derived the absurd unequal distribution of wealth, cheating of consumers, the exploitation of workers and ultimately the abolition of democracy. An invisible hand makes business profit into common good
After the Attacks in Paris (tags)
“We are at war!”: such is the leitmotiv of government officials and politicians from the various French parties, after the deadly attacks in Paris and Saint-Denis.
"The Great Transformation Has Begun" (tags)
The core of this system, its over-arching law, is the endless accumulation of capital. That is its main goal to which everything else is subordinated. Persons and nature are used to make more money out of money. Therefore we are degraded to little wheels in this machine.
At the end of yet another «historic» marathon session Brussels negotiations between the Greek government and its creditors, a «definitive» agreement has yet again been found to «resolve" the Greek crisis: Greek Prime Minister Tsipras and his team have come to accept as a condition for new loans to the virtually bankrupt Greek government, a plan of austerity measures significantly harsher than he had rejected a week earlier and against which he had, supposedly, held a referendum! The only point where he apparently got something concrete, is that of the reduction in military spending: the creditors have accepted that it is weaker than what they asked for...
The Catastrophe has Already Begun (tags)
Capitalist growth has become the problem, promotes famines and strangles full employment. Can the world be rescued? Mass unemployment has never lasted as long as today; global problems increase... A change of consciousness is necessary so the population strives for justice.
In San Francisco, "Dispatches Against Displacement" -- a review (tags)
A work by a prominent San Francisco housing activist in a context of ongoing defeat for San Francisco renters...
The attack against Charlie Hebdo (tags)
After the attack against Charlie Hebdo, all the formidable power of the media and bourgeois propaganda kicked in to use the emotion born of the bloody massacre to rouse support for "national unity" and the "values of the Republic." the Government, parties of the left, right and far- right (excised by the organizers of the Paris march, the far-right Front National (FN) of le Pen called for demonstrations in the provinces), trade union apparachniks and multiple associations called for large demonstrations of unity: so that rich and poor, unemployed and capitalists, workers and employers could march together for "freedom of expression" and against "terrorism", behind French political leaders and government officials and those of other countries, German, Spanish, English, etc. or even Turkish such as the Prime Minister of that government which has imprisoned dozens of journalists, which violently suppressed Kurdish demonstrators (thirty dead) and which supports the activities of jihadist groups in Syria, Israelis such as Netanyahu still dripping in blood from all its victims in Gaza, etc. a true imperialist Holy Alliance.
This introduction to Tomasz Konicz' "On the Search for Alternatives to the Permanent Capitalist Crisis" (2014) is translated from the German. Empire could be replaced by republic as excess could be replaced by access and more by enough Capitalist contradictions/dislocations are signs.
Capitalism and Its Crisis Proclivity (tags)
The liberal economists of the 19th century claimed no crises could occur in capitalism since every supply creates its demand. On the other hand, Marx and Engels recognized early on the causes for crises in capitalism. The contradictions of the accumulation process lead to crises.
Asian Socialism Conference in the Philippines (tags)
The Asian Socialism Conference will be held in Manila from November 28 to 29, 2014. The conference will be capped by the participation of guests and delegates to the November 30 rally in Manila to commemorate Bonifacio Day, a national hero who led the armed struggle in the revolution against Spain.
The "Great Transformation" of the 21st Century (tags)
An end of the Great Crisis is not insight at the beginning of the 21st century... The regime of finance-market driven accumulation has not brought forth any new formation of capitalism capable of development.
The ‘Asian Century’ and ASEAN integration: contradictions and challenges (tags)
Talk given by Sonny Melencio, Chairperson of Partido Lakas ng Masa-Philippines (PLM), during the Socialist Alliance Conference in Sydney, Australia on June 7, 2014
Democracy and socialism (tags)
Democracy is the most popular word in the vocabulary of politics but also the most brazenly abused.
Financial Market Inflammation (tags)
Bubble formation covered up a period of long-lasting stagnation... Former US Treasury secretary Larry Summers even spoke of stagnation as a "new normality"... The crisis consequences are shifted to other subjects. Unemployment and indebtedness are exported.
Philippines: 'Forward, Bayanihang Sosyalismo!' Popularising a socialism 'with local colour (tags)
The following is the English-language translation of a document on bayanihan socialism that was presented at the convention of the Philippines socialist party Partido Lakas ng Masa (Party of the Labouring Masses, PLM) in December, 2013.
Capitalism as a Secularized Religion (tags)
It is never too early or too late to challenge the dominant narrative. Capitalism is a fetish social formation, a demolishing of being not a reform of being. Capitalism may be the first case of an indebted cult, not an atoning cult, possibly the most bloodthirsty cult of humanity's history.
The Tiger and His Trainers (tags)
How preposterous to think we can avert the next crisis without regulating or shriveling the financial sector, addressing income inequality and radically rethinking the meaning and assumptions of economics? Hans-Jurgen Urban likens the financial crisis to a tiger breaking from his cage and sees the welfare state and unions as trainers
Is Capitalism at an End? (tags)
The capitalist system in its current form is no longer fit for today's world. The system that led us into crisis has long been ourdated. The brave new world of neoliberalism lies in ruin. Surveys show that a majuority of people regard capitalism as unjust and unsocial.
Detroit Mirrors America's Decline (tags)
Detroit
Addicted to Liquidity Injections (tags)
Bernanke's announcing of lower monthly printing of money was enough to make stock exchanges collapse in many threshold countries. The monetary policy of printing money and zero interest is caught in a vicious circle. Liquidity glut generates credit growth.
Rail Disaster in Canada (tags)
The aftermath of the worst rail disaster in Canada for decades leaves at least 47 dead with many of the victims still unaccounted for.
Slaughter of Proletarians in Bangladesh: Capitalism is the Assassin! (tags)
On April 24 "Rana Plaza" a 9-storey building in an industrial suburb of Dhaka, capital of Bangladesh (14 million), collapsed on about 3,500 workers (their number is not known precisely) working there. The building contained five textile factories, as well as a bank and many shops. The official present death toll is 1128, the number of injured is unknown. Most of the victims are women, who constitute 80 to 90% of the workforce in the Bangladeshi textile industry.
May 5th is the birth date of Karl Marx, one of humanity’s most influential theorists.
A ‘mixed’ economy brought down Sandinistas; same danger exists for Venezuela (tags)
The question of who owns, controls and/or manages production and distribution is what will be decisive. Venezuela’s economy remains mostly in the hands of capitalists, and that represents a threat to the Bolivarian Revolution.
The toll of privatization and the ideology of “there is no alternative” (tags)
One million people are estimated to have died as a result of capitalist “shock therapy” in the former Soviet bloc; other health indications demonstrate a catastrophic toll from capitalist offensives.
Erich Fromm on Karl Marx (tags)
The capitalist production method makes a few persons absurdly rich while the others hardly have enough to survive. Capitalism also makes people unfree and unhappy because their access to their true needs is blocked.
Barry Commoner (1917-2012) (tags)
The economic theory of socialism does not demand an unlimited growth. The capitalist agrarian economy and industry wear out the two exclusive sources of wealth: the earth and workers. Capitalist accumulation and the finite earth are in contradiction.
Stagnation, not growth, is the norm for mature capitalism (tags)
The dynamics of a mature capitalist economy result in stagnation and financialization, creating deepening inequality.
"The barbaric core of capitalist socialization is on full display in the present system crisis. The propagandists of totalitarian economism come in the mask of democrats. Economic-profitability thinking is imposed on society. Our society has long been viewed as a business."
Out of the Slump: The Only Road (tags)
A real analysis of the United State’s economic history is rarely discussed by politicians or media alike, since the conclusions that would be inevitably drawn would be out of step with what politicians are currently advocating.
USA: Human Rights Activist Ordered to Six Months of Jail (tags)
The case of Ed Frey is reminiscent of an earlier Santa Cruz case where Sandy Loranger did time in jail for feeding the homeless soup. When the judge offered her counseling instead of jail Sandy Loranger replied, "If feeding my fellow man is a crime, I am beyond rehabilitation."
Economist Richard Wolff Supports "Lesser" Evil Voting (tags)
We finally heard from the self-proclaimed Marxist economist, Richard Wolff, on the presidential elections, on KPFA, 94.1 FM, 6 p.m. news, 7/15/12, on his view of the elections and it was a shameful, anti-Marxist, lesser evil line, especially considering Wolff is a founding member of the Connecticut Green Party.
The Left, Labor and Occupy (tags)
Barely half a year after it burst on the scene, the Occupy Wall Street movement is splintering left and right. This was inevitable in a movement that was united only in what it opposed and could never put forward a positive program, whether of reformist "demands" on the capitalist state or of revolutionary action against it. Liberals, who latched onto Occupy hoping it could pressure the Democratic Party in a more populist direction, want to expel "black bloc" anarchists. Reformist social democrats rail against "ultraleftists" in Occupy and cozy up to the labor tops. On the other side, many (but not all) anarchists oppose unions. Some are simply arrogant petty-bourgeois labor haters. Others are grappling with real problems, but with skewed analysis and dead wrong conclusions. Discussion of recent workers' struggles, from Wisconsin to West Coast longshore, underlines that the key question is leadership, but not just replacing one set of bureaucrats with another. Unions have always faced vicious anti-labor laws, but we have the power to defeat them. It is necessary to drive out the pro-capitalist bureaucracy, the labor lieutenants of capital, in order to turn the unions into instruments of revolutionary class struggle.
Democracy, risk and liability are turned upside down when trillions bailout the banks and workers, pensioners and unemployed must pay the bill. We live from those who say No to corruption, to the state reduced to a trough or errand boy for the banks (Bill Moyers).
Solidarity, social justice and sharing open doors while deregulation and trickle-down mythologty lead to exploding inequality and generalized insecurity. Karl Marx asked why capitalism cannot solve poverty, unemployment and exploitation.
Cooperatives and the Good Life (tags)
The rights of businesses in exploiting resources end in the rights of nature according to the constitution of the bien vivir. This understanding of the person-nature relation surpasses the rationalist model of rule over nature realized in capitalism's globalized praxis. Art 395 of Ecuador's constitution affirms sustainability.
Where does profit come from? (tags)
The work of employees, who are paid only a fraction of the value that they produce, is the source of profits for capitalists. Those astronomical salaries and bonuses enjoyed by executives and speculators come on the backs of the company’s employees.
Lynch Law U.S.A.: State Defends Murderer of Trayvon Martin (tags)
Outrage over the murder of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin compounds daily as the killer remains free, facing no criminal charges for gunning down the unarmed black youth from Miami Gardens, Florida. On February 26, George Zimmerman, a white self-appointed captain of a "neighborhood watch" team in a gated community in the Orlando suburb of Sanford, shot Martin, a black high-school student, who was returning to the home in the development where he and his father were staying. Police and local prosecutors never charged Zimmerman and accepted his cynical claim that he shot the unarmed youth in "self-defense." Thousands have demonstrated around the country, particularly after police tapes of 911 calls by Zimmerman were released, showing that he was stalking Martin. But the main thrust of liberals is to divert the protests into a movement for gun control laws and to get rid of "Stand Your Ground" laws such as Florida's which make it legal to shoot in self-defense. The ruling-class response deliberately tries to obscure the key fact that this was racist murder. Trayvon Martin was killed for the "crime" of "walking while black."
The Keynesian past is past: Nostalgia is not the future (tags)
Keynesianism would be much better than austerity, but would do nothing to solve the underlying structural crisis of capitalism.
The Systemic Causes of the Crisis (tags)
The crisis is 30 years old, not 4 years old. The causes of the crisis can be found in the real goods-producing economy, not in the financial markets. The wildly proliferating financial markets did not drag the industry into crisis but kept alive the industry through credit-financed demand.
It's not the Federal Reserve, it's the system it serves (tags)
If the Fed were eliminated, the exact same powerful capitalist interests would be continue to bend government policy to their preferred outcome and would continue to exercise the same dominance over government, social institutions and the mass media. The only difference would be that the economy would become more unstable than it already is because there would be less ability on the part of government to dampen excesses. Why would that be good?
On The New Revolutionary Tendency of the Socialist Party (RT-SP) (tags)
The following statement of purpose was approved by the now forming Revolutionary Tendency of the Socialist Party (RT-SP) Jan. 7, 2012.
Revolting, Occupying and Refusing (tags)
The demand for the commons goes far beyond de-privatization and aims at a social infrastructure of goods and services that everyone needs and to which everyone is entitled. The real economy that must be preserved hardly exists.
So much crisis was never analyzed with a crisis-conditioned satisfaction guarantee! Instead of seeking culprits, we must seek the systemic causes of the indebtedness dynamic. These gigantic debt mountains were necessary to keep capitalism functioning. Fewer and fewer workers can producer more and more goods in an ever-shorter time.
On the New Revolutionary Tendency of the Socialist Party (RT-SP) (tags)
As the current crisis of capitalism threatens the break-down all that is left that is civil in our society, the Democrats charge ahead with the Republicans in making sure it is the poor, the working class, and the planet, who pay for the crisis of capitalism, not capitalist profits. The alternative to socialist revolution becomes increasingly clear as capitalist society becomes less and less able to take care of its people; climate change caused by capitalist greed becomes an increasing threat to the future of human civilization; the capitalist state becomes increasingly repressive; and the leading capitalist countries plunge the world into war after war of imperialist domination and conquest. As the great German revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg said in 1918, the alternatives are socialism or barbarism.
Of Korea, the Rosenbergs, Berenson, Anti-Semitism & US imperialism (tags)
On Dec 20, 2011, the first day of Chanukah, the Jewish festival of lights that commemorates liberation, Lori Berenson, a victim of anti-Semitism common in Catholic countries like Peru, finally came home. Coincidentally, the latest leader of Stalinist North Korea, Kim Jong Il, died Dec 17, 2011, so the US saber rattling under the guise of "human rights" was renewed on all airwaves. Ignored everywhere, including KPFA, was the anti-Semitic frame-up of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, by Democratic president Harry Truman in 1950 to make Jew, Communist and traitor synonymous to justify the war of anti-communism in Korea, in the US first stage attempt to destroy the 1949 Chinese revolution, leaving 3 million dead Koreans, and a devastated country.
The Crisis, Trust and Homeowners (tags)
Capitalism cannot function any more without credit-financed debt on account of its increasing productivity. The recession will come because the indebtedness-dynamic can hardly be maintained with which the capitalist zombie-economy is kept alive in its pseudo-life.
The Occupy Wall Street movement, Engels, and the Theory of Socialism (tags)
The theoretical foundations of socialism as put forth by Frederick Engels in his book Anti-Dühring are still valid today and schould for the basis of the OCW movements around the world.
Oakland General Strike a Success, but Cops Seriously Injure another Vet (tags)
With over 50,000 people protesting in the street in three major protests through the course of the day, massive labor participation, and a shut down of the Port of Oakland, there is no question that the general strike was a success. Yet the corporate media is now blowing up the importance of a few acts of vandalism by protesters and agent provocateurs.
Solidarity to Occupy Oakland General Strike (tags)
The Philippine Airlines Employees’ Association (PALEA), the union of the ground staff of Philippine Airlines, and Partido ng Manggagawa (Labor Party-Philippines), the independent party of the working class in the Philippines, stand shoulder to shoulder with the Occupy Oakland protesters. We too struggle against corporate greed and capitalist globalization with its destructive impact on the workers and the youth. Truly the movement against corporate greed and capitalist globalization is international in scope.
Critique of Marianne Williamson at Occupy LA (tags)
A critique of a small part of Williamson's speech regarding capitalism.
The crisis is 30 years old, not three years old. The causes of the crisis should be tracked down in the real goods-producing economy, not in the financial markets. The financial markets were keep alive up to the collapse of the speculative bubble by credit-financed demand.
10 Year Since 9/11 Inside Job (tags)
September 11, 2011 is the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 Inside Job, the American Reichstag Fire, perpetrated for the same reason the Nazis burned their government building, the Reichstag: to perpetrate war and fascism so as to maximize profits for the capitalist class, the primary goal of capitalism, the greatest profits being in oil and munitions. Only a labor movement capable of carrying out a general strike can finally put an end to the private profit system, thereby saving the earth and humanity.
Politics in the Crisis Trap (tags)
A discontinuance of debt-financed economic programs leads to an economic slack period resulting in stagnation and recession. Crisis policy finds itself in a philosophical paradox. The political class can only choose between more indebtedness up to state bankruptcy (with hyper-inflation) or harsh austerity programs.
Obama?s Continued Failures on the Environment and Jobs (tags)
[Photo: Bridge in Felton, California built by workers in the Works Progress Administration which employed 3.8 million people from 1935 to 1941 and built 11,000 schools, 122,000 public buildings, 77,000 bridges, 285 airports, 24,000 miles of sewer, and 664,000 miles of road. Photo by Liberation News]
On the Failure of the Mainstream Economy (tags)
The neoliberal mainstream economy and its political backers experienced their Waterloo with the most serious financial and economic crisis in eight decades. States bailed out banks and banks made money by lending back to states. A policy of reduced working hours is necessary.
Free Gary Johnson! Homelessness in California is now punishable by a year in jail. (tags)
Free Gary Johnson! Overturn the Convictions of Ed Frey, Arthur Bishoff, Collette Connolly! Hands Off Christopher Doyon! End Laws making it Illegal for the Homeless to Sleep at Night! Seize Housing From the Banks for those Who Need Housing! For a Nation Wide Jobs Program Building Housing for All!
The U.S. is More Greek than Greece (tags)
Deficit economies were organized mainly by finance capital. The expansion of this credit-financed mass demand went along with the expansion of the financial sector. Trillions of dollars and Euros were pumped in the stabilization of financial markets.
A powerful wave of anger among the poor and unemployed Arab masses shakes the young, voracious and brutal capitalism of the North African and Middle Eastern countries supported by the old and bloody capitalism in Europe and America. Anticipation of a social wave that can only be resolved in favor of the vast majority of the population by the emergence of the proletarian class.
Jerry Brown, capitalists front man in their offensive against workers and the poor (tags)
Jerry Brown's speech. He wants to re-build California. Then let's make those who tore it down pay, not workers and the poor.
Guns. Violence. Tucson. Mexico. China: The tentacles of capitalism (tags)
The capitalist class desperately try to separate the actions of individuals from society. There is no "system". Capitalism is never to blame, only the crazed and murderous actions of flawed individuals.
Engels on Capital and Surplus Value (tags)
Review of the chapters on Capital and Surplus Value in Engels' book Anti-Dühring showing the contemporary relevance of Marxist theory.
True and False Causes of the Financial Crisis (tags)
If we can produce enough for all in superfluity-and we are already technically in this position-why must the whole enormous social wealth be squeezed through the needle of buying and selling, money, profit and growth? We all deserve something better than capitalist crisis economy.
Calls from Joe Lieberman help force Amazon and EveryDNS to dump Wikileaks (tags)
The war against Wikileaks is gaining momentum. We must defend Wikileaks, Julian Assange and free speech. I read now that Paypal has joined the offensive. Perhaps we should all close our paypal accounts.
Science Daily reports on a new study linking health with wealth.
In the 1960s, JKGalbraith warned of two worlds: private affluence and public squalor. Now after the neoliberal counter-offensive, more than half of US states struggle with deficits. Without the social contract, we become wolves to each other.
A Financial Boom Despite the Crisis (tags)
For the banks, deficit state budgets become important clients. They compensate the private demand for credit. The financial boom is completely based on support measures of state organs. An economic upswing is not in sight.
Worldwide Economic Crisis: Two Opposite Models as Answers (tags)
In a large part of the population, there is a consensus that capitalism has no answers to the great social challenges of social security, hunger and climate change. An alternative investment program (emphasizing children, culture and climate change) gives a long-term answer.
Life after the Peak: Capitalism and the Market Economy (tags)
All over the world there are experiments with renewable energy, solidarity economies and non-profit economic forms. A growth acceleration law will be absurd when fossil energy runs out. We will need a growth de-acceleration law.
The mainstream band RATM others like them are workers (tags)
The mainstream band RATM others like them are workers
Haiti Earthquake: Capitalism, Occupation and Revolution (tags)
The earthquake that wrecked the capital of Haiti and surrounding areas on January 12 produced human tragedy of almost unfathomable proportions. It has been termed “the most destructive natural disaster in modern times.” Five months later, Haiti is no longer in the headlines or on the nightly TV news, but for the hard-hit Haitian population the scene has hardly changed. Now a new disaster is in the making as the hurricane season begins. This was a calamity made by capitalism: the earthquake was predictable and was predicted; the inferior construction methods are the result of Haiti’s poverty, and the swollen slums were the result of U.S. policies that have destroyed Haitian agriculture, forcing peasants off the land. On top of everything, Haiti is under imperialist occupation: Washington makes sure it has ultimate control of the strategically placed island, as it has throughout the Cold War and since. Haiti's devastation is not the result of “natural” causes or even “neo-liberal” policies – it is the product of the oppression of this semi-colonial country by the imperial masters ever since black slaves rose up to abolish slavery and throw out the colonialists two centuries ago. No new “economic model” can resolve this: what’s required is a new Haitian Revolution, a workers revolution overthrowing capitalism throughout the Caribbean and extending into the heart of imperialism.
State Terrorism and massacres: constant characteristics of the policy of the Israeli bourgeoisie (tags)
The Israeli attack on the “Freedom Flotilla” of pacifist organizations under the guidance of the Turkish NGO Insani Vafki Yardim, which wanted to break the blockade to bring medicine and food to the people of Gaza, starving and subjected to terrible imprisonment since June 16, 2007, is another demonstration of the military and repressive nature of the “only democratic country in the Middle East.”
Interview with Athens, Greece daily newspaper, Avgi (tags)
"Tens of thousands of public employees have been fired in NY and California. This compromises the ability of the US to compete in the long-term."
CA Governor Candidate Alexander, SPUSA: BP Oil Spill a Crime not a Disaster (tags)
The explosion on BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig that released millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico has been called a “Disaster” by many. It isn’t a disaster. It is a crime.
Work- and Social Criticism in the Time of Capitalist Running Amok (tags)
The term social goes through a fundamental change of meaning. Earlier social described an obligation of society to its members. Today the little word social stands for the caring duty of members of society toward the capitalist machine
For a Proletarian and Communist May 1st! (tags)
Workers! The general conditions of life and work have been deteriorating for years, becoming ever more intolerable.
The 2010 Worldwatch Report was compiled by 60 scholars. "To avoid collapse, nothing less is urged than a revolution of the dominant cultural model, the replacement of our consumer culture with a model of sustainable prosperity."
Alternatives to Capitalism (tags)
Neoliberalism, financial market-driven capitalism, intensifies the crises. However the root of evil lies in the developmental laws of capitalism. Neoliberalism is based on double standards and double speak where CEOs are job creators and workers are cost factors.
Climate Justice, Not Growth Mania (tags)
"In green capitalism, the bio-crisis is at the center of the growth strategy. The Green New Deal represents a kind of ecological inversion of Kennedy's famous sentence: Ask not what you can do for the environment but what the environment can do for you..."
The Origins of Modern Socialism (tags)
The specter of socialism is again haunting the minds of the corporate elite, from the Americas to Europe and beyond. This, after decades of pro-capitalist campaigning from the corporate media, which has always confused “capitalism” with “freedom.” But of course freedom and democracy cannot exist alongside tremendous inequalities of wealth — or next to corporations wielding absolute power over elections and governments.
Filipinos join global action in Copenhagen Vs Climate Change (tags)
As world leaders negotiate on carbon emission limits, Filipino activists join tens of thousands of activists all around the world in mobilizations dubbed “People’s Assembly to Reclaim Power and Avoid Climate Crisis.” “We are in solidarity with the people who fight for climate justice. This big protest action is a testament to the people’s demand for quick and meaningful action by national governments and international institutions like the United Nations,” said Filipino climate activist Clemente Bautista of Philippine Climate Watch Alliance. “But as expected, leaders and government of capitalist countries like the United States, Japan, and European Union are evading responsibility and sabotaging the negotiation,” he said in a statement e-mailed to media outfits.
Mumia’s Life Is On the Line: Mobilize Labor/Black Power to Free Him Now! (tags)
The threat to Mumia Abu-Jamal's life is increasingly ominous. His lead attorney, Robert Bryan, warns: "There is an escalated effort by the authorities to see him die at the hands of the executioner. This is the most dangerous time for Mumia since his 1981 arrest." The U.S. Supreme Court has turned down Jamal's two appeals. If it were to rule in favor of the prosecution's appeal, this would open the way for Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell to issue a third warrant of execution, which he has vowed to do. Contrary to the misplaced expectations of many, the Obama administration is not about to save Mumia. Around the world, hundreds of thousands have marched for this courageous champion of oppressed. Trade unions representing millions of members have rallied to the defense of Mumia. It is urgent to expand this support into powerful labor/black action, appealing to the integrated union movement to join with the black, Latino and immigrant poor to demand that he be liberated.
The Rules of the Game, Not the Players (tags)
In the last three decades, the financial markets have grown much faster than production.. The respective players (whether public or private) are not the problem but the rules of the game.. The goals and means of production must be redefined
IMPERIALISM ITS RISE AND INEVITABLE COLLAPSE (tags)
“I was in the East End of London (a working-class quarter) yesterday I attended a meeting of the unemployed. I listened to the wild speeches, which were just a cry for ‘bread! bread!’ and on my way home I pondered over the scene and I became more than ever convinced of the importance of imperialism.... My cherished idea is a solution for the social problem, i.e., in order to save the ..........inhabitants of the United Kingdom from a bloody civil war, we colonial statesmen must acquire new lands to settle the surplus population, to provide new markets for the goods produced in the factories and mines. The Empire, as I have always said, is a bread and butter question. If you want to avoid civil war, you must become imperialists," quoted by Cecil Rhodes an English Stateman to a journalist in 1895. 1. V.I. Lenin, Imperialism the Highest Stage of Capitalism
Chinese Revolution 60 years on: socialist revolution, capitalist restoration (tags)
October 1 will mark 60 years since Mao Zedong proclaimed the creation of the Peoples Republic of China. This followed the victory of the People’s Liberation Army, led by the Communist Party of China, over the US-backed Guomindang (Nationalist Party).
HARSH RIGHT AND MERCANTILE LEFT (tags)
Chronicle of a shit country.
Benjamin Tucker: Individualist Libertarian Market Socialist (tags)
American Individualist Libertarianism is a form of market socialism with self-employed individuals, co-operative businesses, and socialist employers. 1. (If your interested, please see: Benjamin Tucker’s State Socialism and Anarchism: Where they Agree and where they Differ)
Satiation or Two Limits of Growth: John Maynard Keynes (tags)
"The first great economic crisis of the 21st century marks the end of a failed political-economic experiment..The past 30 years of redistribution from bottom to top were a glistening epoch for the owners of capital.."
Capitalism is the Problem: System Error (tags)
The chaos that we now witness is only the latest crisis of the global economic system. The system has not succeeded in keeping profits at the level of the postwar years. What is good for one capitalist is not necessarily good for the system. Triple-digit billions have been pumped into system
We Fight Capitalism, Not the Crisis of Capitalism (tags)
Capitalism is a social system, not a natural law. Capitalism has proven it cannot end wars, prevent crises or make possible a good life for all people. Instead of solidarity, the capitalist social system teaches us envy and egoism. Now those who privatized the state cry for state bailout packages.
On the PGMA-Obama Meeting On July 29-31 in the US (tags)
“ I did not become president to be popular”. Taking a cue from the dictator Marcos who said, “I did not become president to preside of the death of the Philippine republic” in 1972, Gloria M. Arroyo made her intentions very clear and went to the United States to seek the blessing and support of the new US president. Like all Philippine presidents before her, she will kowtow and try to impress the chief executive officer of the ruling capitalist class of the United States. She will for sure in the name of “fighting global; terrorism and “climate change” align her interest with the US of the capitalist class.
For the Iranian workers, only one solution: the class struggle ! (tags)
The brutal repression of street demonstrations that have hit Tehran and the larger cities shows the determination of the Iranian government's Ahmadinejad not to tolerate any questioning of his political power. Accused of electoral fraud, the supporters of Ayatollah Khamenei and the outgoing president have responded with arrests, beatings and shootings; the police, the Pasdaran, and Basji volunteers headed by the Pasdaran are the instruments of the current repression.
I’d Rather Be a Socialist (tags)
Where do you stand? Are you a socialist or a capitalist?
"The basic trust in capital still exists. Modern capitalism has gained a firm place in our subconscious. The debacle of the global financial markets should have led to a rethinking long ago. But the culprits will probably get off lightly because the capitalist system is held as divinely ordained."
Raising the banners of socialism in the United States (tags)
The members of the Party for Socialism and Liberation and our friends would promote socialism whether or not there was a worldwide capitalist economic crisis. But if there was any time to revive the socialist movement and build a multinational working-class party of revolutionaries, we believe that the time is now. We realize that we are not raising the banners of socialism and calling for revolution in the United States in a vacuum.
For the Resumtion of the Class Struggle! (tags)
The economic crisis which has crashed down on society has already had and for a long time will have disastrous consequences for the lives of the masses, as every worker can see in his daily life or her work. The bourgeois economists themselves admit it: they do not know what the causes of the crisis are – satisfying themselves by blaming the greed of the bankers or excessive financial deregulation – and they do not know when it will end and give way to the long-awaited “economic recovery”. The current crisis is the crisis of the capitalist mode of production, incapable of stopping itself, forced to produce always more commodities, at a certain point it comes up against the limits of the market.
"Low-Wage Capitalism" Author Speaks in San Diego (tags)
Fred Goldstein, contributing editor of the Workers' World newspaper and author of the new book "Low-Wage Capitalism," spoke at the Malcolm X Library April 18 and described the current economic collapse as a classic "crisis of overproduction" in the Marxist sense. Though Wall Street greed and the bursting of the housing bubble played a part, he said, the real cause was the capitalist class's success in driving working people's wages down, not only in the U.S. but worldwide, to the point where workers can no longer afford to consume the products they produce. He called for a mass progressive movement to make explicit economic demands, especially jobs.
With Our Opponent On The Ropes, It’s Time To Go On the Offensive (tags)
The pages of the capitalist press reveal the level of concern they have over the survival of their system
Venezuela: The People’s Struggle is the Best Response to the Crisis! (tags)
* Soon El Libertario #56 will be available in the street and on the Internet (www.nodo50.org/ellibertario). El Libertario is the voice of free ideas and independent social movements in Venezuela and Latin America. As a preview of its usual combative, irreverent and uncompromising position with regard to authoritarian power and oppression, here's the editorial:
http://www.americanthinker.com/printpage/?url=http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/03/what_is_marxism.html
CAPITALIST CATASTROPHE AND PROLETARIAN STRUGGLES (tags)
Hi fellows, here is the very first draft translation in English of the first pages of our last review in French "Communisme" N°60. Sorry for the language but improvements will come later. Meanwhile, have a good reading and we are waiting for your comments and critics...
COMMUNISM No.14 (January 2009) (tags)
Central review in English of the Internationalist Communist Group (ICG)
Obama & Olmert Shake Hands; Zionism Divides Arab & Jewish Workingclass (tags)
Two warmongers shook hands recently, Ehud Olmert and Barack Obama. Obama has always voted to give $6 billion a year to Israel, as do all Democrats and Republicans. The founding of the State of Israel was a deliberate effort to divide the Arab and Jewish workingclass with this war machine to maximize the profits of the capitalist class.
From Real Estate Speculation to Collapse of Global Deficit Economy (tags)
Joy to the world, the world of fallen idols and bubble transfer. The truth will set us free but the truth is a process, not a cudgel or stimulus. After the dot-com bubble, trillions were "invested" in real estate speculation. The crisis of the work society is the background for low interests.
World and US Situation, 2008 (tags)
For more than two years, we revolutionaries had observed the impending total unravelling and complete discredit of the "free market" pretense of monopoly capitalism and the full bankruptcy of the policy of "neoliberal globalization." But the leaders of the US and other imperialist countries and the puppet states were always lying and boasting about the so-called strong fundamentals of their economies. Only recently have they been compelled by the circumstances to admit that the US and global capitalist system are beset by the worst economic and financial crisis since the Great Depression.
May the Anger of the Unemployed and Students be Tranformed into Combativeness for the Resumption of the Class Struggle of the Proletariat !
The capitalist system does not make a mistake; it is the mistake. Capitalism is the problem. The solution would be an independent-socialist social order whose highest principles are mutual aid, respect for nature and a nonviolent rule-free humanly just world.
Why the collapsing of the financial bubble is not the fault of "greedy bankers"
A Critique of the Fourth International (tags)
Correcting our political perspective
Some thoughts on the current economic crisis and capitalism
Barack Obama, new mouthpiece of ruling class interests (tags)
In renewing its great traditions of struggle, the American proletariat will have to fight the coming blood and tears policy of the Obama presidency
The Death of Capitalism (tags)
This latest crisis may be the last one that capitalism can survive.
SPREAD THE WEALTH OF WALL STREET, BIG OIL AND TAX-EVADER FOX! (tags)
The fascist Fox News of Rupert Murdoch has been whipping up a mania and false fear against socialism, Marxism and “spreading the wealth” But it is protecting only its own tax evasion and the speculative profit, predatory lending and price-gouging of Wall Street and Big Oil.
Part 2- World Capitalist Crisis (tags)
We expect more of the use of cheap labour in the less developed countries like China and India in order to produce cheap raw materials and semi-manufactured consumer products for the imperialist countries and thereby maximize imperialist profits. In fact the US capitalist are hell bent on transferring high paying industries to the third world and even already cheap service industries like call centers and car assemblies and other production lines in a vain attempt to cut jobs, paying insurances and other workers benefits that the people are demanding in the face of the capitalist made crisis.
AJLPP Analysis on the Current World Capitalist Crisis (tags)
The capitalist bailout rammed into the US Congress has infused into the banks more than $ 500 B out of the $ 700 appropriations. But despite the huge infusion to the capitalist system, the crisis marched on with impunity. The Alliance-Philippines (AJLPP) believes that the latest unraveling of the “free market” dogma, the ultimate exposure of the failed concept of “neoliberal globalization” and the gravity of the current level of the economic and financial crisis of the imperialist powers headed by the US is now totally exposed to the whole world. But this phenomenon must be explained and understood and should not be feared. We must act to face this crisis with renewed determination and readiness to struggle for the people and to change this rotten system.
The current crisis of the developed capitalist system is taking place when the empire is about to change leadership in the elections to be held in a few days; it was all that was left to see.
The vast disparity between justice for rich and poor in a capitalist society and how the rich rob and kill with impunity.
BAILOUT THE FILIPINO VETERANS NOT THE CAPITALIST (tags)
Today, we protest the racist attacks against the Filipino World War II Veterans. Again, the fast disappearing Filipino World War II veterans and the seniors were the first victims of the Bush $700 capitalist bailout. We gather today at the foot of the monument to the Spanish-American War of 1898. At proof that the United States occupied the Philippines and colonized the Philippines. And that on 1941, when the Second World War broke out, we have to fight a war that is not of our own making. Filipinos were ordered and conscripted into the United States army and were ordered to fight for the war. But the United States refuse to honor the wartime services of the Filipinos saying the fought for their own country. What a shame!
BAILOUT THE VETERANS NOT THE CAPITALIST (tags)
Today, we protest the racist attacks against the Filipino World War II Veterans. Again, the fast disappearing Filipino World War II veterans and the seniors were the first victims of the Bush $700 capitalist bailout. The US Congress again insulted the veterans and Filipino American community by passing SB 1315 bill minus their recognition and one billion's worth in benefits.
AJLPP Condemns Capitalist Bailout (tags)
he US House of Representatives approved a $700 billion bailout package for US banks, under pressure from all sides as the effort to head off a spreading financial crisis hung in the balance. President Bush happily signed the bill into a law at the White House today. October 3, 2008.
Bail-Out, Economic Democracy and the Socialist Path (tags)
David Schweickart, political philosopher, discusses the financial crisis, what it exposes about capitalism, how it can set the stage for economic democracy, and open the socialist path.
Pulling the plug won't mean the end of the world; there is an alternative. Let's do a Kevorkian on this rotten system.
NO BAILOUT FOR CAPITALIST CROOKS- -EPCC (tags)
“Jail the greedy capitalist crooks, No to the federal bail-out to embezzlers, No burden to honest tax-payers!” This is the stand of the Echo Park Community Coalition (EPCC in central Los Angeles as the Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and the City Council on Tuesday denounced the $700-billion rescue plan for the nation's financial institutions, saying the deal provides too much power to U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson.
Nationalization of Freddie Mac (tags)
The Nationalization of the mortage industry by the government shows how easily the goverment can nationalize healthcare and other services. The steady now increased offensive by the bosses over the past 30 years is because of a failure of union leadership by throwing all their resources into funding the Democrats and supporting the "team" concept.
PSL on the ballot in Iowa, Utah, and New Jersey (tags)
The La Riva/Puryear PSL Presidential Campaign is proud to announce that we have achieved ballot status in New Jersey, Iowa and Utah! We are already on the ballot in five other states: Arkansas, Vermont, Colorado, Florida and Washington. Over the next five weeks, we will be working to gain ballot access in many additional states, including New York, Louisiana, Wisconsin and Rhode Island.
Full Speed Against the Brick Wall (tags)
Massive capital has streamed into the raw material sector and crude oil. When we leave the market to speculators, panic rules. The economy falls into a double crisis-out of scarce raw materials and energy and falling profit rates and mass demand.
What Will It Take to Defeat the War? (tags)
On June 28-29, an “Open National Antiwar Conference” was held in Cleveland, called by a newly minted National Assembly to End the Iraq War and Occupation. Over objections from the conference organizers, centrally Socialist Action, the assembly voted to change the name to include reference to the war on Afghanistan, and to emphasize the connection with U.S. backing for the Zionist occupation of Palestine. (The sponsors of the confab were so right-wing that they feared losing “unity” with Democratic Party supporters of Israel and the Afghanistan war!) What did not change at all was the popular-front character of the new outfit, tying it to the bourgeois parties despite the fig leaf of electoral “independence.” Making this utterly clear, it was decided not to call a national antiwar mobilization prior to the November elections explicitly in order to court those forces who wish to aid the Democrats (and therefore want to avoid making problems for the presumptive Democratic nominee, Barack Obama). Here is the leaflet issued by the Internationalist Group at the conference.
Portland: Anarchists Attack Wells Fargo (tags)
Article below:
Will the Neoliberal Consensus Survive the Banking Crisis? (tags)
These are hard times for the neoliberal consensus whose message was forced worldwide for three decades by the ruling classes in the imperialist metropolises on free capital flows. Business data is a fetish constructed for the goal of profit maximization.
There is no justice in the capitalist courts! Kille Cops go free. Sean Bell. (tags)
The killer cops that shot Sean Bell 50 times go free. There is no justice in the capitalist courts!
Non-Profits, Privatization, and Capitalism (tags)
As soon as we begun organizing our workplace into a union— a drug and alcohol rehab center— the murky non-profit world proved to be an obstacle. When first approached, many of our coworkers asked the same question, “would a union even work at a non-profit”? And to this we normally answered, “why not?” – Although a better answer might have been, “Why do non-profit workers believe they should have less rights or pay than other workers?” And with this question you’ve opened a Pandora’s Box that leads down a series of questions and answers that reveal a lot about how modern society functions, especially the relationship between workers’ standard of living, non-profits, and the present state of the capitalist system itself. To help explain the gargantuan role that non-profits play in modern society, a book of essays about the subject -- cleverly named The Revolution Will Not be Funded-- was released by INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence. In its introduction chapter, the book explains how non-profits have evolved into organizations that divert political movements into dead ends, shape public opinion, and most relevant to this article, perform services previously done by the state.
VOTE PSL in 2008: Reparations Now! (tags)
The Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) is fielding a slate of candidates in the 2008 U.S. presidential elections: Gloria La Riva for President and Eugene Puryear for Vice President. La Riva/Puryear demand that the Black community be compensated fully, with interest, for the historical racism and wrongs forced upon them by capitalism.
The Dollar and US Hegemony (tags)
The dollar devaluation since 2001 is a necessary adjustment for the twin US deficits, the national budget deficit and the foreign trade deficit. US imports are nearly double US exports. A drastic change of lifestyles is imperative where modesty and simplicity are encouraged.
Workers Assassinated at the Thyssen Krupp Steel-works in Turin! (tags)
During the night of Thursday December 6 the latest in a tragic series of "industrial accidents" struck 7 proletarian families at the Thyssen Krupp steel-works of Turin (Italy): 7 workers were overcome and charred by flames in a section where metal castings are cooled by an oil bath. Antonio Schiavone, 36 years old, married and father of 3 children was incinerated immediately, while 3 other workers, after suffering critical burns, died a few days later.
History, Sublime, Terror: Notes on the Politics of Fear (tags)
"The new powers of violence that are out of the box after 1945 belong to the state. They are properties and prerogatives of the modern nation-state."
The immiseration of the working class – Marx was right! (tags)
Just a couple of weeks ago, America's government tax collectors, the Internal Revenue Service, issued a new report. The IRS found that the richest 1% of Americans earned a record 21.2% of all income in 2005, up from 19% the year before. At the same time, the bottom 50% earned just 12.8% of all income in 2005, down from 13.4%. This was a record. IRS data only go back to 1986, but other academic research suggests that the last time wealthy Americans had such a high percentage of the national income was in the 1920s. And there's more. The IRS data show that the incomes of people right in the middle of all the income brackets (where half earn less and half earn more) fell 2% between 2000 and 2005 when adjusted for inflation, to $30,881. At the same time, the income level for the top 1% grew 3% to $364,657, or over ten times as much! This shows that capitalism is not only a breeder of economic crisis, war and waste, but is also a system of grotesque exploitation and injustice. When Marx wrote Das Kapital around 150 years ago, he argued that "pauperism (poverty) forms the condition of capitalist production and of the capitalist development of wealth... in proportion as capital accumulates, the situation of the worker, be his payment high or low, must grow worse".
"Chaos is a Sign for the System's Fall" (tags)
Bush is an absolute disaster. Instead of withdrawing and adjusting to the changed geopolitical situation, he leaped suddenly into the abyss. Capitlaism is in crisis because endless capital accumulation can no longer be guaranteed to capitalists. Speculation reaps bitter fruits.
A Hundred and Fifty Years Later and Marx Still Prevails (tags)
Marx Was Right But Don’t Tell Them
No matter what they say, the bourgeois cannot escape the fact that Marx's ideas still hold water after all these years. His analysis of the capitalist system, its laws and contradictions are as relevant today as they were 150 years ago. The serious journals of capitalism confirm this.
Real Estate Crisis in the US (tags)
Credit failures in the real estate business threaten the whole payment system between banks, private businesses and households handled through short-term credits..The US real estate crisis affects other economic sectors and countries and cal also lead to a shift in class relations.
Bomb explodes near Santiago TV station (tags)
We denounce the communications media for their complicity with the rich and powerful. Their work transforms them into one more instrument of capitalist domination.
Tranforming Capitalist Schooling (tags)
School is back. So are liberals and conservatives, bickering over how to preserve capitalist schooling. At issue is how to get beyond capital, its promises of perpetual war and meaningless jobs. How shall we keep our ideas, yet teach?
The Coupon Clippers Get A History Lesson From One Of Their Own (tags)
Bourgeois theoreticians take measures to assure their class that the present crisis will pass. "Do not panic" is the message. Good times will return and the robbery can go on. Time for a history lesson.
The present economic crisis has the capitalist class calling for state intervention again. They claim another bout of memory loss, they simply "forgot" the business cycle exists.
'Old Europe' Bails Out Idiot-run Free-Market US Government - Again (tags)
Right now, the entire world's banking system is being pressed to the limit of what it can do to prevent a worldwide crash of the capitalist system due to what one European banker called "a complete evaporation of liquidity" [Source: "ECB reportedly weighs dollar swap with Fed", MarketWatch.com, 13 August, 2007]. In layman's terms, that means that the world's banking system is running out of the funds needed to keep the capitalist credit system running.
A Short Introduction to Marx's Das Kapital (tags)
Marx’s analysis of capitalism, unlike bourgeois accounts, is conducted from a historical perspective. In other words, Marx was keenly aware that during the march of history, one economic system, because of internal, irreconcilable contradictions, has been replaced by another until it too falls victim to similar contradictions. Of course, when one is born and matures within a single economy and lacks knowledge of any other system, one tends to take one’s own for granted, believing that it will persevere forever. A historical perspective has the advantage of forcing us to rise above the provincial perspective that assumes economic systems are eternal. We survey from above the vast array of systems that have played their fleeting role on history’s stage. For this reason, Marx’s analysis of capitalism is specifically written with the purpose of unveiling its inner contradictions so that the possibility of its demise stands boldly in relief. This runs directly opposed to bourgeois portrayals of capitalism as “natural” and hence as unalterable as the law of gravity itself.
Down With Police Terror Against the Anti-G8 Demonstrators! (tags)
Protest statement regarding the police attack against the anti-G8 demonstrators in Germany.
Film Review: The Piracy of the “Pirates: On the World’s End” (tags)
What I enjoy with Hollywood is that it has a license to do everything with anything. Like the voyages of the pirates that went awry from Southeast Asian port of Singapore to the icy poles and to the sea of legendary Hades. They were quiet on the fact by piracy, England and Holland built their empires on the skulls and bones of their victims at the sea. Try to visit Amsterdam and you can see the monuments to the Dutch pirates who colonized a lot of nations like Indonesia also called the Dutch East Indies for the Netherland
Democracy and its Enemy, Capitalist Globalization (tags)
The core problem of globalization is the dismantling of democracy. The elected are without power and those with power are not elected. The bonds between the generations burst. An absolute amoral individualism dominates in the most progressive states of capitalism.
Where do the moneylenders get their money? (tags)
Accepting that labor creates all wealth alone will not open the road to our emancipation. Understanding how it creates it is paramount.
A Three Stooges Account of the failed transit fare strike effort in San Francisco in 2005 (tags)
A truth in ideological packaging rule needs to be applied here...
What is good for the economy and what is good for people diverge more and more! Nevertheless the opposite is drummed into people..Capitalism only knows the irrational end-in-itself, making more money out of money until the end of time. Capitalism strikes its own limits.
Workers Know All About Capital Accumulation, Don't We? (tags)
It is within the pages of the main Bourgeois journals that we find the strongest confirmation of Marx's economic writings.
The Capitalist Parties' Presidential Candidates (tags)
Rather than deleting the attempts at dialogue on the capitalist Democratic Party's candidates, it would help if ythinking were encouraged. After all, supporting a millionaire death penalty, pro-Israel, anti-gay marriage candidate who happens to be black does not help the workingclass. This is the description of not only Barack Obama, but most Democratic candidates (except the color), as well as the Republican candidates.
Venezuelan elections: Cast a blank ballot (tags)
[Here's a translation of the latest article from the Venezuelan Trotskyists. It is of special interest in the United States, where the left entirely capitulates to the Bolivarian popular front headed by Hugo Chávez, thinking that their blind endorsement of class collaboration is some kind of "solidarity." Solidarity with whom? With what class?]
Fear of the Working Class At Home And Internationally Stirs Some Debate Among the Bankers (tags)
There is growing concern among sections of the capitalist class that the rising opposition to their global offensive and the market will get out of control.
ON VOTING FOR CAPITALIST PARTIES (tags)
VOTE REPUBLICAN – SUPPORT THE LINCOLN-JOHNSON TICKET IN 1864!! VOTE DEMOCRATIC-SUPPORT THE JACKSON-VAN BUREN TICKET IN 1828!!
The Mark Foley scandal: Where is the crime? Down with this reactionary crusade! (tags)
It is the capitalists and their parties who politicize sex. They claim to be defending the innocent and vulnerable, but anyone who has seen the pictures from Abu Ghraib prison knows that this government doesn't give a damn about sexual torture and molestation. Their real intent is to persecute anyone who strays outside the completely artificial bounds prescribed by the patriarchal, heterosexual bourgeois family, and in the process arrogate to themselves ever greater police powers.
Labor must take the road of class struggle! (tags)
A Working Class Emancipation labor bulletin
Katrina, one year later: For black liberation through socialist revolution! (tags)
We revolutionaries insist that black liberation, including the conquest of full democratic rights for blacks in the US, can only be achieved through socialist revolution. It is hopeless and naïve to expect the US government to "rebuild for democracy". The face of US capitalist "democracy" was unmasked by Hurricane Katrina, and it's not going to get any prettier.
Pro-War Diane Feinstein, What Are The Alternatives? (tags)
Feinstein herself has directly profiteered from the U.S. imposed misery she voted for in Iraq. Her husband, Richard Blum, is a billionaire investor that together with CEO Ronald Tutor own investment companies that hold 75% of the voting stock in a company called Perini. On March 12, 2004 Perini was awarded a $500,000,000 contract for rebuilding the electrical infrastructure of southern Iraq. So Feinstein is profiting from the U.S. bombing of the Iraqi infrastructure as well as its inefficient rebuilding by private U.S. contractors.
Pro-War Diane Feinstein, What Are The Alternatives? (tags)
Feinstein herself has directly profiteered from the U.S. imposed misery she voted for in Iraq. Her husband, Richard Blum, is a billionaire investor that together with CEO Ronald Tutor own investment companies that hold 75% of the voting stock in a company called Perini. On March 12, 2004 Perini was awarded a $500,000,000 contract for rebuilding the electrical infrastructure of southern Iraq. So Feinstein is profiting from the U.S. bombing of the Iraqi infrastructure as well as its inefficient rebuilding by private U.S. contractors.
After defeating pro-war incumbent Lieberman, Lamont reassures Wall Street (tags)
The victory of multi-millionaire cable executive Ned Lamont in the Connecticut Democratic primary August 8 has produced paroxysms of uncritical celebration in liberal publications like the Nation and from groups like MoveOn.org, which campaigned heavily for Lamont and against incumbent senator Joseph Lieberman.
Poor and Elderly Die in California Heat Wave (tags)
The deaths during California's recent heat wave were due to market forces not natural causes
The Second American Revolution : Capitalism, Proverbs and Parables (tags)
I will speak to them in parables (sound bites). I will reveal to them mysteries and the secret things which have been kept hidden from them for long ages past. A revolution is a propaganda war and it the decisive battles are not fought with guns.
The Second American Revolution : More Revolutionary Proverbs (tags)
More proverbs and parables
On Jonathan Kozol's "Manifiesto" (tags)
The struggle for social justice can begin in schools, with a mass movement to take direct action in order to overcome racist high-stakes tests, and imperialist wars.
True Nature of Obscenity (tags)
We are daily surrounded by capitalist obscenities such as poverty, war, injustice and inequality. Insult is added to injury when bourgeois spokespersons such as Billy Graham blame God and human beings. It is enough to make a person swear.
Pesante Support the South Central Farmers Struggle for Land and Life! (tags)
The Philippine Peasant Support Network (Pesante), a Filipino peasant, environmental and human rights advocacy network in the United States wholeheartedly support the struggle of 450 families in the South Central Farms that is now under the threat of land grabbing of the capitalist groups in Los Angeles.
¡Somos Milliones! We are millions! (tags)
The May Day outpouring, which was called the “Gran Paro Americano / Great American Strike” or “Un Día Sin Inmigrantes / A Day Without Immigrants” was, though in a partial form due to the minimal organized participation of most trade unions, a general strike: by all measures a momentous political advance for the working class.
IN THE CASE OF ONE DONALD RUMSFELD- RESIGNATION IS NOT ENOUGH! (tags)
HERE IS A SOLUTION TO THE RUMSFELD RESIGNATION CONTROVERSY.
The Iraq war and the eruption of American imperialism (tags)
In the field of politics, there are events which mark a fundamental turning point in the historical process. There is no doubt that the invasion and occupation of Iraq, which began three years ago, was one of these. In September 2002, with the decision to invade Iraq having already been made, the Bush administration published its National Security Strategy (NSS). This document set out clearly and unambiguously that the United States was now reserving to itself the right to use military force pre-emptively in pursuit of its national interests and objectives on a global scale.
Full Citizenship Rights for All Immigrants! (tags)
Down With Racist U.S. Imperialism! For Socialist Revolution on Both Sides of the Border!
Call for Direct Action Against World Bank and IMF Meetings (tags)
Come to Washington, DC April 22-23 to take direct action against the World Bank and IMF
No Work instead of Precarious Work (tags)
After the fall of the New Economy, flexibility, individualization and outsourcing are obviously threats not promises and mean nothing but poverty and precarious working conditions.
Steve Miller, Bono and Angela Merkel—What An Act (tags)
As US capitalists intensify their offensive, the global club to which they belong meets in Davos with poster boy Bono offering them a cover.
Today's internationalization of capital is part of a drastic crisis process.. In the 1970s, several hundred so-called multis existed worldwide. Today there are 60,000 multi-national businesses with 50 million employees.
NYC Transit Strike: Union Power vs. Class Collaboration (tags)
Strikers Defy Taylor Law
Pension schemes and the labor market are in an irreconcilable opposition. This schizoid argumentation has long sunk into mass con-sciousness..A society with the highest productivity of world history chains seniors to production longer than in the Middle Ages.
Hardly anyone today dares financing the social state by cutting the armament budget.. The fat years are over! Three cheers for dis-possession! Expropriation instead of representation!
The Re-Nationalization of World Politics and the End of the Liberal Era (tags)
The empire has cut off its umbilical chord to the nation state and is no longer territorially limited..The US under George W Bush strives for a global monopoly.. Naked imperialist policy now replaces liberal globalization.. The US is resolved to undermine the existing world system.
Another world is possible. This is directed against the famous and thoughtless assumption of the impossibility of alterna-tives at the "end of history".. The substance of societies is tapped for financial institutions.
KATRINA TELLS THE TALE: Racism and Classism in Capitalist America (tags)
Katrina has turned out to be the worst disaster in the recorded history of this nation. What’s most egregious is that it was predicted years earlier in books on climate change and the growing global warming crisis, as well as from local officials of the region who knew of the dangers and tried to get Federal assistance.
"The Chinese have a strong national pride and are annoyed over American impairments of what they consider their sovereign rights including the Taiwan problem. They rightly view Washington's conduct as hegemonial.."
A Revolutionary ‘Sound bite' (BKH) (tags)
Bring revolutionary clarity which is required to overcome and destroy counter revolutionary mass confusion, the product of the propaganda attacks and deceits of this current ruling system.
"Since a capitalist democracy is a democracy of capital, `the people' simply don't count.."
The land of milk of honey (BKH) (tags)
I am exhausted and thus taking the weekend off as a revolutionary columnist, but there are still a few things I wanted to get off my chest, just on the off chance that maybe Indymedia might be knocked off line before Monday so as tired as I am today I thought I would still get a few things written down
Magical Mysterious 1967 (tags)
Nobody could have predicted 1967 in 1966. It seemed to come out of the clear blue sky. But it didn’t. It had been germinating for a long, long time. And there is no reason to think that if we couldn’t see it coming in 1966 that we would see it coming now.
Rumour Mongering - turning the tables on the Capitalist Media (tags)
Or how to create a media system which is a public utility, instead of a capitalist brain washing outfit, in really easy steps...
The Propaganda Message is the Context not the Content (tags)
After years of struggle, now it is time to turn the tables on the IMF, the World Bank, the G8, and the Capitalist Media System, et al, by pulling the same stunt on them that they have been pulling on everyone else for years...
The cynical misuse and perversion of the word ‘freedom’ has made it difficult to discuss the idea rationally. But freedom is real and so is oppression. Those that pervert the term will tell you that a homeless person is free. That person has been indoctrinated.
The G8 and Africa's unreported famine conditions (tags)
To close off the final day of the G8 summit, a special report I was saving for the end, and perhaps take my cue from the media to spread some wild rumours and maybe scare some people. Behind the scenes at Live 8 and the G8.
Capitalism Criticism: Inexorable Struggle for Survival (tags)
"The civilized foundation of cooperative human life is furtively undermined by the capitalist form of organizing society.. Rational objectives often capsize into social irrationa-lity.. Unemployment is a form of violence.."
The G8 conference - a simple primer (tags)
or How to Decode that Harvard and Yale Mumbo Jumbo
The Principles of Socialism (tags)
It is very likely that the hour is late, that capitalism will soon perish. It will happen sooner or later and if it does happen sooner, we have to be prepared. We need to debate the principles of our coming revolution; the principles of socialism.
The demand for a basic income attacks one of the basic pillars of the capitalist society:the notion that only persons who work may eat. Every person on this earth has a right to share in socvial life and wealth only because he or she exists as a person.
The economy is in a kind of balance with massive underemployment..Growth in purchasing power of upper income persons cannot balance the loss in purchasing power of normal, low-income and unempoyed persons..Unemployment is a capitalist law.
Walden Bello, Jose Maria Sison and Schisms in the Left (tags)
Despite efforts by many around the world to rise above sectarianism in the face of the USA's raw imperialism, Walden Bello, a prominent critic of neo-liberalism, has launched an international distancing campaign against the Communist Party of the Philippines and the democratic sectoral movements which draw political inspiration from them. Claiming that the CPP's military wing has targeted him with a “hit list,” which in fact is a mere diagram showing the international linkages of various Phillipino parties and individuals, Bello is playing a dangerous game. Included on the diagram is Bello's Akbayan parlimentary party.
21 Senate Democrats Support More War Spending (tags)
21 Senate Democrats sent a letter to Pres Bush on Jan 13, 2005 calling for a LARGER military, proving that the capitalist Democrats are just as evil as their twin party, the capitalist Republican Party, both parties of war, the death penalty, prisons, police and increasingly on the part of the Democrats, anti-abortion, to match the anti-abortion, anti-science Republicans. THEY ARE EQUALLY EVIL.
Dem Feinstein Supports Repub Condi Rice for Sec of State (tags)
Democratic US Senator Dianne Feinstein adores fascist Republican Condoleezza Rice so much that she will introduce her at the confirmation hearings on 1/18/05 before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in her effort to become Secretary of State, proving again that there is not a dime's worth of difference between the capitalist Democrats and the capitalist Republicans.
Unprofitable of the World, Unite! (tags)
Capaitalism is a threat to humanity, not a chance.. The logic underlying this system is simple and brutal. Only what is profitable is entitled to live.. Capital is insatiably greedy for human labor to transform labor into more and more capital..
Noam Chomsky and Marxism (tags)
Noam Chomsky and Marxism
Beyond State and Paid Labor (tags)
"Basic security is the positive answer to the crisis of the capitalist work society. The far-reaching uncoupling of labor and income contradicts essential premises of the capitalist exploitation logic and contains a dynamic that points beyond the system.."
Philippines 2003: how 300 troops mutiny unmasked "war on terror" (tags)
[As you may notice, I’ve cut this part of the article because the question of peace talks between the left party RPMP-RPA-ABB and the Government has obviously nothing to do with the gangsters of GUAC. It's better to avoid any confusion. – Felix Zorba, October 7, 2003]
Secondary Illiterates: The Crisis of Education in Western Industrial Countries (tags)
"Euroepan literacy and the schooling of society were not generous civilizing gifts to people but part of that process described as `inner colonialization'..Infrastructural institu-tions are not market enterprises but overall social conditions for the market economy.."
Logic, Mythology and the Iraq War (tags)
The logical reasons why George W. Bush's rationalizations for the Iraq war are asinine and the discussions by pundits and so-called experts on corporate television are based on false assumptions and are ridiculous as well.
The fallacy of the 'anybody but Bush' movement (tags)
Just because Bush is a reactionary, that does not make Kerry a progressive. In fact Kerry, or whoever might have been chosen by the Democratic Party as a candidate to take over the running of the capitalist state, would be a solid representative of U.S. imperialism whose goal would be to strengthen and expand its domination on the world arena.
Pentagon report and global environmental crisis (tags)
The Pentagon is saying in the report printed below that world capitalism is going to be thrown into severe crisis by the developing environmental catastrophe. For all activists, and for the working class in general, this is the most important report to be made available to us in decades.
A history of the close collaboration of fascists of different nationalities when faced with the common threat of socialism.
General Strike Needed to Stop Lynching of Kevin Cooper (tags)
The pending lynching of Kevin Cooper is a good reminder of the need for a labor general strike not only to abolish the death penalty but also to shut down the prison system, promote education, and kick all of the death penalty Democrat-Republicans out of office.
The Relevance of Marxism (tags)
Some predictions Marx made during his analysis of capitalism that have proved to be accurate and one that has yet to come to pass.
Miami FTAA Protest: Cops Rampage Against Youth, Labor (tags)
What Strategy to Defeat Imperialism?
Capitalism is Legalized Robbery (tags)
An analysis of capitalism illustrating that not only are there periodic examples of large, conspicuous thefts by capitalists, but there also exists an everyday, subtle, disguised theft of the value created by the working class.
The Health Care Epidemic (tags)
Health Care
CKUT Radio: Miami Mobilization to Defeat the FTAA (tags)
-----------
What is the Peace and Freedom Party’s Next Step? (tags)
A Revolutionary Point of View of the Peace and Freedom Party and the struggle today.
die capitalism live anarchy
The New Morality(TM) of Capitalism (tags)
During the Great Depression, Pres. Roosevelt used social programs (ex. The Hoover Dam) to employ miilions of Americans because continued despair would've led to the same Fascism that devoured post-WWI Germany. Today's right-wing pundits call such policies "immoral" and FDR a "Communist".
GENERAL STRIKE AND WORKER’S INSURRECTION IN BOLIVIA (tags)
Unable to repress this rebellion, and unable to negotiate separate truces with the different sectors of the movement the ruling class abandoned Lozada and the millionaire murderer Goni fled to Miami.
leaderless from below
the death of capitalism
Are "anarcho"-capitalists really Anarchists? (tags)
Because "anarcho"-capitalists embrace capitalism and reject socialism, they cannot be considered anarchists or part of the anarchist tradition.
U.S. Hands Off North Korea! (tags)
With Over 7,000 Civilians Killed in the U.S./British War on Iraq and thousands more civilians dead in Afghanistan, War Crazed Imperialists Scope Out Next Victims!
The Sage of Imperialism: Harry Magdoff (tags)
This conference report was published in: Monthly Review Newsletter, Summer 2003. "Neoconservative hawks should be seen as frustrated outsiders involved in a desperate gamble to shore up declining US power by throwing legitimacy to the winds."
Philippines: 300 troops mutiny unmasks "war on terror" (tags)
A group of 296 soldiers - 70 junior officers and 226 enlisted men of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP)- staged on July 27 a siege of the Oakwood Premier luxury hotel at the Ayala Center in Makati.
Liberia, Junk Bonds, and Rubber (tags)
FROM FIRESTONE TO JUNK BONDS: CAPITALIST PLUNDER LURKS BEHIND LIBERIA'S CHAOS
Growing World Poverty and Conflict Shows the Barbarity of Capitalism (tags)
Down with Capitalism
Free-Market Capitalism and Ecological Disaster (tags)
The Free-Market libertarian argues that business leaders see and understand the effects of long-term environmental damage. But business leaders concentrate on short term profits, thus the planet continues its free-fall toward ecological disaster.
NO TO BUSH - NO TO THE DEMOCRATS (tags)
the elections
Are "anarcho"-capitalists really Anarchists? NO. They are really sham artists who are the lowest form of entrepreneur. They are worse than HONEST anarchists....if there is such a thing.
Immigration control- atool of the bosses (tags)
Immigration
Russia after the War in Irag (tags)
Russia
U.S. Hands Off North Korea! (tags)
With 9,000 Civilians Killed in the U.S./British Wars on Iraq and Afghanistan, War Crazed Imperialists Scope Out Next Victims!
Recall Gray Davis-Dump the Democrat-Republicans (tags)
Sign the Recall Gray Davis Petition. Circulators: Be sure to circulate the petition in Los Angeles and the other 57 counties. The Democratic Party is just a twin of the Republican Party. To get rid of Gray Davis is to finally get rid of the California Democratic Party, the twin warmongering, death penalty, capitalist party of the Republicans. One capitalist party is bad enough.
Class War heats up in the USA (tags)
Class War
BlackBloc Calling in Austin Tx. May 3rd! (tags)
It is time for anti-authoritarians,anti-imperialist, and like minded individuals to converge on the "Showdown in Texas" and show our solidarity against this capitalist machine.
What Is Socialism, and Why We Oppose The Invasion of Iraq (tags)
Resist the war in the streets, workplaces, schools, and in the barracks! Organize to end all imperial bloodshed through socialist revolution!
www.iraqwar.ru and the Lying US News Media (tags)
Varlet expresses "Shock and Awe" (but not surprise) at the shameless lying of the US Govt and their puppet capitalist press.
Capitalism is Legalized Robbery (tags)
Conspicuous and inconspicuous examples of theft by the capitalist system.
RTH=RAISE THE HEAD = NEW ANARCHY (tags)
THE NEW ANARCHIST
Anarchists and Anti-Capitalists: Get Your Class War On! (tags)
The number of cities holding anti-capitalist and anarchist protests this coming weekend is growing daily. Check out our webpage for information on what folks in your city or town are planning.
No to Capitalist War, Yes to Anarchist Revolution! (tags)
The following is the text from a new poster from the Federation of Revolutionary Anarchist Collectives (FRAC). The poster is the first in a series and is in both english and spanish. This poster examines the root causes of the impending war, possible methods of resistance here in North America, and our vision of a free society.
Hundreds of millions of people are forced to work migration between countries and continents.. People are transformed into socially uprooted vagabonds of markets..Flexibility means ..more output and more stress for less money. From German
CITIZEN SLAVE LIBERATION (tags)
THE ABOLITION OF WORK
Social conflicts are always conflicts around terms and definitional power..Whoever has definitional power over what is reality and what is realpolitik dominates ideological semantics. Translated from the German
STATE/PARTY/FASCISM/TERRORISM (tags)
HI REVOLUTIONARY MINORITY
The Resistance calls for the implementation of a gift economy based on service and not purchase.
The Wilderness Lives: The End of Prehistory as a Beginning (tags)
"The status quo is limited and not lasting from eternity to eternity as the quasi-religious worship of capital asserts. This worship of capital handed over to its own destructive dynamic is still dominant but not unchallenged." H. Thielen lives in Brazil.
9/11 In Context: Plans and Counterplans (tags)
The Global Fascist Terror State has arrived, the fruit of decades of planning, propaganda and provocation. September 11 was its coming-out party, and for us, the last wake-up call.
SMASH THE SLAVE LABOR INJUNCTION! (tags)
Bush is going to court seeking an injunction ordering the West Coast longshoremen back to work, invoking the slave labor Taft-Hartley Act. This law was written by ultra-right Republican Robert Taft, passed as part of the post-WW2 reaction, and is THE main union-busting tool of the capitalist state. The last time a President tried to invoke was Jimmy Carter in 1978, and he failed. Let's make sure Bush fails this time, too. For a general political strike to smash the slave labor injunction and stop the war with Iraq!
Leftist Conservatism Part Two (tags)
In Part One of this two part series I demonstrated through personal experience how the leftist elite is stifling progressive growth and preventing constructive social change in the United States
L@VE
Direct Action Versus Electoralism (tags)
Anarchists engage in direct action as opposed to voting. This anti-electoralism (or anti-parliamentarianism) may seem strange and even perverse to many. After all, virtually the whole left believes in the importance of voting. In the US, liberals and state socialists have voted for the Democrats with a steadfastness that is almost religious, even as the Democrats have steadily moved to the right. In Western Europe, they have voted consistently for the Socialist or Labor Parties (social democrats), or Communist Parties, or, more recently, ex-Communist Parties.
President Bush Announces Greed Office Defense Initiative (tags)
New cabinet-level office will help fight War on Capitalist Greed
On Open Source Code, Computers and the Revolution (tags)
The following are excerpts from the debate on http://2changetheworld.info – the website dedicated to a discussion of the Revolutionary Communist Party,USA’s Draft Programme and issues of revolutionary strategy.
Sa-I-Gu was no revolution. All this inflated rhetoric about struggle is ignorant.
Overthrowing Capitalist Globalization (tags)
How will the revolution in the U.S. help overthrow of capitalist globalization? How will the revolutionary movement in the U.S. help end the long-standing crimes of the current world order: including the domination of one nation by another, the exploitation of whole regions of the world, exploitation of natural resources, environmental rape and the robbery of unequal trade? The following excerpts from the Draft Programme of the Revolutionary Communist Party,USA. The full text is posted on the Programme section of the discussion website http://2changetheworld.info
LA UPRISING/RIOTS WERE A GOOD SIGN (tags)
.
the War on Capitalist Globalisation-Pacific Rim Front (tags)
Capitalist Globalisation continues. While activists are being distracted by the "war on terrorism", the global capitalists have resumed their war on us-WTO still meeting in Qatar,IMF/World Bank meeting moved to Ottawa, Canada- and now the World Economic Forum's East Asia Economic Summit.
Canadians Against Capitalism (tags)
We must show our support for our Canadian brothers and sisters who are continuing the fight against global capitalism despite the current climate of government repression.
United States of Amnesia (tags)
United States of Amnesia
Globetrotters, Come Home (tags)
It is time for all the globetrotters chasing after these conferences to come home. You made your point and now the hard work of organizing the unorganized needs to be done. We need a labor movement in this country, and for that, we need millions of union cards handed out. There can be no revolutionary change without organization, and that organization must be of, by and for the workingclass.
corporate media strategy at the request of their robotic masters
Delete Duplicates from SD Union Tribune (tags)
There have been at least 5 or more postings from the San Diego Union Tribune glorifing police and most of these are repetitive. Not only are duplicates out of order but it is my understanding that Independent Media is for original news, not reprints from the capitalist press.
Labor is hereby notified that the carnival has ended and the class struggle has begun. 50 years of cooperation with the capitalist class is 50 years too long. The workingclass cannot endure this destruction of our future.
People's Economic Direct Action... (tags)
An Idea for the Movement & all of Society towards Directly Dismantling the Capitalist Machine Right Now...
Nazi era danger of American police violence (tags)
Pleading the innocence of lambs, state police and national intelligence agencies have, nevertheless, obviously engaged in unwarranted violence against anti-capitalist dissent, to a degree that has already escallated into the admittedly dangerous patterns of Nazi era mass murder designed to suppress political dissent.