It’s the System, Stupid
by Frank
Scott
With major
private institutions collapsing onto taxpayer’s shoulders almost daily, we
continue to hear that our system is strong and sound. Sure. And the easter bunny
created the universe. We are also told this is the worst crisis since the Great
Depression, and that we can believe.
The 20th
century depression was a phase in the long range disintegration of a system
which has been living on borrowed time and money ever since. Nature and politics
are now forcing it to repay some of its colossal debt, but with no collateral
save a public willing to absorb further enormous burdens that jeopardize the
future of all humanity. The official story holds only the financial community at
fault, with greedy dealers and deregulators guilty of all that has gone wrong.
Once we get rid of them things will get back to what they were before
unregulated free market fundamentalism took over, and everything will be just
fine. Sure. The way it was before the easter bunny created the universe.
Folks, we are
not simply dealing with a part of an economy going wrong, but with an entire
system that is in process of falling apart.
And we
certainly won’t solve our problems with the next election, which will make the
future seem less precarious for a few of us, while increasing the danger for all
of us. The new executive gang will try making repairs at the top of a structure
which is rotting at its foundation. The longer we continue supporting
corporadoes who only differ on which group of millionaires to pay off with
public funds, the shorter the time before we seal our own fate as victims.
Capitalism’s
free market religion has brought fortune, comfort and affluence to millions the
world over, but in the process it has murdered almost as many, impoverished many
more, and brought devastation to the natural and social environment on which
humanity depends for survival.
Whether its
current stage is called a time of sluggish growth, which is official economic
theory, or a time of chaotic collapse, which is the reality for those made
homeless, jobless and lifeless by its practice, there is agreement that it is a
crisis. So? We have these bust cycles all the time, say the high priests of the
faith, and we always survive them with another economic boom. The late breaking
bulletin for these fundamentalists is that the booms are getting shorter and are
shared by less people, while the busts are becoming longer and taking more
people to an economic graveyard which threatens to ultimately include society
itself
The gap
between a wealthy minority and the rest of humanity is greater than ever before
in modern times, and resistance to the savage inequities of the system is
growing. This resistance is not always unified and often unclear on exactly what
it is against beyond injustice, but since injustice is at the system's core,
it’s a worthwhile place to start.
That there is
starvation, hunger and massive poverty in a world where affluent minorities go
on diets while feeding their pets does not escape the consciousness of the
majority doing the suffering. Millions of working people need no economic
degrees to understand the injustice of some sitting around doing nothing and
getting richer, while they struggle to survive and get poorer. That experience
is balanced by a new breed of the educated middle class which lives its morality
every day, instead of only once a week in a church, synagogue or mosque. That
new class is attempting radical forms of social organizing , even if not always
in the political parties necessary to affect long term change. Globally, they
are not just raising money to feed the poor and unemployed, but raising
consciousness and helping organize people to reclaim their land, their rights,
their jobs and ultimately to end poverty, once and for all.
The system
protectors and their employees will have none of it, whether in the USA,
Bolivia, Venezuela, the Middle East, or anywhere else. And they will still run
the world after the November election.
While our
perverse democracy’s multi-million dollar ad campaign grinds our brains into
pulp, important issues are reduced to the race, sex and religious beliefs of the
major presidential product line. The idiocy of the campaigns is matched by the
emptiness of the candidates, a void which can make the simplest expression of
moderate thoughtfulness seem a brilliant and probing argument for change. And
despite surface political differences, they all support more war, increased
military spending, the mythical market, and deep devotion to the Jewish state of
Israel which is a major reason for our bloody conflicts in the Middle East, and
the hateful retaliation they provoke.
No matter
which major party affirmative action team wins, it will attempt to strengthen
this imperial anachronism by borrowing more billions from foreigners, floating
fake electronic money to pay them off, and giving the real bill to taxpayers.
New loans will pay off old loans made with other borrowed money to pay still
older loans, until this massive Ponzi scheme reaches a climax. It could come
sooner than we think.
The myth of a
privately controlled free market is only sustained by the reality of publicly
financed bail outs of wealth and capital. Unless we demand democratic control of
any publicly funded operations in the marketplace, the bottom line will remain
the same: They profit, at our loss. This system is morally and financially
bankrupt, and we sustain it only by jeopardizing our own future. Some would
revive the New Deal that saved capitalism after the last depression, but if we
reshuffle those cards we only delay the inevitable. We need an entirely New Deck
in order to save humanity from a system which will eventually lead us to total
disaster.
Frank scott
email:
frankscott@comcast.net