PRC Strengthens Party Control Over Firms

An interesting directive has been issued by the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CPC). The People's Daily reports this as:

The circular says that efforts should be made to actively advance the building of Party's work style and the anti-corruption drive in state companies and to probe effective ways for bringing staff workers' role of democratic management into full play and safeguarding their legal rights and interests under the modern corporate system.

The position of the Democratic Socialist Perspective is that the PRC is now a Captialist State.

The turn by the ruling bureaucracy in China toward sanctioning the transformation of the petty-bourgeois stratum that constitutes the commanding personnel in the organs of state power into owners of bourgeois property, like the somewhat earlier turn in the same direction by the ruling bureaucracies in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, marks the final triumph of bourgeois reaction within the state structures of these societies and the end of any activity on their part to defend the nationalised, planned economy as a source of their power and income. The state power these bureaucracies command has ceased to be "a weapon of proletarian dictatorship". It has become an instrument for the suppression of the resistance of the working class to the reintroduction and defence of capitalist property relations. These regimes are no longer highly deformed expressions of proletarian state power. They are now capitalist states.

The move by the CPC is merely strengthening the grip of the party functionaries on the workers' assets under the cloak of ...safeguarding their legal rights and interests.... When the mask of Communism is finally discarded, we will see the very same party functionaries running these companies.

Meanwhile in the USA and elsewhere, there are those who will want to stop all trade with the Communists. The Capitalists know their own - that is why foreign investment is booming in the PRC.

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Dirty Bomb: Where, Not When

Just when you thought it was safe to come out of the bunker, along comes H. Thomas Hayden with his article Dirty Bomb: Where, Not When. He states that:

What we have done in Afghanistan and Iraq has not destroyed Al Qaeda. A safe bet would be that there are now more Al Qaeda members today than before 9/11. We have many of Bin Laden's leaders in custody, but there will be more energetic and resourceful insurgent terrorists to take their place.

The news just keeps getting better.

It has been reported that up to 40-50 nuclear bombs are missing from the old Soviet Union. They are what are called "suitcase bombs" or Atomic Demolition Munitions -- ADMs.

Nearly one (1) ADM per state of the USA.

He concludes with:

One last comment: I would like to say that what we face today is not science fiction or scare tactics to sell newspapers. The threat and the dangers to our society are real and we need to better prepared.

However the threat level is still yellow (elevated). No need to worry then!

And it was only last week that:

The American media was saturated last week with images of four Chinese said to be travelling with two Iraqis across the US to Boston where, it was implied, they were planning to attack the city with a so-called dirty bomb.

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Hicks, Habib, and the Danes

With the arrival of Mamdouh Habib back in Australia, the campaign to clear his name and to secure the release of David Hicks are continuing.

In Habib frame-up collapses; free David Hicks! by Aaron Benedek,

In fact, the Australian government dismissed on numerous occasions mounting evidence that Habib was being tortured by a foreign power, and publicly defended Habib’s illegal detention.

and

Despite the Pentagon's decision not bring any charges against Habib and to release him, Prime Minister John Howard has ruled out compensation or even an apology to Habib. Ruddock has said that his government still regards Habib as a “terrorist” and a “security threat” and that he will be subjected to continued surveillance (harassment) when he returns to Australia. Ruddock's comments were publicly endorsed by NSW Labor Premier Bob Carr.

Back in 2000, there was the saga of Kerry and Kay Danes when they were held by the Communists in Laos for being invloved in commercial fraud. (See Sapphire of Laos: Max Green, Ted Doyle, Kerry Danes & the Stolen Millions for a version of the story.) After considerable diplomatic pressure was exerted by the Australian government, the Danes were released and allowed and returned to Australia (See Relief for Danes).

The Green Left Weekly had the following conclusion in the story Differential treatment by Alison Dellit (January 30, 2002):

The different treatment can be explained by the capitalist media and Australian government's keenness to condemn a left-wing government such as Laos, while slavishly applauding the attempts of the US to run roughshod over an Australian citizens rights.

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After Reading Imperial Hubris

In the Summer 2004/2005 edition of Dissent, there is a poem, After Reading Imperial Hubris, by Glosso Babel. The fourth stanza is

the free and the brave
live in a world
with the potential
to know everything
yet choose to know
nothing
the nuances of life
are glossed over
the complexities of life
are tossed aside
the killings of the day
are summed up
by talking heads
who make careers
out of sounding pleasant yet credible
while uttering the unbelievable

I suppose this stanza is a bit harsh but has a resonance to it when one reads the responses to bloggers like Ted Rall and Paul Street, Tim Wise, and others.

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Rice Arrives Just In Time To Oversee U.S. Decline

In Rice Arrives Just In Time To Oversee U.S. Decline, The Black Commentator writes that:

The U.S. invasion and ongoing torture of Iraq put the planet on notice that Washington is a danger to global stability. Not just progressives, but the conservative elites of Europe and Asia, were shocked and awed in ways that the insular Americans did not contemplate. The Financial Times, a spokes-publication for Britain’s elite, warns: "Central banks are shifting reserves away from the US and towards the eurozone in a move that looks set to deepen the Bush administration's difficulties in financing its ballooning current account deficit." These financial managers are careful to move away from the dollar incrementally, so as not to plunge the global system into panic – but the direction is inexorably away from the U.S. currency. As a nation, we are being set up for a deep fall, but the fault lies with the Bush men (and woman), who are playing a kind of poker with the rest of the planet – one in which the only cards in their hands are military.

The article, after noting that the US business class has been moving assets off-shore itself, concludes with

The entire planet is rejecting blatant American lies and aggression, and actively conspiring to undermine United States military, economic and political domination. This aggression now has a new face – that of a Black woman. We are saddened at the historical irony, but so be it. Evil comes in all colors.

The article does not deal with the question of the US military in a time of economic decline. As with all empires, the US military will be used to stave off the decline for as long as possible by military adventures: the French and British (along with Israel) at the Suez Canal in 1956; France in Algeria in the 1960's; the USSR in Afghanistan in the 1980's.

I think the problem is with the US middle class not with the US ruling class. The latter have seen the writing on the wall and are moving their assets offset as fast as possible. The middle class have almost all of their assets in the USA. This is probably the basis for a Fascist revolution in the USA when the middle class mobilise to protect their property against the encroachment of the state as the tax base shrinks, and against foreigners as the national debt soars.

The rise of Christian Fundamentalism creates the mindset that more discipline is needed to save the country from further decline. That is, they will want others to work as hard as they do in order to keep their position in society. The necessary racism already exists in the USA.

It will only need the defeat in Iraq or Iran along with the economic depression that follows before a Fascist revolution is possible.

If you want Armageddon, this is it. Imagine Nazi Germany with thermonuclear weapons and the means to deliver them anywhere on the planet.

If I were black, hispanic, homosexual, a Democrat (or worse), a unionist, Muslim, Jew, Catholic, I would be getting out of there. From the outside, the US populace is so demobilised that anything can happen and probably will.

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Cheney, Sharon, and Auschwitz

Cheney's Auschwitz outfit raises eyebrows.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Vice President Dick Cheney raised eyebrows on Friday for wearing an olive-drab parka, hiking boots and knit ski cap to represent the United States at a solemn ceremony remembering the liberation of Auschwitz.

You must look at the picture in the article. The expression of the unidentified man, third from the left, says it all.

Ariel Sharon, PM of the State of Israel, might be a bit miffed at this. The commeration of the liberation of the Auschwitz camps by the Soviet armies in 1945 is necessary to the mythology of the State of Israel. Without the Holocaust, the justification for the existence of the Israeli State is weaker. To send along the number two man in the US government and for him to look so casual is to send the message that this event is not very important.

But then Ariel Sharon did not show up either. (The Israeli President was there, however.) Mr. Sharon was promoting the idea that it was the Jews against the world (see PM says Jews know 'we can trust no one but ourselves')

"The State of Israel drew the lesson from the Holocaust, and has known since its founding how to protect itself and all its residents and supply a safe haven for all Jews everywhere," Sharon said. "We know we can trust no one but ourselves."

So much for all the financial, political, and military support that the State of Israel has received from the USA over the years. You could almost say that Mr. Sharon has taken the money and bitten the hand that gave it. There have been many times at the U.N. that the USA has voted with Israel to protect Israel's interests. The State of Israel is the largest recipient of foriegn aid from the USA.

My opinion is that Cheney's appearance is a calculated insult because the current US administration is very image conscious with the selection of backdrops, props, and slogans for all public appearances. This insult could be either a signal to the Arab world that the USA is moving away from Israel, a response to Mr. Sharon's insult about Israel having no friends, or to the Holocaust deniers that the USA is moving away the influence of the Zionist World Conspiracy. Without a strongly worded protest from the Israeli government, the first is implausible. The second may be the most likely as this administration brooks no dissent and punishes anyone who steps out of line very harshly. The third is impossible because the Zionist World Conspiracy does not exist but the appearance of doing so cannot harm the standing of the US administration in the eyes of those who believe in its existence.

However, the recent resignation of Douglas Feith at the US DoD may signal the weakening of official ties between the US and the Zionist project in the Middle East. See Feith resigns for 'personal reasons'

Douglas Feith, a senior Pentagon official who was instrumental in crafting the rationales for an invasion of Iraq and has been one of Israel's most ardent supporters in the administration, has submitted his resignation.

On a completely different, it might to gratifying for some to see a man being hounded for a lack of fashion sense.

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Fourth Generation Warfare

I was reading William Lind's opinion piece (FMFM 1-A) at Military.com when I was intrigued by the term Fourth Generation Warfare. He makes two points:

First, past is prologue; Marines who face war waged by entities other than states are encountering armed conflict as it was before the Peace of Westphalia of 1648, which gave states a monopoly on war. Second, because the root of 4GW is what the FMFM calls "a political, social and moral revolution, the decline of the state," it can have no purely military solution.

On the Defense and National Interest web site, there is an article about Fourth Generation Warfare.

A premise of 4GW is that the world itself has changed, so that terrorism and guerilla warfare—and other elusive techniques that are still being invented—are now ready to move to center stage. These techniques focus not so much on the enemy's military capabilities (although these may be attacked) but directly against the will of the enemy to continue the war. All of the operations by a 4GW force must support this goal. In its most fully developed form, there may be no real "battles" at all, as was virtually the case in the Sandinista take-over of El Salvador in 1979.

I assume the author is talking about the guerrilla movement taking control of the country without becoming a regular force as Mao Zedong had said in his theory of war. As I recall, the success of the Sandanistas was achieved in conjunction with the mass movements within El Salvador. This is something similar to the 1959 Cuban Revolution.

To summarize, fourth generation warfare appears to be evolving along two complimentary lines:

• One of the opponents is something other than the armed forces of a state;
• The focus (Schwerpunkt) of the non-state player's operations is the process, whatever it may be, within the state for deciding to continue the conflict.

In Fourth-generation warfare, the definitions are somewhat clearer:

In a very real sense, all war is driven by politics. The first two generations of war were waged between armies: men and materiel introduced to a battlefield, or onto a front, with the intent to destroy each other, while civilian targets were left alone, for the most part. Third-generation warfare was waged against the industrial structures that made warfare possible: factories, supply lines, and railroad systems, with the opposing military acting as a shield to defend those resources. Fourth-generation warfare is a direct assault on the political structures that guide warfare.

As this article points out, this means terrorism.

What intrigues me about these papers is the idea of the decline of the state. I think what the authors are referring to a nation. That is, a body of people who occupy a certain piece of ground, at a ceratin time in history, with defined boundaries and have a supreme decision making body to control all affairs of that nation. (Definition is very fuzzy). In general, a nation is said to have a common purpose of survival and progress.

In this increasingly globalised world, boundaries are breaking down. Nations are losing the definitiveness of their boundaries and thus, their identity.

If a military force cannot find a nation, then the nation cannot be occupied in order to bend the nation to the will of the military force.

These thoughts need clarification.

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Brawl in the Hall

I am eagarly awaiting the outcome of the fight bewteen Bucky Katt and Mungo the Ferret. Will Chubby be able to stop the fight? Latest installment is at Get Fuzzy.

Updated 27 Jan 2005 from rumble to brawl.

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Piss on Pity

Mickey Z has a new article at Press Action called 'Piss on Pity': Clint Eastwood's 'Million Dollar' Snuff Film. A few quotes from the article:

It will likely come as a bit of shock to those unfamiliar with the disability rights movement, but not every disabled person would rather be dead (or even non-disabled). ...

"Disabled peoples movements have much to add to the civilizing movements of the last three decades-the Civil Rights Movement, the women’s movement and the gay and lesbian movement," says Marta Russell, author of "Beyond Ramps: Disability at the End of the Social Contract." "It is disheartening, to say the least, when I can still pick up a book or read a call for unity to fight for social justice which omits or does not give equal weight to the disability social movement against oppression."

From a personal perspective, I have learned to live with very different reactions to my disabilities:

• Impatience;
• Anger;
• Laughter;
• Pity;
• Kindness

Pity is the hardest to bear because it is the most insulting and degrading emotion. It is the reaction of a superior being to a lesser one. This is strange because the pity comes from a person who is trying to do the right thing.

From a Marxist perspective, we liberate ourselves. Liberty is not given to us. Liberty is what we surrender when we become slaves.

From a Christian perspective, Jesus walked the Via Dolorosa and died on the Cross to order to expirate our sins. God could have proclaimed freedom from the bondage of Sin but he chose to take the burden upon himself. Because of Christ's free gift to us, we choose to be free or a slave.

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Invasion Day 2005

At Australia Day Council New South Wales: Indigenous, there is the offical discussion on Invasion Day (26 January 2004). This is a more sensitive version than that is put forward by the Federal government. That attitude is best described as "...pandering to the black armband view of Australian history" (source unknown).

There are still many injustices that Indigenous Australians suffer:

• Greater risk of imprisonment;
• Very poor health and education;
• White misconceptions that Indigenous Australians are getting great amounts of welfare.

The liberal press has a commentary at Time to acknowledge the first people's rights (Free subscription required).

One paragraph that really explains the current attitude is:

Rather than providing adequate medical, educational and housing facilities, we compel outback Aborigines to wash their faces in return for providing a petrol bowser, thereby implicitly reinforcing the 18th-century view of the Aborigines as child-like savages who have to be civilised.

This is a no better definition of the "nanny-state".

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Jesus to the Rescue?

In Jesus to the Rescue?, Katha Pollitt explores the issues with integrating evangelical Christainity with leftist (here identified with the Democratic Party - in Australia, this would be the Australian Labour Party). She concludes that the two should be kept separate.

That so many Christians are firmly persuaded that the Bible condemns abortion suggests that God's politics tend to be the politics of the people who claim to speak for him. Since these men, and now women, have been arguing for centuries without reaching agreement on even the simplest matters, the rest of us are entitled to wonder if perhaps they are reading the wrong book.

I agree that party politics must be kept clear of religion and non-religion. We need to build the broadest possible coalition for change without compromising our principles.

In Marxist terms, what Ms Pollitt is describing is the spiritual production that justifies the status quo. That is, there are religious leaders who are supported and promoted by the ruling class in order to justify the existence of the ruling class, and therefore the privileges and wealth that accure to the ruling class. As long as these religious leaders keep producing spiritual justifications for the current state of affairs, they will enjoy the protection of the ruling class.

At a personal level, I am a Communist because I am a Christian. I strongly believe that to serve God is to change the Capitalist system into a more fairer and more just society. This will not be a perfect society, just a better one. Only God can create the perfect society with perfect justice.

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Further Thoughts on USD

In the Financial Times, there is an article Dollar at mercy of central banks which says that the Asian central banks are supporting the US dollar in order to stop their own currencies from appreciating.

In November, Alan Greenspan, US Federal Reserve chairman, suggested foreign investors would reach a limit in their desire to finance the US current account deficit and diversify into other currencies or demand higher US interest rates, "elevating the cost of financing" the deficit and "rendering it increasingly less tenable".

I think that higher interest rates is more likely to prick the credit bubble and wipe out the paper wealth of the US middle class through collapsing house prices. The worry is the flow-on effect to the Australian ecomomy where the fear of increased interest rates under a Labour government appearred to be a big factor in the win by John Howard.

Slowly moving away from the US currency means a continued fall in the US dollar against the Euro. This would increase inflation by increasing the cost of imports but making US exports even cheaper. Wage inflation would be unlikely given that organised labour is still very weak and that "full" employment is a government statistical myth. The price of oil seems to be capped at USD50 through, I suspect, US military pressure on Saudi Arabia and Iran. This would have the unintended effect of making oil cheaper throughout the rest of the world and boosting their economies, especially China.

A detailed survey out today suggests that central banks are increasingly moving official reserves out of the dollar and into the euro.

The article's conclusion is that:

Asian central banks are unlikely to pull the plug on dollar assets altogether. But they may be close to ending their willingness to provide cheap financing for an ever increasing US current account deficit.

In other words, the US ruling class seems resigned to losing some economic power in the USA but gaining through their foreign assets in those booming economies. The US middle class still has their illusion of paper wealth through the housing bubble which could be further inflated through purchases by foreigners of these 'cheap' houses.

However, the weakening of the US domestic economy has the effect of weakening the US military eventually. The weakening can only be staved off by moving government expenditure from social programs into the military and by creating more military hardware to be used by less personnel. In other words, the US military will have to become more capital intensive. This will benefit the USAF and USN at the expense of the US Army.

With the increased weakening of the US Army, the ability of the US ruling class to quell domestic dissent will become more problematic. If there are insufficient troops and police to be put on the streets, are the US rulers willing to use bombs (non-nuclear or nuclear) against the trouble spots? At this point of time, this question is moot given the passivity of the US people, in general.

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Usama bin Ladin and USA's Credit Bubble

At Tomgram: Auerback, a tour of economic disaster, 2005-style, there is a worrying analysis that the US economy is very vulnerable to the bursting the credit bubble.

The scale of the problem is given is the following quote:

According to the economist Andre Gunder Frank, "All Uncle Sam's debt, including private household consumer credit-card, mortgage etc. debt of about $10 trillion, plus corporate and financial, with options, derivatives and the like, and state and local government debt comes to an unvisualizable, indeed unimaginable, $37 trillion, which is nearly four times Uncle Sam's GDP [gross domestic product]."

This indebtedness is sustained as follows:

China, Japan, and other major foreign creditors are believed willing to sustain the status quo because their own industrial output and employment levels are thought to be worth more to them than risking the implosion of their most important consumer market, but that, of course, assumes levels of rationality not necessarily found in any global system in a moment of crisis.

What is missing from this analysis is the threat by Usama bin Ladin to the US financial system as described in "Imperial Hubris" by Anonymous (Brassey's, Inc. USA:2004) on p.100-102. Anonymous believes that the focus of the Al Qaeda strategy is the US economy and that a slow bleeding of the US ecomony is needed to win the war against the USA.

It would appear that the liberal edge of the Australian ruling may be preparing itself for the eventual implosion of the US ecomony (either through its own weight or through the machinations of Al Qaeda) by moving the centre of gravity of the Australian economy away from the USA towards Asia especially Japan and China. This is my understanding of the theme behind Paul Sheehan's article in the All aboard the big red juggernaut (Free subscription required).

The US ruling class will not take kindly to the loss of economic power while it has control of the premier military power. The inreasing gap between ecomonic power and military power means that the US must expend that military power to maintain its ecomonic position.

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