Starkers

Buttonwood contends that the US ecomony is Starkers. She contends that the flucuations in the US Dollar over the past week with the release of various US Treasury shows that the foundations are not very secure.

The fact is that the markets are hyper-sensitive to these figures, and analysts pore over them like Kremlinologists. The fear that central banks are contemplating industrial action against the dollar—and the collective sigh of relief when it seems they are not—is part of a broader unease about the nature and solidity of America’s economic growth. Based, as it is, on mammoth consumption by both the private and public sectors—ie, on big trade and fiscal deficits—it needs foreigners willing to suspend disbelief and buy shiploads of securities denominated in a currency that has steadily lost value for about 40 years.

So far, the foreigners—mainly Asians plus a few outliers, including Russia and Brazil—have obliged, permitting America to scoop up 75% of the world's surplus savings. Together, Asian central banks have accumulated about $2.5 trillion in foreign-exchange reserves, up almost a quarter in little more than a year, most of it in dollars; Japan and China alone have reserves of nearly $1.5 trillion between them.

Emphasis Mine

75% of the world's surplus savings is going to the USA to allow them to spend like there is no tomorrow. This is money that should be invested to develop the economies of the home countries. People are being starved so that the Americans can get fatter.

In many ways, the USA is behaving in similar to Athens on the eve of The Pelopennesian War in that:

• they are living off the tribute of their allies;
• they are fighting a war to install democracy in the Middle East;
• they are living off the glory of defeating a great empire from the east;
• their navy rules the waves;
• they are dependent on imports from overseas;
• they have pissed off everyone else.

Now the Athenians did not have thermonuclear weapons. The US has demonstrated that it has no compunction against using them on civilians.

May you live in interesting times or

It's better to be a dog in a peaceful time that be a man in a chaotic period.

I disagree: it is better to be a man than a dog no matter what the times.

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More Pigs than Protesters

Dan Clore posted this article about More Pigs than Protesters. The part I found interesting was:

Organisers of the demonstration blamed the protest site and the Government for the lack of interest and poor turn-out. Rob Cole of the Sheffield Green Party said people saw no reason in protesting against a Government which did not listen. Mr Cole, 23, the prospective parliamentary candidate for Sheffield Hallam said: "There is the feeling at the moment that protests are not working.

Emphasis Mine

People, in general, believe that we live in a democracy where the voice of the people guides our rulers. If there are unprecedent protests on the streets, we would expect that the government would listen.

Instead, our choices are presented in a narrow fashion. In the last US presidental election, the candidates from the two major parties were both pro-war. The difference was in the number of troops to be sent to Iraq.

The only protests that seem to work are those that fall within the parameters allowed by the ruling class. The Orange revolution in the Ukraine and the Cedar revolution in Lebanon are in this category. In short, protest works if the ruling class agrees to the demands beforehand.

I think that the risk taken by Bush, Blair, and Howard by ignoring the anti-war protests were justified. There was no way that the protestors were going to take things further if their demands were not met. Indeed, both Bush and Howard have been returned with increased majorities.

On the other hand, it is good for revolutionaries that Bush, Blair, and Howard ignored the protestors because it makes it easier for us to explain that we do not truly live in a democracy, and we need stronger action to achieve democracy in our societies

My previous rant on this subject is at:

• 15 February 2003

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human oppression is a universal experience

I saw this expression in a blog recently:

... human oppression is a universal experience ...

There is a contradiction here. If everyone is oppressed, then who is doing the oppressing? Maybe we have a system of mutual oppression: I oppress you, and you oppress me in return.

But no, I have misunderstood the expression. Being an oppressor is part of the experience of human oppression. This is like saying that the rapist and victim share the experience of rape. That means the person making the quote thinks that oppressor and oppressed suffer equally. Bullshit!

Another interpretation is that some people experience oppression early in life and are able to become oppressors themselves. This is what Capitalists mean by the ladder of opportunity. Climbing it means you get to oppress more and more people.

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PBS Says American Slavery was Natural

Malcom X once said that

You cannot have Capitalism without Racism.

Johnathan Scott explores this theme is his essay at Black Commentator called PBS Says American Slavery was Natural: Eradicting Bacon's Rebellion From Popular History

... Bacon’s Rebellion of 1676, the largest and most consequential slave revolt in the history of the continent. At first a small opposition movement within the Anglo-American ruling class, over profit-making opportunities in Virginia, the revolt became hurriedly a mass rebellion of bond-laborers, their sights set on the chief garrison and magazine at West Point.

Nathaniel Bacon was a member of the colony council and a militant opponent of Virginia land policy. He had prepared the revolt a few years earlier by organizing an armed mutiny of angry taxpayers at Lawnes Creek Parish, and, in November of 1676, proclaimed freedom to all bond-laborers, in anticipation they would join his cause against the big tobacco bourgeoisie. He was right. Thousands of bond-laborers – six thousand European Americans and two thousand African Americans – took up arms against the numerically tiny Anglo-American slave-owning planter class. Seizing the day, dramatically, they drove Governor Berkeley back to England, hat in hand, and shut down all tobacco production for fourteen straight months.

Emphasis Mine

To prevent similar events in the future after the British had bombarded the rebels into submission, the ruling class needed a new way of maintaining control by divide and rule.

... To put it differently, how do you run a social control system in a civil society based on chattel-bond slavery?

When I ask this question to students in my early American literature course, the answer comes easily: divide the bond-laborers in two by letting one half go free and the other half – keep them in bondage and have the “free” half patrol them. This common sense has escaped most U.S. historians, ...

Thus, racism is born and encouraged by the ruling class.

Black and White!
Together we are Dynamite!

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Outed as a Vegan

I have been outed as a Vegan. People tend to notice if you do not eat meat at all. Suddenly, you are a gun-toting, crazy animal liberationist instead of being a gun-toting, crazy carnivore. The former is not acceptable in polite society.

The reasons I became a Vegan are:

• It's cheaper;
• Choosing from menus is easier - there is usually only one vegetarian item on the menu;
• Indian women think highly of Vegans;
• I have been reading Mickey Z's blog;

I did not become a Vegan overnight - I just ate less and less meat until I was eating one meat dish a week before I realised that I was almost a Vegan.

The unintended effects have been that:

• I have lost weight; and
• I am more healthier

I am not a complete Vegan because I still wear leather shoes and wear woolen clothing. This probably makes me a legitimate target of the ALF.

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APISC Bulletin, March 12

Indonesia, Cuba, The Philippines, United States: more speakers at APISC Conference

3^rd Asia Pacific International Solidarity Conference, 24-28 March, 2005, Sydney, Australia.

(Venue: Ashfield High School, from 7.00pm Thursday 24 March.)

Register through the web on www.apsc.net.au

Two weeks before the 3^rd Asia Pacific International Solidarity Conference (APISC 2005) we are now confirming more speakers from Indonesia, the Philippines, Cuba, and the United States.

Indonesia - Joesoef Isak

Joesoef Isak (74) has been a journalist, publisher and political activist since the 1940s. In the late 1950s and early 1960s he held senior positions in Indonesian Journalists Association. He was editor of the mass circulation daily, Merdeka, until 1962 until its proprietor removed him for taking the paper too far in a left wing direction. After 1962, he became Secretary-General of the Asia Africa Journalists Association working to build cooperation among anti-imperialists and journalists throughout the Third World.

In 1965 General Suharto seized power, began the process of overthrowing President Sukarno, and annihilating the Indonesian Left. More than 1 million people were murdered. Tens of thousands more were imprisoned. Joesoef Isak was one of these. Between 1965 and 1977, was dragged in and out of detention in various military safe houses.. Finally, in 1967 he was imprisoned in Salemba prison, Jakarta until 1977. he was never charged or tried for any crime.

Soon after release from prison, in 1979, and in complete defiance of the Suharto dictatorship, he joined with two other people who had been just released from prison camp after they had been fourteen years detained without charge or trial. These were Hasyim Rahman, who had been publisher of the biggest selling left-wing daily before 1965, Bintang Timur, and Pramoedya Ananta Toer, Indonesia's leading fiction writer at the time and a columnist in Bintang Timur. They had all been part of the movement attempting to win socialism in Indonesia. These three formed a publishing company, Hasta Mitra, which proceeded to defy a ban by the dictatorship on former leftists working in the publishing arena. Between 1981 and the late 1980s they published novels written in prison camp by Pramoedya Ananta Toer. The novels were quickly banned - but they still were in the bookshops long enough to become best sellers. Joesoef was arrested again when he was accused of helping organize for Pramoedya to speak on University of Indonesia campus. Three more months were spent in gaol.

Hasta Mitra has remained the most important alternative and left publisher in Indonesia for more than 20 years despite the bans and harassment. Since the fall of Suharto, there have been many major publications organized by Joesoef Isak through Hasta Mitra. Two of the most important have also involved massive translation efforts. The first was an 800 page volume of translations of US State Department and CIA documents relating the overthrow of Sukarno, the installation of Suharto and the mass murders of the socialist movement. This was published as "The CIA Documents" in 2003.

In 2005, Hasta Mitra published the first ever Indonesian translation of the three volumes of Marx's Capital. Former president Abdurrahman Wahid launched the publication which was attended by other leading left intellectuals.

Joeseof Isak will give special greetings to APISC on the occasion of the 50^th anniversary of the Asia Africa Conference in Bandung, Indonesia. This conference, held in 1955, began the non-aligned movement of the 50s and 60s during its period as an international coalition against imperialism. The visit of Joeseof Isak will be the first ever visit to Australia of an important figure from the Left which was active before 1965.

Cuba

The new Cuban Consul-General in Sydney, Nelida Hernandes, has agreed to participate in a plenary session on the future of socialism as well as to give a workshop at APISC. She will also be one of the people giving a toast at the solidarity dinner on Saturday night. Her last posting before Australia was Venezuela!

The Philippines

Professor Francisco Nemenzo will be able to attend. Professor Nemenzo attended the 1998 APSC conference. He joined the socialist movement as a student ending up as a guerilla fighting Marcos in the 1970s. He was caught and imprisoned, including for a long time in solitary confinement. After being released, he studied political science in the U.K. and then returned to the University of the Philippines to become the country's leading Marxist intellectual. He was deeply involved in the anti-Marcos movement and played a major role in founding a radical socialist organisation, Socialist Ideas and Practice (BISIG). He astounded everbody four years ago when he won in elections at the University of the Philippines for the position of University President (i.e. Viced-Chancellor). He has just finished his time as head of the University of the Philippines, having led a struggle to renovate the university up against the neo-liberal policies of the Philippines government.

United States

Ahmed Shawki, a leader of the International Socialist Organisation in the United States has confirmed his attendance at the conference. He will be speaking on the anti-war movement in the United States and on the World Social Forum and global campaigning against neo-liberalism.

For a full list of international speakers see www.apsc.net.au

You can also register at the conference but why not avoid the longer queues and register online at www.apsc.net.au or ring 02-96901230; fax 02-96901381; email apisc2005@bigpond.com or write to APISC 2005, P.O. Box 458, Broadway NSW 2007, Australia.

See you there,

Max Lane

Conference Convenor

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