Paulson Reverses Course

Stormy at Angry Bear asks as Paulson Reverses Course :

Whom are we bailing out? Who is getting the cash? Are they going to play the old "me first" games?

Not that I want to, but I am going to suggest a radical alternative. This ship is going down, fast. Financial capitalism is broken. (Note the adjective, please.) Nationalize the banks and all lending facilities. Just do it. Set a reasonable rate for credit cards and other types of loans--and mortgages. Set up real lending standards. No one gets ten credit cards; they get one, if that. No more multi-billion dollar CEOs and their cadres of wolves. No more figuring out ways to game the credit system.

For those of you who still believe in free market banking and lending, here is the bottom line: If you thought Ben Laden was a threat--or that Saddam Hussein, a third world dictator was a threat--, well, I have news for you. We are looking down the barrel of a real threat.

If this system really crashes, you will know what a security threat really is.

How about your homes, your jobs, your retirement?

We have met the real enemy. It is time we faced facts, hard facts. The guys in charge still want the old system to work, still want the lending boys to make a bundle.

Even if we nationalize the entire lending system, we will be a long time in recovering from this mess. But at least we will have understood our problem and took steps to rectify it.

The consequences of not facing it are too dire to contemplated.

Emphasis Mine. Italics in original

Stormy assumes that you can nationalise the financial system and keep Capitalism. Good try. Unfortunately, the investment decisions would no longer be done by the Capitalists but by bureauscrats: a form of Socialism.

As we are finding out, the amount of private capital pales against the amount of capital available through the financial system. This is why the current system is called financial Capitalism.

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Obama's First Test

William S Lind proposes that Obama's First Test:

...in the national security arena is likely to come not from al Qaeda or Iran or the Taliban but from within his own Democratic Party. Powerful constituencies in that party, the Feminists and the gays, will demand that he open the ground combat arms to women and allow acknowledged homosexuals to serve in the U.S. armed forces. If he agrees to either of these demands, or both, he will begin his Presidency by doing immense damage to the fighting ability of the America military.

Emphasis Mine

His argument proceeds from the Capitalist understanding of sexuality:

One of the most basic human factors is that men fight to prove they are real men. They join fighting organizations, whether the U.S. Army or U.S. Marine Corps or MS-13, because those organizations are made up of fighting men. Their membership is a badge of honor that says, "We're not sissies or pansies. We are men who fight, serving alongside other men who fight." That tells others and themselves they are real men.

Emphasis Mine

His view of masculinity is confined to anti-feminineness. It is not a positive definition rather defining maleness as not being something. Plus the definition requires that males exhibit aggression to prove themselves.

So the military exists to define and prove masculinity rather to protect society. If a conflict should arise between being masculine and protecting society, then I would assume that Lind would prefer masculinity be asserted.

The idea of the military in a Capitalist society is that of a profession rather than a duty. Military people are a separate caste in society with their own values and needs.

In a Communist society, military obligations apply to everyone. Society is protected by the members of society itself. There is no need for a subset to be charged with these obligations. Membership in society requires that military obligations be undertaken. This is similar to Robert Heinlein's idea in Starship Troopers that citizens defend the body politic except that I propose that all are citizens and therefore obliged to do military service, rather than military service grants citizenship.

Again, we come up against what is maleness? Is it anti-femaleness, or something else? If I do not display the attributes of a woman, am I therefore male?

Is this a dumb question? Does maleness matter? Rather should we concentrate what it means to be human, and leave gender as a biological fact not a cultural construct? I am human because I live in a society and contribute to its culture by propagating its values and suppressing harmful actions. To do so requires that I perform my duty to that society through contributing to the economy that sustains the society.

I think Lind is wrong but his is a Capitalist opinion that requires a military caste to defend the interests of the Capitalist against other Capitalists and the Proletariat. He cannot have a citizen-based military because they would turn their guns against the purported rulers.

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Getting Ready for (Economic) Winter

Financial Armageddon is Getting Ready for (Economic) Winter by examining how A Snowblower Maker Braces for Slump's Blizzard of Woe.

I was intrigued how the owner was getting productivity improvements:

Every two weeks, small groups of workers are assembled and assigned to tackle a new set of problems. One group, for instance, was recently assigned to figure out how to reduce the number of steps needed to collect the parts for an edging machine. Mr. Ariens says he would be pushing for these incremental changes even if business was booming. However it's even more crucial now to cut costs, he says.

The important thing is the workers know enough to devise ways of productivity improvement but have to be pointed in the right direction.

This passivity of the proletariat in the face of change has to be overcome before Communism can be implemented. Union activity enables workers to stand up to owners. This gives the workers confidence in themselves and their ideas.

The workers need to know how the economy works. It is no good to say that something will come along. Always waiting for someone else to start doing things.

The current economic crisis is a good start for workers to examine the current economic system and start devising alternatives.

The Capitalists will be hoping for a short recession so that the workers can be put back to sleep. A prolonged recession means that workers may start to wonder about the system.

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Chloe Hooper: The Tall Man (3)

In another chapter of the saga started in The Tall Man, Peter Robson & Paul Benedek write that:

Palm Island Aboriginal man Lex Wotton was sentenced to six years’ jail for “riot with destruction” on November 7 — just four days after 22 police officers received “bravery awards” for their role in the 2004 Palm Island protests.

This juxtaposition of sentencing a protestor and awarding the police is a political statement of the Queensland government about the occupation of Aboriginal lands.

Sam Watson says to Protest Lex Wotton's shameful conviction!

Testimony from Robinson and other Palm Island police alleged that Wotton was wielding weapons, smashing police station windows, and distributing tins of petrol.

Watson commented: “Wotton's barrister, Clive Steirn, accused Queensland police of ‘lying through their teeth’ to convict his client. He said that ‘not only was Lex Wotton never a part of any riotous assembly, he did his level best to stop the violence.”

Watson concluded: "A white police officer admits he caused an Aboriginal man's death, yet he walks free. A black man, who can't be connected to anything except that he was on Palm Island on the day, is fitted up for jail.

At the meeting called on 26 November 2005, Chloe Hooper writes (p,64), that after the mayor had read out the Coroner's saying that the death was an accident,:

'Come on, people!', Lex calls. 'Will you accept this as an accident? No! I tell you people, things are going to burn. We'll decide when. I'm not going to accept it and I know a lot of you other people won't. So let's do something!' Half of Lex's eloquence is in his body. Instead of decrepitude there is strength and muscle and presence. He is a fantasy of a figure before white contact.

Emphasis Mine. Italics in original.

So Lex was organising a protest against the inadequate Coroner's report. There was anger at the blatant lies and cover-up of violence against Aborigines.

As the protest got out of control with the Police station and Sergeant's residence being burnt down, the police were barricaded inside their barracks, the green zone of Palm Island. They thought they were about to be massacred by the islanders. At point, a truce is negotiated (p.68):

But Lex Wotton, who had been trying to jemmy open the gate's padlock, now ordered the crowd to stop throwing rocks. They did so. 'You've won! You've won! [Senior Sergeant Roger] Whyte called. He negotiated for sixty minutes' grace, sixty minutes to get off the island. The Torres Strait Islander cop, Bert Tabaui, heard Wotton yell, 'We'll give you an hour to get off the island, then we'll kill you!'

The police managed to retreat to the hospital (p.69)

Lex faced the police. He was still angry, but the anger was now controlled. 'Time's up! he called to the cops. 'All I wanted was for you to get off the island!'

Emphasis Mine

However, the women objected to this demand. They wanted police protection against the men. (p.69) The police said they could not leave because [t]hey had no transportation Lex arranged for two cars to made available for their escape, but the police were fearful of an ambush on the way to the airport. (p.70)

The confrontation ends with the timely arrival of the airborne (p.71):

The thunder of helicopters filled the smoke-clouded sky. Extra police had now arrived and still more were coming. Inspector Richardson came outside and told Lex. 'We are not leaving this island. We are the police. You are the ones causing the problem...we are not going anywhere! No way in Australia!'

Lex Wotton froze. He turned around and faced the crowd. The revolution had failed. His idea that the police would leave the island had been biblical in ambition and naivete, a declaration of war that he had no chance of winning. His actions would draw national attention to Cameron Doomadgee's death, but at that moment he knew he would soon be the one inside a jail cell.

'The prty's over,' he called, 'we'll all go home!' Then he turned around to the police. 'You can come around later and pick me up.'

Emphasis Mine

The occupier is not easily dislodged from his conquests. No dissent is allowed.

However, in case, the resolve of the occupier is weakened by the crackdown and the relative leniency of Lex's sentence. Future oppression is assured but it could be one foot on the throat too many.

Other posts in this series are at:

• Chloe Hooper: The Tall Man (2) is my review of the book.
• Chloe Hooper: The Tall Man was about an article in the Big Issue.

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Theory of Victory

J.Boone Bartholomees advances his Theory of Victory (Parameters, Summer 2008, pp. 25-36) by distinguishing between winning and victory. He is of the opinion that one can win without achieving viotory.

He equates victory with the collapse of your opponent's will to continue the struggle. If one achieves one's objectives without breaking your opponent's will, then one has won without victory.

On p.26, Bartholomees writes that:

Victory in war is at the most basic level an assessment, not a fact or condition. It is someone’s opinion or an amalgamation of opinions. Victory in war may or may not have anything to do with objective criteria such as casualties or territory taken or lost. In winning a war, those things matter—at least at some level and always in terms of their effect on perception—but what matters most is the ultimate perception of the situation, not the facts. Different people, depending on their perspective, can legitimately differ in their assessment. The assessment aspect complicates the issue of winning exponentially since it introduces the uncontrolled variables of whose assessment takes precedence, for how much, and based on what criteria.

Emphasis Mine

Here we have the subjective determining the objective. Perception is important.

In discussing the three (3) levels of perspective (tactical, operational, and strategic), Bartholomees contends that the first two (2) have quantifiable conditions for success (p.27). He then asks:

Which level is most important? It is tempting to respond that all are equally important, but that would be incorrect. What counts in the end is the strategic outcome. The story comes to mind of Colonel Harry Summers talking to a North Vietnamese officer after the Vietnam War. Summers commented that the United States had won all the battles, and the North Vietnamese replied, “That may be so, but it is also irrelevant.” Tactical and operational successes may set the stage for strategic victory, but they are not sufficient in themselves.

Emphasis Mine

No matter how many strikes are broken, demonstrations suppressed, activists arrested, publications suppressed, victory by the state is never assured. The state can win through maintaining itself while allowing a level of dissidence to be accommodated.

On p.28, Bartholomees puts forward two (2) components of success in war: achievement and decisiveness.

Decisiveness also reflects a range of potential outcomes. The decisiveness scale (Figure 2) shows potential outcomes varying from completely resolving the political issues at stake through various degrees of partial resolution to no effect (or status quo), worsened or deteriorated political conditions, to the final potential outcome that the war does not solve the problems for which it was fought, but actually exacerbates them. Decisiveness assesses the effect on the political issues.

Achievement considers how well one executes his strategy—in a sense, how well he did on the battlefield or campaign and in the immediate political realm. Achievement (Figure 3) can range from accomplishing nothing through increasing degrees of success until one is completely successful.

Emphasis Mine. Figures are in original, not reporoduced here.

What is ambiguous here is the definition of politics. I would propose that conflict aims to change the social relations within a society.

For example, if a worker wants to exchange each hour of labour for $20 instead of $15, then the worker enters into conflict with the employer who wants to maintain the current social relation between himself and the worker of exchanging $15 for every hour of labour provided by the worker.

Here there may be a political context, but the conflict involves identifable people not abstractions.

On p.36, Bartholomees concludes with:

The fact that war is about winning does not mean it is about victory. One can win a war, especially a limited war, without achieving victory; here the distinction in words becomes significant. Military force can legitimately be used to obtain goals short of total victory or for immediate political advantage with no intent of resolving the underlying issues. The point is that war is about politics, and consequently victory in the end is a political matter.

Emphasis Mine.

With the case of the class war, this ends with either the complete collapse of the Capitalist system into barbarism, or by its metamorphosis into Socialism. Either way, there will be a decisive outcome.

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