Capitalism

Domestic dispute results
in man decapitating
his wife with chainsaw.

There are some corporate attempts to take over our lives that are not only dangerous, but so intrinsically evil as to cause one to wonder if those promoting them have any respect for human life whatsoever. I have in mind The Food Safety Modernization Act of 2010. In the words of a Canadian whistleblower, Dr. Shiv Chopra, this bill, if passed, would “preclude the public’s right to grow, own, trade, transport, share, feed and eat each and every food that nature makes.” It would, in effect, give Monsanto and other food giants absolute control over all seeds produced and used in agriculture. If this is true, and I suspect it is, although it most probably does not state its intentions so baldly, it must be considered an outright attack on human well-being, all in the service of profit and corporate control of the most basic commodity of all (next to water), food. In my opinion, that such a bill would be allowed to be considered at all is insane, even more insane than corporate attempts to privatize water as was attempted in Bolivia. Monsanto is already involved in a lawsuit now before the Supreme Court involving the genetically modified foods they are creating that may be themselves insane in the long run.

Crime in Chicago has reached such massive proportions there have been suggestions of bringing in the National Guard. There is little doubt that this crime wave (or whatever you might want to call it) is the result of lack of opportunity, jobs, education, poverty, and neglect. Jesse Jackson has proposed a massive federal intervention that would help provide what is needed to alleviate this problem and, hopefully, solve it forever.

The Senate, as you no doubt are aware, is involved in trying to pass some kind of Wall Street reform. Republicans for three days in a row voted not to allow the problem even to be debated. Now, threatened with an all-night session they capitulated and the debate will be allowed to go forward. The intent, of course, is to pass some kind of bill that would tighten regulations on Wall Street and offer more in the way of consumer protection from Wall Street recklessness, usurious credit card rates, and questionable trading practices and conflicts of interest.

Also as you know, Congress recently passed a Health Care Bill that was not even close to being true health care reform. In effect it merely provided the Insurance companies with some 30 million more customers who will be forced to buy insurance (if they cannot afford it, it will be governmentally subsidized). This was, in effect, a gift to the giant insurance companies and a far cry from health reform, although it did make it possible for some 30 million who did not have insurance to have it. A single-payer system as most industrial nations have, was not even considered.

Immigration reform, as a result of a truly discriminatory law passed in Arizona, has now been placed on the front burner for federal action. As the federal government has ignored this problem for decades, perhaps now something will be done about it, although what can be done will not please many people. It is true that this is considered to be a federal rather than a state problem, and it is also true that the federal government has neglected it for years. There are so many illegal immigrants by now, some of whom have lived her for decades, and some having just arrived, some of them criminals but the majority ordinary citizens, this is going to be a virtually impossible task. But it has to be done. New laws and regulations will be needed, however flawed they may prove to be.

Energy is another area where some kind of reform is necessary. There is little argument over the fact that the U.S. needs to wean itself away from oil dependency, and there is talk of wind energy, ethanol, electric and hydrogen cars, using solar and even waves to produce energy, to say nothing of new nuclear plants. But this is all very controversial and is going to require an enormous amount of time and new legislation.

Then there are the two “wars” that may or may not be winding down, and the problem of the Pentagon budget which has become so obscene as to make one wonder if our leaders have all of their marbles. The military/industrial/political complex, an integral part of the corporate control of our lives, will be virtually impossible to touch no matter what new laws and regulations might be in the future offing. There are, no doubt, many other problems I have not mentioned, not the least of which is the national debt.

I sort of regretfully submit that in my humble opinion none of these problems will be truly solved no matter how many laws and regulations may eventually be passed. The one thing that is common to all of these problems, the most basic problem of all, is that they are all the result of our capitalistic system, and unless we can force ourselves to give up our absurd ideas about free-markets, deregulation, privatization, and the evils of government, we will just continue going along the same path to eventually self-destruct. Capitalism is nothing less than the law of the jungle applied to human affairs. It is basically incompatible with enduring cultures that serve the needs of their citizens and must inevitably bring about their own demise. We can see this happening right now as the wealth of the nation becomes increasingly held by fewer and fewer individuals and corporations while the vast majority of citizens become surplus to be thrown away in the massive slums we have created in our inner cities or left to suffer and die without adequate medical care. I would never have thought that after eighty years of life I would have to acknowledge that capitalism is an abject failure. The only solution that seems to have worked in a few countries is some form of social democracy. Unfortunately, this is an option that is virtually unthinkable here in the U.S. because our capitalistic masters have made any form of public welfare into the horror of socialism and somehow convinced an unschooled public that it is a fate worse than death.

LKBIQ:
Capital is dead labour, that, vampire-like, only lives by sucking living labour, and lives the more, the more labour it sucks. The time during which the labourer works, is the time during which the capitalist consumes the labour-power he has purchased of him.
Karl Marx

TILT:
The Appaloosa, developed by the Nez Perce, is the official state horse of Idaho.