The debt limit deal and the social counterrevolution in America
This is a very clear and concise analysis of the Debt Crisis Crisis Deal from the [Trotskyite-] Socialist perspective. It doesn't really differ much from the obvious.
That is a key here: Average Americans are quite capable of sussing out the import of the Deal and horrible impact it will have on them. The Socialists merely clarify the matter.
The Money Quote:
Bush and Obama bankrupted the federal government in order to bail out Wall Street, and now the ruling class and its political servants in both parties are carrying out a social counterrevolution to make the working class pay the cost. Since the eruption of the financial crisis in September 2008, the ruling elite has exploited the breakdown of its system to permanently restructure class relations and impoverish the working class.
That's it in a nutshell.
The question is who really cares enough to do anything about it.
I don't see the Trotskyites doing more than organizing yet another conference.
Sigh.
Yet talk of "Revolution" is all over the Web.
Fascinating.
Che,
ReplyDeleteHere is why the wealthy and the big corporations work so hard to protect their money: If one dollar is one second, one million seconds is about 11½ days. A billion seconds is 32 years. And a trillion seconds is 32,000 years.
That's how much a Trillion is. These guys are thinking absolute long-term and they want it all. Forever into the foreseeable future. I don't think they have the capacity to particularly care if billions die as a result of their hoarding. My personal theory is that we are witnessing an evolutionary split; one branch of humankind with empathy (soul) and one without. And I am not being sarcastic. It may be a climate catastrophe-driven, animalistic, survival of the fittest adaptation.
Whatever it is, it doesn't bode well for humanity.
-T
Yes, it is the Future. That's what they are grasping to "own" -- as I put it in another comment, they want to own time itself. They see themselves as gods who walk among us.
ReplyDeleteInteresting notion of an evolutionary factor -- of course, the question always is: "what is 'fitness'?"
If history is any guide -- and it may not be -- the soulless split-off is an evolutionary dead end.
Well, we can hope, eh?
Cheers,
Ché
I've always believed that it is a great error to understand the Theory of Evolution as "The Survival of the Fittest."
ReplyDeleteFittest, you see implies moral and aesthetic qualities. If the prettiest birds are hunted to extinction so they might be made into ladies' hats, or the bravest lions are hunted for the glory of the hunter are they then unfit?
No. The correct understanding of the Theory of Evolution is "The Survival of that which is most able to Survive." The tapeworm may beat the splendid fairy wren in such an equation, and the hagfish may beat the dolphin.
I bring this up only because Social Darwinism is the guiding philosophy of our modern politics. The idea that only those "worthy" of survival should survive, and those that are less fortunate should be allowed to die off doesn't account for the fact that the human equivalent of the hagfish may survive while the human equivalent of the splendid fairy wrens might be wiped out.
Of course, Social Darwinism is an evil and absurd philosophy for other reasons, but looking at nature many ugly, sickening species survive and many noble, beautiful species die out.
We might find ourselves building a society of orcs and Morlocks rather than the super people the advocates of Social Darwinism believe are the future.
Social Darwinism (and all that grew out of it and is still growing out of it) is evil. Pure, unforgiven evil.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting that Creationists are, by and large, adherents to Social Darwinism.
Strangely, even though we're headed into as mindless and cruel a phase of Social Darwinism as has ever occurred, I have some hope it will turn out differently this time.
A wan hope to be sure...
@ pws,
ReplyDelete"No. The correct understanding of the Theory of Evolution is "The Survival of that which is most able to Survive." The tapeworm may beat the splendid fairy wren in such an equation, and the hagfish may beat the dolphin." -pws
Yes, that is exactly what I meant. I didn't mean survival of the fittest to insinuate some better moral fibre. Not in the least. Rats and cockroaches are disgusting to our senses, but they sure are fit to survive when many other species might fail.
I think of the "soulless" humans as the cockroaches. That they are equipped to survive doesn't mean they are better morally or spiritually, or even that they deserve to survive, as we might judge "deserve".
I hope you don't think I was implying some higher ethical or moral status to the cockroaches of humanity just because I used the word "fitness".
-Teri