With Global Capitalism Exposed as a Sham, All the Global Elite Have Left Is Pure Force

[Joanne98]

By Chris Hedges, Truthdig
Posted on September 22, 2009, Printed on September 22, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/142788/

The rage of the disposed is fracturing the country, dividing it into camps that are unmoored from the political mainstream. Movements are building on the ends of the political spectrum that have lost faith in the mechanisms of democratic change. You can't blame them. But unless we on the left move quickly this rage will be captured by a virulent and racist right wing, one that seeks a disturbing proto-fascism.

Every day counts. Every deferral of protest hurts. We should, if we have the time and the ability, make our way to Pittsburgh for the meeting of the G-20 this week rather than do what the power elite is hoping we will do-stay home. Complacency comes at a horrible price.

"The leaders of the G-20 are meeting to try and salvage their power and money after everything that has gone wrong," said Benedicto Martinez Orozco, co-president of the Mexican Frente Autentico del Trabajo (FAT), who is in Pittsburgh for the protests. "This is what this meeting is about."

The draconian security measures put in place to silence dissent in Pittsburgh are disproportionate to any actual security concern. They are a response not to a real threat, but to the fear gripping the established centers of power. The power elite grasps, even if we do not, the massive fraud and theft being undertaken to save a criminal class on Wall Street and international speculators of the kinds who were executed in other periods of human history. They know the awful cost this plundering of state treasuries will impose on workers, who will become a permanent underclass. And they also know that once this is clear to the rest of us, rebellion will no longer be a foreign concept.

The delegates to the G-20, the gathering of the world's wealthiest nations, will consequently be protected by a National Guard combat battalion, recently returned from Iraq. The battalion will shut down the area around the city center, man checkpoints and patrol the streets in combat gear. Pittsburgh has augmented the city's police force of 1,000 with an additional 3,000 officers. Helicopters have begun to buzz gatherings in city parks, buses driven to Pittsburgh to provide food to protesters have been impounded, activists have been detained, and permits to camp in the city parks have been denied. Web sites belonging to resistance groups have been hacked and trashed, and many groups suspect that they have been infiltrated and that their phones and e-mail accounts are being monitored.

Larry Holmes, an organizer from New York City, stood outside a tent encampment on land owned by the Monumental Baptist Church in the city's Hill District. He is one of the leaders of the Bail Out the People Movement. Holmes, a longtime labor activist, on Sunday led a march on the convention center by unemployed people calling for jobs. He will coordinate more protests during the week.

"It is de facto martial law," he said, "and the real effort to subvert the work of those protesting has yet to begin. But voting only gets you so far. There are often not many choices in an election. When you build democratic movements around the war or unemployment you get a more authentic expression of democracy. It is more organic. It makes a difference. History has taught us this."

Our global economy, like our political system, has been hijacked by a tiny oligarchy, composed mostly of wealthy white men who serve corporations. They have pledged or raised a staggering $18 trillion, looted largely from state treasuries, to prop up banks and other financial institutions that engaged in suicidal acts of speculation and ruined the world economy. They have formulated trade deals so corporations can speculate across borders with currency, food and natural resources even as, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, 1.02 billion people on the planet struggle with hunger. Globalization has obliterated the ability of many poor countries to protect food staples such as corn, rice, beans and wheat with subsidies or taxes on imported staples. The abolishment of these protections has permitted the giant mechanized farms to wipe out tens of millions of small farmers-2 million in Mexico alone-bankrupting many and driving them off their land. Those who could once feed themselves can no longer find enough food, and the wealthiest governments use institutions such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization like pit bulls to establish economic supremacy. There is little that most governments seem able to do to fight back.

Continued>>>
http://www.alternet.org/world/142788/with_global_capitalism_exposed_as_a_sham%2C_all_the_global_elite_have_left_is_pure_force

[orpupilofnature57]

1. The 12%have been hiding behind their money ,it's time to expose the Hows and whys.

[T Wolf]

2. Hey, force has worked for thousands of years. The only fly (and that is about our strength) in

their ointment is the fact that more of us know we are being screwed and may think about doing something to correct the situation.

They also screwed up by allowing the rise of the middle class. Once we got "off the farm" and saw what could be and got a taste of the good life, the clock started clicking on their exploitative system.

They will hold on to power for a while (or longer) longer. But, in the end, their greed at needing to have enough to last 100 lifetimes will doom them.

I only hope that we do not go down with them.

[bread_and_roses]

3. "Obama is in trouble..."

"Obama is in trouble," Holmes went on. "The economic crisis is a structural crisis. The recovery is only a recovery for Wall Street. It can't be sustained, and Obama will be blamed for it. He is doing everything Wall Street demands. But this will be a dead end. It is a prescription for disaster, not only for Obama but the Democratic Party. It is only groups like ours that provide hope. If labor unions will get off their ass and stop focusing on narrow legislation for their members, if they will go back to being social unions that embrace broad causes, we have a chance of effecting change. If this does not happen it will be a right-wing disaster."

Two interesting things here, in my view. The quite simple and I think quite accurate summary of Obama's policies to date. The need is for jobs - this should be quite evident to a "progressive" President. And to those who argue that Obama has never presented himself as a "progressive" I ask, why did we elect him then?

If the need is for jobs, where are the jobs programs? Why don't we have a 21st Century version of the WPA? Surely there is work to be done. We could dispatch hundreds of thousands, millions of workers into our inner cities alone to create housing, to teach, to clean up, provide after-care, youth programs, build playgrounds and parks, etc., etc., etc. And why are we not demanding this? Why are we content to let Obama's policies, which rely purely on the private sector to create jobs, define the parameters?

The other interesting point is on labor unions. The labor movements two legislative goals - health care and the Employee Free Choice Act - are arguably both aimed at improving the lives of all workers, all our citizens - and especially with health care that seems obvious. So, why does that not translate into a "broad social cause?" (Notice, I do not quarrel with Hedges that it doesn't - all I'd have to do is read the comments section in my local paper every time unions are mentioned to know that however inclusively unions speak about health care they are perceived as a "special interest" and nothing else. But why?)