Bulletin 656

 

Subject:  Capitalism is Perpetual Warfare: class war, nationalist war, imperialist war and annihilation of the environment --each with its unique strategies, tactics, and logistics, and all of which intrude into our lives on a daily basis.

 

24 June 2015

 

Dear Colleagues and Friends of CEIMSA,

The neo-liberal reforms now underway in European and American institutions remind us of the proverbial ants who are busily renovating their ant bed, which lies in the path of GONZILLA. The sounds of disruption are apparent; destruction is imminent, but the ants remain desperately busy putting things in order, exhibiting great discipline and regimentation. A new managerial class is given command/control training, to obey “the dictates of austerity” and when necessary to intrude into the lives of others so that they too will learn to obey. All this while the thundering footsteps approach and have become a palpable experience for everyone. Even the Pope is worried . . . .

Meanwhile, permanent-war capitalism continues. It can do no other!  It must destroy to rebuild; there is no known alternative today for accumulating maximum profits and defeating the competition . . . .

The 11 items below serve to remind us of the destructive forces which now color our lives. As we lift our heads and begin to think systemically (rather than blindly acting out our conditioned reflexes), we inevitably search for new meanings in our lives.

Too little, too late? Perhaps; but it is a start, and true democracy might emerge from this collective experience and, who knows, the immutable path of GONZILLA might somehow be averted.

Anyway, what alternative?

 

Sincerely,

Francis Feeley

Professor of American Studies

University of Grenoble-3

Director of Research

University of Paris-Nanterre

Center for the Advanced Study of American Institutions and Social Movements

The University of California-San Diego

http://dimension.ucsd.edu/CEIMSA-IN-EXILE/

 

a.

In Israel, we walk amongst killers and torturers. The harassment of the Al-Midan Theater stems from envy of our subjects’ ability to overcome oppression, to think and create, in defiance of

our image of them as inferior.

In Israel, we walk amongst killers and torturers

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.662364

Haaretz
June 22, 2015

Amira Hass

 

In our homes, our streets and our places of work and entertainment, there are thousands of people who killed and tortured thousands of other people or supervised their killing and torture. I write “thousands” as a substitute for the vaguer “countless” – an expression for something that cannot be measured.

The vast majority of those who kill and torture (now as well) are proud of their deeds, and their society and families are proud of their deeds – although usually it’s impossible to find a direct link between the names of the dead and the tortured and the names of those who kill and torture, and even when it is possible, it’s forbidden. It’s also forbidden to say “murderers.” And it’s forbidden to write “lowlifes” or “cruel people.”

Me, cruel? After all, our hands aren’t covered with blood when we push the button that drops a bomb on a building housing 30 members of a single family. Lowlife? How can we use that word to describe a 19-year-old soldier who kills a 14-year-old boy who went outside to pick an edible plant?

The Jewish killers and torturers and their direct commanders act as they do with official permission. The Palestinian dead and tortured that they have left behind over the past 67 years also have grieving nieces and families for whom bereavement is a constant presence. In university hallways, shopping malls, buses, gas stations and government ministries, Palestinians don’t know which of the people they encounter have killed, or which and how many members of their families and their people they have killed.

But what’s certain is that their killers and torturers are walking around free. As heroes.

In this morbid contest with the Palestinians over bereavement and pain, we, the Israeli Jews, cannot win. With our air force and our armored corps and our Givati Brigade and our famed elite commando units, we are the underdogs in this contest. But because we are the unquestioned rulers, we fake the results of the contest and appropriate bereavement to ourselves.

We’re not satisfied with the land, the homes and the direct connection to the place that we stole from them and appropriated and destroyed, and that we continue to destroy and appropriate and steal. No. We also deny all the reasons, all the historical and social context of expulsion, dispossession and discrimination, that have led a very small handful of those Palestinians who are citizens of Israel to try to imitate us by taking up arms. They deluded themselves into thinking that weapons were the proper means of resistance, or reached a peak of fury and helplessness and decided to take lives.

Whether or not they regret it, their delusion doesn’t cancel out the fact that they had and have every reason to resist the oppression and discrimination and wickedness that are part and parcel of Israel’s rule over them. Convicting them as murderers doesn’t turn us into the collective victim in this equation. Instead of reducing the reasons for resistance, we are only intensifying and improving the means of oppression. And one means of oppression is insatiable vengefulness.

The attack on the Al-Midan Theater and the play “A Parallel Time” is part of this vengefulness. And it involves a lot of envy as well. Envy of the ability of those we oppress to overcome the oppression and the pain, to think, create and act in defiance of our image of them as inferior. They don’t dance to our tunes like miserable weaklings.

And as in an anti-Semitic caricature, for us everything focuses on the funding, on money. We don’t shut people up, we brag. We’re enlightened, we only cut off their funding. We turned them into a minority in our land when we expelled them and didn’t allow them to return, and now the 20 percent who remain here should say thank you and pay with their tax money for plays that extol the state and its policy. That’s democracy.

This isn’t a culture war, or a war about culture. It’s yet another battle – probably a lost cause, like the previous battles – over a sane future for this country. Palestinian citizens of Israel were a kind of insurance policy for the possibility of a sane future: Call them a bridge, bilingual, pragmatic, even if against their will. But we have to make changes, and we have to know how to listen to them, in order for this insurance policy to be valid. Yet we, the unquestioned rulers, aren’t planning to listen and don’t know the meaning of change.

One final note: Reports about the murder of Lod resident, Danny Gonen, at the Ein Bubin spring near the village of Dir Ibzi’a were accompanied by links to recent previous attacks: the people wounded in a vehicular terror attack near Alon Shvut settlement, the border policeman who was stabbed near the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron. And what was not mentioned? Of course, two young Palestinians killed recently by IDF soldiers: Izz al-Din Gharra, 21, who was shot to death on June 10 in the Jenin refugee camp, and Abdullah Ghneimat, 22, who was run over on June 14 in Kafr Malik by an IDF jeep.

Every night, on average, the IDF conducts 12 routine raids. For the Palestinians, every nighttime raid, which often entails the use of stun grenades and gas and shooting, is a mini terror attack.

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b.

Michael Ratner, who returned from a refugee camp and a film festival in Western Sahara, explains the struggle for life, liberty and self-determination by the Saharawi people.

The Wailing of Western Sahara

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=13812

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c.

Massive corporations dominate the U.S. media landscape. Through a history of mergers and acquisitions, these companies have concentrated their control over what we see, hear and read.  

Who Owns the Media?

http://www.globalresearch.ca/who-owns-the-media/5437371

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d.

The growing app-based service economy relies on legions of underpaid and underprotected contract workers. Today's self-employed workers pay an additional 7.5 percent in income tax and cannot qualify for an earned income tax credit. They have no guarantee of equal protection under laws mandating minimum wages, sick leave or family leave, nor do they have protection against workplace discrimination, harassment or injury, unless they prevail in a lawsuit.

Portside

aims to provide varied material of interest to people on the left that will help them to interpret the world, and to change it.

http://portside.org/2015-06-13/worker-protections-%E2%80%9Cnew%E2%80%9D-economy-there%E2%80%99s-no-app

Worker Protections in the “New” Economy? There’s No App for That

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e.

Union organizer Jody Mauller discusses the National Labor Relations Board's decision to reinstate 13 workers who were fired for organizing a Terex plant in Minnesota.

Rare Victory for 'Illegally' Fired Workers Shows

Labor Laws Stacked Against Union Drives

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=14020


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f.

We live in a very shrewd Military Industrial Empire.

As Our Cities Crumble… Feeding the Beast!
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article42131.htm
by Philip A Farruggio


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g.

We don’t really want to win; too many Americans benefit from unending wars.

12 Reasons The USA Doesn’t Win Its Wars
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article42126.htm
by Jon Basil Utley


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h.

In fiscal year 2014, the United States government paid out an astounding $444 billion in federal contracts. Who got all that money, and what for?

Pentagon Prize Time: Top 10 Federal Contractors
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article42127.htm
by Lindsay Koshgarian


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i.

For America to be displaced, not in the world, but only in the Western Pacific, by an Asian people long despised and dismissed with contempt as decadent, feeble, corrupt, and inept is emotionally very difficult to accept. The sense of cultural supremacy of the Americans will make this adjustment most difficult.

China? Have Grandmaster, Will Travel
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article42133.htm
by Pepe Escobar


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j.

The Syrian army, outgunned and at times frighteningly outnumbered by its Islamist enemies, is not about to collapse.

Can Syria Survive?
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article42128.htm
by Robert Fisk


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k.
The U.S. House of Representatives has admitted an ugly truth that the U.S. mainstream media has tried to hide from the American people.

U.S. House Admits Nazi Role in Ukraine
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article42132.htm
by Robert Parry