Bulletin #704

 

 

 

 

Subject:  HOSTS : PARASITES  =  WORKERS : CAPITALISTS.

 

 

2 July 2016
Grenoble, France

 

 

Dear Colleagues and Friends of CEIMSA,

 

The story goes that months before the Apollo 11 astronauts landed on the moon in July 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were in training at a remote desert region in the western US. This area is home of several Native American communities. One day when the astronauts were out training they came across an old Native American, who asked them what they were doing there. They replied that they were part of a research project preparing for a landing expedition on the moon.

          The old man fell silent for a moment; then he asked if the astronauts could do him a favor.

“What do you want?” they asked.

“Well, the people of my tribe believe that holy spirits live on the moon,” said the man. “I was wondering if you could pass an important message to them from my people.”

“What is the message?” asked the astronauts.

The man uttered something in his tribal language, and then asked the astronauts to repeat it again and again until they had memorized it correctly.

          “What does it mean?” asked the astronauts.

          “Oh, I can’t tell you. It’s a secret that only our tribe and the moon spirits are allowed to know.”

          When they returned to their base, the astronauts searched and searched until they found someone who could speak the tribal language. When they repeated the message and asked him to translate it, he started to laugh hysterically. When they calmed him down, they asked him what the words meant. The man explained that the sentence they had memorized so carefully meant:

 

Don’t believe a single word these people are telling you. They have come to steal your land.(taken from Harai, 2014, p. 318)

 

 

Midway into his book, Sapiens, a brief history of humankind (2014), Yuval Noah Harari produces a schematic description entitled, “Humanist Religions –Religions that Worship Humanity.”

 

All humanists worship humanity, but they do not agree on its definition. Humanism has split into three rival sects that fight over the exact definition of ‘humanity’, just as rival Christian sects fought over the exact definition of God. Today, the most important humanist sect is liberal humanism, which believes that ‘humanity’ is a quality of individual humans, and that the liberty of individuals is therefore sacrosanct. According to liberals, the sacred nature of humanity resides within each and every individual homo sapiens. The inner core of individual humans gives meaning to the world, and is the source for all ethical and political authority.(pp. 256-257)

 

The author proceeds to differentiate between three historic forms of Humanism --liberal, socialist, and evolutionary or fascist humanism :

 

For Liberal humanism, “Humanity is individualistic and resides within each individual Homo sapiens.  [and] . . .  The supreme commandment is to protect the inner core and freedom of each individual Homo sapiens.”

 

For Socialist Humanism, “Humanity is collective and resides within the species Homo sapiens as a whole.  [and] . . .  The supreme commandment is to protect equality within the species Homo sapiens.

 

For Evolutionary Humanism, “Humanity is a mutable species. Humans might degenerate into subhumans or evolve into superhumans. [and] . . .  The supreme commandment is to protect humankind from degenerating into subhumans, and to encourage its evolution into superhumans.

 

Thus, Harari points out that “the Nazis did not loath humanity. They fought liberal humanism, human rights and Communism precisely because they admired humanity and believed in the great potential of the human species.”(pp.260-261)

 

 

The 12 items below present a contemporary picture of social relationships that have evolved in the recent years of “Disaster Capitalism” gone global, and of our attempts to find real signs of light at the end of the tunnel.

 

 

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://www.ceimsa.org  

 

 

 

a.

Poll: Most Americans Believe the Economy is Rigged Against Them

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=16651
Economist Gerald Epstein says U.S. workers are beginning to realize that their hardship is due to underlying workings of corporations, the banks, and neoliberal economic policies that are against their interest

 

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b.

Why Are We Sliding Toward Hell…?

by Michael Albert

Most working people have never encountered a capitalist. Not once. But, they routinely encounter doctors, lawyers, accountants, engineers, and others who have highly empowering jobs.

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c.

From: Briault Vicki
Sent: Wednesday, June 29, 2016
Subject: Brexit, l’oligarchie panique en découvrant que le peuple existe !

 

Mutinerie à bord

Les Britanniques ont voté et ont décidé de quitter l’Union Européenne. C’est la panique à la City. Toutes les bourses sont en train de dévisser les unes après les autres. Preuve que cette Union Européenne est l’intérêt du capital. La leçon du Brexit c’est que le rapport de force national face aux institutions européennes est possible et nécessaire. "L'heure du Plan B sonne en 2017 !"

     

Les Britanniques ont voté et ont décidé de quitter l’Union Européenne.

C’est la panique à la City qui chute, après avoir enregistré une hausse record hier soir quand les pronostics prédisaient la victoire du maintien dans l’Union Européenne. Toutes les bourses sont en train de dévisser les unes après les autres. Le CAC40 s’effondre et même si l’ouverture à New York ne se fera que vers 15h, heure française, le Dow Jones sera entraîné dans la même chute. Preuve que cette Union Européenne est l’intérêt du capital.

On assiste ce matin à la gueule de bois des médias à la solde du système qui découvrent un acteur sans cesse méprisé et piétiné dans la construction européenne : le peuple. Ils sont tellement scotchés dans leur bien-pensance qu’ils n’ont rien vu venir.

Bien sûr, les médias n’ont donné à voir qu’une campagne réduite à l’opposition entre deux camps, l’un acquis ou soumis à l’ordolibéralisme autoritaire de la droite allemande, l’autre, dominé par l’ultralibéralisme xénophobe de la droite anglaise. Les questions essentielles de démocratie, de justice sociale et d’urgences écologiques n’ont eu aucune place dans ce débat. Avez-vous eu accès aux positions des organisations syndicales très ancrées à gauche qui soutenaient le Brexit ? Non. Etouffées, ignorées des médias.

C’est une grave erreur de réduire les motivations des électrices et électeurs britanniques en faveur du Brexit aux ressorts ultralibéraux et xénophobes. Les premières analyses du vote en faveur du Brexit montrent une cartographie sociale claire et nette : les couches populaires du salariat, celles et ceux qui subissent le plus les politiques libérales austéritaires, la précarité, le chômage et la misère. Cependant, l’absence d’expression politique à gauche contre cette Europe libérale porte une lourde responsabilité dans le boulevard laissé à l’extrême droite.

Et maintenant ? Le monde va t-il s’effondrer ? Va t-il pleuvoir des grenouilles  comme les euro-idôlatres de Bruxelles nous l’ont prédit ? Ne cédons pas à la peur panique alimentée. Cette Union Européenne est en pleine crise de dislocation. Ce n’est pas un drame en soi, ou, dit autrement, le drame n’est pas ce dernier épisode. Si l’on montre qu’une autre voie est possible, cette crise peut être salutaire. Mais la course de vitesse s’accélère plus encore. Si le maintien dans l’Union Européenne était passé, la crise serait tout autant conséquente.

L’Allemagne et l’Eurogroup n’avaient pas hésité à céder en amont aux demandes néolibérales et réactionnaires de Cameron pour éviter le Brexit, quand les mêmes menaçaient du Grexit pour imposer les mémorandums austéritaires au peuple grec. Aucune révision des traités n‘était envisageable pour répondre à l’urgence humanitaire et aux exigences sociales légitimes du peuple grec. Pour la City, tout fut possible.

Les tenants de l’Europe austéritaire ne peuvent plus faire gober aux peuples que nous aurions “une Europe qui protège”. Dorénavant , chaque pays sait qu’il pourra faire du chantage à la sortie pour obtenir ce qu’il voudra. Rétrospectivement, cela démontre toute l’incurie de Hollande, autant soumis qu’acquis à l’Europe allemande, lui qui a trahi sa promesse de renégocier le traité Merkozy. Cela montre également rétrospectivement que la capitulation de Tsipras fut une terrible erreur stratégique. Le référendum français et sa victoire pour le Non au Traité constitutionnel Européen de 2005 (ainsi que le référendum aux Pays bas), comme le référendum grec “Oxi” aux mémorandums n’ont pas été respectés. Cameron, lui, concédons lui cela, entend respecter le vote. Il a d’ores et déjà annoncé sa démission pour octobre prochain.

Mais que voulons-nous ? Continuer à laisser la troïka piller les peuples un par un à coup d’austérité forcée, imposer la privatisation de l’ensemble des secteurs, déréglementer les marchés du travail par leurs lois El Khomri, via ses coups d’état financiers répétés comme en Grèce ? La laisser encourager l’agriculture intensive qui pollue, tue nos paysans et nous condamne à la malbouffe ? La laisser servir et de défendre les intérêts de tous les lobbys pro énergies carbonnées et  nucléaires, chimiques, pro diésel, etc. ce qui accélère le réchauffement climatique dans la logique effrénée du productivisme ?

Et se morfondre devant la montée du fascisme se nourrissant d’une politique calamiteuse sur les réfugiés, qui délègue à la Turquie le contrôle des frontières, remet en cause le droit d’asile et aggrave les causes des exils par ses politiques va t-en guerre et de libre échange ? La soumission à cette Europe sans les peuples et contre les peuples doit cesser, sous peine de laisser la main à Madame Le Pen et ses amis Hongrois and co.

La leçon du Brexit, c’est que le rapport de force national face aux institutions européennes est possible et nécessaire. C’est notre Plan A. En grand secret, Merkel prépare un nouveau traité visant à renforcer l’intégration européenne qui ne tiendra aucunement compte des cris de colère des peuples. Pour quand ? 2017… Donc, plus que jamais, nous devons poursuivre notre  implication dans le Sommet Internationaliste du Plan B, de rupture unilatérale avec les traités, initié par le Parti de Gauche et Jean Luc Mélenchon au lendemain de la crise grecque. Sur la méthode, c’est bien au peuple souverain de trancher pour préserver sa souveraineté. L’enjeu de l’élection présidentielle sera de faire sauter ce verrou : rompre avec les traités libéraux européens, pour permettre d’engager d’autres coopérations entre les peuples, non basées sur les intérêts de la finance, du libre échange et la logique mortifère du Grand Marché Transatlantique, mais de la préservation de notre écosystème, de la justice sociale et de la démocratie.

 

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d.

Brazilian Artists Speak Out Against "Coup" Government

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=16655
In a nation-wide occupation movement, artists in Brazil fight the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff and lead a protest against newly instated right-wing government

 

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e.

Puerto Rico 'Rescue' Bill to Reinforce Colonial Relationship with US

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=16659
The
so-called PROMESA bill imposes an imperialistic, open-ended fiscal control board that will determine the livelihood of Puerto Ricans for the foreseeable future, says activist Julio Lopez

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f.

International House Negroes Defend European Union
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article45008.htm

by Glen Ford


The international House Negro is a bi-product of 500 years of European plunder and conquest of the planet. When the European Union was threatened by the exit of Britain, “house Negroes of all colors on both sides of the Atlantic acted like their own worlds were coming to end.”

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g.

Who Should Make Political Policy, the People or the Politicians?
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article44951.htm
by William John Cox

 

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/people-power.jpg

Another case study of the smoke and mirrors agenda-setting and consent-manufacturing role of plutocracy.

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h.

How Western Military Interventions Shaped the Brexit Vote

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=16612
Michael Hudson argues that military interventions in the Middle East created refugee streams to Europe that were in turn used by the anti-immigrant right to stir up xenophobia

 

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i.

From: "Monty Kroopkin" <mkroopkin@juno.com>
Sent: Sunday, 26 June, 2016 3:10:46 AM
Subject: Sawant in CounterPunch: Still Not With Her

 

Friends and Fellow Workers,

  

http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/06/24/beyond-bernie-still-not-with-her/

 

This brand new article in CounterPunch by the socialist Seattle city councilmember, Kshama Sawant, does a solid job I think of making the case for a new party.

I think her comparison of the 1968 Nixon risk to the 2016 Trump risk is trenchant.

 

 

Seeing Sanders tell the press he will vote for Clinton strongly implies he will not support further efforts to sway super-delegates to vote for him on the first ballot at the DP convention. This is a stab in the back to all the (millions of) anti-corporate voters who have supported him. Nothing he can say now about continuing the political revolution will have much credibility. He is now supporting "evil".

 

The basic Social Democrat stance (in European terms) of the party of Franklin Roosevelt lived through the Johnson administration. What it became after that, especially with Clinton, is the main home of Wall Street and a section of big business, with some window dressing and weak token measures to con progressive constituencies into voting for it. I would never say internal reform is "impossible" because the history of the progressive radicalism (slavery abolitionism) of the early Republican Party has certainly "reformed" to now being the party of the new Jim Crow. And the Democratic Party has zigged and zagged even more in its time.

 

But then there's the glorious Whig Party. RIP. An inspiration.

 

High on the list of concerns about the entrenchment of Wall Street and Big Business control in the DP is the fact that the DP has held hands with the RP in promoting the most harmful policy changes over the past recent decades: from Patriot Act type stuff to deregulation of banks and corporations to bailing out big banks and letting millions loose their homes and pensions to militarizing police and sheriff's to mass incarceration to illegal drone strike murders to not prosecuting war crimes and on and on. WHICH leads to a conclusion that the DP is unfortunately MORE of an impediment to political revolution than the RP because it fools people into wasting energy within itself and deflects that energy into dead ends instead of building the energy to win progressive majorities. Progressives understand the RP is an enemy. Not enough progressives understand the DP is enabling much of the RP agenda. The Trump movement and its counterparts in Europe, etc., are impossible to imagine without the DP ( and DP counterparts in Europe) holding hands with the RP to force austerity policies on us. I don't think we can fight Trump by supporting Clinton. I also believe he can beat her, despite recent bad polling for him.

 

If I am right, then the conversation needs to include what to build now not only for the general election, but to reverse the long term drift to the right of national and transnational policy. The Sanders campaign has shined a bright search light on the viability of a mass national political campaign funded independently of the corporate graft. The next step, on the electoral politics front, is to completely cut off the corporate influence from a new political party.

 

NOW would be a very good time for Left parties and organizations to negotiate support for a socialist unity candidate. Jill Stein has the most chance of drawing votes. The Green Party is the best place for established parties and organizations to focus on the work of creating a mass left coalition party. No small party or organization should surrender its own positions while entering into the GP and working simultaneously for a rapid growth of a new mass party and for support for its own positions in that new party. We should not sleep through this critical historic moment and allow the millions of Sanders voters to tune off and drop out.

 

I still think even more important than a new party is to build an independent revolutionary union movement. I still say working in the IWW is the most logical place to do that. http://www.iww.org/ Regardless of any other current union membership or lack of any union membership, all revolutionary working people should build the IWW.

 

Yours for the 'Whole Damn Pie Shop' (not just bigger pieces of pie),

 

Monty Reed Kroopkin

member, IWW

past State Corresponding Secretary, Peace and Freedom Party of California (1992-94)

 

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j.

Kshama Sawant: Attempting to Work Within

The Democratic Party Only Stymies Outside Strategy

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=16600
At The
People's Summit in Chicago, Kshama Sawant tells Paul Jay that to create real political change, movements must abandon the Democratic Party

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k.

Judge: Nobody Died in Orlando Shooting Until SWAT Teams Entered The Building

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article45012.htm

by Tim Brown

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l.

Turkey-Israel Deal Leaves Gaza Siege Intact
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/turkey-israel-deal-leaves-gaza-siege-intact
by Ali Abunimah