conservative economic ideology and iraq - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

roachboy · 12-02-2006, 09:38 AM

for a very long time now, the right has argued that state regulation of economic activity was in itself irrational, a brake on the development of this fiction they like to call "market forces" which of course would lead lots of firms---populated entirely by rational actors who would never dream of ethical violations because, well, capitalists are just good people----to maximize their profits through the production of ever improving commodities for ever declining prices as a function of ever increasing efficiencies such that the unfettered profits of capital could be translated into an absolute Good, beneficial to absolutely everybody. hell, there is no translation. profit maximization by firms and social good are identical in conservativeland. and as we know from television, such limits that appear in this lovely fictional world generally affect Bad People who do not get with the program--you know, those evil purveyors of "class envy" or whatever.

so of course one can only expect conservatives to be shocked----SHOCKED---by the information in this article from the guardian, which outlines corruption and fraud at an unbelievable scale in iraq:

Quote:

Corruption: the 'second insurgency' costing $4bn a year

One third of rebuilding contracts under criminal investigation

Julian Borger in Washington, David Pallister
Saturday December 2, 2006
The Guardian

The Iraqi government is in danger of being brought down by the wholesale smuggling of the nation's oil and other forms of corruption that together represent a "second insurgency", according to a senior US official. Stuart Bowen, who has been in charge of auditing Iraq's faltering reconstruction since 2004, said corruption had reached such levels that it threatened the survival of the state.

"There is a huge smuggling problem. It is the No 1 issue," Mr Bowen told the Guardian. The pipelines that are meant to take the oil north have been blown up, so the only way to export it is by road. "That leaves it vulnerable to smuggling," he said, as truckers sell their cargoes on the black market.

Mr Bowen, the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (Sigir), cites Iraqi figures showing that the "virtual pandemic" of corruption costs the country $4bn (£2.02bn) a year, and some of that money goes straight to the Iraqi government's enemies. A US government report has concluded that oil smuggling abetted by corrupt Iraqi officials is netting insurgents $100m a year, helping to make them financially self-sustaining.

"Corruption is the second insurgency, and I use that metaphor to underline the seriousness of this issue," Mr Bowen said. "The deputy prime minister, Barham Saleh, told Sigir this summer that it threatens the state. That speaks for itself."

The Bush administration's strategy in Iraq hinges on the survival of the government run by Nuri al-Maliki, despite US reservations about the prime minister's readiness or ability to confront extremists in his own Shia community.

But Mr Bowen's office has found that the insurgents and militias have also been abetted by US incompetence. A recent audit by his inspectors found that more than 14,000 guns paid for out of US reconstruction funds for Iraqi government use could not be accounted for. Many could be in the hands of insurgents or sectarian death squads, but it will be almost impossible to prove because when the US military handed out the guns it noted the serial numbers of only about 10,000 out of a total of 370,000 US-funded weapons, contrary to defence department regulations.

Jim Mitchell, a Sigir spokesman, said: "The practical effect is that when a weapons cache is found you're deprived of the intelligence of knowing if they were US-provided, which might allow you to follow the trail to the bad guys."

Mr Bowen's inspectors are among the few US civilian officials who still venture beyond the fortified bounds of the Green Zone in Baghdad into the rest of Iraq, to see how $18bn of American taxpayers' money is being spent. Much of the money has been wasted. Sigir officials have referred 25 cases of fraud to the justice department for criminal investigation, four of which have led to convictions, and about 90 more are under investigation.

A culture of waste, incompetence and fraud may be one legacy the occupiers have passed on to Iraq's new rulers more or less intact. Mr Bowen's office found that nearly $9bn in Iraqi oil revenues could not be accounted for. The cash was flown into the country in shrink-wrapped bundles on military transport planes and handed over by the ton to Iraqi ministries by the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) run by Paul Bremer, a veteran diplomat. The money was meant to demonstrate the invaders' good intentions and boost the Iraqi economy, which Mr Bremer later insisted had been "dead in the water". But it also fuelled a cycle of corruption left over from Saddam Hussein's rule.

"We know it got to the Iraqis, but we don't know how it was used," Mr Bowen later told Congress.

In the Hillah region a defence department contract employee and two lieutenant colonels were found to have steered $8m in contracts to a US contractor in return for bribes. The Pentagon contract employee, Robert Stein, pleaded guilty earlier this year, admitting he and his co-conspirators received more than $1m in cash, help with laundering the funds, jewellery, cars and sex with prostitutes. Stein also admitted that they simply stole $2m from the construction fund, accounting for the money with receipts from fictitious construction companies.

Hillah just happened to be the district Mr Bowen's inspectors examined in depth. It is still far from clear how much reconstruction money has gone missing around the whole country.

A potentially far more serious problem has been the way the US government decided to give out reconstruction contracts. It split the economy into sectors and shared them out among nine big US corporations. In most cases the contracts were distributed without competition and on a cost-plus basis. In other words the contractors were guaranteed a profit margin calculated as a percentage of their costs, so the higher the costs, the higher the profits. In the rush to get work started the contracts were signed early in 2004. In many cases work did not get under way until the year was nearly over. In the months between, the contractors racked up huge bills on wages, hotel bills and restaurants.

According to a Sigir review published in October, Kellogg, Brown and Root (a subsidiary of Halliburton, Vice President Dick Cheney's former company) was awarded an oil industry repair contract in February 2004 but "direct project activity" did not begin until November 19. In that time KBR's overhead costs were nearly $53m. In fact more than half the company's $300m project costs from 2004-06 went on overheads, the audit found.

Iraq also represented a grey zone beyond the reach of the US civil courts. KBR was found to have overcharged the US military about $60m for fuel deliveries, but that did not stop it winning more government contracts.

A California company, Parsons, had its contract terminated this year after it was found to have finished only six of more than 140 primary healthcare centres it was supposed to build, after two years work and $500m spent. However, the contract was ended "for convenience", meaning Parsons was paid in full. In a police college Parsons built for $75m in Baghdad the plumbing was so bad that urine and excrement rained down from the toilets on to the police cadets. Parsons left a sub-contractor to do repairs but in general there is little punitive action that can be taken for shoddy work.

Part of the reason big US contractors have been able to get away with so much is that there has been limited proper supervision. CPA employees were picked not for their financial expertise but for their political loyalty.

Mr Bowen would have passed the test. He campaigned for George Bush in Texas and was one of the small army of Republican lawyers called in to Florida in 2000 to oversee the vote recounts on Mr Bush's behalf. When he started the job in March 2004 few expected he would do anything to embarrass the administration.

However, Mr Bowen has emerged as the scourge of the big corporations who are among the Republican party's biggest donors. Earlier this year a clause extending his mandate was stripped from a military spending bill just before a vote. Sigir, however, seems to have been saved by the Democratic victory in last month's elections.

Mr Bowen bristles at the suggestion that Mr Bush might have had a hand in the attempt to close his office. "I'm doing exactly what the president expects me to do," he said.

source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1962245,00.html

meanwhilein another quadrant of conservativeland, at the same time as information like the above surfaces, you find that the right is busy as bees trying to gut any meaningful regulative oversight:

Quote:

GSA Chief Seeks to Cut Budget For Audits
Contract Oversight Would Be Reduced

By Scott Higham and Robert O'Harrow Jr.
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, December 2, 2006; A01

The new chief of the U.S. General Services Administration is trying to limit the ability of the agency's inspector general to audit contracts for fraud or waste and has said oversight efforts are intimidating the workforce, according to government documents and interviews.

GSA Administrator Lurita Alexis Doan, a Bush political appointee and former government contractor, has proposed cutting $5 million in spending on audits and shifting some responsibility for contract reviews to small, private audit contractors.

Doan also has chided Inspector General Brian D. Miller for not going along with her attempts to streamline the agency's contracting efforts. In a private staff meeting Aug. 18, Doan said Miller's effort to examine contracts had "gone too far and is eroding the health of the organization," according to notes of the meeting written by an unidentified participant from the Office of Inspector General (OIG).

The GSA is responsible for managing about $56 billion worth of contracts each year for the departments of Defense and Homeland Security and other agencies.

Doan compared Miller and his staff to terrorists, according to a copy of the notes obtained by The Washington Post.

"There are two kinds of terrorism in the US: the external kind; and, internally, the IGs have terrorized the Regional Administrators," Doan said, according to the notes.

Through a spokesman, Doan said she respects the inspector general's role and is not doing anything to undercut his independence. She also denied that she had referred to Miller, a former terrorism prosecutor, or his staff as terrorists.

"She's trying to reduce wasteful spending," said GSA spokesman David Bethel. "Just like any other office within GSA, she has asked the OIG to live within his budget, and she's hopeful that the IG is going to embrace that concept. She is not singling him out for this attention. She's not challenging the IG's independence. This is about fiscal discipline and reducing wasteful spending and creating a business environment that can be embraced by everyone.

"By law, she can't reduce the IG's independence, and she's aware of that."

Doan, who was confirmed as administrator May 26, has publicly criticized Miller on other occasions. In her Nov. 10 annual report, Doan stated there was only one GSA manager unwilling to "confront programs and policies that had outlived their usefulness and were wasting taxpayer money." She later told Miller that she was referring to him, according to officials familiar with Doan's statement who asked not to be identified for fear of retribution.

Doan also complained in the annual report that Miller was being "unsupportive of recent changes" and said vendors and government contracting officials had reported that his auditors and investigators were exerting "undue pressure."

Bethel said yesterday that Doan's statement in her annual report "speaks for itself," and he declined to elaborate.

Miller declined to discuss his relationship with Doan.

"Let's keep our eyes on the larger picture, which is that GSA's $60 billion operations need to have objective and independent scrutiny," Miller said. "My office provides that public scrutiny. Not everyone is happy with this level of scrutiny. Nevertheless, my task is to keep our office focused on fulfilling our mission of working with GSA to enhance the quality and effectiveness of the services it provides, protect the integrity of GSA operations, and to keep fraud, waste and abuse away from its doorstep."

Before joining the GSA in August 2005, Miller served as a federal prosecutor and worked on the government's case against al-Qaeda terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui.

Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, has written to Doan expressing his concerns.

"The primary mission of the IG in your agency and every other government agency is to be a sentry standing guard against fraud, waste, and abuse wherever it occurs regardless of circumstances," Grassley wrote on Oct. 20. "This cannot be accomplished if the IG's independence is impaired or hindered by the agency in any way, shape, or form."

Doan responded by acknowledging his concerns and saying she was mainly focusing on balancing her agency's budget.

"Please be assured that I do not -- and should not -- decide which audits or investigations the IG pursues," she wrote to Grassley. "That would be inappropriate."

Inspector general's offices were given by Congress a mandate to operate as independent watchdogs in the executive branch, working on behalf of taxpayers to guard against wasteful spending. The Inspector General Act of 1978 stated: "Neither the head of the establishment nor the officer next in rank below such head shall prevent or prohibit the Inspector General from initiating, carrying out, or completing any audit or investigation."

The GSA inspector general's office's audits have helped the agency recover billions of dollars in recent years from flawed or fraudulent contracts. Some vendors and government workers have complained that the audits have made contracting more cumbersome than necessary.

Soon after Doan was nominated to lead the GSA this spring, she promised outside vendors that she would make contracting with the agency much easier for both government bureaucrats and corporations. After she assumed the post, she began trimming the budget proposal of the inspector general's office. She wrote in her annual report that the office's budget and staff had "grown annually and substantially" in the past five years.

Since 2000, the number of employees in the inspector general's office has grown from 297 to 309, according to the office.

In August, a budget official in the inspector general's office described Doan's efforts to cut funding and to limit the number of audits as "unprecedented," according to an e-mail obtained by The Post. The official, John C. Lebo, said that "for the first time in memory, the Budget Office changed or deleted portions of our budget without notifying us prior to their changes."

Lebo, who has since left the agency, said the changes were troubling.

"The Administrator's Office wants to change the IG's overall approach from independently rooting out crime, fraud and abuse, to one in which the OIG is a team player working with GSA," he wrote.

source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...120101645.html

i put these articles into the same thread because they showed up in different press outlets on the same day.
what this points to is simple:

1. conservative economic ideology is an even bigger fraud than was the bush administration's case for war in iraq.

2. the two registers of fraud converge in a stark and brutal manner in the context of iraq. the irony here, among others, is that a not-terribly cynical fellow could read the guardian piece and wonder if the condition of possibility for the self-sustaining, growing iraqi anti-colonial movements is the legion of private contractors central to the failure that was the rumsfeld vision of the lean mean military/contractor combo platter.

3. conservative economic ideology and the state of affairs particular to the rumsfeld miltiary converge at other levels as well, particularly in the use of military recruitment as a palliative for a defunctionalized system of social reproduction, a way for the state to absorb the effects of an educational system that continues to shape its population in the image of an increasingly outmoded division of labor. this is not the only such convergence, obviously.

BUT

4. the right itself continues the chew away at meaningful regulatory oversight. the post article is but one fine example of how the process is working.

i find this to be amazing.

what it looks like is that the corporate interests who pay for the conservative media apparatus, whose funding paid for the development of the ideology disseminated through that apparatus, have effectively fashioned a politics of systematic misdirection behind which you see a choice.

that choice seems to be easy to state: there is nothing to be done with the american system.
there is no way to adapt it, either as it exists or via its system of social reproduction (education seen as a process of reproducing a particular division of labor, which enables a population to fit into a stratified labor pool).
there is nothing to be done to shift or adapt the american social order to the situation it faces in the context of globalizing capitalism: it is too wedded to an older form of capitalist organization, it is too decentralized to change coherently, it is too ideological backward to be able to engage in the kind of systematic self-criticism and political and functional adaptations required for fundamental change.

so the most coherent strategy is to take as much as you can as quickly as you can.
because in the longer run, the united states is fucked.
the way to survive the deterioration of the united states is to amass as much private wealth as possible with the idea of..well what?

the right seems to imagine the future as a kind of neo-feudalism within which a corporate aristocracy lives in gated communities guarded by private militias and the state is reduced to a purely repressive function.

and as it is demonstrably the case that many people can be persuaded that they live in a system that functions entirely in their imaginations, they are in a sense therefore self-neutralizing.

i dont see another way to interpret this.
do you?

Ch'i · 12-02-2006, 11:04 AM

I've had in the corner of my mind a waivering idea that Bush and his administration may have had a long term plan that remained elusive to us regarding Iraq and the ME, but after the past year (not excluding these two articles) every sign seems to point towards incompetence, ineptitude, and failure. The conservatives clearly have absolutely no plan whatsoever in Iraq short of stockpiling money and commodities, and give us a taste of that lack of planning through their clumsy attempt at covering their asses. In other words, I completely agree with you roachboy.

Perhaps they realized that securing the natural resources in the ME would fail, and are now attempting to get richer in order to control those goods economically and hadn't counted on any audits. Or they simply don't know what the hell they're doing. Either way, the curtain is falling and they'd better be ready to face an audience.

hiredgun · 12-02-2006, 04:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

the right seems to imagine the future as a kind of neo-feudalism within which a corporate aristocracy lives in gated communities guarded by private militias and the state is reduced to a purely repressive function.

I don't think that many are actually projecting the situation in this way. To the extent that this is a logical end of their ideology, I see it more as the function of a series of short-sighted political decisions geared towards narrow personal advantage. You imply that this kind of corruption emerges from some kind of despair about the future of the country and its economy; I don't see why simple greed or ambition are not sufficient explanations.

Perhaps I'm simply not understanding this part of your argument. Why is the attempt of a group or class of people to protect their interests necessarily linked to problems with (or a projected deterioration of) American capitalism? On the contrary, it seems to me a natural outcome of that system as it exists today.

guyy · 12-02-2006, 11:44 PM

I am reminded of a quote from Engels. Old Fred said somewhere -- in the Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, I believe -- that the corruption of officials is the mechanism by which the bourgeoisie controls the state.

roachboy · 12-03-2006, 10:28 AM

hiredgun: there is a jump in the op yes.

if you are thinking about the effects of state actions in the context of a rapidly and radically changing economic situation...how much of a guide to thinking is policy maker intent(s)?

intent seems only interesting to me if you are trying to explain the legislative origin of a policy or sequence of policies.

once implemented as elements of a bureaucratic system, policies become system parameters and their effects and meanings functions of the effects of these parameters on system activity.

here is a version of the system: globalizing capitalism is characterised by a bunch of processes--one of them is the increasing transnationalization of production: this process relies on supply chain/pool technologies and just-in-time type logistical parameters to co-ordinate networks of small-to medium-scale contractors located anywhere on the globe so long as the logistics/transport infrastructure (say) are such that they can function as part of the overall just-in-time system.

this production system has a history and that history can be seen as a kind of scatter field the origin of which is the explosion/fragmentation of the older factory. the time-line extends back to the early 1950s. the initial fragmentation involved numerical machine tools and the subcontracting of semi-skilled production. the same logic repeats at different levels of industrial production, beginning a slight different moments---so imagine it as a scatter field or as a diagram of an explosion.

the older factory system was of a piece with the organization of capitalism within the framework of the nation-state.

the system of social reproduction--everywhere really, but in a particularly badly done way in the states--was linked to the labor pool required for this type of production system.

the process of fragmentation of this older model of production--and the labor market/pool required for it--has been going on for 30 years.

the american educational system--the system of social reproduction--has not and seemingly cannot adapt to it.

why? the american model of spatialized class segregation, the relation of education to property tax rates, the absence of anything like a central co-ordinating mechanism for adjusting the characteristics of the social profile generated by the educational system and the actually existing labor market...
so in general the american educational system reproduces a labor market that no longer exists.

who is affected by this? disproportionately the poor and what would have been the working-class.

how is this problem being addressed? the volunteer military, the prison-industrial complex and a media ideology that focusses on the affluent as subject-position interpellated by news and other forms of adervtisement and which sees in the social consequences of this defunctionalization evidence of arbitrary violence, etc. what you see is a wholesale refusal to address social reality. a retreat into a bourgeois bubble supported by consumer debt and a televisual world that frames out structural problems

what else? in quick terms: a conservative educational politics that is the exact opposite of what is required, idiotic legislation like "nclb" that functions to collapse outmoded political argumentation (ideology) into the material world through the mechanism of standardized testing...what is its function? political control---either intentionally or not, nclb can be read as an attempt to short circuit political consequences of this dysfunctional space by collapsing ideology into the object world.

what does it amount to? a choice: rather than adapt to complex changing circumstances, the right is opting for political neutralization in the shorter run.

what sense does this make? well none if the longer-term well-being of the american socio-economic system is a priority. but it isnt, it seems.

same logic is applied to other registers of state policy.
the statement about the neo-feudal order is an optimistic scenario that indicates outcomes.

host · 12-03-2006, 11:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

........the process of fragmentation of this older model of production--and the labor market/pool required for it--has been going on for 30 years.

the american educational system--the system of social reproduction--has not and seemingly cannot adapt to it.

why? the american model of spatialized class segregation, the relation of education to property tax rates, the absence of anything like a central co-ordinating mechanism for adjusting the characteristics of the social profile generated by the educational system and the actually existing labor market...
so in general the american educational system reproduces a labor market that no longer exists.

who is affected by this? disproportionately the poor and what would have been the working-class.

how is this problem being addressed? the volunteer military, the prison-industrial complex and a media ideology that focusses on the affluent as subject-position interpellated by news and other forms of adervtisement and which sees in the social consequences of this defunctionalization evidence of arbitrary violence, etc. what you see is a wholesale refusal to address social reality. a retreat into a bourgeois bubble supported by consumer debt and a televisual world that frames out structural problems

what else? in quick terms: a conservative educational politics that is the exact opposite of what is required, idiotic legislation like "nclb" that functions to collapse outmoded political argumentation (ideology) into the material world through the mechanism of standardized testing...what is its function? political control---either intentionally or not, nclb can be read as an attempt to short circuit political consequences of this dysfunctional space by collapsing ideology into the object world.

what does it amount to? a choice: rather than adapt to complex changing circumstances, the right is opting for political neutralization in the shorter run.

what sense does this make? well none if the longer-term well-being of the american socio-economic system is a priority. but it isnt, it seems.

same logic is applied to other registers of state policy.
the statement about the neo-feudal order is an optimistic scenario that indicates outcomes.

I think that "the process" of "the new order", got traction at least as far back as the meeting on Jekyll island, GA, of the "power elite" that resulted in the 1913 creation of the Federal Reserve

Quote:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.p...articleId=4034
The World's Mastermind: The Hidden Face of Globalization
A view from Argentina

by Adrian Salbuchi

Global Research, December 2, 2006
www.eltraductorradial.com.ar (original Spanish)

As we now have it, globalization can be defined as an ideology that identifies the Sovereign Nation-State as its key enemy, basically because the State's main function is (or should be) to prioritize the interests of the Many - i.e., "the People" - over the interests of the Few. Accordingly, the forces of globalization seek to weaken, dissolve and eventually destroy the very foundations of the Nation-State as a basic social institution, in order to replace it with new supra-national worldwide social, political, economic, financial and military management structures. Such structures tie in with the political objectives and economic interests of a small number of highly concentrated and very powerful groups and organizations which today drive and steer the globalization process in a very specific direction.
These power groups consist of private interests which have succeeded in achieving something that is unprecedented in all of human history, and which we describe as the privatization of power on a global scale.....

......Real Power and Formal Power

In order to understand how the world really works, we must first understand the difference that exists between Formal Power and Real Power. What the media propagate with a very high public profile every day in their television and radio newscasts, and in the press are basically the concrete and visible results of the actions carried out by Formal Power structures, especially those of national governments and the technological, financial and corporate infrastructures. However, Real Power levers that actually make things happen are far less visible. They are the ones which plan out what will occur in the world, when it will occur, where it will take place and who shall carry it out.

Formal Power operates short-term and with a high public profile. Real Power operates within a long-term framework and has almost no public profile. Nowadays, Formal Power is mostly “public” – Real Power is fundamentally “private”. This reflects the fact that the institutions of the Nation-State (the prime public Formal Power entity) has become subordinate to private interests (i.e., Real Power driven by money interests).

Since the United States is today’s sole superpower, it is reasonable to conclude that this world power structure – that is what it really is – provisionally manages this veritable World Government from the territory, the political and economic structures of the United States. This, however, by no means implies that the majority of the people of the United States necessarily form part of that scheme of things, much less that the people of the US are "enemies" of any other peoples (rarely are the People of any country an "enemy"; rather, it is their elite establishments that become adversarial through excessive concentration of power).

We are thus speaking of power groups which operate from within the United States (as they also do from within the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, Israel and, through their local agents, also in countries like Spain, Argentina, Brasil and Korea), but that are not necessaily identified with the people of the United States.

To better understand the true nature of the United States – especially in what refers to US Foreign Policy – one does well to keep in mind that the US “Administration” as they so aptly call their Government - i.e., Formal Power - is based in Washington DC. However, Real Power structures in the US are mainly located in New York City and some New England states. In other words, the Administration of the United States is done from Washington DC, whilst the country is actually governed from New York City .

Once we grasp this concept, then many other things automatically fall into place. Additionally, the world's real power center resides not in New York City but, more likely, in London … Understanding this complex and subtle process automatically pre-empts any simplistic identification of the “enemy” as the United States or England or any other peoples . More often than not, in times of turmoil the people of the United States are victims – even bloody ones as fallen US citizens in Vietnam , Afghanistan , Iraq and the World Trade Center attest to – of this very process. Nevertheless, the fact that most people in the US ignore this fact, does not make them less responsible or accountable for the genocidal strategies the New World Order power structures operating from US territory perpetrate upon the rest of the world through the use and abuse of US military and economic might to achieve their goals.

That this should be so is understandable when one considers that exercising Real Power requires complying with a set of rules and conditions such as, for example, operational continuity spanning many decades in order to achieve far-reaching goals and carrying out complex strategies which, in turn, span the entire planet, its nations and resources. This requires long-term planning: twenty, thirty and fifty years into the future.

Ironically, the New World Order power elites know full well that there is no greater threat to political continuity and consistency in the design and execution of such long-term global strategies, than to have them subjected to a democratic process that imposes high public profiles on its leaders who must (or should!) heed the "voice of the People" at every step they take, coupled with recurrent power interruptions which all democratic electoral processes entail.

How much better it is to be able to operate discreetly, from what can only be describes as a gentlemen’s club such as the CFR, in which powerful and influential men and women can be officers, directors and chairmen for decades at a time without ever having to be accountable to anybody but their own peers. In this manner, 4.500 powerful individuals can exert tremendous policital, economic, financial and media clout over countless hundreds of millions of people throughout the entire planet.

It goes without saying that one of the main tasks of the global media monopolies is to impose “political correctness”, normally expressed through the "Two-Party System" – Democrats and Republicans in the US, Labour and Conservative in the UK, CDU or SPD in Germany, Radicals and Justicialists in Argentina – all of which are mere variations of the same basic politically correct tenets, and of each other. Stable Western democracies have all conformed to what is, in practice, a One-Party System with slightly different internal factions. People think they may “choose”, but the "options" are just not there: it's sort of like "choosing" between Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola – no matter what they want you to believe, the truth is that they are both basically the same thing.

What we are describing is, in fact, the central hub of a veritable network of powerful people, considering that the CFR is, in turn, supplemented by a myriad of similar institutions both inside and outside of the United States .

All of these think tanks bring together the most intelligent, best prepared, creative and ambitous men and women in a wide range of fields and disciplines. They are paid and rewarded very handsomely - both economically and socially - as long as they clearly and uncompromisingly align themselves to the basic tenets of the CFR’s political objectives. These are nothing less than the creation of a Private World Government; the systematic erosion of the structures of all sovereign Nation-States (though, naturally, not all of them in the same way, at the same speed, nor at the same time); the (sub)standardization of cultural values and social norms; the spreading of a globalized financial system based on gross speculation and usury; and the management of a Global War System in order to maintain the necessary social cohesion of its own masses by permanent coaxing and alignment against real or imagined enemies of “democracy”, “human rights”, “freedom” and “peace”; i.e., against "terrorism".[6]

Since 2003, we saw first-hand how inexistent Iraqui “Weapons of Mass Destruction” turned out to be nothing but Weapons of Mass DISTRACTION, generating enormous suffering, pain and hardship for untold millions of people. The invasion of Irak and Afghanistan are just two examples of the double-standards and double-talk "Newspeak" on which this entire system thrives.

Thus, in order to better understand today's world, one needs to read and assess what the CFR – or rather, its individual members - say and propagate, as many of its activities though discreet are not actually secret. Any person visiting CFR headquarters on fashionable Park Avenue and 68th Street in New York City, as I have done many times in recent years, can easily get all sorts of information including a free copy of their latest Annual Report describing the Institution’s main activities and the full alphabetical list of its 4.500 members. All the information on these organizations is readily available for those who want to see it. It is, then however up to each of us to cross-check all that data on CFR members with what each really does in their professional, corporate, academic and government activities and capacities.

One need also look back on modern history and assess the exceptional leverage which the CFR has had throughout the twentieth century, both on its own, as well as in conjunction with its sister organizations. They have triggered and influenced ideologies, public events, wars, military alliances, political crimes, covert actions, mass psychological warfare, economic and financial crises, promotion and destruction of political and business personalities, and other high-impact events – many of them clearly difficult or impossible for them to admit or confess. All have, however, marked the course of humanity in these stormy modern times.

The technique used is to keep us all far too busy and fascinated as pasive spectators of this whirlwind of events taking place every day in the world. This ensures that almost no one ever thinks of looking elsewhere for suitable explanations to today’s grave crises, because that would then enable us to identify, not so much the effects and shocking results of many of these political decisions and covert actions, but rather their real and concrete originators, organizers and objectives.

In order for this gigantic mass psychological warfare – for that is what it really is - to succeed, the mass media play a vital role which cannot be underestimated. For they are the instruments whose goal it is to undermine and neutralise the capacity of independent thought among the world’s population. That is the key role of global mass media like CNN, CBS, NBC, The New York Times, The Daily Telegraph, Le Figaró, FoxNews, The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, Corrieri della Sera, Le Monde, Washington Post, Time, Newsweek, US News & World Report, Business Week, Reuters, and their respective local outlets in all countries, all of which are directed by key people belonging to the CFR and/or its sister organizations in the US and elsewhere.

And the worst part of it all is that, in spite of all the enormous friction, wars, violence and destruction it generates, the New World Order just does not work. You cannot build a world empire only based on billions of dollars, B1 bombers, F16 fighters, Tomahawk missiles, CNN and gross lying and hipocrasy at the top. Historically, Rome , France , Spain and even Britain knew that only deeper cultural values can consolidate a true empire that will endure even after the colonizing power is long gone, as has happened even to this very day throughout South America where Spanish, Potuguese (and British) influence are ubiquitous . These key cultural factors seem to be very much lacking in the United States that was once described by former French premier George Clemenceau as “that complex political and social process running from barbarity to civilization without going through the necessary stage of culture…”.....

If the article above is close to being accurate, and I think that much of it is, it seems vital to examine David Sirota's descriiption of who "the people" politicians are/ They need our support, now more than ever, if we are to help ourselves in the real battle for our national security, and to resist the fake GWOT that "the money" politicians have tried so hard to ram down our throats.

Quote:

http://davidsirota.com/

<a href="http://davidsirota.com/index.php/2006/12/03/the-people-party-vs-the-money-party-here-are-the-players/" rel="bookmark"><h3 class="post-title">The People Party vs. The Money Party: Here Are the Players </h3></a>

<div class="post-body">

The fact that our nation’s politics is divided not between Democrats and Republicans but between the People Party and the Money Party is obvious to anyone who looks at the political system honestly (which is to say, not most journalists or Washington political hacks). Calls for “bipartisanship” and faux “centrism” that has nothing to do with the actual center of American public opinion are most often <a href="http://davidsirota.com/index.php/2006/11/23/bipartisanship-hides-the-real-power-equation-that-no-one-talks-about/">moves to prevent the political debate from analyzing the People vs. Money divide</a> that actually fuels our politics. We already have plenty of “bipartisanship” - Republicans and a faction of Democrats who regularly join hands to screw over the vast majority of Americans.
Many people ask me who? Who are the leading members of both sides of the actual divide? The answer is that there is no official list because no one is forced to formally declare their allegiance to the People Party or the Money Party. But it is fairly obvious which lawmakers in the new majority have specifically defined themselves on economic justice issues. Though this is by no means a comprehensive list, here are the ones to watch in the coming Congress:

PEOPLE PARTY LEADERS
Freshman Senators Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Jon Tester (D-MT) and Jim Webb (D-VA): This is the core group of economic populists who defined the larger populist trend in the 2006 election. Brown has a long record in the House as an economic justice champion, as has Sanders (who I worked for years ago). Tester (pictured above from an event he did here in Helena last night) made his campaign about cleaning up K Street corruption, and Webb has declared that his top issue is going to be addressing the taboo issue of economic inequality. 
Sens. Byron Dorgan (D-ND), Russ Feingold (D-WI), Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and Dick Durbin (D-IL): Dorgan has been one of the strongest voices against profiteering by the <a href="http://www.davidsirota.com/2005/09/dorgan-steps-up-against-oil-industry.html">energy</a> and pharmaceutical companies, and has recently written a book called <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Take-This-Job-Ship-Brain-Dead/dp/031235522X/sr=8-1/qid=1165173641/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-9520110-9463043?ie=UTF8&s=books">“Take This Job and Ship It,”</a> which is one of the strongest declarations against lobbyist-written trade deals from any sitting Senator in recent memory. Similarly, <a href="http://www.davidsirota.com/index.php/a-primary-concern/">Feingold has voted against every major lobbyist-written trade deal</a> that has come through the Senate, even airing campaign ads on the issue well before that kind of message became more popular. Kennedy, as the incoming chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee is expected to continue his rabid support for the People Party on nearly every economic issue. And Durbin, now the number two Democrat in the Senate, has also had a solid record on trade, and is additionally talking about pushing public financing of elections - the most effective way to cut off K Street’s ability to manipulate Congress.

House Chairpeople George Miller (D-CA), David Obey (D-WI), John Conyers (D-MI), Louise Slaughter (D-NY) and Henry Waxman (D-CA): Miller will now head the Education and Workforce Committee where he is expected to turn his longtime leadership on pension security, wage protection and union organizing rights into legislative action. Obey, who will head the Appropriations Committee (and who I worked for a few years back), will make sure that any budget submitted by the White House that slashes health care, education and labor law enforcement will be dead on arrival, and replaced with a real spending plan that protects people (Obey was the guy who famously authored amendments to slash tax cuts for millionaires in order to better fund these priorities). Conyers will head the Judiciary Committee, which oversees all sorts of regulatory affairs where his pro-consumer record will finally have a chance to shine. Slaughter will chair the powerful Rules Committee - the panel that governs how the entire chamber operates. She has been an outspoken leader against media consolidation - one of the toughest issues to champion because the broadcasting industry is so powerful. And finally Waxman will head the Government Reform Committee, where we will now have a chairman who is serious about rooting out the waste, fraud and corruption that has plagued the no-bid Iraq contracts given to President Bush’s cronies.
Reps. Marcy Kaptur (D-OH), Tim Ryan (D-OH), Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) Nancy Boyda (D-KS), and Bruce Braley (D-IA): Ohio’s trio of Kaptur, Ryan and Kucinich have been among the staunchest critics of lobbyist-written trade pacts and advocates for the middle-class agenda in the House. Freshmen Boyda and Braley both ran their campaigns almost exclusively on the trade issue. In Braley’s case, the <a href="http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB116277226395813918-TvtW_7IYYvHHLZCbZTWcbV3_aQc_20061205.html?mod=tff_main_tff_top">Wall Street Journal noted</a> that he made opposition to the Bush administration’s free-trade agenda a centerpiece of his campaign” urging “more focus on labor rights in national trade policy and talked of using economic sanctions to keep America competitive.” UPDATE: A reader suggested Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR) on this list - I totally agree. Peter has been one of the leaders on economic issues for years.

MONEY PARTY LEADERS
Sen. Chuck Schumer and Reps. Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) and Steny Hoyer (D-MD): All three of these men, now in leadership positions, have made very little effort to conceal that they answer to Big Money interests. Schumer, for instance, recently <a href="http://www.workingforchange.com/blog/index.cfm?mode=entry&entry=3EAF5353-E0C3-F090-AA6C6B5FA7AD8186">trumpeted a new report calling for post-Enron corporate reforms to be gutted</a>. Emanuel was the architect of NAFTA who used the prospect of his being in the majority on the Ways and Means Committee to <a href="http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/9/17/13301/4758">suck corporate cash out of Wall Street</a>. Hoyer <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0905-30.htm">bragged on his website about starting his own K Street Project</a>, and, as I documented in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?link_code=ur2&tag=sirotablog-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&path=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2Fgp%2Fproduct%2F0307237346%2Fqid%3D1135296981%2Fsr%3D8-1%2Fref%3Dsr_8_xs_ap_bn1_xgl14%3Fn%3D507846%2526s%3Dbooks%2526v%3Dglance">Hostile Takeover</a>, one of his top legislative staffers serves simultaneously as an official for his corporate fundraising operation - ’nuff said.

Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-CA): Tauscher has been one of the most aggressive spokespeople for the Money Party, using her position to undercut major Democratic efforts to address core economic issues from a middle-class perspective. As an example, it was Tauscher who <a href="http://www.rollcall.com/issues/51_25/news/10551-1.html">ran to newspapers desperately trying to let K Street know</a> that she would be working to undermine Democrats’ efforts to reform our trade policy. More recently, she told the New York Times that Democrats would be engaging in a <a href="http://davidsirota.com/index.php/2006/11/25/dem-says-party-to-engage-in-kabuki-dance-with-progressives/">“kabuki dance”</a> with their own base voters - implying that there would be moves for show, but that pay-to-play business as usual in Washington will continue in the new Congress.
Sen. Joe Lieberman (CfL-CT): Lieberman’s reelection campaign (which I worked against) was funded by a massive infusion of <a href="http://politicalwire.com/archives/2006/10/02/bush_confidant_hosts_lieberman_fundraiser.html">K Street and Republican cash</a>, and he will - as usual - be using his position to shill for the special interests who have so openly relied on him. If ever there was a lobbyist in Senator’s clothing, Lieberman is it. 

Any Lawmaker Who Signed <a href="http://www.tnr.com/etc.mhtml?pid=2584">This Letter</a>: Any lawmaker who signed <a href="http://www.tnr.com/etc.mhtml?pid=2584">this famous letter</a> begging then-Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) to immediately pass the credit card industry-written bankruptcy bill is most likely a committed member of the Money Party. There may, of course, be some exceptions as some lawmakers on the list may have realized the error of their ways. But anyone who still believes in this letter and the bankruptcy bill it advocated for is very deeply committed to the Money Party because the bill was arguably the most brazen tool of middle class economic persecution that ever came through the Republican Congress. Yes, some bills were perhaps more far reaching, but most of those were at least packaged as an effort to help regular people, even if they weren’t. By contrast, the bankruptcy bill made absolutely no real effort to pretend it was anything other than a weapon to hurt regular citizens. And therefore, anyone Democrat who signed a letter to a Republican Speaker of the House asking that he pass this bill was making a statement not just on this bill, but on their entire philosophy and loyalty on every economic issue.
KEY SWING VOTES
Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) - Leans People Party: Throughout his career, Kerry has defined himself on issues other than kitchen table economic issues, such as <a href="http://www.davidsirota.com/index.php/follow-the-money/">international terrorism</a>. But last year he made a very bold move in <a href="http://www.davidsirota.com/2005/06/kerry-to-force-key-cafta-vote.html">sponsoring legislation</a> to give workers the same rights as corporations in international trade deals. That said, this year he <a href="http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=109&session=2&vote=00250">voted for the Oman Free Trade Agreement</a>, over the strong objections of labor, human rights and environmental groups. Kerry’s overall record - especially recently - suggests he strongly leans toward the People Party, and my guess is he will go toward this direction if he runs for President.

Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) - Unclear Which Way He Leans: The <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/22/business/22dodd.html">New York Times</a> recently reported that as Dodd “prepares to take over the leadership of the Senate Banking Committee while also considering a run for the presidency, lobbyists and lawmakers are all asking the same question.” As the legislative director of the Consumer Federation of America put it: “Does he become a populist champion on issues that broadly affect the middle class or does he shrink from controversial issues that offend huge donors?” The Times goes on to note that “Dodd has shown through a 25-year record in the Senate that he is adept at going both ways.” For instance, as I wrote about in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?link_code=ur2&tag=sirotablog-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&path=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2Fgp%2Fproduct%2F0307237346%2Fqid%3D1135296981%2Fsr%3D8-1%2Fref%3Dsr_8_xs_ap_bn1_xgl14%3Fn%3D507846%2526s%3Dbooks%2526v%3Dglance">Hostile Takeover</a>, Dodd in the 1990s used his position to override President Clinton’s veto of a bill making it harder for shareholders to root out corrupt management. Then again, just this week, <a href="http://davidsirota.com/index.php/2006/12/01/schumer-puts-post-enron-corporate-reforms-on-chopping-block-dodd-says-slow-down/">Dodd countered the Money Party and Schumer in particular</a> when he told reporters that he did not think Democrats should be so quick to embrace efforts to gut post-Enron corporate accountability laws. Keep a close eye on Dodd.

Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN) - Leans Money Party: Bayh has never met a lobbyist-written trade deal he didn’t like - except when he started thinking about running for President. As one of the leaders of the Democratic Leadership Council - one of the most well-known corporate front groups - he has regularly regurgitated K Street talking points on everything from trade to bankruptcy laws. Then again, his recent admission that he was wrong to support the Iraq War signals that on a whole host of issues, he may change his tune. While this may be only because he is running in a Democratic presidential primary, it could be a real reversal. Nonetheless, though he is a swing vote, he leans toward the Money Party.
Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) - Unclear Which Way He Leans: Baucus is famous for <a href="http://grassley.senate.gov/releases/2001/p01r6-7.htm">supporting the Bush tax cuts</a>, the Bush Medicare bill and nearly every major lobbyist-written trade deal that has come through the Senate. He also recently made comments saying there is <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=1502090">nothing anyone can do to stop the outsourcing of American jobs</a>. Finally, as the incoming chairman of the powerful Senate Finance Committee, he has <a href="http://davidsirota.com/index.php/2006/11/17/baucus-on-hot-seat-will-he-be-a-roadblock-or-a-team-player/">recently made troubling statements</a> that he may not support Democratic legislation to let Medicare negotiate lower prices with drug companies, halt energy price gouging, and eliminate the President’s ability to “fast track” trade deals so that Congress has no input in them whatsoever. All of these Money Party ties aside, I am an optimist about Baucus because he has refused to budge on Social Security privatization and because his state has changed. The two leading politicians in Montana are among the two biggest leaders of the People Party: Gov. Brian Schweitzer (D) and Sen.-elect Tester. Additionally, Baucus is running for reelection, potentially against Republican Rep. Dennis Rehberg who CongressDaily noted “might tack to the left of Baucus on trade.” So I’m leaving Baucus in the “unclear which way he leans” category.

Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) - Leans People Party: Rangel has been a fairly reliable vote for the People Party during his time in Congress. That likely stems from him representing one of the poorest districts in New York City. However, <a href="http://davidsirota.com/index.php/2006/11/29/rangel-preserve-millionaire-tax-cuts-consider-soc-security-cuts-pass-more-free-trade-pacts/">since the election</a>, he has said that as the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, he is opposed to repealing Bush tax cuts for millionaires, he is open to considering cuts to Social Security benefits, and is interested in potentially continuing our current trade policy. Ultimately, Rangel will probably stay true to his People Party roots - but he is someone to monitor, especially considering the power of the committee he will head.
Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) - Leans People Party: Frank has been a courageous leader in proposing legislation to expose and rein in excessive CEO pay. But like Rangel, he has made troubling statements since the election. Specifically, the New York Times reported that as the chair of the Financial Services Committee, Frank has proposed to business lobbyists a so-called <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/09/business/09bizpol.html">“grand bargain”</a> whereby “if business groups support the Democrats’ efforts to increase the minimum wage, extend student loans and expand affordable housing programs, then the Democrats would support efforts to reduce trade barriers and burdensome regulation.” Because the terms of this “grand bargain” are vague, it is hard to say what it will end up looking like - but the mere fact that he is willing to regurgitate Money Party talking points about further economic deregulation and “free” trade deals calls into question whether he will continue representing the People Party as he has for many years. 

Rep. John Dingell (D-MI) - Leans People Party: Dingell has been a solid consumer advocate on the Energy and Commerce Committee on many major economic issues. But it is unclear how he will use his new chairmanship of that committee in the minority. Suggesting allegiance to the People Party, Dingell has told USA Today that he will work to <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/energy/2006-11-09-energy-usat_x.htm">cut America’s dependence on foreign oil</a>. Suggesting Dingell’s allegiance to the Money Party, the Associated Press reported that he may o<a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061123/ap_on_go_co/imported_drugs">ppose efforts to allow seniors to purchase lower-priced, FDA-approved medicines</a> from Canada - a proposal vehemently opposed by the pharmaceutical industry that wants to use protectionism to keep medicine prices artificially high in the United States. 
Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) - Unclear Which Way She Leans: Clinton has not really tried to define her public image on economic issues - and it is unclear where her real loyalties are. Her views on lobbyist-written trade deals is completely unclear, especially considering her ties to a Clinton White House that championed the very “free” trade policies that sold out American workers. Similarly, whereas her efforts in the 1990s to enact universal health care were motivated by a desire to represent the People Party, a report in the New York Times a few months ago showed that Clinton is now the number two recipient of health care industry cash and is returning the favor by <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/12/nyregion/12donate.html">publicly apologizing for her original health care reform efforts</a>. Meanwhile, she this year headlined the DLC’s national conference - a very public rebuke of the People Party.

Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) - Leans People Party: As I detailed in a <a href="http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060626/sirota">long piece for The Nation</a>, Obama’s instincts throughout his career have been to strongly side with the People Party against the Money Party. That is true, even if he also is more of a cautious Establishmentarian than a power-challenger - and especially considering his recent moves to potentially push <a href="http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/11/20/getting_serious_about_corruption.php">full public financing of congressional elections</a>. However, he recently headlined the kickoff event for the so-called Hamilton Project - the Wall Street backed front group whose goal is to undercut Democratic efforts to seriously reform America’s trade policy. He additionally <a href="http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=109&session=1&vote=00009">voted for the industry-written class action bill</a> that limits citizens ability to seek legal redress against corporate abusers, he <a href="http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=109&session=1&vote=00213">voted for the oil industry-written Energy Bill</a>, he <a href="http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=109&session=1&vote=00020">voted against legislation to crack down on exorbitant credit card interests rates</a>, and he <a href="http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=109&session=2&vote=00250">voted for the Oman Free Trade Agreement</a>. In a presidential race, I believe Obama will more fully embrace the People Party both because it makes political sense and because I believe that’s where his heart is. The question will be whether those two factors will outweigh the pressure he will face to join the Money Party and use his huge celebrity-driven microphone to push the Money Party’s agenda - pressures that may be responsible for his relative silence on major economic justice issues in his first two years in the Senate.

Let me reiterate - this in no way is a comprehensive list. There are many others who are part of either the People Party or the Money Party, and I encourage readers to list others that you think belong in both camps in the comments section below (it is entirely possible I merely forgot some that should be on this list in either camp). Additionally, I’m sure people may disagree with me and have their own list - that’s fine too, and I’m open to the criticism/discussion/debate. As I said, because the People Party-Money Party fault line is so rarely discussed in Washington, it is much harder to know precisely how this divide breaks out. And remember, this isn’t just about the way these people have voted - it is also about whether they use their platform/political capital to raise these economic justice issues that Washington doesn’t like talking about.
That said, this list should give people a pretty good idea of who some of the major players will be in the new Congress on the fundamental economic issues like corruption, trade and health care that defined the 2006 election. It will be up to us to support those representing the People Party with everything we’ve got. At the same time, we as a movement must have the courage to go up against those in the Money Party who are working against us - even if they have a D behind their name. This People Party-Money Party chasm is the one that means the difference not between which lawmakers get which parking spots on Capitol Hill - but between whether the American people get real change or not.

hiredgun · 12-19-2006, 10:59 PM

Roachboy: thanks, that clarifies things a bit. I think that what confused me was the notion of talking about 'choice' as related to system outcomes and not to indvidual intent. Choice isn't something I usually think about as a characteristic of systems. What does it mean to say that a system makes a choice if that is divorced from the meanings of individual choices?

The formulation aside, I think I see your point.

I think the reason behind the choice is that it's much easier to simply dig in and ignore the problem than to... well, to do what exactly? Is the ability of the American workforce to compete in a changing environment really a function of US policy and social reproduction (the assumption being that the status quo as it relates to our economic order could be maintained given the correct changes to our social system)? I would think that globalization is a too large a force for that to be the case, though not to say that there is 'nothing to be done' to better adapt to it.

But the kind of changes you're implying to be necessary - and since it is not explicit in your post, I can only guess at this - seem to be radical changes in the social order and especially radical changes as concerns the distribution of wealth, a subject which is in itself almost taboo in our political landscape. I agree with you, as you point out elsewhere, that the notion of wealth as a political commodity is here collapsed to the point that wealth is seen as a 'natural' variable that relates only to individual chutzpah and upon which the political system therefore has no claims. I can only venture that this kind of redistribution would leave those who the system represents, primarily the well-off, significantly worse off than a scenario in which the american middle class economy is allowed to decline. And to play devil's advocate, radical social upheaval can be a really traumatic and destabilizing thing - postcolonial experiences in a number of countries come to mind, and Egypt is one I'm particularly thinking of. I'd note that in that case the country spiralled back into a similarly stratified economic order, with wealth simply having changed hands and class identities having shifted. Arguably, though, the kind of adaptation you're talking about would be designed to head off precisely this kind of breakdown.

But perhaps in this case it's not that there's nothing to be done, but that the costs of doing something meaningful are seen as too high. In any event I think the discussion would be well-served by an elaboration on what particular steps might address the gap you note between our labor pool and the changing job market.

pai mei · 01-06-2007, 04:18 PM

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...78336967&q=oil
An english actor presents the wars for oil, and the Iraq problem as a comedy, it's very well done , not quite funny because of the reality of it

12-03-2006, 10:28 AM	#5 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	hiredgun: there is a jump in the op yes. if you are thinking about the effects of state actions in the context of a rapidly and radically changing economic situation...how much of a guide to thinking is policy maker intent(s)? intent seems only interesting to me if you are trying to explain the legislative origin of a policy or sequence of policies. once implemented as elements of a bureaucratic system, policies become system parameters and their effects and meanings functions of the effects of these parameters on system activity. here is a version of the system: globalizing capitalism is characterised by a bunch of processes--one of them is the increasing transnationalization of production: this process relies on supply chain/pool technologies and just-in-time type logistical parameters to co-ordinate networks of small-to medium-scale contractors located anywhere on the globe so long as the logistics/transport infrastructure (say) are such that they can function as part of the overall just-in-time system. this production system has a history and that history can be seen as a kind of scatter field the origin of which is the explosion/fragmentation of the older factory. the time-line extends back to the early 1950s. the initial fragmentation involved numerical machine tools and the subcontracting of semi-skilled production. the same logic repeats at different levels of industrial production, beginning a slight different moments---so imagine it as a scatter field or as a diagram of an explosion. the older factory system was of a piece with the organization of capitalism within the framework of the nation-state. the system of social reproduction--everywhere really, but in a particularly badly done way in the states--was linked to the labor pool required for this type of production system. the process of fragmentation of this older model of production--and the labor market/pool required for it--has been going on for 30 years. the american educational system--the system of social reproduction--has not and seemingly cannot adapt to it. why? the american model of spatialized class segregation, the relation of education to property tax rates, the absence of anything like a central co-ordinating mechanism for adjusting the characteristics of the social profile generated by the educational system and the actually existing labor market... so in general the american educational system reproduces a labor market that no longer exists. who is affected by this? disproportionately the poor and what would have been the working-class. how is this problem being addressed? the volunteer military, the prison-industrial complex and a media ideology that focusses on the affluent as subject-position interpellated by news and other forms of adervtisement and which sees in the social consequences of this defunctionalization evidence of arbitrary violence, etc. what you see is a wholesale refusal to address social reality. a retreat into a bourgeois bubble supported by consumer debt and a televisual world that frames out structural problems what else? in quick terms: a conservative educational politics that is the exact opposite of what is required, idiotic legislation like "nclb" that functions to collapse outmoded political argumentation (ideology) into the material world through the mechanism of standardized testing...what is its function? political control---either intentionally or not, nclb can be read as an attempt to short circuit political consequences of this dysfunctional space by collapsing ideology into the object world. what does it amount to? a choice: rather than adapt to complex changing circumstances, the right is opting for political neutralization in the shorter run. what sense does this make? well none if the longer-term well-being of the american socio-economic system is a priority. but it isnt, it seems. same logic is applied to other registers of state policy. the statement about the neo-feudal order is an optimistic scenario that indicates outcomes. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

12-02-2006, 11:04 AM	#2 (permalink)
Ch'i Artist of Life	I've had in the corner of my mind a waivering idea that Bush and his administration may have had a long term plan that remained elusive to us regarding Iraq and the ME, but after the past year (not excluding these two articles) every sign seems to point towards incompetence, ineptitude, and failure. The conservatives clearly have absolutely no plan whatsoever in Iraq short of stockpiling money and commodities, and give us a taste of that lack of planning through their clumsy attempt at covering their asses. In other words, I completely agree with you roachboy. Perhaps they realized that securing the natural resources in the ME would fail, and are now attempting to get richer in order to control those goods economically and hadn't counted on any audits. Or they simply don't know what the hell they're doing. Either way, the curtain is falling and they'd better be ready to face an audience.

12-02-2006, 11:44 PM	#4 (permalink)
guyy Addict Location: Cottage Grove, Wisconsin	I am reminded of a quote from Engels. Old Fred said somewhere -- in the Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, I believe -- that the corruption of officials is the mechanism by which the bourgeoisie controls the state.

12-19-2006, 10:59 PM	#7 (permalink)
hiredgun Addict	Roachboy: thanks, that clarifies things a bit. I think that what confused me was the notion of talking about 'choice' as related to system outcomes and not to indvidual intent. Choice isn't something I usually think about as a characteristic of systems. What does it mean to say that a system makes a choice if that is divorced from the meanings of individual choices? The formulation aside, I think I see your point. I think the reason behind the choice is that it's much easier to simply dig in and ignore the problem than to... well, to do what exactly? Is the ability of the American workforce to compete in a changing environment really a function of US policy and social reproduction (the assumption being that the status quo as it relates to our economic order could be maintained given the correct changes to our social system)? I would think that globalization is a too large a force for that to be the case, though not to say that there is 'nothing to be done' to better adapt to it. But the kind of changes you're implying to be necessary - and since it is not explicit in your post, I can only guess at this - seem to be radical changes in the social order and especially radical changes as concerns the distribution of wealth, a subject which is in itself almost taboo in our political landscape. I agree with you, as you point out elsewhere, that the notion of wealth as a political commodity is here collapsed to the point that wealth is seen as a 'natural' variable that relates only to individual chutzpah and upon which the political system therefore has no claims. I can only venture that this kind of redistribution would leave those who the system represents, primarily the well-off, significantly worse off than a scenario in which the american middle class economy is allowed to decline. And to play devil's advocate, radical social upheaval can be a really traumatic and destabilizing thing - postcolonial experiences in a number of countries come to mind, and Egypt is one I'm particularly thinking of. I'd note that in that case the country spiralled back into a similarly stratified economic order, with wealth simply having changed hands and class identities having shifted. Arguably, though, the kind of adaptation you're talking about would be designed to head off precisely this kind of breakdown. But perhaps in this case it's not that there's nothing to be done, but that the costs of doing something meaningful are seen as too high. In any event I think the discussion would be well-served by an elaboration on what particular steps might address the gap you note between our labor pool and the changing job market.

01-06-2007, 04:18 PM	#8 (permalink)
pai mei Insane	http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...78336967&q=oil An english actor presents the wars for oil, and the Iraq problem as a comedy, it's very well done , not quite funny because of the reality of it