Opinion Editorials, August 2011

Failure of the Global Capitalist System:

We Are at the Core of the Problem

By Frank Scott

Al-Jazeerah, CCUN, August 29, 2011

 The breakdown of global economics dominated by capital is more apparent with each local crisis. Even Israel has seen Jewish citizens demonstrating against the inequality of what they think is their own economy, just as all over the world people are rising up against injustice seen as unique to their nations. Of course, Israeli Jews demonstrating against an economy which has become more unequal for them are missing the point that what was previously so fair to them was derived at the expense of the Palestinians who still suffer unfairness and inequality that date back earlier than the current crisis. Even further back than 1948, the official birth of the settler, apartheid Jewish state.

 And, it should be added, at the expense of the American taxpayers who not only finance Israel’s military power and fight  its wars but pay for a government frequently operating more in Israel’s than America’s interest. In fact, even as signs of a crippled political economy loom so large, 82 members of the American government embarked on a tour of Israel paid for by sponsors who insure their continued role as an Israeli Knesset within the American congress.

 Nevertheless, the continued actions around the world, both peaceful and violent, make it clear that the system under stress and causing breakdowns is not confined to any one nation or area of the globe.

 Here in the USA, as public service programs are being savaged while great wealth increases its share of national income, the 2012 presidential campaign is already in full swing. Hundreds of millions of dollars have already been banked by candidates with hundreds of millions more being raised among their wealthy employers. This, while a majority of Americans suffer declining status in every aspect of their lives, is indication of both inequality and immorality in the political economic system. But it may still be a while before we all understand that the system conducting assaults on working majorities for the benefit of wealthy minorities in the USA, Greece, Spain, Ireland, Iceland, Israel, Egypt, England and more, is the same one that is killing people and fomenting strife in Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Yemen, Colombia, Venezuela, Bolivia and more.

 Under the control of mind managers who teach us individuality and self esteem in the face of social disaster, it must begin to sink into even the most set upon that we suffer from a common and not unique-to-ourselves disorder. It is global capitalism, the private profit/public loss system making rich people much richer, poor people much poorer, the supposed middle less middle, and putting the earth itself under more stress than at any time in recorded history.

 The Bipolar performance of a financial market with ever more rapid and rabid mood swings accompanies a crazed military policy killing more people every day while alienating more old friends, creating more new enemies, and pushing everything closer to disaster. Still, the bipartisan political process pits one set of corporate capital’s servants against another, both competing for power but only to maintain a system that needs to be  radically changed for the salvation of the human race.

 The over extended empire’s attempts to destroy Libya joined with previous assaults in Iraq , Afghanistan and other places is taxing the imperial dominators to the point at which collapse, if not sudden, is certainly a near future possibility. People are straining against the irrationality of having to struggle for survival while a tiny minority lives in luxury beyond the dreams of ancient despots. The sooner a democratic tendency such as finally seems to be operative in many places takes hold everywhere the better for humanity, but the USA is not only still far behind the pack but suffering political forces working to further impede its progress.

 The USA is at the center of this flailing monster and its people need to take control from the minority only concerned about acquiring more and more wealth at the cost of less and less hope for the majority’s future. Democratic action is needed to end the bloody wars, create public banks, invest our massive public wealth in jobs that put people before profit, and transform our energy base from fossil fuels and other synthetics which pollute to abundant biological sources which can strengthen society in cooperation with nature. While growing numbers of Americans favor such moves, the power structure reflects none of that impulse unless it can create a private profit for some that always means a public loss for most.

Negative signs of collapse are increasing but positive reactions have a greater chance at success than ever before. Coordinated democratic action needs to end the divisive battling among a global majority which has been boxed into being a group of minorities in order to keep it from seeing its common interest and predicament. Human survival is not simply  the concern of members of minority groups, people of alleged color or no color, those who choose to marry or stay single, have babies or adopt, or speak different languages.

Food, clothing, shelter and the niceties of life do not exist for the exclusive consumption of special individuals but for the continuation of the human race. The longer we allow minority control of our environments both social and natural, the closer we will come to failure as a human race. The present crisis will continue and get worse until we react as global citizens and demand, and achieve, global democracy. If that seems beyond us, we can at least begin the easy part and create a truly democratic transformation here at the center of the global problem.

 Frank Scott writes  political commentary and satire which appears in print in The Independent Monitor and online at the blog Legalienate  

http://legalienate.blogspot.com

email: fpscott@gmail.com

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