The Shutdown Explained : Another Dark Carnival Brought To You By The Vampire Squids

10/12/13

The Shutdown Explained : Another Dark Carnival Brought To You By The Vampire Squids.

The Insane Clown Posse (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insane_Clown_Posse) is a hip-hop group out of Detroit, the US city that recently went bankrupt. Their fans are known as 'juggalos' - though this term also refers to fans of Psychopathic Records, which was the record company label under which the ICP released their first few records. The term 'juggalo' has even come to refer to a sub-culture which, according to Wikipedia, has been associated to criminal and gang-related activity by "self-described 'Juggalos' in recent years, including assaults, drug trafficking, vandalism, burglary, shootings, theft, robbery, and numerous murders." [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juggalo ].

Recently, another Insane Clown Posse has revealed itself to the world: Members of the Republican Party in the US Congress who engineered a US government shutdown, and threatened to prevent the US Treasury from borrowing any more money, all to prevent the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare. The fans of this Insane Clown Posse are known as "Tea Partiers", though this term also refers to fans of any attempt to thwart Barack Obama, a black man who happens to be the US President. The term 'Tea Party' or 'Tea Partier' has even come to refer to a sub culture which, according to me, cannot define the word 'fact', does not know the difference between knowledge and belief, in the service of belief and sociopathy puts the lives and well-being of others at risk, both here and around the world, and expresses collective outrage whenever actual facts compress their bubbles of self-delusion. I say 'compress' here because the truth is those bubbles will never be popped. Kant expressed the phenomenon best : "Reason is invisible to the man who has none."

Logic and Reason. Nice concepts poorly executed by human beings. They can't be executed at all by people who don't know what they are.

There is no question that, by various (though not all) measures, the US is the most "powerful" nation in the world. Recent history (the so called 'Financial Crisis' as well as the latest 'Shutdown Fiasco') suggest that logic and reason have, like Elvis, left the building. A nation presenting itself as the "leader of the free world" and the manufacturer of "the world's reserve currency" (the dollar), cannot retain either of those two responsibilities if Insane Clown Posses have the power to alter the law and policy of that nation. Such a nation does not propose and seriously consider the policies of Insane Clown Posses, much less implement them. The problem is, the Insane Clown Posse is implementing policy and dominating the political landscape because the "have the votes" in Congress to do so. Progressives hope that after the latest Shutdown fiasco, this will change in the 2014 election cycle. But, the Insane Clown Posse isn't going down that easy. They are well-funded, and -as we all know- "corporations are people" and "money is speech" according to the other Insane Clown Posse in the US Supreme Court, which is also well-funded by the Justice Department and not elected at all.

As I write, Saturday, October 12, 2013, the Shutdown hullabaloo is still going on. The Republicans just can't bring themselves to put a "clean" bill to end the shutdown and raise the debt ceiling on the floor for a vote. This is *in spite of the fact* that most polling shows a catastrophic drop in favorable ratings for Republicans (who are being blamed by the public), the Tea Party (who don't care about opinion polls, unless they support a woman's right to not have a right to choose), and Congress (which, at about 5% favorability, is now engaged to their heartthrob, Zero). Conditions are always added, future requirements to hamstring programs, or mandate topical negotiations, are inevitably added. Why? Note the word "Insane" precedes "Clown Posse". Clowns try to make kids of every age laugh. That is, on purpose. "Insane" clowns try to do anything nearly as redeeming, and they certainly don't read polling data. However, they make us laugh anyway - partly at our own misfortune to be saddled by them. 

The reason they can't propose to keep the US government running is because they find themselves in possession of only one form of power : the power of negation. They don't like the ACA, so they propose to negate (i.e. "defund") it. They can't accomplish this negation, so they move on to the next level in the negation ladder: Negation of government itself.

Negation is not a positive power. It cannot create solutions to problems intertwined with the operation of a complex, technological, capitalist, society. Let's say we recognize that the lack of health care for 40+ million people is a "problem." People can view it as a "problem" for different reasons. A progressive secular humanist, or even a Christian, might view it as a problem on humanitarian grounds. A less moral person, one interested in the relative power of the United States, or interested solely increasing the rate of profit in capitalism, might view it as a problem because those millions without healthcare represent lost labor, lost output, and therefore lost profits. Or, in narrow financial terms, one might view it as a problem because it actually costs the society and the government more to provide healthcare through the emergency rooms in which those without consistent healthcare often end up, than it would with a consistent healthcare delivery system that covered those people.

But this is how the Insane Clown Posse views the problem : It's not a problem. When asked about the need for a more consistent national healthcare system, former presidential (and Insane Clown Posse cadet) Mitt Romney said, in effect, that people without health insurance in the US get healthcare when they go to the emergency room nearby. That is, it's not a problem. 26 Republican governors in the US (more than half of the states, but less than half the population) *refused federal money to expand medicaid to cover people who would still be uninsured after ACA is implemented*. That is, those people can go to the emergency rooms like they always have. That is, it will cost those states as much or more to continue to deliver healthcare that way because of this refusal. (Thanks to Jon Stewart for his piece pointing up this piece of insanity). That is, those people will end up dying younger than those with consistent healthcare delivery. That is, there is no problem. That is: Insane.

How is it that such a generous helping of insanity came to control such a large segment of the American Polity? Simple : Vampire Squids. The people who brought us the worldwide financial meltdown. (Are we still melting down or has the wax started to congeal? I can't tell.)

During the really, really, viscous part of the meltdown (2008 and 2009), Matt Taibbi [http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog] wrote a fantastic piece in Rolling Stone in which he described all of the Wall Street mavens and moguls as Vampire Squids, who were more interested in sucking the marrow out of the bones of the world financial system than doing, well, anything that any reasonable person would consider constructive. They, the Vampire Squids, do this because of a subjective belief that their destruction by definition creates something better, which originates from Joseph Schumpeter. [ http://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/creativedestruction.asp ] Note here that 'creative-destruction' is often just destruction for most people. This is especially notable if one is roughly aware of the effects of the Financial Meltdown Dark Carnival, which destroyed about 30 million jobs worldwide - jobs where people built things and/or helped people. We are still waiting for the "creative" part of that destruction. Note here that 'destruction' is the power of negation. Note that this is the same limited form of power exerted by the Insane Clown Posse.

It is these Vampire Squids which funded the groups that support (financially and otherwise) the Tea Party wing of the right wing of the right wing party. The Vampire Squids, for the last 40 or 50 years, have simply negated (unravelled) the common-sense regulation of the financial and banking system which emerged in the aftermath of the Great Depression. It is the Vampire Squids who have negated campaign finance regulations; naturally, since they are a tiny demographic minority the only way to tilt the playing field is to convert money into domination of the political debate, and thereby the political framework itself. Without the money and political domination of the Vampire Squids, you have no Insane Clown Posse in Washington. It is Vampire Squids who negate climate science, because forcing corporations to account for future damage to the habitability of the planet means less (or, no) profit for them. And yes, if this damage isn't stopped, it is negation of us. All of us. Or, at least anything we would recognize as a civilization.

The poster boy for the Vampire Squids is none other than Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs. He, who famously said, at the critical meeting in New York's Federal Reserve building at the height of the Financial Meltdown Dark Carnival - no, not "How can we help stabilize the system?" nor much less "How can we structure this crisis so that less people are negatively affected?" -- but rather: "I want my fucking money." Recently, this poster boy said he was doing "God's work." Amazingly, this comment wasn't really criticized in the financial media very much (indeed, it was praised in some circles. Literally). Or, perhaps that isn't amazing at all. Anyway, one can speculate about whether or not Blankfein remembers the part about the rich man and the eye of the needle in the New Testament. Or, maybe Blankfein is just thinking about the god of the Old Testament (the destructive god of negation). Or, maybe Blankfein doesn't realize that, according to many theologians, Satan also does "God's work."

This is the sort of person at the helm of the world capitalist ship now. Blankfein-Satans, Vampire Squids, and Insane Clown Posses. The problems that the rest of us have will not be solved by them. They are the reason we have those problems.

Humanity's Choice : Capitalism or Survival?

Humanity's Choice : Capitalism or Survival?

If the quantity and quality of global production is capable of altering the climate, and that production occurs not within a framework based on human need, but on the capture of profit by a relative few "owners" of "private" property, then this reciprocating dynamic poses the most fundamental question of human history : Shall we cling to a form of social relations which bases production on profit, or shall we instead survive? 

Over the entire world, the most important and necessary activity is social production. Social production is the basis of human civilization; each day human society must create and re-create its existence - production which contributes to the daily replication of society is "social production." Without social production, civilization would collapse. Without increasing social production, civilization can be said to stagnate. 

Most social production today occurs within the framework of capitalist social relations. Social relations are a specific term that refer to the relationship between human beings which serves as the framework for social production. Capitalist social relations are exploitative. This is not a pejorative, it is the most accurate word in the English language to describe it's essential nature. All wealth is derived in the final analysis from human labor. If you happen to discover a pile of gold in your backyard, you remain in a state of abject poverty unless that gold can command the products of human labor, or similarly services. Capitalist relations derive their relative power from being able to extract a large quantity of labor from the working masses, while at the same time alienating a large portion of the value produced by labor from the laboring class, and directing the surplus value thus alienated to an ownership class which uses these values to sustain itself as a dominant class.

Profit, derived from labor, is the engine of capitalist social relations and the dominance of the capitalist class. Profit is, moreover, in myriad ways, used against the interest of the laboring class. When, for example, many US industrial concerns offshored their manufacturing, they were empowered to do so by the fact that they had the resources to do it in the first place, all of which had been the product of previously appropriated profits. They were further empowered by laws, enacted by a political class reflecting the interests of the capitalists generally, which gave "tax credits" to the corporations for the deed, and, more importantly, rendered it illegal for labor to collectively oppose this shift (i.e. "sympathy strikes" by unions are illegal in the United States - the union supporting them would face immediate legal action and face fines and "de-certification" - net total destruction of the union). Many other examples of how the value created by labor is used against the interests of laborers could and should be made, but this essay concerns something even more fundamental.

The essential point to understand here is that private profit exists in antagonism with the society which makes it possible. Profit is derived from labor, exclusively, and is used used again and again, institutionally, systematically, politically, to subvert the basic interests of the working class which makes that profit possible. This tension or antagonism sometimes explodes; it can explode materially (in financial crises which temporarily reduce the quantity of social production), and it can also explode socially (in periodic protests, riots, and even uprisings and revolts due to some unconcealed contradiction between the social agenda of capitalism and the daily struggle for dignity among the laboring masses). Yet each time the capitalist class has successfully tamped down the explosion and preserved itself as the force dominating the majority. The "tamping down" takes the form of social programs which have the effect of dulling the edge of a knife already plunged into the laboring body.

Let us take something with which 40 million or more Americans are presently familiar: Food Stamps. Does society have a fundamental duty to feed those who for whatever reason cannot feed themselves? Fascists would argue it does not. Most everyone else would disagree. Hence, in the US there is a food stamp program. At least, most may in fact believe that this is the reason the US has such a program. But the truth is, the program exists as a means of self preservation of the capitalist class. It was instituted in response to an increasing number of people being unable to feed themselves in the richest country in the world which was, moreover, the worlds largest producer of food. Make no mistake, Food Stamps are not the result of capitalist munificence. The irony cannot be lost on us: What so many rely on for their survival, the food purchased with food stamps, in fact exists to ensure the survival not of those people, but of the capitalist class. 

Food stamps are but one example of capitalists 'tamping down' the revolutionary potential of the masses. There are hundreds or thousands more, and this includes the recently enacted health care bill which - typically - has yet to take full effect or provide real healthcare for the masses. Moreover, even when it does, the healthcare thus provided will be the subject of additional profit for the capitalist class, since it will be required for everyone to purchase insurance from a for-profit entity. Those who are poor will not have to pay for themselves, receiving a "tax credit" based on income which covers the premium. Rather than driving down healthcare costs, the profit dynamic is more likely to drive them up at the same time reducing the quality of generally available care in the drive to increase
margins. 

Let us return, however, to the main point. Having understood that capitalist social relations drive nearly all social production in the world today, and that the dynamic of this production is not based on human need but instead exists within a feedback loop limited only by greed, humanity itself now faces its greatest challenge. It is an existential challenge, rather than an organizational one. Because now production itself, due to its scale and scope, is now altering the global climate. A recent science report - based on an enormous research undertaking - predicts that by 2047 the climate will have reached the 'point of no return'. The coldest days from that time forward will be warmer than the hottest days today. The ecological disaster this presents hardly needs to be elaborated - in addition to a rise in sea level, agricultural production will be unable to support the world's population (even just the population we have today) because photosynthesis breaks down above 87F, in addition to the absolute reduction of arability due to desertification. This is an entirely man made crisis, but more significantly and dangerously happening in the context of capitalist social relations. 

Because private property relations drive production, and production is now climate forcing to a point threatening extinction, the choice is : maintaining capitalistic relations, or survival. 

On lolaholic.com I saw a cartoon recently which captures the future dystopia likely to emerge unless capitalism is replaced. A man in a very old and worn suit was sitting at a campfire with two children. The caption read : "Yes, we destroyed the planet, but for one brief shining moment we created value for shareholders." Some value.