De Russische annexatie van de Krim en de permanente onrust in Oekraïne hebben in het Westen langzamerhand een begin van paniek doen ontstaan. Na de Koude Oorlog heeft wat we toen de Vrije Wereld noemden bij gebrek aan de volgende globale tegenstander haar defensie verwaarloosd. In het begin werd dat in dit deel van de wereld als een geweldig voordeel beschouwd.
H.J.A. Hofland. Provinciaal Europa. 2 april 2014
U.S. spending on the military last year far exceeded any other country. We spent six times more than China — the second largest spender. Overall, the world expended $1.6 trillion on the military, with the United States accounting for the lion’s share:
The report notes that, 'even in the face of efforts to bring down the soaring US budget deficit, military spending continues to receive privileged treatment.' Indeed, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and others on the right are passing legislation increasing defense spending. At the same time, they are insisting on massive cuts to social programs that provide vital assistance to the elderly, the poor and the middle class.
Judd Legum. REPORT: U.S. Military Spending Has Almost Doubled Since 2001. 11 april 2011
De Koude Oorlogsretoriek van de Henk Hofland begint op stoom te komen. Bij De Groene Amsterdammer, het weekblad dat onderdeel is van Hoflands zelfbenoemde 'politiek-literaire elite' in de polder, vindt het allemaal prachtig, geen redactielid die de moeite neemt de feiten te checken. Henk Hofland, Neerlands meest vooraanstaande opiniemaker van de politieke en economische elite, mag onweersproken beweren dat
Na de Koude Oorlog heeft wat we toen de Vrije Wereld noemden bij gebrek aan de volgende globale tegenstander haar defensie verwaarloosd,
terwijl uit gedegen wetenschappelijk onderzoek is gebleken dat
'U.S. military spending has almost doubled since 2001.'
Bovendien is bekend dat de leider van de zogeheten 'Vrije Wereld'
Increased Spending Before And Even During Global Economic Crisis… The USA led the rise in military spending…
The United States has unquestionably been the most formidable military power in recent years. Its spending levels, as noted earlier, is the principle determinant of world military spending and is therefore worth looking at further.
Generally, US military spending has been on the rise. Recent increases are attributed to the so-called War on Terror and the Afghanistan and Iraq invasions, but it had also been rising before that.
Daarnaast kan elke serieuze journalist weten dat
The United States will spend an astounding $653 billion on the military in 2014, more than 56 percent of the entire discretionary budget. In fact, yearly US military spending exceeds that of the next 13 nations combined. It's no wonder that, on average, Americans want to cut military spending by 18 percent. Congress should heed the advice of the bipartisan task force that found $1 trillion in fat over the next 10 years hiding in the Pentagon budget - and start cutting.
Met andere woorden: meer dan de helft van het Amerikaanse federale budget waarover het Congres kan beschikken, gaat naar wat Hofland 'defensie' noemt en toch kan in Nederland de tot beste journalist van de twintigste eeuw uitgeroepen opiniemaker in een 'kritisch weekblad' onweersproken beweren dat 'de Vrije Wereld… bij gebrek aan de volgende globale tegenstander haar defensie verwaarloosd' heeft. Het is een schitterend voorbeeld van wat George Orwell in 1945 in Notes on Nationalism als volgt formuleerde:
Much of the propagandist writing of our time amounts to plain forgery. Material facts are suppressed, dates altered, quotations removed from their context and doctored so as to change their meaning. Events which it is felt ought not to have happened are left unmentioned and ultimately denied… The primary aim of propaganda is, of course, to influence contemporary opinion, but those who rewrite history do probably believe with part of their minds that they are actually thrusting facts into the past… Probably the truth is discoverable, but the facts will be so dishonestly set forth in almost any newspaper that the ordinary reader can be forgiven either for swallowing lies or failing to form an opinion. The general uncertainty as to what is really happening makes it easier to cling to lunatic beliefs. Since nothing is ever quite proved or disproved, the most unmistakable fact can be impudently denied… Some nationalists are not far from schizophrenia, living quite happily amid dreams of power and conquest which have no connection with the physical world.
Dit gaat zeker op voor opiniemakers als Henk Hofland die in De Groene Amsterdammer van 12 maart 2014 met een zekere weemoed stelt dat 'In Europa en Amerika eerzucht en strijdlust verloren [zijn] gegaan.' De hoogbejaarde journalist, wiens manicheïsch wereldbeeld door de ineenstorting van de Sovjet Unie uit handen werd geslagen, keert in de 21ste eeuw terug naar het oude en vertrouwde Koude Oorlogsgebied. De vijand is weer duidelijk herkenbaar, hij is het vlees geworden kwaad. Deze demonisering is noodzakelijk om het militair-industrieel complex draaiende te houden. De commandant der Nederlandse Strijdkrachten, Tom Middendorp, was er dan ook als de kippen bij om begin april 2014 te melden dat
Als gezagsgetrouwe opiniemaker had Hofland de boodschap al begrepen, de woordvoerder van de elite weet bij voorbaat wat hij wel en vooral ook wat hij niet kan schrijven. Dat werkt als een reflex. En De Groene Amsterdammer volgt getrouw. Wat dat betreft is er tussen links en rechts in de mainstream media geen enkel verschil. 'Het vredestichtende Westen,' ook deze leugen is van Hofland, moet weer gemobiliseerd worden om de binnenlandse status quo te handhaven. Makkelijk door te prikken leugens zijn een kenmerk van de restauratie in de laatste dagen van een ancien régime. Hoflands misdadige voorstelling van zaken wordt nu weer overal in 'de Vrije Wereld' door de spreekbuizen van de gevestigde orde met volle kracht verspreid. Zo beweerde de miljonair Geert Mak unverfroren in zijn boek Reizen zonder John. Op zoek naar Amerika (2012) over de macht in Washington en op Wall Street:
De explosieve situatie in Oekraïne maakt duidelijk dat aan de tijd van bezuinigen op Defensie een einde gaat komen. Dat stelt generaal Tom Middendorp, de hoogste militair in Nederland in een interview met Trouw.
'Voor een procent van ons bruto binnenlands product (bbp) hebben we een verzekeringspolis, een goedkope polis waarvoor we Navo-dekking in huis halen.'
Als gezagsgetrouwe opiniemaker had Hofland de boodschap al begrepen, de woordvoerder van de elite weet bij voorbaat wat hij wel en vooral ook wat hij niet kan schrijven. Dat werkt als een reflex. En De Groene Amsterdammer volgt getrouw. Wat dat betreft is er tussen links en rechts in de mainstream media geen enkel verschil. 'Het vredestichtende Westen,' ook deze leugen is van Hofland, moet weer gemobiliseerd worden om de binnenlandse status quo te handhaven. Makkelijk door te prikken leugens zijn een kenmerk van de restauratie in de laatste dagen van een ancien régime. Hoflands misdadige voorstelling van zaken wordt nu weer overal in 'de Vrije Wereld' door de spreekbuizen van de gevestigde orde met volle kracht verspreid. Zo beweerde de miljonair Geert Mak unverfroren in zijn boek Reizen zonder John. Op zoek naar Amerika (2012) over de macht in Washington en op Wall Street:
Het land fungeerde… decennialang als ordebewaker en politieagent – om maar te zwijgen van alle hulp die het uitdeelde. En nog steeds zijn de Verenigde Staten het anker van het hele Atlantische deel van de wereld in de ruimste zin van het woord.
De gezaghebbende Amerikaanse jurist Richard Falk wees er al in 1988 op dat de westerse buitenlandse politiek door de mainstream media wordt gepropageerd ‘through a self-righteous, one-way moral/legal screen [with] positive images of western values and innocence portrayed as threatened, validating a campaign of unrestricted violence.’ In tegenstelling tot een opiniemaker als Mak onderbouwt deze gerespecteerde emeritus hoogleraar Internationaal Recht aan Princeton zijn visie met gedocumenteerde feiten, zoals de lezer van de bundel Western State Terrorism uit 1988 al snel merkt. De bekende onderzoeksjournalist John Pilger toont op zijn beurt in The New Rulers of the World aan dat
The trail of blood is endless… The documentation of American terrorism is voluminous, and because such truths cannot be rationally rebutted, those who mention them, drawing the obvious connections between them, are often abused as ‘anti-American,’ regardless of whether or not they themselves are American.
En dat is nog een reden waarom de mainstream blijft zwijgen zonder rekenschap te hoeven afleggen voor het feit dat ‘omission the most virulent form of censorship [is],’ zoals Pilger terecht stelt. Even bedrieglijk is de Makkiaanse bewering dat 'het beter is voor Nederland en de internationale gemeenschap dat Obama de verkiezingen wint.' Dezelfde propaganda werd in Europa verspreidt toen Bill Clinton president werd. Destijds reageerde 'links' in het 'Europa' van 'Geen Jorwerd zonder Brussel' enthousiast op deze zogeheten ‘sociaal-democratische’ machthebber.
‘Good international citizen,’ ‘good governance,’ and ‘third way’ are from the same lexicon of modern imperial euphemisms adopted by the new ‘progressive’ movement in world affairs. In academic literature and the media, Bill Clinton was described as ‘centre left,’ a denial of the historical record. During the Clinton years, the principal welfare safety nets were taken away and poverty in American increased, an aggressive missile ‘defense’ system known as ‘Star Wars 2’ was instigated, the biggest war and arms budget in history was approved, biological weapons verification was rejected, along with a comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty, the establishment of an international criminal court, a worldwide ban on landmines and proposals to curb money laundering. Contrary to myth, which blames his successor, the Clinton administration effectively destroyed the movement to combat global warming. In addition, Haiti was invaded; the blockade of Cuba was reinforced; Iraq, Yugoslavia and Sudan were attacked.
Ondertussen is het een absoluut taboe om te stellen dat de VS terrorisme bedrijft, en een staat die ook nog eens westers gezinde terroristen een vluchtplaats verschaft. Even ongehoord is het voor de mainstream om te melden ‘that the US is the only nation on record to have been condemned by the World Court for international terrorism (in Nicaragua)’ Bovendien is het feit dat de VS ‘vetoed a UN Security Council resolution calling on governments to observe international law, unmentionable.’ Dus ook daarover geen woord in Mak’s zoektocht ‘naar Amerika.’ De VS wordt door de mainstream geportretteerd zoals het zich graag afficheert, dus als ‘ordebewaker en politieagent.’ Opmerkelijk is daarbij dat, zoals Pilger schrijft:
There is no conspiracy to keep this beyond public gaze. Compliance to institutional and corporate needs is internalized early in a journalist’s career. The difference, in authoritarian societies, is that the state makes these demands directly. Self-censorship and censorship by omission are rarely pointed out to practicing journalists and students in media colleges. Much of it is subliminal, giving it pervasive influence. Minimizing the culpability of western power, indeed reporting countries in terms of their usefulness to the West, becomes almost an act of professional faith.
Een van de gevolgen daarvan is dat de commerciële massamedia de economische werkelijkheid in de wereld verzwijgen en zeker niet structureel in een bredere context plaatsen. Temidden van alle triviale nonsens waarmee de consument van ‘het nieuws’ onophoudelijk bestookt wordt, verneemt hij terloops wat de ware macht heeft besloten. Zo vernam het publiek twee maanden na de aanslagen van 11 september 2001 dat de World Trade Organization in Qatar vergaderde, met een gemiddeld inkomen per hoofd van de bevolking van meer dan 100.000 dollar het rijkste staatje ter wereld Maar dat de machtige WTO beslist over het voortbestaan van miljarden mensen weten de meeste mensen niet, en ook niet hoe de besluitvorming tot stand komt. John Pilger:
Although the WTO has 143 members, only twenty-one governments, the richest, are permitted to draft policy, most of which has already been written by the ‘quad’: the United States, Europe, Canada and Japan. These rich nations demanded a new ‘round’ of what they call ‘trade liberalization,’ which is the power to intervene in the economies of poor countries, to demand privatization and the destruction of public services. Only they are permitted to protect their home industries and agriculture; only they have the right to subsidize exports of meat, grain and sugar and to dump them in poor countries at artificially low prices, thereby destroying the livelihoods of small farmers.
‘If I speak out too strongly,’ said an African delegate, ‘the US will phone my minister. They will say that I am embarrassing the United States. My government will not even ask, ‘What did he say?’ They will just send me a ticket tomorrow… so I don’t speak, for upsetting the master.’ Haiti and the Dominican Republic were threatened with the withdrawal of their special trade preferences with the United States if they objected to the new ‘round’ of ‘free trade’.
Een zogeheten ‘vrijhandel’ die in de praktijk niet bestaat omdat de VS en Europa hun eigen agro-industrie en hun militair industrieel complex met vele miljarden subsidiëren. Ook daardoor wordt artikel 22 van de Universele Verklaring van de Rechten van de Mens geschonden, waarin de wereldgemeenschap zich als volgt uitspreekt:
Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to the realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each state, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality.
De door het Westen afgedwongen 'globalisering' heeft met geweld ‘een maatschappijvorm’ geschapen ‘die universeel wordt opgelegd en op sociale onrechtvaardigheid en rassendiscriminatie is gebaseerd. In dit model vergroot de economische groei de armoede en de marginalisering,’ aldus de Zuid-Amerikaanse auteur Eduardo Galeano in zijn boek Ondersteboven. Ook dit is een feit dat door de westerse mainstream media braaf wordt verzwegen. In plaats daarvan meldt de mainstream dat de VS ‘decennialang als ordebewaker en politieagent [fungeerde]’ en dat ‘De Amerikaanse soft power… nog altijd sterk aanwezig [is],’ waarmee wordt bedoeld ‘de overtuigingskracht’ van de VS ‘de kracht om het debat naar zich toe te trekken, om de agenda van de wereldpolitiek te bepalen.’ Het probleem is alleen dat er geen enkel ‘debat’ bestaat, zoals de realiteit bewijst. En waarom niet? Galeano:
In het tijdperk van de privatiseringen en de vrije markt regeert het geld zonder tussenpersonen. Wat is de aan de staat toegekende functie? De staat moet zich met de discipline van de goedkope, tot een dwergloon veroordeelde arbeidskrachten bezighouden, en met de onderdrukking van het gevaarlijke legioen arbeiders zonder werk: een staat als rechter en politieagent. In vele landen in de wereld is sociaal recht gereduceerd tot strafrecht. De staat waakt over de openbare veiligheid: de overige diensten neemt de markt wel voor zijn rekening; en God zal zich wel met de armoede, de arme mensen en de arme streken bezighouden, als de politie daarvoor ontoereikend is. Hoewel de overheid zich als barmhartige moeder wil vermommen, zit er voor haar niets anders op dan haar geringe energie in de taken bewaking en bestraffing te stoppen. In deze neoliberale tijden zijn de publieke rechten tot gunsten van de macht teruggebracht en de macht houdt zich met de gezondheidszorg en met het openbaar onderwijs bezig alsof het een vorm van publieke liefdadigheid was, maar doet dat alleen kort voor de verkiezingen.
De machtsverhoudingen tussen rijk en arm in de wereld zijn sinds Doha niet verbetert. September 2011 concludeer de Financial Times:
WTO: World waits to move on after Doha... WTO: World waits to move on after Doha. By Alan Beattie in Washington
Few institutions can have had a sadder 10th birthday than the so-called ‘Doha round’ of trade talks, which will celebrate – for want of a better term – a decade of frustration this December.
When it was conceived, in the shock that followed the attacks of September 11 2001, on the US, the Doha round – or the ‘Doha Development Agenda,’ to give it its full but rarely used title – was intended as a display of global unity. But it soon became bogged down in negotiations over the intensely controversial area of farm tariffs and subsidies, and there has in effect been no progress since the last important ministerial meeting collapsed in 2008...
For informed observers, the Doha round now appears to be in a somewhat surreal state where it is in effect dead but the first person to call it so risks being accused of having killed it.
The Round is also known semi-officially as the Doha Development Agenda as a fundamental objective is to improve the trading prospects of developing countries.
In tegenstelling tot wat de westerse mainstream berichten, weten de arme landen maar al te goed dat de praktijk van deze onderhandelingen – begonnen op initiatief van de machtige landen binnen de WTO -- precies het tegenovergestelde als resultaat hebben, de verarming van de arme wereldbewoners. Galeano:
Ieder jaar doodt de armoede meer mensen dan de hele Tweede Wereldoorlog, die velen doodde. Maar vanuit de oogpunt van de macht komt deze uitroeiing eigenlijk wel goed uit, omdat ze de te snel groeiende bevolking een beetje helpt te reguleren. Deskundigen stellen de ‘overbevolking’ in het zuiden van de wereld aan de kaak, waar de onwetende massa niets anders weet te doen dan dag en nacht het zesde gebod te overtreden: vrouwen willen altijd en mannen kunnen altijd. Overbevolking in Brazilië, waar zeventien mensen per vierkante kilometer wonen, of in Colombia waar het er negenentwintig zijn? Nederland telt vierhonderdnegentig inwoners per vierkante kilometer en geen enkele Nederlander sterft van honger; maar in Brazilië en Colombia bezit een handvol vraatzuchtigen alles. Haïti en El Salvador zijn de dichtst bevolkte landen van het continent en zijn net zo dicht bevolkt als Duitsland.
De westerse mainstream visie probeert al deze feiten te negeren door te suggereren dat het moderne Westen gedreven wordt door Verlichtingsidealen als logisch handelen, democratie, mensenrechten, humanisme en vooral ook door hoop en vooruitgang, en dus gloort er voor de hele mensheid licht aan het einde van de tunnel. ‘Amerika’ blijft daarbij ‘een droomland’ waarvoor de mainstream net als Geert Mak ‘altijd al… een geheime liefde’ koesterde vanwege zijn ‘ongekende mogelijkheden… Het beloofde land, het land van melk honing.' Zo 'beleefden wij Europese kinderen van de jaren vijftig, Amerika: via een paar glimmende tijdschriften’ en ‘via een gratis Donald Duck die op een herfstdag opeens in de bus viel, en waarbij duizend horloges – omgerekend naar de huidige jeugdeconomie: duizend iPads -- werden verloot. En dan de inhoud van het nummer: ‘Donald Duck als schoolmeester’, de neefjes wagen het zelfs om een ijsje op het hoofd van hun vermoeide oom uit te drukken! Zomaar een ijsje kapotduwen!'
Een zo onvergetelijke indruk heeft dit allemaal gemaakt op het blanke, christelijke kind uit de polder waar men zo weinig ‘gewend’ was dat Mak deze beelden een halve eeuw later nog als uitgangspunt kon nemen voor zijn zoektocht naar zijn ‘droomland…Amerika’. In 1971 verscheen tot grote woede van de westerse mainstream media een scherpzinnige analyse van Walt Disney’s werk, getiteld How To Read Donald Duck. Imperialist Ideology in the Disney Comic, met tekeningen van Dagobert, Donald, Kwik, Kwek, en Kwak etc, die een lang essay illustreren van de Chileense literair criticus en auteur, professor Ariel Dorfman, en de Belgische socioloog Armand Mattelart, die beiden net op tijd aan het door de VS in het zadel geholpen fascistische regime van Pinochet wisten te ontkomen. Zij schreven over de invloed van Disney's werk:
From the moment people find themselves involved in a certain social system… it is impossible for their consciousness to develop without being based on concrete material conditions. In a society where one class controls the means of economic production, that class also controls the means of intellectual production; ideas, feelings, intuitions, in short – the very meaning of life. The bourgeoisie have, in fact, tried to invert the true relationship between the material base and the superstructure…
To capture the true message of Disney, we must reflect upon… his fantasy world to understand precisely in what way he represents reality, and how his fantasy may relate to concrete social existence… conflict has never a social base, but is conceived in terms of good versus bad, lucky versus unlucky, and intelligent versus stupid. So Disney characters can dispense with the material base underpinning every action in a concrete everyday word.
Het is ook daarom zo veelbetekenend dat een Nederlandse opiniemaker als Geert Mak Reizen zonder John. Op zoek naar Amerika begint ‘via een gratis Donald Duck die op een herfstdag opeens in de bus viel, en waarbij duizend horloges… werden verloot.’ En om zijn lezers er diep van te doordringen hoe duizelingwekkend hoog deze materiële prijs destijds was, voegde Mak hieraan toe: ‘omgerekend naar de huidige jeugdeconomie: duizend iPads.’ Waarom maakte dit zo’n onuitwisbare indruk op hem en zijn publiek? Waarom komen in Nederland Henk Hofland en Geert Mak zo makkelijk weg met hun Donald Duck-versie van de werkelijkheid? Zou iemand van De Groene Amsterdammer mij dit kunnen uitleggen? U krijgt de volle ruimte van mij, want frictie, beste collega's, is niet niet alleen het begin van wijsheid, maar tevens een voorwaarde om een ware democratie mogelijk te maken. De 'vrije pers' zou werkelijk eens ruimte moeten geven aan pluriformiteit. Probeer het eens, jullie kunnen er onmogelijk slechter van worden.
Abu Ghraib. de VS verspreidt mensenrechten en democratie. Geert Mak: 'nog steeds zijn de Verenigde Staten het anker van het hele Atlantische deel van de wereld in de ruimste zin van het woord.' Eerst zijn er de woorden van de propagandisten, pas dan kan het moorden beginnen.
Henk Hofland: 'Na de Koude Oorlog heeft wat we toen de Vrije Wereld noemden bij gebrek aan de volgende globale tegenstander haar defensie verwaarloosd. In het begin werd dat in dit deel van de wereld als een geweldig voordeel beschouwd.'
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2014/04/16/privatization-ramp-corruption-insouciance-ramp-war-paul-craig-roberts/
Henk Hofland: 'Na de Koude Oorlog heeft wat we toen de Vrije Wereld noemden bij gebrek aan de volgende globale tegenstander haar defensie verwaarloosd. In het begin werd dat in dit deel van de wereld als een geweldig voordeel beschouwd.'
Automation threatens 47 percent of U.S. jobs
By Fred Goldstein on April 17, 2014
A wakeup call for labor movement and working class
Two scholars at Oxford University have made an exhaustive study of 702 U.S. occupations and new techniques in automation. They concluded that 47 percent of existing jobs are at high risk of being automated in the next decade or so.
The authors, Carl Benedikt Fey and Michael Osborne, studied machine learning (ML) and mobile robotics (MR), the latest developments in automation that have enabled robots to handle complex, nonroutine tasks. The study, entitled “The Future of Employment: How Susceptible Are Jobs to Computerization?” showed trends flowing from what has already been done to jobs in order to project present and future possibilities. (Oxford Martin School, Programme on the Impacts of Future Technology)
One example of ML is diagnosis of cancer at Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City made by Watson, the IBM computer that famously beat the two best players on the television show “Jeopardy” and two chess grandmasters.
The computer is able to read through 600,000 pages of medical evidence, 1.5 million pages of patient records and 2 million pages of text from medical journals. It can compare each patient’s symptoms, medical history, genetics, etc., to diagnose and develop a precise treatment plan with the highest possibility of success. The possibility for this type of ML to destroy knowledge workers’ jobs is obvious. According to the study, 140 million knowledge jobs worldwide could be automated out of existence.
Advances in the field of MR are reflected in such developments as a General Electric robot that can climb and repair wind turbines or Google’s driverless cars, which can deal with heavy traffic situations and cross-country trips alike without having an accident. This is due to advanced sensors, on-board computers and GPS-guided navigation. The cars can ”see” from behind, on the sides and in front simultaneously and make the proper driving adjustments in a way no human driver can.
Of course, this type of MR can also automate forklifts, agricultural equipment and an endless number of complex manual jobs. Transport, driving, loading and jobs of all types are potentially endangered in large numbers by increasingly mobile robots developed for the bosses.
Even low-wage workers are threatened. As the talk of raising the minimum wage began to get widespread coverage, particularly with fast food workers’ demands for a $15-an-hour wage, the automation industry began to develop a hamburger-making machine that grinds the meat, shapes it, cooks it and packages it.
The costs of robots are falling steadily. When the price of a robot drops below the wages paid to workers for about a year or two, then their jobs are endangered. Lower labor costs mean higher profits for the company. That is what has happened steadily over the last three decades. And it is what the capitalists have in store for the foreseeable future.
This is only the smallest sample of what the Oxford study covers. And it is impossible to say for certain how accurate the projections of the authors are. But even if they’re off by a significant margin, the potential dangers for the working class are significant — if they are not studied and dealt with.
Workers, unions, communities need to study threat
What is needed first of all is to take this valuable study out of the realm of academia, break it down and make it accessible to the labor movement and the workers. It should become the basis of broad-ranging discussion among unionists, community leaders, students, teachers and all who are threatened by future technological assaults on jobs and wages.
Of course, the problems of the working class and the unions are great, and millions are dealing with immediate and urgent problems. It is difficult under these circumstances to turn attention to more diffuse and future threats. But if this is ignored and allowed to run its course without the workers’ intervention, it can be extremely dangerous.
The workers and the unions must get control over the introduction of technology and not leave it to the will of the bosses. Any introduction of labor-saving technology must be accompanied by demands to shorten hours without loss in pay, covering as many jobs as possible.
This development must also be accompanied by massive jobs programs to carry out socially needed projects at union pay in order to absorb however many workers are displaced by technology.
This or a similar program must be offered up and discussed among union representatives, shop stewards and rank-and-file committees throughout the labor movement, in conjunction with the communities and the campuses. A network of committees must be established to report attempts by the bosses to carry out technological layoffs, and a rounded program for a fightback must be developed.
Robots could liberate; capitalism is the danger
But it is not robots that endanger jobs. It is capitalism and the bosses that are the threat. That must be clearly understood by the working class.
This study shows more than ever that the amount of labor time necessary for the production of the wealth that society needs to live on is diminishing with each advance in technology. The problem under capitalism and the profit system is that the reduction in necessary labor time results in an increase in unemployment.
What is needed is to use robots and automation to lighten the load of labor and to increase the leisure time of the masses of workers who create all the wealth. But that can only be done once the private-property system — the profit system of capitalism — is destroyed. In the meantime, the working class must get organized to take control of the capitalists’ drive to install job-killing technology.
Fred Goldstein is the author of “Low-Wage Capitalism” and “Capitalism at a Dead End,” which has been translated into Spanish as “El capitalismo en un callejón sin salida.” See web site and blog at lowwagecapitalism.com.
Vietnam. Amerikaanse soldaat die met gepaste trots de restanten van een Vietnamese vijand toont.
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Privatization Is A Ramp For Corruption and Insouciance Is a Ramp for War — Paul Craig Roberts
Privatization Is A Ramp For Corruption and Insouciance Is a Ramp for War
The New York Times has acquired a new Judith Miller
Paul Craig Roberts
The New York Times has acquired a new Judith Miller
Paul Craig Roberts
Libertarian ideology favors privatization. However, in practice privatization is usually very different in result than libertarian ideology postulates. Almost always, privatization becomes a way for well-connected private interests to loot both the public purse and the general welfare.
Most privatizations, such as those that have occurred in France and UK during the neoliberal era, and in Greece today and Ukraine tomorrow, are lootings of public assets by politically-connected private interests.
Another form of privatization is to turn traditional government functions, such as prison operation and many supply functions of the armed services, such as feeding the troops, over to private companies at a large increase in cost to the public. Essentially, the libertarian ideology is used to provide lucrative public contracts to a few favored persons who then reward the politicians. This is called “free enterprise.”
The privatization of prisons in the US is an example of the extraordinary cost and injustice of privatization. Privatization of prisons requires ever higher rates of incarceration in order to build profitability. The US, supposedly “a land of liberty” has by far the highest incarceration rates of all countries. The “free” US has not only the highest percentage of its population in prison but also the highest absolute number. “Authoritarian” China with four times the US population has fewer citizens in prison.
This article shows how well prison privatization works for well-connected private interests:http://www.globalresearch.ca/privatization-of-the-us-prison-system/5377824
It also shows the extraordinary shame, corruption, and discredit that prison privatization has brought to the US.
A few years ago I wrote about the conviction of two judges who were paid by privatized juvenile detention facilities to sentence kids to their facilities.
As Alain of Lille and later Karl Marx said, “Money is all.” In America money is all that is
important to the political system and to the bulk of the population. Essentially, America has no other values.
important to the political system and to the bulk of the population. Essentially, America has no other values.
Another great libertarian fantasy is Wall Street. In the libertarian mythology Wall Street is the mother of entrepreneurs and of the start-up companies that blossom into industrial, manufacturing, and commercial giants. In actual fact, Wall Street is the mother of enormous corruption. As Nomi Prins shows in All The President’s Bankers, it has always been the case.
Recently, there has been a spate of Wall Street whistleblowers. Many are reported by Pam Martens on her site, Wall Street On Parade, http://wallstreetonparade.com/2014/04/insiders-tell-all-both-the-stock-market-and-the-sec-are-rigged/
Unlike libertarian ideologues, Prins and Martens are former Wall Street insiders and know what they are talking about.
All US financial markets are rigged for the benefit of a few. We have had the exposure of high frequency trading front-running buy and sell orders. We have had the exposure of the big banks rigging the LIBOR interest rate and the London gold price fix. We have had the exposure of the Federal Reserve rigging via its dependent bullion banks the price of gold in the futures market. We have had the exposure in Congressional hearings of the rigging of metal and commodity prices. The dollar’s exchange value is rigged. And so forth. Yet no heads have rolled. Recently a SEC prosecuting attorney, James Kidney, retired. Upon his retirement, he proclaimed that his cases against the criminal big banks have been suppressed by SEC higher ups who have their eyes fixed on big jobs with the banks they are protecting while in government service.
So there you have it. The United States government is so overwhelmingly corrupt that even the financial regulatory agencies have been corrupted by the money of the private capitalists they are supposed to regulate.
America the corrupted. That is what we have become.
Not even Vladimir Putin understands how totally corrupt and insensitive to humanity Washington is.
Putin’s response to the Ukraine crisis created by Washington’s coup in Kiev is to rely on
“Russia’s Western partners,” the UN, the Obama regime, John Kerry, etc., to work out a reasonable solution to the crisis.
“Russia’s Western partners,” the UN, the Obama regime, John Kerry, etc., to work out a reasonable solution to the crisis.
Putin’s hope for a diplomatic solution is unrealistic. The NATO governments are bought-and-paid-for by Washington. For example, Germany is not a country. Germany is a mere piece of Washington’s empire. The German government will do as Washington says.The German government represents Washington’s agenda. The European governments to whom Putin is speaking are not listening.
Paul Wolfowitz, the neoconservative who as Deputy Secretary of Defense presided over the orchestration of the false evidence used by the Bush regime to launch Washington’s wars in the Middle East, declared the minimization of Russian power as the “first objective” of US foreign and military policy:
“Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere, that poses a threat on the order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union. This is a dominant consideration underlying the new regional defense strategy and requires that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power.”
What Wolfowitz means by “hostile power” is any power independent of Washington’s hegemony.
Washington overthrew the elected Ukraine government in order to orchestrate a crisis that would distract Russia from Washington’s adventures in Syria and Iran and in order to demonize Russia as an invader rebuilding an empire that is a danger to Europe. Washington will use this demonization in order to break-up growing economic relationships between Russia and Europe. The purpose of sanctions is not to punish Russia, but to break up economic relationships.
Washington’s strategy is audacious and brings risk of war. If the West had an independent media, Washington’s plan would fail. But instead of a media, the West has a Ministry of Propaganda. The New York Times has even found a replacement for Judith Miller. As you might have forgot or never known, Judith Miller was the New York Times reporter who filled the Times with Bush regime neoconservative lies about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Instead of examining and exposing the Bush regime’s false claims, the New York Times bolstered the regime’s case for war by using the newspaper’s credibility to advance the neoconservative war agenda.
The new Judith Miller is David M. Herszenhorn, with accomplices Andrew Roth, Noah Sneider, and Andrew Higgins. Herszenhorn dismisses the totality of Russian media accounts of events in Ukraine as “an extraordinary propaganda campaign” designed to hide the fact from the Russian population that the entire Ukraine crisis is the fault of the Russian government: “And so began another day of bluster and hyperbole, of the misinformation, exaggerations, conspiracy theories, overheated rhetoric and, occasionally, outright lies about the political crisis in Ukraine that have emanated from the highest echelons of the Kremlin and reverberated on state-controlled Russian television, hour after hour, day after day, week after week.”http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/16/world/europe/russia-is-quick-to-bend-truth-about-ukraine.html?ref=davidmherszenhorn&_r=0
I have never read a more blatant piece of propaganda than Herszenhorn’s. He bases his report on two “authorities,” Lilia Shevtsova of the American-funded Carnegie Moscow Center, and Mark Galeotti, a NYU professor.
According to Herszenhorn, the widespread protests in eastern Ukraine are entirely the fault of the protesters who are putting on a show for propaganda purposes. The protests are not a response to words and deeds of the Washington-installed stooge government in Kiev. Herszenhorn dismisses reports of extreme nationalist neo-nazi Russophobia as “sinister claims” and regards the Washington-imposed unelected government in Kiev as legal. However, Herszenhorn regards governments formed as a result of referendums to be illegal unless approved by Washington.
If you place your faith in Herszenhorn, you will dismiss all reports such as those below as lies and propaganda:
If you place your faith in Herszenhorn, you will dismiss all reports such as those below as lies and propaganda:
The Western World is the World of the Matrix protected by the Ministry of Propaganda. Western populations are removed from reality. They live in a world of propaganda and disinformation. The actual situation is far worse than the “Big Brother” reality described by George Orwell in his book, 1984.
The ideology known as neoconservatism, which has controlled US governments since Clinton’s second term, has the world set on a path to war and destruction. Instead of raising questions about this path, the Western media hurries the world down the path. Read what medical doctors report will be the result of the neoconservative Obama regime’s belief that nuclear war can be won:http://original.antiwar.com/lawrence-wittner/2014/04/14/your-doctors-are-worried/
The Chinese government has called for “de-americanizing the world.” The Russian legislature understands that being part of the dollar payments system is a Russian subsidy to American Imperialism. The Russian legislator, Mikhail Degtyaryov told Izvestia that “The dollar is evil. It is a dirty green paper stained with blood of hundreds of thousands of civilian citizens of Japan, Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Korea and Vietnam.” http://rt.com/politics/russian-dollar-abandon-parliament-085/
However, Russian industry spokesmen, possibly on Washington’s payroll but likely just people without a clue, said that Russia was bound by contracts to the dollar system and that perhaps in 10 or 15 years Russia could take a more intelligent approach. That is assuming that Russia would still be capable of acting in its own interests after suffering 10 or 15 years more of US financial imperialism.
Every country that wishes to have an independent existence without living under Washington’s thumb should immediately depart the dollar payment system, which is a form of US control over other countries. That is the only purpose that the dollar system serves.
Many countries are afflicted by economists trained in the US in the neoliberal tradition.
Their US education is a form of brainwashing that ensures that their advice renders
their governments impotent against Washington’s imperialism.
Their US education is a form of brainwashing that ensures that their advice renders
their governments impotent against Washington’s imperialism.
Despite the obvious threats that Washington poses, many do not recognize the threats because of Washington’s pose as “the greatest democracy.” However, scholars looking for this democracy cannot find it in the US. The evidence is that the US is an oligarchy, not a democracy.http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-u-s-is-not-a-democracy-it-is-an-oligarchy/5377765
An oligarchy is a country that is run for private interests. These private interests–Wall Street, the military/security complex, oil and natural gas, and agribusiness–seek domination, a goal well served by the neoconservative ideology of US hegemony.
The American Oligarchs win even when they lose. Finally, Washington’s notorious torture prison, Abu Ghraib, has been closed. But not by Washington. The Iraqi city fell last week to “defeated” al-Qaeda. Remember, we won the war in Iraq. $3 trillion wasted, but that’s not the way the military/security complex sees it. The war was a great victory for profits. http://news.antiwar.com/2014/04/15/after-al-qaeda-expansion-iraqs-infamous-abu-ghraib-finally-closes/
How much longer will dumbshit americans fall for the flag-waving deception?
The Republicans used the wars in order to create huge budget deficits and national debt that are now being used to dismantle the social safety net, including Social Security and Medicare. There’s talk of privatizing Social Security and Medicare. More profits for Oligarchs in the offering. The gullibility of the American population is really without compare.
The Republicans used the wars in order to create huge budget deficits and national debt that are now being used to dismantle the social safety net, including Social Security and Medicare. There’s talk of privatizing Social Security and Medicare. More profits for Oligarchs in the offering. The gullibility of the American population is really without compare.
The gullibility of the American public will doom the world to extinction.
2 opmerkingen:
Oorlogen en epidemieen. Maak er profijt van:
Riordan recruited Donald Rumsfeld to join the board of directors in 1988.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilead_Sciences
Off topic.
Vrolijk Pasen Stan en Heikelien!
Sigh... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdxo1mZeY68
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