Surviving Capitalism (Not) : America's Biggest Jobs Program -- The U.S. Military

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Monday, August 16, 2010

America's Biggest Jobs Program -- The U.S. Military

by Robert Reich from TPM Cafe. The current economic depression has a lot of benefits for the ruling capitalist class. The most important are the following:

It provides an opportunity for cut backs on all social benefit programs and other government programs which do not directly benefit capitalists.
It disciplines working people so that they will behave subserviently to their bosses, won't ask for pay raises or increase of benefits, will even tolerate pay cuts, and won't strike.
It provides an abundant supply for their imperialist armies. The armed serves are now for the first time filling their recruitment quotas.
It directly feeds huge profits to the military-industrial complex characterized by a few monopolistic corporations that rule the US. The ruling class does not want to outsource this highly profitable sector to other cheap labor countries for obvious reasons.The article focuses on this benefit.

The author, who was formerly the Secretary of Labor under President Clinton, is the consummate liberal as illustrated by this article. He complains about the present government policies that are being continued under Obama and describes them as "insane" or "nuts".

Well, he's right from a societal point of view. But he should well know that our society does not function for the benefit of society as a whole, but for those who rule over us because they own all the significant components of our economy. And I'm sure he does know, but poses as a critic because it pays to have some critics around as long as they don't delve too deeply into how the system really works. The system needs to support its democratic mythology by having liberals who provide some semblance of opposing views.

That is the main difference between fascism and capitalist "democracy". The former doesn't pretend to tolerate views that are not supportive of private ownership of the economy. Hence it doesn't need to play to the democratic myths that are so prominent in US indoctrination programs found in corporate media and educational institutions. Fascism plays up other myths such as fear of foreigners, threats from other countries or groups (terrorists, Muslims, immigrants). As is obvious, there is a strong element of fascism in today's society.