Posts that I especially recommend today: Friday, February 5, 2021
CounterPunch runs Urie's articles occasionally to demonstrate their radicalness, but this is all pretense. Usually they post articles that support the ruling capitalist class with emphasis on criticisms of the government. However,
the legitimacy of capitalist classes is increasingly being called into
question and doubts are rising. The people at CounterPunch don't want to be left behind. Worse yet, nowadays pretense is omnipresent in our capitalist culture.
Because
the rising capitalist in the 18th century had a sufficient answer to
the existential quandaries of humans, and the rule of a small group of aristocracy, which based their rule on inheritance, whose ancestors had conquered lands and enjoyed papal support for their rule, became no longer viable. Capitalists were able to attain state power based on individual "ownership" of economic property.
This class took power away from feudal authorities and soon learned that
"ownership" of economic property brought other rewards such as
political influence. Under this class's system of capitalism, economic property
became a commodity to be purchased in some market; and today this class
has, through the consolidation of property into a few hands, taken
control of many nations.
Starting in the late 20th century, capitalist classes used feudal inheritance laws to consolidate vast economic properties. They soon saw opportunities in other nations to acquire property which gave them more influence within their native countries and beyond. They no longer felt bound in nation-states in order to pursue their goals of ever increasing consolidation of property. Thus, arose a transnational class of capitalists with an ideology of neoliberalism. ("neo" of course means new, and "liberal" refers to the classic definition of capitalist ideology. They, as a ruling class, have imposed this term because it sounds much nicer than transnational capitalism.) Wherever possible, this new class has removed national barriers from restrictions that nations have imposed on the exchange of commodities.
It was soon to become apparent that the capitalist belief that you could
simply
buy economic property in some market and accumulate ever increasing profits and power was mistaken. It could, and did, lead to
many other social problems like gross inequality, crime, wars, etc. Soon
people learned that the source of individual wealth was strongly influenced by
class
that you were born into which gave advantages such as educational
opportunities, opportunities provided by family wealth,
political and economic social connections, etc. The new Protestant Christian sects of the Reformation can no longer convince most people to
support capitalist rule.
However
by this time, ruling capitalist classes gained so much social and
political power that they could limit such recognition and impose the
values and norms of capitalism. This is when pretense and capitalist
propaganda really set into motion. In the 21st century this trend was followed by increasing amounts of
censorship and propaganda that validated capitalism and capitalist rule.
This is where we are today: capitalist class overwhelming control of
nations, powerless citizens, omnipresent censorship, surveillance of communications, and ruling class propaganda that is designed to hide truthful reporting of events, and
the use of various sophisticated means of manipulation of thoughts of sub-classes.
And, the frequent collapses of capitalist economies is contributing to this feeling of
illegitimacy. In short, the philosophical foundations of capitalism are
increasingly
being seen as illegitimate. What is
much worse, the dominant system of capitalism is in terminal conflict
with the forces of nature which will produce dramatic climatic crises,
and will likely end with the extinction of humans and most other species that exist today.
- You Never Know by David Perez from Off-Guardian, and independent weblog based in Britain.
- Is the Current Climate Catastrophe Irreversible? by Vladimir Danilov from New Eastern Outlook. My reaction: The future looks to me far worse than the author's. Note that he leaves his pessimistic essay on an insane false-hope. Anyone who believes that the Biden administration will rescue us from climate destabilization should seek psychiatric help.
- American Marines Reclaimed Northern China in 1945 from Tales of the American Empire via their YouTube channel in a 6:59m video. (Note: This is for history buffs who got a history that was extensively revised and taught in American public schools.)