[Marxism] One reason why things are still drifting toward a bloodletting in New Orleans

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

We have to recognize that the incompetence and incapacity of the
government and even of the ruling class as a whole has been exposed
before the world on a high scale.  The experience has to have been
profoundly humiliating even if they cover it up or deny it to
themselves.

How much weight can anyone give to their claims to have solutions for
the world's problems?

After all, they may have created vastly more disorder and ruin in Iraq,
but they are still slaughtering the population at an impressive rate.
The idea that nothing solves problems better than a good bloodbath has
been taking hold with the rulers for a while (domestically it has been
the core answer to crime, and internationally to "terrorism", Islamic
fundamentalism and many other problems).

In this situation, the temptation is to find an opening to do the one
thing they still know they can organize and accomplish with efficiency,
which is, of course, to kill people in sizable numbers. It's a way to
send the whole world, including the people of the United States, a
message about who is still in charge here.

This is one reason why the politicians, whose utter irrelevance to
anything positive or constructive has been demonstrated, love to talk
about being "ruthless" with looters or disorderly people, and about
issuing "shoot-to-kill" orders, or about killing a few bad guys will
settle things down in the Superdome or whatever.  Talking about the one
thing they know how to organize and carry out with a modicum of
efficiency is an outlet for a deep sense of degradation as the
leadership which is unavoidable in the face of the loss of a significant
US and world urban center not ultimately to a savage storm, but to
incompetence, disorganization, and internal social, political, and
economic decay.

So that is part of what continues to push things toward a military
confrontation of some sort in which "America" (one of them, anyway) can
show the world that there is one field where they are still
unchallengably Number One. An orgy of violence, a lot of arrests, long
prison sentences, maybe an execution or two may be needed to prove to
the rulers themselves that the government is still capable of decisive
action, that they have the situation in hand and the problems are on the
way to being solved and, above all, that they still deserve to be able
to demand obedience.

Fred Feldman


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