[Marxism] Boycott Japan and China (was The Case For Boycotting Israel and the United States)

["Yoshie Furuhashi" <critical.montages@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 8/7/06, Lou Paulsen <loupaulsen@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Carrol wrote:
> That is, a critique of Israel can morph into a critique of the
> U.S. And I think what has been at issue from the beginning,
> independently of different expressions or emphases, is the necessity of
> focusing on U.S. imperialism, not Israel or Zionism, as _the_ enemy.
>
> Me: precisely so.
>
> But I think that it would morph more quickly, and the point
> would get made faster, if, when someone comes up to us
> (in the United States at least, and maybe elsewhere) and says,
> "Here you go demonizing Israel again!", we could say, "Not at all.
> The chief demon is U.S. imperialism.  That's why we proudly
> support the boycott of both Israel AND the United States
> which is being carried out by our sisters and brothers in
> the rest of the world."

But think: who pays for the multinational empire?  It ain't Tel Aviv,
and it ain't Washington either.  It's not even the biggest American
capitalists.

Two of the richest individual members of the American ruling class,
Bill Gates (Net Worth: $51.0 billion) and Warren Buffett (Net Worth:
$40.0 billion), have bet against the dollar, but they have lost money.

Why?

The largest institutional investors, Tokyo and Beijing, have continued
to support the dollar:

MAJOR FOREIGN HOLDERS OF TREASURY SECURITIES
(in billions of dollars)
HOLDINGS 1/ AT END OF PERIOD

Country  May 2006
Japan       637.9
China        326.1

<http://www.treasury.gov/tic/mfh.txt>

Essentially, Tokyo and Beijing, state capitalist actors, are the
largest individual members of the multinational ruling class, but they
can't participate in US elections, and they can't easily wield their
economic power to put pressures on the US government, even if they had
any misgivings about Washington's Iraq War, Iran campaign, or Middle
East policy in general (it is not clear that they do), for that will
result in momentous upheavals in Japan and China as well as the USA.

That's the most important gap between the power elite who directly run
the multinational empire, who are American, and the ruling class, who
are multinational.  In essence, the multinational ruling class can't
control the US power elite, for the most powerful members of them need
the USA as their most important export market.  No wonder the empire
is running amok.

It would be a different story, of course, if I were running Japan. :->
I'd build nuclear weapons (surely they could be built in Japan in no
time, unlike in Iran), abolish Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution,
beef up the military (hardware must be replaced and soldiers must be
retrained, for Washington will no longer provide Japan with them) --
all pleasing to the Right -- and sign new mutual defense treaties with
Beijing and Moscow (sweetened with generous bilateral treaties on
investment and technology transfer), establish a Yen bloc, make even
better friends with oil producers than Tokyo does now (have I
mentioned my love for Palestinians, Arabs, and Iranians?  I can see
the headline: "New Japanese Prime Minister, Darling of Arab Streets"),
reestablish lifetime employment, and promise a Constituent Assembly to
rewrite the rest of the Constitution -- all pleasing to the Left --
and tell Washington to pack up its military and leave -- pleasing to
the Left and the Right!  Now, it's time to whip up a new Japanese
nationalism -- against America, which would be easy because by then
Washington will have become apoplectic, started calling names (a New
Tojo!), and begun to put quotas on Japanese goods and other sanctions
on Japan -- for it is necessary to get the people ready for temporary
sacrifices to come; and then it's time to dump the dollar.  The birth
pangs of a New Multipolar World.

But I'm not running Japan, therefore:

Boycott Japan and China, the Financiers of the Multinational Empire!
--
Yoshie
<http://montages.blogspot.com/>
<http://mrzine.org>
<http://monthlyreview.org/>

________________________________________________
YOU MUST clip all extraneous text before replying to a message.
Send list submissions to: Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism