[PEN-L:4987] Re: revolt of the haves

[BILL MITCHELL <ECWFM@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Michael P. began this by saying he was talking to a bunch of liberals
but instead a pack of "polite" militiapersons turned up to his
talk.  What exactly is a liberal in the USA? over here they are the
name for the conservative, dog-eat-dog free market globalisation party
who, thankfully have been the main opposition for the last 12 years.

Various other people have written the following:

>>of global competition. How to keep a populist eat-the-rich message (to say
>>nothing of a revolutionary socialist clarion call) from foundering on the
>>'brute facts' of globalization?

>What seems to me particularly difficult in responding effectively to the
>problem is the global imperative that drives it: that is, it seems to me
>not only incumbent on us to grasp its global dimensions but to frame an
>approach that addresses the problem in a global perspective: specifically,
>one that is not limited to the interests of, for example, the working
?classes in the core countries in general or our own country in particular.

Like all countries OZ has gone "global" which really means lowering the growth
of real wages (making it negative for the last 12 years on average - and that
has been in the hands of a labour government, although it is getting hard
to tell the difference these days), allowing speculators to govern your
policy choices, and extending the environmental degradation across the world
(in the name of paying back the IMF or the World Bank).

the inability of domestic governments to clearly target social policies is
an alarming consequence of this. Our Govt. is continually saying what would
the markets think? that is what would the jerks that Doug so eloquently
describes from time to time who wouldn't have a brain between them.

While clearly the imperative is being driven by international capital in search
of cheaper places to produce, it is also the fault of all of us - who might
collectively be called the workers.

and this raises in my mind one of the real quandaries of this area of
discussion or thought.

(a) By consuming we give the global world jobs. How else are the poor going
to become less so. we had a bit of a debate about this some time in the past.
(b) By consuming we ratify the push by the cappos (whose goal is not to make
the poor less poor - that is only a passing consequence - and maybe not a
permanent effect), into wider markets and buttress the "globalisation".

if the left adopted an aesetic position w.r.t. consumption and especially
abandoned buying all the trash from asia and elsewhere (that is where we
get most of our trash from), and pushed harder for environmental protection,
the economics of globalisation would be less attractive to the cappos.

sure it leaves the workers who have left the poverty of the village to the
almost poverty of the factory job in the crowded city in a hole.

but really, not meaning to preach, every time we, in the so-called advanced
world, eat meat on the table, we have ratified the destruction of forests in
less advanced countries. every time we feed our pets meat we have denied people
in the third world of resources. every time we buy some piece of shit from
k mart the global economy gets stronger. there are so many aspects to all of
this.

less material and more soul is a good place to start the fightback.

it only touches the surface i know.

Kind regards
bill
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