National instruments, Ukraine - flikr creative commons

I read a piece not long ago on the origins of the popularity of Adolph Hitler and what he was saying and who he was speaking to.  It was focused on Pan-Germanism – the Ethnocentric movement to unify all those of German heritage. One of the keystones of Hitler’s appeal in Austria, Hungary and Prussia – to name but a few.  A very strong and deep seated almost tribal belief and/or feeling. Much more than some political nationalism. More a nativism.

When it was stated that the Soviets won WWII for the Allies, they were corrected. It was the Russians winning it for Russia by shear strength of will. What Finns call Sisu or the British “Pure bloody mindedness” . Fighting on not for some political ideal but for their Russian kinfolk and heritage.

It was this deep seated feeling of native-ism and cultural/religious tribalism that was responsible for one of the last bloody conflicts on the European continent. Resulting in the breakup of the former Yugoslavia republic. Resulting in no less than 8 separate autonomous states.  Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia. The only things that kept this entities together as one republic were the heavy handed tactics of Marshal Tito and a lot of Soviet troops.

I was not as aware of how deeply seated this situation was until after viewing Michael Palin’s New Europe series. Where he visits most of the countries that emerged after the breakup and fall of the Soviet Union.   Examples being those I sited above as well as Trans-Dniestr - a break away territory from Moldavia.  They even fought a civil war over it. The people there speak Russian and consider themselves mostly Russian. It’s what binds them together.  Which is a bit precarious since  Trans-Dniestr  lies between the rest of Moldavia and the Ukraine – where proclaiming ones Russian is NOT a way to win friends and influence people.

The Ukraine is very  much anti-Russian and speaking anything but Ukrainian is at best frowned upon.

Moldavia itself has more a kindred connection with it’s western neighbor Romania, where the main language spoken is Romanian. In fact there was a movement to unite both countries into one. They are still working to get some closer relationship established.

Then you have Kaliningrad Oblast.  It sits on the Baltic Sea right between Lithuania and Poland. Part of Russia but not connected to it. It’s population is nearly all Russian.

When people spoke of the country it was more in a cultural/clannish or even ethic way than political.   Nearly all – if not all – having deep traditions, beliefs and backgrounds all their own and going back many hundreds of years. With music and arts that are still practiced and they are proud of. And a great deal of passion for all of it.

Which of course brings me to this country.  It’s a common misconception that the USA began as this “Great melting pot” where everyone would get along just fine. I would not say it as such. More like masses of people who where trying to escape various forms of oppression and poverty in there country of origin. Just as they are mostly today. And that they did not so much “get along” as they avoided contact unless necessary.  Easy enough to do initially with gobs of land to dot it in after the natives were removed.  Each keeping for a long time there own culture and traditions.

With large populations of Scandinavians in the upper peninsula of Michigan and Wisconsin.  Germans in and around Iowa. Irish in the North East. And each city with enclaves of various nationalities – each grouped separately.

The US has not real culture or tradition of it’s own. It’s a mish-mash. And it still goes on with new immigrants associating and living mostly with those of the same background.  What Americans refer to as American culture and tradition is something that has been manufactured by some Wall Street firm and marketed to them by some Madison Av. advertising firm.   Mom, the girl next store and apple pie sold to you with a 20% off mark down. All clean, white and christian.

But this facade is wearing thin and the veneer showing cracks.  And I feel that one of the things we are seeing these days is a pent up desire to be able to define ones self and ones group by something more than a superficial view as sold by the media. What ever that maybe.

This innate need for some kind of tribal belonging trumps politics, even though it appears to manifest it self there. Indeed I fell that it is one aspect of what drives the expanding political divide we are having.   That our advances in communications have had the opposite effect on our relationships enabling people to align themselves in more deeper in a tribal and clannish manner but also creating more divisions by the increased contact with each one.

This false America of white anglo saxon christians is fading away at break neck speed as more and more  groups show their need to be recognized and respected. The immigration issue and even the gun issue plays into this as white America becomes just one more of a number of different clans. And the election of a black man to president makes this doubly obvious.

When I hear someone say “America is a christian nation” the word white is never said but always implied.

That this country will be able to remain as on without some very oppressive measures would be surprising.  And extreme oppression would not be tolerated by anyone regardless of their ideology or ethnic background.

Of course Wall Street will try to make hey on this as they do everything. Like and addicted gambler they will try to bet on the outcome and influence it, but I do believe they will fail since it’s always the gambler that has to get out of town fast.

And we are seeing this now not only in political realignment but in the continued change in physical/geographical demographics as well.   One can denigrate this behavior as archaic and insist that we here and elsewhere should be above all this.  But it is deep within the human psyche and goes back thousands of years. The basis for racial distrust and hatred.  And will take many generations to rise above.

But give all of this the one thing I find missing from the verbiage from both the right and the left is passion. Any strong expression of how they feel.  It’s nearly all what I call “head stuff”. Thought rational that lacks real feeling. The kind you got from the civil rights marches and MLK. And the peace movements of the 1960s and RFK.

Too many separate groups each with their own agenda which they may feel strongly about but not passionately shared by all. So each are easily manipulated.    A cumulative expression of passion on a single issue was last seen in this country during the 1930s and the rise of unionism and socialist though.  And most of these folks where white working class. Now quickly becoming a minority.

How can you become passionate about the right to own a big house and snazzy car ?   It’s totally superficial.   Which may also explain why despite what is going on economically and politically there has not been any real uprising. And why it has been fairly easy for TPTB to put down any attempt.

Even the so called tea party has fizzled.  No real passion there just a group of pissed of immature spoiled brats.

Our lack of any real cultural heritage and there fore lack of real passion is what is keeping the status quo alive.

Banksy Foreclosed Dreams - flickr/Finger food

One of the main topics these days has been about how to “save the system”. Meaning our current political and economic system here and maybe elsewhere. Or the eventual collapse of same regardless of what anyone does or attempts to do.

And one of the main aspects of this is then context in which this is being done. As if the time after WWII and the depression of the 1930s is the way things have always been and the attitudes there in were the way people always were. The problem here is that anyone who has read any history should know – this is false. But most of us still alive think this way. Those of us born after WWII. The so called Baby Boomers and their off spring.

Before WWII unless you were born into a “Middle Class” family – and I am using the wikipedia definition here, the college educated professional class – your life would be pretty rough. Either working a farm or on one or working in some factory in some metro area for horrible pay and lousy working conditions and lousy housing. And that is if you were white. If you were a minority, it was even rougher.

There were no suburbs or interstate highways or big box discount stores. Health care was minimal, if at all. And the depression made this all much worse. For farmers thing were already getting rough with droughts that precede the dust bowl and the depression. Not to mention that just prior to this in the late 1800s, grain prices had gone down a black hole do to over production caused by the mechanization of farming.

And unless you were born into a very well off family, higher education was pretty much out of the question. There were few state universities and the private ones were beyond all but the very fortunate.

Babe boomers however had it much much better. Our parents got to go to college thanks to Uncle Sam if they were in the service. State Universities were being built along with community colleges. The war and what followed created a huge demand for workers not know before hand. There was a major building boom do to the lack of housing and suburbs popped up like weeds. Unemployment was low and wages were going up. If you were white, during this period, you future was a hell of lot more rosy than you parents was. And most kids then were expected to go to college if they had anything on the ball at all. A major change from previous generations.

Now here is the problem. We were all told – on the radio, television, by our parents and in school – this is the way things are and the ways things will always be. Maybe not on those words, but that was the message. We were not told that this was primarily because the US was the only show in town. That the rest of the world was in the stone age or had been bombed into the stone age. That a very large number of the jobs out there had to do with make weapons to fight those horrible communists. That the cheap gas and oil etc. were provided by US companies that used slave labor to steal it from other less developed nations.

And to tell you the truth few if any of us cared. We were too busy with rock and roll and the beat generation. Hot Rods and girls. The space race. A few of us became aware of racial bigotry and civil rights and began to come a bit more involved with this. Joining marches and protests and singing songs. But with the intention of returning to our nice comfortable lives.

The Vietnam war geared up and more of us get involved with protesting that – primarily to keep our heads from being blown off. And with the intention of returning to our nice comfortable lives. But along the way a lot of us became very disenchanted with our government and political system. We grew up idealistic and getting pretty much what we wanted. We expected to be treated well and listened to and when we were not… When we were treated like some kind of inconvenient pest, a large number developed a deep seated resentment. And far too often this was passed on to their children as well.

We were going to change the world…the system and when we could not, felt betrayed by the whole establishment. Government, education, corporate…you name it. But our expectations were unreal. We were unaware or refused to accept that the times and our it’s prosperity were one huge propaganda event. To show the world that our system was so much better that the “other” system. And as soon as this was no longer necessary, tossed aside like a used newspaper.

Because far too many of us – of my generation, the boomers – would not completely see that because we were white that others were not, was a big reason why our lives had been so comfortable. And that as soon as that was no longer necessary, we would become unnecessary as well.

We had the privilege to live a fantasy. A Disney kind of life for a while. But the fantasy is over. Time to get real.

Manhattan Buildings - flickr / Russ Glasson

America has been called the great melting pot. If so, then to me at least, it’s more like fondue that has gone horribly wrong. This great mixing of cultures has yielded a country that is becoming more splintered and divided each year. Instead of molding the traditions and cultural values that were brought over here by those from other areas into one, a number of these beliefs and values have been lost or simply tossed aside.

A country where personal agendas and monetary rewards take president over relationships and community. I remember when it was not so much. When everything did not have a price and avarice was considered by most to be crude and uncouth. Where you went out of your way from friends because friendship meant something. Where people looked out for one another and supported one another. Where jingoistic propaganda was not necessary to get people to back and idea or action. Where everything did not have to be sold by a carnival barker.

I remember a time when a cabbage could sell itself just by being a cabbage. Nowadays it’s no good being a cabbage-unless you have an agent and pay him a commission. Nothing is free any more to sell itself or give itself away. These days, Countess, every cabbage has it’s pimp. - Rag Picker “The Madwoman of Chaillot“

Morris Berman brings this up using Seinfeld as a definitive example.

In the case of the Seinfeld scripts, Jerry provided the upbeat, overt aspect of the show’s humor, while Larry David supplied the subtext. Larry’s vision, especially about America, was quite dark. As a result, there is an undercurrent in the episodes, one which says that the United States is a country in which friendship is pretty much a sham and community nonexistent; a society where nobody gives a damn about anybody else.

This is true not only in the way that the four central characters–Jerry, Elaine, George, and Kramer–relate to those outside their little circle, but also in the way they relate to each other. They often talk simultaneously, “through” each other, as though the other person weren’t even present. All four of them appear to have only one motive: advancement of their own personal and immediate goals. In a word, the show is actually about the callousness, the almost autistic indifference, of daily life in America; and this is revealed in episode after episode.

Berman then gives a half a dozen plot synopsis as examples of this. But he leaves out I think a very important aspect in the socio economic context. That of the upper class white areas. The gated communities and those with home owners associations and condos and what not. Upper class suburbia and upper class town houses etc. But even the series Friends tried to play this kind of relationship for laughs as well, though with a bit more subtlety.

Among the poor and black and asian and latino communities, this is not the case. At least not nearly as much. For they need to have more brotherhood and fellowship to make it. And from my own small experience they do. This deep rooted community spirit was most prevalent within various ethnic and cultural areas but rarely between different ones. It was also quite visible in rural family farming areas and amongst those who were laborers and blue collar workers as well. It helped to bring together unions and other organizations. It was this value system and attitude that pushed us forward and paved the way for the inventions and progressive attitudes.

So it should come as no surprise that as this value of brotherhood and community as diminished, so have the unions and other organizations. The “Me Generation” and their offspring have take over. Born with a silver spoon in their mouths, dishwashers to keep them clean and sanitary and a guaranteed income from their bought and payed for education. Those that want to throw out anything that they personally do not benefit from but costs them money. A nation that goes to war for no good reason but to further someones agenda. Where Ayn Rand can is a popular metaphor. And as Berman points out at the end of his piece:

When Jerry phones his lawyer, “Jackie Chiles” (a Johnnie Cochran look-alike), to explain that they were arrested for not coming to someone’s aid, Jackie explodes with indignation: “Why, that’s ridiculous!” he barks. “You don’t have to help anybody. That’s what this country is all about!” As the popular American expression has it, He got that one right.

The trial over, the judge sentences our heroes to a year in jail, commenting that “your callous disregard for other human beings threatens to rock the very foundations of society.” But which society? What the show tells us, in episode after episode, is that callous disregard for other human beings is the foundation of society–American society, that is. And so the subtext finally breaks through in no uncertain terms: Seinfeld was A Show About Something, after all.

Seinfeld ran for 10 seasons and was one of the most popular shows at the time. And no wonder, it presented American upper class values to a tee. This show about nothing in a country about noting.

This 3 minute clip has been getting some play on the Internet. I don’t know how many people have shared it on YouTube and FB but it has been quite a few. The opening of the new series NEWSROOM, though not having cable I will not be able to see just how honest it will remain.  Most series have at least 3 minutes worth watching.

Now I do have to disagree to a small extent with the last part of the monologue he gives.  That the US was ever the greatest country in the world is highly debatable.  This is our national myth, to get the general populace to go along with whatever hair-brained idea the people in Washington came up with to keep those on Wall Street fat and happy.

If one reads any history as presented by Howard Zinn or James Loewen or Richard Hofstadter or many others, you would see that we really were not better than many other countries. We did not invent everything. And out motivations were significantly less than honorable.  They were downright mercenary nearly all the time.   Our wars were always fought for some economic reason. We were always violent, arrogant and self righteous.   And the whole point of our military and constitution is to protect and serve the financial and merchant classes.

So the ending of this little clip is a bit off. But then it’s television and maintaining the myth pays the bills.

The consumer confidence has dropped again for the second straight month according to AFP. As if this was some sort of anomaly. And at World Economic Forum in Davos the movers and shakers are try to figure out what to do next with the current economic down turn, as if they had any clue. They don’t but that’s OK, they’ll still party like there is no tomorrow. There just might not be.

The problem is that everyone thinks we are experiencing some odd deviation from the norm. That there is some problem with the world economy that needs to be fixed and if only the correct solution could be found, everything would right itself and start humming along. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Economic downturns and financial crisis are all part of capitalism. They are in fact capitalism itself. Marx was quite clear on this.

Capitalism is an economic system that is inherently crisis-prone. It is driven by forces which cause it to be unstable, anarchic and self-destructive. This is as true today as it was over 150 years ago, when Karl Marx and his collaborator Frederick Engels described capitalism in the Communist Manifesto as “a society that has conjured up such gigantic means of production and of exchange, [that it] is like the sorcerer, who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells.”1

Indeed, today’s world of wild stock market booms and slumps, recurring layoffs and long-term unemployment, corporate scandals and power blackouts, seems to fit their description better than ever before. The present economic downturn is no exception. The United States is currently in the middle of the longest period of job losses since the Great Depression of the 1930s. In fact, the U.S. economy today has 2.6 million fewer jobs that it did two years ago. Meanwhile, over two million people have lost health insurance coverage and personal bankruptcies hit a record of over 1.5 million households in 2002.2 In short, economic crises–recessions and depressions–were a part of capitalism at its birth and, despite promises to the contrary, continue to plague the system to this day.

Indeed. On need only to review the history of capitalism and the lists of financial crisis to see it is just one crisis and downturn after another with brief periods of stability followed by some economic bubble or boom followed by another crisis. Beginning ironically enough with tulips.

17th century

Tulip mania (1637)

18th century

South Sea Bubble (1720)
Crisis of 1772
Panic of 1792
Panic of 1796-1797

19th century

Post-Napoleonic depression
Danish state bankruptcy of 1813

Panic of 1819, a U.S. recession with bank failures; culmination of U.S.’s first boom-to-bust economic cycle
Panic of 1825, a pervasive British recession in which many banks failed, nearly including the Bank of England
Panic of 1837, a U.S. recession with bank failures, followed by a 5-year depression
Panic of 1847
Panic of 1857, a U.S. recession with bank failures
Panic of 1866

Long Depression (1873–1896)
Panic of 1873, a US recession with bank failures, followed by a four-year depression
Panic of 1884
Panic of 1890
Panic of 1893, a US recession with bank failures
Australian banking crisis of 1893

20th century

Panic of 1907, a U.S. economic recession with bank failures

Wall Street Crash of 1929 and Great Depression (1929–1939) the worst depression of modern history

OPEC oil price shock
Secondary banking crisis of 1973–1975 in the UK

Japanese asset price bubble (1986–2003)

Bank stock crisis (Israel 1983)
Black Monday (1987)

Savings and loan crisis of the 1980s and 1990s in the U.S.
1991 India economic crisis
Finnish banking crisis (1990s)
Swedish banking crisis (1990s)
1994 economic crisis in Mexico

1997 Asian financial crisis
1998 Russian financial crisis
Argentine economic crisis (1999–2002)

Quite a list. And these are just the biggies. There is a separate list of banking crisis that is nearly as long. We love to blame each of these on who ever is the leader at the time as if he or she was responsible for it, when financial crisis and downturns are part of the capitalistic system. There is also some belief that eliminating empires would fix it it as well, when empire is part of capitalism. In fact it’s a requirement since capitalism requires continued growth to exist and continued growth requires empire.

As you can see the mean time between failure is horrible and an engineer worth his or her salt would get rid of the system. And it can no more be regulated that an avalanche.

This is normal. The lousy jobs and lousy education and lousy outlook. Until the next bubble or final crash or until we replace it.

Black Friday - flickr

“History is a set of lies that people have agreed upon,” Napoleon said. “Even when I am gone, I shall remain in people’s minds the star of their rights, my name will be the war cry of their efforts, the motto of their hopes.”

It has always been thus, that people will glorify and embellish the past to suit their own egos. Especially when it comes to wars and the victors but even the losers as well. With stories and monuments and what not. Hollywood has made a fortune on this. Books by the millions have been written glorifying the past one way or another.

And as Chris Hedges point out, to inflate peoples egos and diminish others.

The split between those in Memphis who hold up authentic heroes—those who fought to protect, defend and preserve life, such as [Ida B.]Wells and Burkle—and those who memorialize slave traders and bigots such as Forrest points up a disturbing rise of a neo-Confederate ideology in the South. Honoring figures like [Nathan Bedford] Forrest in Memphis while ignoring Wells would be like erecting a statue to the Nazi death camp commander Amon Goeth in the Czech Republic town of Svitavy, the birthplace of Oskar Schindler, who rescued 1,200 Jews.

The rewriting of history in the South is a retreat by beleaguered whites into a mythical self-glorification. I witnessed a similar retreat during the war in Yugoslavia in the 1990s. As Yugoslavia’s economy deteriorated, ethnic groups built fantasies of a glorious past that became a substitute for history. They sought to remove, through exclusion and finally violence, competing ethnicities to restore this mythological past. The embrace by nationalist groups of a nonreality-based belief system made communication with other ethnic groups impossible. They no longer spoke the same cultural language. There was no common historical narrative built around verifiable truth. A similar disconnect was illustrated last week in Memphis when the chairman of the city’s parks committee, William Boyd, informed the council that Forrest “promoted progress for black people in this country after the war.” Boyd argued that the KKK was “more of a social club” at its inception and didn’t begin carrying out “bad and horrific things” until it reconstituted itself with the rise of the modern civil rights movement.

This is not limited to political history but to economic history as well. Idolizing the events and leaders of a past that was not nearly as glorious and successful as even those of us who lived it would like to imagine. The post WWII era and FDR’s New Deal. Which either helped tremendously or hindered horribly our economic endeavors. Depending on which revisionist history one adheres to. It generally was not quite that clear cut.

The Depression of the late 1920s and 1930s and (supposed) prosperity following WWII seems to be the current interest of both the right and the left. All conveniently forgetting that this was simply one of many economic downturns and may not even have been the worst. The depression of the late 1800s was by some accounts far worse and even lasted far longer.

But the economic fundamentals were shaky. Wheat exporters from Russia and Central Europe faced a new international competitor who drastically undersold them. The 19th-century version of containers manufactured in China and bound for Wal-Mart consisted of produce from farmers in the American Midwest. They used grain elevators, conveyer belts, and massive steam ships to export trainloads of wheat to abroad. Britain, the biggest importer of wheat, shifted to the cheap stuff quite suddenly around 1871. By 1872 kerosene and manufactured food were rocketing out of America’s heartland, undermining rapeseed, flour, and beef prices. The crash came in Central Europe in May 1873, as it became clear that the region’s assumptions about continual economic growth were too optimistic. Europeans faced what they came to call the American Commercial Invasion. A new industrial superpower had arrived, one whose low costs threatened European trade and a European way of life.

As continental banks tumbled, British banks held back their capital, unsure of which institutions were most involved in the mortgage crisis. The cost to borrow money from another bank — the interbank lending rate — reached impossibly high rates. This banking crisis hit the United States in the fall of 1873. Railroad companies tumbled first. They had crafted complex financial instruments that promised a fixed return, though few understood the underlying object that was guaranteed to investors in case of default. (Answer: nothing). The bonds had sold well at first, but they had tumbled after 1871 as investors began to doubt their value, prices weakened, and many railroads took on short-term bank loans to continue laying track. Then, as short-term lending rates skyrocketed across the Atlantic in 1873, the railroads were in trouble. When the railroad financier Jay Cooke proved unable to pay off his debts, the stock market crashed in September, closing hundreds of banks over the next three years. The panic continued for more than four years in the United States and for nearly six years in Europe.
The long-term effects of the Panic of 1873 were perverse. For the largest manufacturing companies in the United States — those with guaranteed contracts and the ability to make rebate deals with the railroads — the Panic years were golden. Andrew Carnegie, Cyrus McCormick, and John D. Rockefeller had enough capital reserves to finance their own continuing growth. For smaller industrial firms that relied on seasonal demand and outside capital, the situation was dire. As capital reserves dried up, so did their industries. Carnegie and Rockefeller bought out their competitors at fire-sale prices. The Gilded Age in the United States, as far as industrial concentration was concerned, had begun.

As the panic deepened, ordinary Americans suffered terribly. A cigar maker named Samuel Gompers who was young in 1873 later recalled that with the panic, “economic organization crumbled with some primeval upheaval.” Between 1873 and 1877, as many smaller factories and workshops shuttered their doors, tens of thousands of workers — many former Civil War soldiers — became transients. The terms “tramp” and “bum,” both indirect references to former soldiers, became commonplace American terms. Relief rolls exploded in major cities, with 25-percent unemployment (100,000 workers) in New York City alone. Unemployed workers demonstrated in Boston, Chicago, and New York in the winter of 1873-74 demanding public work. In New York’s Tompkins Square in 1874, police entered the crowd with clubs and beat up thousands of men and women. The most violent strikes in American history followed the panic, including by the secret labor group known as the Molly Maguires in Pennsylvania’s coal fields in 1875, when masked workmen exchanged gunfire with the “Coal and Iron Police,” a private force commissioned by the state. A nationwide railroad strike followed in 1877, in which mobs destroyed railway hubs in Pittsburgh, Chicago, and Cumberland, Md. The Real Great Depression – Scott Reynolds Nelson

But both sides of the debate really do not like talking about this part of history since upon close examination it revels how shaky the argument for capitalism really is. For this is the era that Marx was writing in and about. This crisis of capitalism that so parallels our own current situation. But that was the late 1800s and the capitalists were still able to grow and invent their way out of this mess. At least temporarily.

Inventions and growth though have built in limitations as well. This is one crisis that will not be grown out of or invented out of or even be solved by imperialistic wars, such as those used by Germany in the 1930s.

And like all eras of history, it has been glossed over by those who would like to think the years prior to WWI were so peaceful and nostalgic. Conveniently forgetting how horrific they actually were so as to vindicate their own agendas.

Empire State Building - Benjamin Dumas/flickr commons

Empire has been the mainstay and primary support of the bourgeoisie. Empire built  these people and empire has supported them since the eradication of feudalism and institution of capitalism. The merchants and factory owners. Businessman and clerics. Doctors and lawyers and management and stock brokers and investors and University and College deans and even more than a few professors. Especially those who are tenured.

With the fall of feudalism in the 19th century, mass subjugation of the local populace was replaced by subjugation of people in less developed areas of the world. England and France and Germany and The Netherlands and Spain and America all involved in imperialistic endeavors through out the world, one way or another. The Kings and Queens and presidents and prime ministers and all were the ones who drove the empires and the bankers and financiers help to fund, the bourgeoisie made out like bandits. Always making sure they got their cut. In return they gave their undying support to these efforts, like all good little toadies. The Grima Wormtongues,  Uriah Heeps, Fred Rutherfords and Frank Burns.

Oliver Stone has done a documentary on his book The Untold Story of The United States. Since I do not have cable and have no intention of ever getting it, I will likely not see it. So I bought the Kindle version of the book to read on my Mac.

I strongly suspect that the Showtime documentary is a bit milder as even they do not want to offend a lot of viewers. But there undoubtedly will be a number of them offended. As this take down of the review of the series by Alessandra Stanley by Ted Rall shows.

There is an old saying that If you are not outraged, you’re no paying attention. I would like to add this if after reading Oliver Stones book you do not want to engage in some serious blood letting on Wall Street, your reading comprehension is in doubt.

The book, like the series begins just before WWI with the election of Woodrow Wilson. Hitting on all the major and some minor events up to the Obama administration. Stone does a particular good job of deflating the blown up reputations of such heroes of the liberal establishment as Wilson, FDR, Truman, JFK, LBJ, Carter, Clinton and Obama. But neither does he leave Harding, Hoover, Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush of W alone. Giving then their do as well.

He [Stone] does an excellent job of showing how American flavor of imperialism was essentially Wall Street imperialism by proxy, initially in South America with the support of dictatorships there and helping to topple any regime that was not completely friendly to Wall Street. Especially the petroleum industry. Either directly or indirectly.

The book does a very good job of showing the thinking that was going on behind the entry into WWI and WWII but also touches on the domestic issues as well. Like the rise in the popularity of the Communist and Socialist parties here. How the Russian revolution and communism shook the capitalist elites to the very core. How this thinking is still prevalent today. Stone points out how any dissident voice against WWI was treated harshly and even lynched. That this was acceptable. And how propaganda was enhanced to make the public back entry into the war.

Even though America entered WWI late and lost far fewer men than Briton, France, Germany and even Russia, it left the country demoralized.

The most acerbic of democracy’s critics was certainly H. L. Mencken, “the sage of Baltimore.” Mencken referred to the common man, mired in religion and other superstitions, as a “boob,” a member of the species “boobus Americanus.” He expressed contempt for the same yeoman farmers whom Jefferson anointed the backbone of democracy, exclaiming “we are asked to venerate this prehensile moron as . . . the citizen par excellence, the foundation-stone of the state! . . . To Hell with him, and bad luck to him.” – The Untold Story of The United States

Stone not only goes into how WWI and the Treaty of Versailles were the set up for the rise in Adolf Hitler, but also how he was backed by German and American financiers. That Wall Street began it’s long love affair with fascism and Nazism backing not only Hitler but Mussolini as well and how Wall Street originated an attempted coup on the FDR presidency. Though he thinks FDR instituted some very progressive legislation, Stone also lets the reader know that a lot of his domestic policies did not include non-whites and that his conservative leanings in his second term nearly brought the country back into the depression.

WWII and the FDR presidency was a turning point in American foreign and domestic policy. FDR went to great lengths to win over Stalin and tried to help the Soviet Union with arms shipments, but they were always delayed. The the people of the United States were supportive of Stalin and his plight and the Communist part as popular as ever, having many notable writers, performers and academics as members – the military and right wing would find ways to stall this as much as possible. The Soviet Union had largely escaped the economic disaster of the depression and was heralded as a triumph. Stone in his book makes it clear that the majority of the fighting and military and civilian deaths during the war were done by the Soviet people. That by the time the Allies had landed in France, the war was nearly over and the Soviets were on the march toward Berlin. To the point of almost describing the Allies as also-rans.

But it was Churchill that influenced post war policies in this country the most. He positively hated the USSR, Stalin and Communism. Being a Tory (conservative) in the exact mold as Margret Thatcher. FDR sympathized with Stalin and the USSR and agreed with the partisan of Europe and the permanent partisan of Germany. Since Russia had been invaded numerous times they were most concerned about their own security. FDR’s VP, Henry Wallace was according to Stone one of the last true progressive voices in Washington. A champion of the “Common man” and deplored empires.

Vice President Henry Wallace deplored all empires— whether British, French, German, or American. In May 1942, Wallace repudiated Luce’s nationalistic and, arguably, imperial vision and proposed a progressive, internationalist alternative:

Some have spoken of the “American Century.” I say . . . the century . . . which will come of this war— can and must be the century of the common man. . . . No nation will have the God-given right to exploit other nations . . . there must be neither military nor economic imperialism. . . . International cartels that serve American greed and the German will to power must go. . . . The march of freedom of the past 150 years has been a . . . great revolution of the people, there were the American Revolution of 1775, the French Revolution of 1792, the Latin American revolutions of the Bolivian era, the German Revolution of 1848, and the Russian Revolution of 1917. Each spoke for the common man. . . . Some went to excess. But . . . people groped their way to the light. . . . Modern science, which is a by-product and an essential part of the people’s revolution, has made it . . . possible to see that all of the people of the world get enough to eat. . . . We shall not rest until all the victims under the Nazi yoke are freed. . . . The people’s revolution is on the march. 35

When the bloodiest war in human history finally drew to a close three years later, Americans would choose between these diametrically opposed visions: Luce’s American Century versus Wallace’s Century of the Common Man.

But when the next election came up, Wallace lost out to Harry Truman do to back room manipulations by the democratic committee. A man that Stone refers to as and ex haberdasher and even less qualified to become president than George W. Bush. A man who unlike Wallace, supported the resumption of the empires of England and France after the war. Something that de Gaulle and Churchill wanted most of all.

He brings up how the cold war and the almost fanatical hated of communism was instigated by Churchill and a large group of Wall Streeters.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the most vociferous critics of the Soviet Union shared a similar class background that inclined them to mistrust the Soviets’ motives and intentions and revile anything that smacked of socialism. Harriman, the son of a railroad millionaire, had founded Brown Brothers Harriman. Forrestal had made a fortune on Wall Street. And Stettinius had been chairman of the board of U.S. Steel, the nation’s largest corporation. They would join with other wealthy international bankers, Wall Street and Washington lawyers, and corporate executives, who had also inherited or made their fortunes during the interwar years, to shape postwar U.S. policy. These men included Dean Acheson of Covington and Burling; Robert Lovett of Brown Brothers Harriman; John McCloy of Cravath, Swain and Moore; Allen and John Foster Dulles of Sullivan and Cromwell; oil and banking magnate Nelson Rockefeller; Paul Nitze of Dillon, Read; Ferdinand Eberstadt of Dillon, Read and F. Eberstadt and Co.; and General Motors President Charles E. Wilson, who, in 1944, as the director of the War Production Board, told the Army Ordnance Board that in order to prevent a return to the Depression, the United States needed “a permanent war economy.” 107 Although these people also served in the Roosevelt administration, they had exerted much less influence on Roosevelt, who acted largely as his own secretary of state. [Emphasis mine]

From Truman, Eisenhower, JFK and the rest, this view has permeated domestic and foreign policy. Though he does give JFK the benefit of the doubt since he seemed to get religion after the Cuban Missile Crisis, making sure the reader understands just how close we came to nuclear Armageddon. In fact he shows that the US and no other country has used nuclear blackmail to get its way in the world.

The book also goes on to show how LBJ’s policies in Vietnam were the exact opposite of Kennedy’s and implies through example how the majority of anti-communist and anti-USSR hawks came from southern states. Not surprising really since their slave holding plantation economy was this counties landed gentry. Elite wanna-bees that were still resentful of having this free ride removed and still hoping to get it back again.

Stone states in the first paragraph on Carter that he is the best ex-president we ever had but then goes on to show how he went back to the cold war rhetoric and policies that of the past. Derailing détente and botching his presidency by his support of the Sha of Iran.

I would have liked that he [Stone] would have shown more of how domestic and foreign policy was instigated by – however discreetly – Wall Street. And how the top 20% – America’s bourgeoisie – has always supported Wall Street and this counties imperialistic policies. Since they were one of the greater benefactors of it, second only to the elites. That their hatred of communism and socialism was nearly as great since they would lose their cushy life styles as well. Is it no wonder then that we whole heartedly supported the White Russians in their civil war against the Soviets ? Or these bourgeoisie were pretty OK with fascism as well ? That Hitler was at one point Man of the year on Times cover ?

All in all I think the book is a good read and exposes a lot of the myths of both the right and left – those that dare call themselves liberal.

"I've found the job where I fit best!" - Artist: George Roppe

Anyone who was here state side during WWII can tell you of the rationing that went on. Everything was rationed. From bread to tires. They can also tell you that no matter what industry you were in, you were doing defense work. WWII took this country from nearly 30% unemployment to 0 unemployment over night. New businesses formed overnight to meet the demands. Struggling businesses like Willys Motors became major contractors.

There were factories and corporations making each other’s products to meet the demand of the military. RCA, Stromberg Carlson, and Bendix all making the same radios. Willys and Ford made the Jeeps. Whole towns grew up from nothing to support new ship and arms factories. One could say that nearly every corporation became a wholly owned subsidiary of USA Inc. The technology of the time expanded at a breakneck pace and the war paid for nearly all of it.

When WWII came to an end in 1945 the so called Cold War against what was called Communism began as well as a new war to fight it. Korea and the cold war kept many of these plants humming right along. And new defense systems needed new advances which meant lots of dollars for research and development and nearly all of it paid for by Uncle Sam. Working for a defense contractor – and at that time nearly all the major corporations were defense contractors – meant you could get whatever new and necessary equipment you needed to advance your project. And a lot of this R&D made its way to the products that were sold to the general public as well.

Pretty sweet deal wouldn’t you say? Putting a good part of your research staff’s overhead on the government’s bill. And if the US military stopped being interested, you could also sell it to France or Egypt or Iran or Iraq or Israel or some South American country. And nearly every technical advance we saw had its origin or was advanced in some way through military material need – and I include NASA here . From television – improved for WWII, to computers – ENIAC for WWII became IBM.

Very few people complained about the merger of government and industry except President Eisenhower who used the euphemistic term Military Industrial Complex. Actually a form of codependency, where the US needed this arrangement just as much as industry did.

Reagan attempted to break it up after the fall of the Soviet Union but it was by then far to ingrained and in fact still flourishes as can be seen by this list of the top 20 contractors. Here is a PDF that goes into even greater detail.

And by what we have learned from Matt Taibbi and Yves Smith and others, this compact has been expanded to include the finance arena as well. With the Federal Reserve and Treasury’s union with Wall Street.

To look on this as separate entities to me seems just a but naive. We complain about the revolving door in Washington but to me it simply looks like intra-office advancement. Is it any wonder that there is little interest in Washington to change any of this ? That both parties like the idea of a corporate/government arrangement.

Sometimes you hear the bullet - Flickr Creative Commons

[The following is a post I did a few years ago on another site and thought I would repeat it here. It seems to be timely now as well.]

Henry Blake: Pierce, is there anything I can do to help?
“Hawkeye” Pierce: It’s the first time I cried since I came to this crummy place. I don’t understand that.
Henry Blake: Well, Gillis was your friend. I mean, it’s only natural that you’d, uh, you know.
“Hawkeye” Pierce: Henry, I know why I’m crying now. Tommy was my friend, and I watched him die, and I’m crying. I’ve watched guys die almost every day. Why didn’t I ever cry for them?
Henry Blake: Because you’re a doctor.
“Hawkeye” Pierce: The hell does that mean?
Henry Blake: I don’t know. If I had the answer, I’d be at the Mayo Clinic. Does this place look like the Mayo Clinic? Look, all I know is what they taught me at command school. There are certain rules about a war. And rule number one is young men die. And rule number two is, doctors can’t change rule number one.

There was a time – not that long ago – when nearly every young man and even a lot of your women – would have come face to face with what mortality really meant.  It used to be said that young people still think they are immortal and indestructible.  This generally changed by the time you were 30 or so and quite often sooner.  Even if you did not see any combat action in the military or even if you did not even serve in the military for some reason, you had experienced what it meant.  Unlike today where old people or terminally ill people would die in a nursing home or hospice, they generally died at home with family members around.

You knew personally at least one person who died in a war or from some accident or child hood disease.  I did. I also faced my mortality and non- indestructibility in a major motor scooter accident when I was 18. Which put me in the hospital for 6 weeks. I knew people who were killed in Vietnam. Families who lost people in Korea and WWII. A kid in my class who died from reye’s syndrome. Of course at that time, the 1950s, no one knew what it was or what caused it.

In short we learned that life is temporary. Even though nobody can really imagine their own deaths. When we try, we always still exist in the third person. This may explain the beliefs in a hear after that many religions have.  We also learned that life is hard work as well even if few grew up on farms or ranches since even everyday chores still required some physical labor.  Until after WWII even the very rich knew of personal tragedies as they were as likely to loose a child or loved one from disease or injury as their money could not buy a cure or prevention as none existed. The bank president or stock broker was just as likely to fall dead of a heart attack or stroke or loose a child as the laborer. Maybe more so.  And this temporariness was what help bring us together. Loss and grief and hardship was shared as well as joy and revelry.

In the past couple of decades though our advancing technology in medicine and other areas have enabled us to live our lives in a bubble and killing is now done by remote control from some place comfortably far off. Out of site, out of mind. Where we have come to believe that suffering and even death itself can be put off almost indefinitely.  That all you need is enough money and you can live a very long, worry free, labor free life. Not having to be concerned for your own personal well being and certainly not for the well being of others.  Not only that, but even the medical profession itself is peddling this snake oil idea. Just run 5 miles each day and eat an organic vegan diet and you too can live a very long life. Well as long as you can pay us too.

But it ain’t like that at all.  So we hide old age away and death becomes an inconvenience that when it’s about to occur, is drugged and sedated.  And physical labor is something that is to be avoid and only for the great unwashed.  I wonder…have we become that repulsed by our humanity that we are willing to treat it so lightly and with disregard ?

It sounds quaint and almost dated but truly no man is an island.

WWII reenactment, Rockford, Illinois - Lyle Flickr Creative Commons

The  other day I thought I would surf over to Dpreview and check out the latest Digital SLR cameras from Nikon. I will admit it, I’m a Nikon bigot.  The site reviews digital cameras and sometimes lenses. It’s pretty good with good comparisons, sample images and quality tests.

Yes I am lusting after the the Nikon D800, their latest offering in the pro-sumer or semi professional line. Excellent imaging even at ISO6400 and above.   I have a D200 which is not that old but compared to the latest, it’s a 1957 Chevy.

And the newest Hasselblad medium format digital is even better. But then it’s 13 grand. We have the ability to find planets circulating other stars.  Nearly every cell phone has a built in camera and the ability to upload images to the internet. We can eavesdrop on radio waves from other galaxies.

And here is the point of this diary – you can bet your sweet bippy the government, ours and others, have capabilities a few orders of magnitude better than what us lowly peons get to play with.

It’s a pretty good bet that no one country is going to invade another without someone knowing about it. Probably ahead of time.

So why do we and other countries still maintain a military that is geared to fight WWII all over again ? Why do we insist on using ground troops to cause havoc and death and destruction ? Why are we so concerned that Iran or North Korea do anything militarily when  we know what and when they are going to do it and have the ability to stop it quite effectively ? Why would they even try – or anyone else – when it’s a pretty good bet they too know that we know and what the repercussions of it would be ? And why do we still approach all these situations like we are about to fight Anzio all over again ? With tanks and guns and cannons and ships.

When we can get pinpoint accuracy with unmanned drones. Remote controlled armaments. When some guy can put together a remote controlled model helicopter with a camera and stream video you know the government has the ultimate in this capability and more.

Because to stop would immediately destroy the western economy.  Because it would mean cancelling most military contracts putting countless contractors out of business and double the unemployment.

Because to do otherwise would condemn our present economic system to collapse and they know it.