Capitalism at the expense of all life.

"There's no $700 billion plan to save the Earth - which sustains us all."

The 700 billion dollars is forever etched into the History of the world as an indicator of lost opportunities for the world we knew. For many it will evoke nostalgia of better times but for the vast majority it was a world full of untold nightmares.
The 700 billion dollars is the attempt to save a quality of life for the few. It is a decision of the ruling elite of the world ( the G7) to preserve a system whose utility has not been there for at least 28 years. It can be argued, with some justification, that if the system is not saved, it will result in a depression and mass unemployment and the people most hurt will be the people who are already on the margin.
For that reason I would have chosen an orderly transition, had I the choice, which I do not. Here is the choice that I and all of us do have. Let us jointly work on a replacement system before the forces of revolution bring turmoil and chaos. Let me first identify what has to be replaced;

The Capitalism of Greed
Secularism
Imperialism.
the destruction of the environment.

Imperialism
Imperialism is closely tied to the Capitalism of Greed but may be an easier and logical place to start. It already has a momentum. Worldwide protests for the withdrawal of all occupying forces from all areas but particularly Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq should take place. Again that is easier said than done. if America wants a graceful exit, that may no longer be possible. No where is the withdrawal of occupation more called for than Palestine and no where is that least likely than there unless America withdraws its aid to Israel. A renewal of the call to stop aid to Israel must take place with all force.
Imperialism does not stop at Military occupation. the Economic subjugation of Pakistan, Egypt and Jordan must stop. America must stop its support of Dictators and stand up for what it believes in, Democracy.

Secularism
The age of separating Politics from Religion has not worked. Religion gives us the values that we have always lived by. Let us stop demonising Religion by highlighting the acts of extremists. That is not what the majority believes. Making secularism a religion as in France OR Turkey does not take Religion out of politics it simply creates a man made Religion. Let us define the problem.

What is the problem?

Our problem is not that we sin but when we do not seek forgiveness;
Our problem is not when we seek forgiveness but when we do not mean it;
Our problem is not that we go astray but when we stop our search for the right path;
Our problem is not that we become too worldly but when in that process we lose our humanity;
Our problem is not when we are too arrogant to fear Hell and to be motivated by Paradise , our problem is when we are not humble enough to hold ourselves to accountability.


The line between good and evil is a moving line. It gets crossed frequently without our realizing it. Those that are good can become evil several times a day. Those that are humble can become arrogant several times a day. Those that are kind can lapse into unkindness. The problem is not that we cross this line, the problem is when we are not rendered sleepless by the thought of having done this.

The problem is not there is injustice in the world, the problem is when we do not speak up against it;
The problem is not that there is poverty, the problem is when we do not share our wealth with the poor;

We remain in contention for the tests of life as long as we are in a position to seek forgiveness and be forgiven. This will remain as long as we do not incur the permanent displeasure of God. This only happens when we lose our humility and achieve a level of arrogance that challenges God.

The problem is not that we are too arrogant, the problem is when we deny the existence of God;

I cannot say it more forcefully. Secularism may mean enlightened self interest but without God it is nothing more than selfishness. Religion is the conscience of Society, if it does nothing more than make us feel bad about being selfish, it will have brought back balance in a society that has lost its balance.

The Capitalism of greed
We want to restore free enterprise, innovation, productivity, free markets, real competition. What we have is a rigged system of monopolies ( price fixing, price gouging) , conflicts of interest, you scratch my back and I will scratch yours, Cronyism, special interest groups, the power of money to corrupt every one, muzzle the press, rig elections, racism, exclusion of the masses so as to include the privileged few, an increasing income gap between rich and poor.
Within a system like this it is no longer possible to elect a leader who dares to say that we have gone far far away from the America we were proud of. It is no longer possible in the system for a man or woman to say we have gone in the opposite direction to where we meant to to go and be elected President. The over riding influence of money in every thing has meant that our values can be purchased.

The destruction of the environment
When America has become used to consuming the majority of the worlds resources, it is only so that it citizen can enjoy a standard of life far higher than any other on the planet. Americans do not need what they consume. They therefore waste valuable resources which could have gone to the more needy. The biggest waste is that of energy. The American Auto Industry would rather go bankrupt than not build Gas Guzzling SUVs. Overheated and overcooled American homes, Offices and Malls consume millions of megawatts of electricity while half the world goes with out any. The American people would much rather become grossly overweight and become diabetic than have normal portions of food while half the world lives on one meal a day. Every day large portion of uneaten food is thrown into American garbage's while a large part of the world scratches around in garbages to eke out a living.
America is not alone in this race to consume at the cost of the many and most importantly at the cost of the Environment but America leads the way and America is the most in denial that it is a real problem for Humanity. In the Western world, the idea of human influence on climate has gained wider public acceptance in Europe than in the United States.[The selfishness of Secularism teaches us that even if the rest of the world becomes a hell hole somehow we will be all right and that is all that matters.

This is my blue print for the start of an alternate system. Believe me I have a lot more detail
for each of these ideologies but I can no longer see Injustice done in the name of America just as as I cannot see intolerance done in the name of Islam. I want peoples help to work on this alternate. We need a just Society. We need a Society that is Politically just, Economically Just and Racially Just.

Let us also recognise what we have and cannot lose. The value given to Education must continue to be uppermost. The value given to free speach must continue to be uppermost. The value of hard work must continue to be uppermost. This land was built by immigrants and we should never forget that.

Last but not least , please read the excellent article which gave me an excuse to say what I have said. Thank you Zareen for sending it.

Khusro

In the battle of the powerful against the powerless, the powerful cannot win because God is on the side of the powerless. KE








Friday, October 10, 2008, 1:57 AM
All so true!! Its high time that we let go of this kind of Capitalism where money making (at whatever cost) becomes the only way and purpose of life. Let the infected system die - no need for bail outs - may be we need to redefine the new rules of the game and take a fresh start. The bail outs, in any case, will probably not benefit the common person on the street. It seems the foundation of the system was not sound in the first place. There needs to be a human and moral dimension to it as well. Zareen

Financial Black Holes: Capitalism's Event HorizonDate: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 10:24:26 +0500


The Killing Horizon: Capitalism At The Expense Of All Life
By Juan Santos


The bottom line is profit. Profit and the lust for it is capitalism’s event horizon. Like the boundary of a black hole – which is roughly what the term “event horizon” means in the theory of general relativity, any energy, information or meaning that passes the threshold of a consciousness driven by profit disappears into the super-gravitational field of the black hole itself – never to be seen or heard of again.

Nothing can be seen once it enters this realm, and nothing, having entered, ever escapes. No light, no sign, no dawn of understanding can re-emerge. Anything, any light, any object, any thought, any meaning, purpose, or any human feeling is swallowed and for all practical purposes, obliterated there.

No communication can transpire between inside and outside.

The event horizon of profit-consciousnes s functions as an inviolate barrier between what appear to be mutually exclusive worlds. Those of us on this side of the event horizon can only guess, but never really know, what happens on the other side. What we know of what is inside the black hole of the capitalist consciousness can only be inferred from what seems to happen at its horizon. We are left to assume that what happens there is annihilation, or its equivalent. It seems that the only thing that can enter that realm is money- life stripped of all meaning except a numerical designation, like a concentration camp inmate with a serial number tattooed on her forearm.

There are things we can infer from this side of the horizon about what happens on the other side, in the black hole of the capitalist mentality - things that show up outside that tell us something about what happens within it. Things like the concentration camp victim, like the mass graves in Guatemala, the unearthed Mayan corpses left by death squads… they seem to emerge from the black hole and give us a glimpse of what is inside: and, beyond that, sometimes we almost get real glimpses in. We get glimpses of Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, of someone’s recollection of headless frogs spewing blood after the psychopathic child, George W. Bush, has lit a firecracker he’s inserted in their mouths and hurled them through the air. We know these things – we glimpse them, those of us who are paying the strictest kind of attention. But, mostly, nothing escapes, or that which seems to escape the pull of the black hole for a moment is immediately sucked back in to the realm of oblivion as if it never happened.

But, as often as not, we can tell what matters to those in the center of civilization’ s black gravity – its centers of “power”, by what doesn’t happen out here in the real world - on this edge of the horizon -as much as by what does happen.

Notice. Notice what is taken “seriously” by the denizens of the dark center of “power” – if anything beyond the next quarterly profit and loss statement can be said to be taken seriously at all.

Notice where the $700 billion in “bailout” money is going. The black hole people feared would swallow the Earth when the CERN particle accelerator was launched in Europe didn’t appear there. It appeared thousands of miles away – on Wall Street - and the $700 billion is going into that black hole, never to be seen again.

It’s going to fix problems that have no real existence, that are tied to values that have no real existence. Down the rabbit hole, the black hole, into the land of illusion, the land of swindles, the land of lies, of the selling of the negation of values, of mirrors upon mirrors, into the unreal land of black magic, where it will impact nothing but the “faith” of capitalist financiers and wizards in their ability to live on - and to sustain themselves with - lies and illusion in a system that is fundamentally not sustainable. They call this psychic trick- this denial - “faith” in the markets, liquidity and credit (and to give credit, of course, means nothing but to put faith or belief in something or someone) – even as the credit markets are drying up. They are drying up because no one who is sane can any longer believe the lie. The whole thing is incredible, unbelievable. Such faith is nothing more or less than faith in a lie. The whole thing is based on what Ayn Rand – the late high priestess of capitalism, cruelty, arrogance, free markets and the “virtue” of selfishness, called, ironically enough, given the context, the “blank out.”

All it takes is one stroll down Wall Street to get that Wall Street is “America’s” temple district – The sense of being on “holy” ground is palpable - and all it takes is one glance to get that none of the financial wizards really knows what’s going on… they know not what they have wrought, they know not whom they have robbed; they have invented a house of lies so complex that they themselves can no longer follow the plot or the floor plan. What we know – and what they know, and what Bush knows and Obama and McCain - what they all know- is that the $700 billion is going to cover the lie, is going to keep their asses out of prison, is going to prevent revolt against their system, which profits at the expense of all of us. It’s not going to so-called “Main Street,” and - even if it did - who’s on Main Street, if not merely the junior, local and regional versions of the players on Wall Street – the ones getting their hands dirty – the ones that exploit us face to face, rather than from the remote heights of the now-obliterated World Trade Center?

Yes, who’s on Wall Street, who’s on Main Street, who’s on ghetto streets and barrio streets, and who, after all is on Skid Row, or on a dirt street in a third world village, living on $2 a day - $2, not $700 billion – not even $200 billion, not even $200 or a twenty dollar bill. 2 dollars. A day. Or less.

Of course, outside the black hole, outside the house of mirrors, it’s plain to see. All profit comes at someone else’s expense. They have robbed the poor blind – that’s why they are poor. They have gutted the Earth of its soil, plant life, energy, forests and water tables: we are left with deserts and a $700 billion black hole. That’s why the Earth is dying. They profit, as the traditional Hopi elders told us, at the expense of all life. That’s where the limos, and the mansions (whether its one mansion like Obama’s or 13 of them like McCain’s) come from: at the expense of all life. That’s what happens.

Now, notice what doesn’t happen.

Humanity faces a real crisis - one that threatens not only Wall Street, but all life on Earth. Call it Global Warming, call it Peak Oil, call it running out of water on a global scale, call it the collapse of industrial agriculture. call it fisheries collapsing, call it mass extinction. Call it the potential of planetary death. Call it what is inside the Black Hole made visible, palpable in its meaning. Call it the real event horizon. Call it the Killing horizon. It’s every bit as complex in all of its intersections as the financial “crisis,” but, unlike the financial “crisis,” it’s real.

And what happens?

Nothing. No significant action. At all.

There's no $700 billion plan to save the Earth - which sustains us all.

The only thing that has ever mattered to the rulers of this empire – and of every other empire- is profit, and profit, we will recall, always comes at someone’s expense – ours, the indigenous peoples in every corner of the planet whose lands and lives have been usurped,
at the expense of the enslaved, from Babylon to the USA, at the expense of Polar Bears, Wolves, Buffalo, Dolphins, Bears – and now even the Chimpanzee faces extinction, along with Whales, and as much as 50% of all living species before this century – and this system - is finished with them. Profit. At the expense. Of all life.

The capitalists can’t look at the meaning of it. They can’t bear to see the meaning and impact of their lives and how they live them. Blank out. They don’t know and can’t know, any more than George W. Bush can really afford to know what was happening when he stuck firecrackers in frog’s mouths and sent them sailing through the air with the fuse sparkling (that, after all, is why he drinks – not to know.) Maybe he imagined as a boy that the frogs were B24 bombers in WW2, and that when the firecracker exploded, it was flak hitting the nose of the plane, right where the navigator sat, and that the blood was the navigator’s blood. Maybe he couldn’t bring himself to look at the shattered skulls, the exposed spines, the blood, and know what he had done. Or maybe he looked, and delighted in what he saw. We’ll never know. It’s lost in the black hole. Maybe the financial wizards think of derivatives and scam mortgages like Bush thought of frogs. The thrill, the drama of making a kill, of scamming, lying, getting over on others less powerful – the nobodies - the frog people - like you and me, the frog people who live on Elm Street, on ghetto and barrio streets, on Skid Row, on dirt streets, and along trails in the Amazon jungle and paths in the high Andes of Bolivia. I say probably so – that the financiers see us just that way.

But, maybe we’ll never know. It seems to have disappeared in the black hole of denied memory, impossibility and lies, just as Bush’s childhood memories lay hidden in the dense black hole of unresolved alcoholism. But we know this; for them, regular people - and animals, forests, polar bears, wolves and glaciers – are invisible. We’re on the other side of their event horizon, and they don’t care what happens to us. They are pulling us all inexorably into the gravity well from which no light escapes. They call the collapse of their house of financial lies a “crisis.” In the U.S., people like the Republican vice presidential candidate call the Killing horizon – the potential of planetary death - a “hoax.”

But, on a planetary scale, as everything unravels and is thrown into increasingly radical imbalance, people are starting to understand that what we see is what we get. And they are starting to see what has remained hidden in the realms of dark gravity and power. The event horizon, the Killing horizon, is drawing ever nearer.

And people are starting to decide for themselves what constitutes a hoax and what is, in fact, an actual crisis. We are deciding what and who needs and deserves a rescue –a “bailing out” – It's not the wizards and merchants of death; it's the frogs, lizards, plants, forests, beavers, bears, and human children.

You decide who and what nurtures us all and who and what destroys us. You decide. Is it saner to hug a tree, a cold stone building on Wall Street, or a stock certificate? Look at it. You decide. Everything that matters to you depends on the nature of your decision.