2012 People’s Countdown
Besieged Fortress
By Daniel Paquet, dpaquet1871@gmail.com
An introduction by Shakira (Je l’aime à mourir, La Quiero A
Morir : http://youtu.be/KvcPE63QWd0).
As we wrote beforehand, while quoting The Communist
Manifesto[1]: “A specter is haunting Europe – the specter
of communism”. Nowadays, we can enlarge
the scope of this declaration of war from the working class to the bourgeoisie
and say that the days of the bourgeoisie in North America are from now on
counted.
"Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie, shows,
however, this distinctive feature: it
has simplified the class antagonisms.
Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile
camps, into two great classes directly facing each other: bourgeoisie
and proletariat. (p. 58)
The bourgeoisie has through its exploitation of the
world market given a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in
every country. (p. 63)
In place of the old local and national seclusion and
self-sufficiency, we have intercourse in every direction, universal
inter-dependence of nations. The
intellectual creations of individual nations become common property.” (p. 64)
Such is Marxism-Leninism,
or scientific socialism. If Marx, Engels and Lenin contributed to the
intellectual development of the working class and oppressed peoples, the
bourgeoisie –even reluctantly and in contradiction (breaking with the rule of
“divide and rule”) gave them two wonderful weapons to combat its economic and
politic power: Internet and English
language. Today a progressive-minded
journalist from Russia can react immediately and write to a French author; an
Italian intellectual can “speak” to an American worker. As the Canadian writer, Marshal McLuhan
declared: “we are living in the global
village”.
For years US
imperialism reckoned on its might to impose views and values. Even in America they forged clichés for
internal consumption, to educate the working class. Its heroes were for instance Sylvester
Stallone’s Rambo. If a movie was
introducing an artist, or just any sensible character attracted by beauty and
thought, the latter would be labeled as a queer. So you can imagine about a man (known as “un
homme à femmes” in French language); he is surely rejected until his death as
being a gay. There is no much room for
nuances.
US Economy
But woman is not the
first concern of the US Bourgeoisie.
“Time is money”, “Money talks”; we are in the realm of financial
corruption; everything can be bought on the market, including men or women.
“Airline stocks on ended a rough year deep in the red
on Friday as sputtering demand and soaring fuel prices squeezed the industry’s
profits, and 2012 is expected to be just as challenging.”[2]
“Despite high hopes at the start of 2011 and a robust
performance through the first four months, the benchmark NYSE Arca Oil Index
ended the year a mere 1.7% higher than where it started… Meanwhile, natural gas
stocks notched better full-year results than oil producers and refiners,
through the performance for oil field service stocks was decidedly worse… Measuring its performance within the
parameters of the S&P 500, energy sector stocks rose 3% for the year. The utilities sector, on the other hand,
posted a commanding 15% gain in the 2011, during a year that rewarded investors
seeking a safe haven for their capital.”[3]
“Pickup trucks and suburban homes have long been
linked, even forming one image of the middle class American dream. Now having seen their fortunes fall together
during the financial crisis, trucks are going their own way – sales are
reviving up even as housing continues to languish. In theory, more pickups should mean a
housing market pickup.”[4]
“In a year when the average rate on a 30-year fixed
mortgage fell to new record lows – it’s been under 4% for more than two months
straight now -- home prices also dropped about 3% to 4% over the past 12
months, depending on the index. But there‘s the rash of foreclosures pushing
home values down. And then there’s the
problem, these days, of getting financing – lender’s underwriting standards are
much stricter. And then there’s buyer
confidence: if your job’s on shaky
ground, why would you want to shell out big bucks to buy a house? While the jobless rate has dropped – it was
at 8.6% in November, down from 9.8% in Nov. 2010 and about 10% the year before
that – and enough new jobs are being created now to absorb the natural increase
in the labor pool, there aren’t enough new jobs yet to absorb the large numbers
of long-term unemployed people.”[5]
“It’s been a tough year, not to mention decade, for
many investors, but some areas of the market saw 2011 gains despite extreme
volatility and other headwinds.
Certainly, the final tally for the year is looking decidedly mixed. The Dow Jones Industrial Average appears
ready to end the year up about 6%, while the S&P 500 Index is clinging to a
0.1% gain and the Nasdaq is set to log its first annual loss in there years”[6]
This leads us to the
“real” politics in USA. In 2008, the big
business community had to accommodate itself with the idea that the Democratic
Party would take the Presidency seat, with Barack Obama. They are not “too hot” with the idea. That is why they are casting an eye at the
2012 Presidential Election, supporting (at least behind closed doors) the
would-be Republican candidate:
“All eyes turn to the Hawkeye State as the Republican
presidential hopefuls head toward a possible photo finish in Iowa, home of the
first-in-nation caucuses… But while the Iowa caucuses are the Republicans’ first
meaningful nominating context, they won’t be the last word in the bruising
battle to challenge President Barack Obama.”[7]
One of the things to
watch on the days to come and beyond is the stance of each of the candidates on
world trade issues. Let’s just mention
the case of the candidate Ron Paul that stands for an “isolationist foreign
policy”.
“U.S. economic data and minutes from the December
Federal Open Market Committee meeting are likely to move stocks in the first
week of 2012 unless Europe steals the show, according to analysts: ‘What it shows is that investors still have
trepidation even though there’s no bad news out of Europe’, said Mark Luschini,
chief investment strategist at Janney Montgomery Scott LLC.”
US and the world
US bourgeoisie, has
benefited from a rich “continent” , where natural resources are abundant. They could develop separately. In the middle of contradictions: should we play the role of world leader, as
proposed by their imperialist trend (heavily and financially involved all
around the planet) or concentrated on the country (which is now an impossible
dream). They must face this reality: other countries, such as the People’s
Republic of China is no more a semi-colony; its citizens are proud and industrious and create
at an unbelievable speed. Let’s recall
the 2008 Olympic Games…
It is certainly worthy
to remember some of the policies supported by President Obama before his
election in 2008:
“So long as Russia and China retain their own large
military forces and haven’t fully rid themselves of the instinct to throw their
weight around… there will be times when we must again play the role of the world’s
reluctant sheriff. This will not change –
nor should it.[8]
But our most complex military challenge will not be staying
ahead of China (just as our biggest challenge with China may well be economic
rather than military). America and its
Western partners did design the current international system, after all; it is
our way of doing things – our accounting standards, our language, our dollar,
our copyright laws, our technology, and our popular culture – to which the
world has had to adapt over the past fifty years.(Ibidem, p. 373)
No country has a bigger stake than we do in
strengthening international institutions – which is why we pushed for their
creation in the first place, and why we need to take the lead in improving
them. (Ibidem, p. 379)
Like the Ancients, the
US bourgeoisie sees no way-out but huddling up in its fortress, itself less and
less defensible; we saw it with the “Occupy Wall Street” movement for
instance. We witness it with the
struggle of the trade-union movement, AFL-CIO, fighting to create jobs. The Kings and their “suite” are threatened,
and their fiercest opponent is the People’s Republic of China, supported by
Russia.
“And China cannot pretend to be a new world economic
leader without being the primary power in the world. Some specialists affirm that China is
already such a leader since a while.
The war on Libya allowed it to
convince Russia, in June 2011 to stop using the dollar and take from now on the
Chinese currency for their exchanges. It
will be the same thing with African countries; the non-convertible Chinese Yuan
is on its way to become the trade currency with China, the first economic partner
of the African continent.
In Latin America, this initiative is acclaimed with
euphoria by countries which could not stand anymore the arrogance of their
powerful northern neighbor. Again there
was a strong difficulty: to convince a
country still under US military occupation since 60 years, that China wanted to
invite to join the new world economic order, just created. Finally, on Christmas day 2011, while the Japanese
Prime Minister was visiting Beijing, an agreement was reached to get rid of the
dollar. This about-turn of Tokyo can be
explained by the military weakness of the West, exposed by the cacophony and
difficulties, mostly financial, experienced during the seven-long months
attempt to curb down the power of Gadhafi.
Japan realized that if there is an armed conflict with China, USA will
simply not be able to help them; so it is better to join Beijing right now and
live under its umbrella.
This war on Libya allowed the creation of the G-2, but
nobody expected that it would be a military G-2, - under construction -,
between China and Russia. The West that
expected to grab the African energetic resources, from Libya to start with,
tried to impose a diktat on the economic Chinese politics, but they must look
at their plans all over again; the G-2 forced them to do it. So, Russia will become the first provider of
energetic products for China, and give her way to lower down the risks and the
importance of Africa to answer its needs; and give the opportunity to Russia to
get away with its main customer, Europe, without which she was unable to use
properly its resources for its own development.
Consequently, the war on Libya is a real boomerang to
Europe; they thought that they could advance a hidden agenda to control oil and
gas supplies; on the contrary she is black-mailed by Russia for her own
supplies since Russia can shut down the flux, especially during the winter
time, if Europe is not compliant. New
agreements between China and Russia may keep the pipeline shut down for months
without disturbing the financial input. The Russian authorities say: “we can keep up with the situation for a good
while and free ourselves from Europe”.
Furthermore, after this agreement being signed by the
Chinese President, the customer number one for the next 20-30 years has a bad
challenge since Europe cannot bargain the price with Russia like before; they
have to expect to pay more, steal the Libyan oil; a risk to lose Russian gas,
100 times more important that the Libyan one.
The whole story started on November 2009 when the Russian Press Agency Novosti, triumphantly wrote those
words: NIET, NIET, NIET! to describe the Chinese “No” to the US
proposal elaborated by President Obama during his first visit to the Empire of
the Middle to establish such a G-2 to face together 21st century
issues.
From the scratch, China underlined that its world
vision was completely opposed to the one of the USA, and further that they did
not see any possible convergence between the two countries on burning issues,
such as the Iranian crisis or North Korea.
For Americans, bombs are the best answer to the
problems facing the planet, while for the Chinese, bombs show the demise of
human intelligence to solve problems, whatever complicated they may look
like.
So, China and Russia decided to meet regularly and
adopt a joint position on all current worlds important topics, with the scope
of always, and always, stressing dialogue, again dialogue and always
dialogue. The double veto at the United
Nations on the Syrian crisis demonstrates the seriousness of this new G-2; as a
real counter-weight to ambitions, often suicidal, of the Western world.”[9]
Bibliography :
ARISTOTLE, The Politics, Penguin Classics, Toronto,
1981, 508 pages
REMINISCENCES OF TIM
BUCK, Yours in the Struggle, NC Press
Limited, Toronto, 1977, 414 pages
LENIN, On the organizational principles of a
proletarian party, Novosti Press Agency Publishing House, Moscow, 1972, 350
pages
MARX and ENGELS, Collected Works, volume 10,
International Publishers, New York, 1978, 787 pages
PLATO, The Republic, Penguin Classics, Toronto,
1987, 408 pages
-30-
[2] HINTON, Christopher, Airlines tumble 31% in 2011; outlook
cloudy – MarketWatch, Washington, Dec. 30, 2011
[3] JELTER,
Jim, Oil sector stocks eke out a 1.7%
gain in 2011, MarketWatch, San Francisco, Dec. 30, 2011
[8] OBAMA,
Barack, The Audacity of Hope, Thoughts of
Reclaiming the American Dream, Vintage Books, New York, 2006, p. 362
[9] POUGALA, Jean-Paul, Le nouvel
ordre mondial ne sera pas américain, D’origine camerounaise, Directeur de
l’Institut d’Études Géostratégiques de Genève, Suisse, www.pougala.org, pougala@gmail.com
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