dimanche 2 décembre 2018


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 in 2012 (almost seven years ago), 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 contradictorily (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]

Communist News   www.dpaquet1871.blogspot.com

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




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marxistas-leninistas latinas hojas   www.ma-llh.blogspot.com
Le sourire de l’Orient   www.lesouriredelorient.blogspot.com

L’Humanité in English   www.humaniteinenglish.com

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[1] MARX and ENGELS, The Communist Manifesto, Washington Square Press, New York, 1977, p. 55
[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
[4] DENNING, Liam, Pickup Trucks Get Into Gear, Housing Idles, Heard on the Street, Dec. 31, 2011
[5] MarketWatch, Record-low mortgage rates in 2011 weren’t enough, MarketWatch, Dec. 30, 2011
[6] MarketWatch, 2011 leaves investors with mixed results, MarketWatch, Dec. 30, 2011
[7] SCHROEDER, Robert, Iowa caucuses : 5 things to watch, MarketWatch, Washington, 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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