Capitalism Cannibalizing Itself-Part 3
The actual left wanting the eventual absence of government is hard for most on the right to grasp. The ones in power, I think also…
Capitalism Cannibalizing Itself-Part 3
The actual left wanting the eventual absence of government is hard for most on the right to grasp. The ones in power, I think also purposely obfuscate these facts, since the end goal aligns with what Libertarians, Anarchist and even some Republicans actually want.
Marx was also against disarming the populace, seeing them as a needed force to combat a corrupt government. The mere threat of this should keep them in check to some degree.
This one in itself is a big sticking point for many Liberals, since they see the mass shootings (including school shootings), happening so frequently in the U.S., and rightfully want less firearms out there. On this particular issue the biggest problem is red states giving out guns to any 18 year old who passes a quick background check, without training, or licensing, and the serial numbers aren’t even registered to anyone’s name (Texas as an example here). In Texas there is no limit on ammo or number of firearms, and you can legally transfer them to anyone as long as you “don’t knowingly sell to a felon”. But I digress…the initial idea of an armed populace against a corrupt government isn’t a bad one, no matter which side of the aisle you land on.
You may ask, “have any countries successfully done this?” Doesn’t communism and socialism always fail? You’ve definitely heard those talking points if you live in the U.S.
They will cite the U.S.S.R., Cuba, Venezuela etc. as examples, but they also probably don’t study history, and get most of their information pre-digested for them. If you study into any state that has tried a more thorough version of socialism you’ll find the CIA and U.S. at-large directly trying to sabotage it, or find that it doesn’t make the headlines at all. I wrote a piece on Catalonia in the 30s that had a solid leftist government setup, and did well for a few years fighting off the Spanish military. It wasn’t until it faced the combined force of Spain, Fascist Italy and the Nazis, that it fell. Another example are the Zapatistas in Chiapas Mexico, that declared their independence from Mexico, but aren’t acknowledged on the international stage. They are still trucking along since the 90s, and of course Cuba has survived over 70 years of the U.S. having its boot firmly on their neck.
Some lighter versions of “socialism” however, have been allowed to exist without heavy meddling from the powers that be. Look at any European nation, and you’ll find more equitable access to healthcare and education than anything the U.S. has. You’ll also find much stronger labor laws in place, more generous maternity/paternity leave, and unemployment benefits. The U.S. has managed to even demonize labor rights because it goes into that collective action category that gives people the “red scare”.
In an attempt to fund these sorts of programs, numerous countries have nationalized their oil and provided benefits to all citizens with it. Maybe not surprisingly, if you pay attention, most of these have then immediately come into the crosshairs of the U.S., especially if they had a prior arrangement with the U.S. to sell their oil very cheaply.
Examples of this include:
-Iran- Mohammed Mossadegh in the 50s who upon nationalizing faced a coup backed by Britain and the U.S. over fears about “communism”. The government that ended up in control is the Islamic Republic of Iran, which the west obviously has foreign relations issues with.
-Libya- Muammar Gaddafi’s faced tense relations with the west after nationalizing the oil and providing infrastructure, education, and healthcare to his people. Eventually he was assassinated by the U.S. with Hillary Clinton famously laughing about it and saying, “We came, we saw, he died.” The country has since been facing humanitarian crises with a lack of access to essential services including healthcare and food, and has even had slave auctions occurring.
-Venezuela- Hugo Chavez- Chavez nationalized the oil, which thoroughly pissed off the rich elite that had been controlling it as a private enterprise, and selling it to the U.S. at a cheap rate. The U.S. was getting about 20% of it’s oil supply from Venezuela at that time, so took particular issue with someone nationalizing it and charging a more fair rate for it, especially in what the U.S. sees as it’s “backyard”. Ever since Venezuela has faced U.S. sanctions, and Chavez is suspected to have been possibly poisoned leading to his death. The U.S. has been pushing for a coup there ever since backing the “opposition”.
This is a quick run down, but you see the trend. Add to this list countries like El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Cuba, Chile et al. that have been seen as a resource for cheap labor, minerals or produce by U.S. corporations. Any of them that try to rise up and demand a more fair trade deal for the goods they provide, end up suddenly having their leader labeled a “dictator” and face U.S. sanctions, or in many cases, direct or indirect military actions against them.
The U.S. has gotten very good at not directly invading, but funding opposition groups to basically carry out what are terrorist attacks against the government and infrastructure there. This is done in an attempt to instill discontent in the populace with their leaders so that they will turn on them and demand something new.
There have been declassified CIA documents stating this exact thing, known as Operation Mongoose. Although, they also had other operations such as Operation Northwood that planned to use false flag “terrorist” attacks on U.S. targets to radicalize the population into wanting to have the U.S. military invade Cuba….gets ya thinking I hope. There’s a famous quote that a certain U.S. president said, who was subsequently assassinated for trying to wake up the U.S. to this fact:
“For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence — on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific and political operations. Its preparations are concealed, not published. Its mistakes are buried, not headlined. Its dissenters are silenced, not praised. No expenditure is questioned, no rumor is printed, no secret is revealed. It conducts the Cold War, in short, with a war-time discipline no democracy would ever hope or wish to match.”
― John F. Kennedy
Now consider this with the fact that the U.S. has historically backed many dictators, as long as that dictator was friendly with “U.S. interests”. FDR is famous for saying in regards to the dictator of the Dominican Republic at the time, “He may be a bastard, but he’s our bastard.” Let’s keep this sentiment in mind and look back to the examples I gave above.
Did ousting the leader of Iran make the local area, the world, or U.S. citizens more safe, especially looking at the global stage today? What about Libya, and people being auctioned off like cattle there now? This has, at a minimum, caused people to flee the areas and end up in European states, which have historically been U.S. allies. Then we have Venezuela…this one is more of a direct issue since people from there make up quite a bit of the “migrant caravans” the U.S. has seen at its southern border, and that Republicans erroneously see as the origin of U.S. problems. Either through ignorance, or more likely using them as a scapegoat.
As I mentioned in my article about prison labor, many of these detention facilities that house immigrants are also for-profit. Whenever you follow the money, you normally can find the real motive behind things, and considering for-profit prisons and detention centers are a way to funnel U.S. public tax payer money into private coffers, this fact should definitely have you raising an eyebrow. Do the politicians, who, as we now know, can legally have their bank accounts stuffed full of corporate lobbyist dollars even want to fix this issue? Or just let the issue continue as is to keep enriching themselves? If they really wanted to fix the “migrant crisis” then how about they start by lifting sanctions against the home country to help alleviate the financial crisis there? After that, you can put pressure on the U.S. corporations to give a more fair trade deal with the people in those nations that they are doing business with, rather than exploiting them.
