More Rubio's speech in Munich: Overthinking it
Jonathan Cook has a piece in Scheerpost: "Rubio Declared a Return to Brutal Western Colonialism – and Europe applauded." Here's the key sentence:
According to Rubio, that decline was accelerated by what he dismissed as the “abstractions of international law”, established by the United Nations in the immediate postwar period. In the pursuit of what he derisively termed “a perfect world”, these new universal laws – ones that treated all humans as equal – served only to hamstring western colonialism.
Rubio neglected to mention that the purpose of international law was to prevent a return to the horrors of the Second World War: the extermination of civilians in death camps and the firebombing of European and Japanese cities.
We are in World War Three right now. We were in World War Three when Biden was President. As Cook admits:
In typical Trumpian fashion, Rubio has simply made explicit what was already implicit. The US has been an imperial superpower since the 1940s and has become an ever more confrontational one in a world of diminishing resources, where it enjoys the advantage of being the sole military superpower.
Rubio is simply more honest than his predecessors about the decades-long trajectory of US foreign policy.
Of course, the Russian military superpower is at present reviving, and soon we will have a Chinese military superpower too. This is why World War Three is happening now.
Toward the bottom of his Scheerpost essay Cook rounds down to the summary, objectively true, that Rubio's speech was crap, and that it was in fact crap for the reason I mentioned in citing Castoriadis, that, in short, it served as a mere evidence of the "complete atrophy of political imagination" of which Castoriadis complained (at the end of the Eighties).
It's not merely that Rubio and his audience are now in the habit of applauding violence. And it's not merely that Rubio can't imagine how things in the world could be arranged differently, although it certainly is that. It's also that Rubio simplifies diversity: all resistance to the old imperialism was "Communism." Once again, Cook:
Most people – even westerners – understand that oppressing another people, denying their humanity and their right to equality, is profoundly unjust and immoral. That is not going to change because Washington has a misty-eyed view of colonialism and apartheid.
In this regard it would be constructive, and beneficial to all, if "most people" would quit the game of deciding every two or four years which of the warmonger candidates is the better one, and vote in revolt against the dictatorship of warmongers. The problem, then, is that "most people," insofar as they are voters, are overthinking it, out of -- you guessed it -- a complete atrophy of political imagination. Perhaps "most people" need the standard advice: don't think more, think smarter.
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Alastair Crooke: all parties are mentally preparing for war
"You exclude the poor, not necessarily by disenfranchising them, but by giving them nothing to vote for. By giving them two candidates who are both members of the oligarchy." -- Michael Parenti
Lack of alternatives
is the only argument in favor of the status quo of global relations: There is no plausible alternative to capitalism or the nation state system, both of which designate "competition" as the engine of positive innovation.
When you talk to ordinary people, which is to say non-ideologically committed people, you will find mainly blank stares when you talk about ending capitalism. In my personal imagination, as well as that of most posters here, I can conceive of a collaborative social order to replace the competitive dystopia that has crystalized into a nightmare this decade.
I suggest there are two distinct steps to attain consensus among our fellow victims.
1. Present a clear picture of how jobs will be delineated and assigned in our sustainable pipe dream future -- supervised and compensated in a fair and sustainable manner.
2. Persuading the existing power structure to dismantle itself to make way for our new collaborative civilization.
As of now, this conception will mainly draw blanks stares. Our work is cut out for us.
I cried when I wrote this song. Sue me if I play too long.
Biggest problem
is capitalism is a catch all phrase. We're told that idle cash is best put to work, investing or starting a business producing something. Collecting rent is considered capitalism, though it doesn't create anything. That's where we're at, capitalists churning the same old shit to get more and more profit. That's why the AI, the dot com, the credit default swap becomes the next big thing. It's not the same old shit, it's the possibility of making real money on something new pumped up to the stratosphere. American capitalism today is just the wealthy (looking at you, Pelosi and co.) fucking us, over and over.
t depends on what you say to them.
And it depends upon which ordinary people you're talking to.
Poll: College students prefer socialism to capitalism
So some ordinary people are already there.
Now, in the world of social classes there are a fair number of people in the US whose commitment to capitalism is sketchy at best. I refer, of course, to the unhoused.
State of Homelessness: 2025 Edition
Capitalism is an institutional problem -- but as an institutional problem, capitalism is also an architectural problem, and, for this study, you've got 771,480 people out there who must live amidst capitalist architectures -- and for the most part work jobs within these architectures -- but who are not allowed to live anywhere in particular. Remember that the number is an undercount -- there are also the hidden unhoused, and when you count those of us who are vulnerable to being unhoused, you have most "ordinary people."
A post-capitalism can offer housing to the unhoused.
A post-capitalism can offer them housing because, under capitalism, everything is a commodity, and because under capitalism everything is a commodity, under capitalism everything is an investment opportunity.
The unhoused, then, are unhoused because they are not investors. (In fact, most "ordinary people" are not investors.) They are unhoused because they cannot invest in two things:
1) Real estate. Real estate is one of the most profitable investments in America today. The usual scheme is that people buy real estate with money they don't have so that, when they sell the properties, they can pay off the loans and have some money left over to buy more real estate. The result of this scheme is that at some point, say, a few years ago in California for instance, nobody can "start out." Renting is the ultimate scam -- if you rent, you have no financial future because all of your money is going to an investor who is not you.
2) Politics. Politicians are an amazingly cheap commodity for the investor class. Donate to a PAC, and get some legislation that puts money in your accounts! Riley and Brenner:
Now, the traditional American way of dealing with this scene, which commonly goes by the name of "corruption," is to believe, each of us individually, that we will all ascend to being members of an investor class -- we will all, each of us individually, get major-league contracts as star athletes or Hollywood stars, we're, each of us individually, going to buy stock in IBM when it's at $7 a share, or win the state lottery, or sell some warehouse space to ICE. This commonly-held belief that we will all, with the joint blessings of our fairy godmothers, each individually join the ranks of the wealthy, accounts for the appeal of being employed as an ICE thug, and so is responsible for the degradation of American society unto its ultimate collapse.
The quick and less painful way, on the other hand, would be if the American Dollar would collapse, leaving the society itself in post-capitalist mode with the aid, of course, of mutual aid associations. All told, then, I'd say the future looks pretty bright for the post-capitalists. Join us!
"You exclude the poor, not necessarily by disenfranchising them, but by giving them nothing to vote for. By giving them two candidates who are both members of the oligarchy." -- Michael Parenti
Oh, and as for the jobs problem
In the post-capitalist future we will all have jobs, as opposed to the AI future, clearly not sustainable, in which instance we will all be "surplus humanity" because AI will have replaced us in the workplace. This is happening now. In the post-capitalist future we will have jobs because we will have the collective power to make sure that we will have jobs.
"You exclude the poor, not necessarily by disenfranchising them, but by giving them nothing to vote for. By giving them two candidates who are both members of the oligarchy." -- Michael Parenti
no significant disagreement, cass
I believe that we all need a clearer understanding of what the corroborative society will look like.
Yes, there will be plenty of work to be done after we kill off Art Int and all his ways to take over everything. But, who is going to manage the new projects and what will be the check on them?
Who gets to call the shots at worksites and to whom are they responsible?
Democracy? A blank stare.
I cried when I wrote this song. Sue me if I play too long.
Sure.
How familiar are you with participatory economics? Does it say anything you like?
I, personally, think the starting point is a Food Not Bombs. Eventually we will have to replace all of our institutions. I would also recommend starting with the universities, which need a new purpose because under the old purpose they are shrinking.
"You exclude the poor, not necessarily by disenfranchising them, but by giving them nothing to vote for. By giving them two candidates who are both members of the oligarchy." -- Michael Parenti
I'd never head of it
but a quick glance at the linked page is very encouraging.
My concern, as a lifelong labor organizer, is that working class people have experience with applying for, and getting, a "job." When you talk about putting an end to capitalism, a low percentage of people will grasp what you mean. And they are going to want to know how they are going to get paid and whose ass they have to kiss. Saying, "Don't worry. With the owners kicked out of the business of making things for people to use, you'll have a reasonable boss and a secure job," will get a response like, "Yeah, right."
But this paradigm of self-management might work to involve millions of people.
Worth a shot.
I cried when I wrote this song. Sue me if I play too long.
Rubio is simply admitting reality
Europe is in it's biggest land war since WWII and Putin doesn't give a rat's ass about any rules.
I do wish the US would be a little more proactive though. Ukraine is a not very expensive way to rid the world of one of it's big threats. We should work on ending it quickly to save lives. I think Russia is having 30,000 casualties per month, those are human lives.
I doubt Russia will recover in a couple decades if ever. Vietnam and especially Iraq were pretty stupid, but Ukraine has to be the greatest way a big power can commit suicide I've seen in a while. Gas station with an army could end up with neither.
Could you provide a link --
to where you've made a comment that actually responded to some other participant's citation of fact?
Just curious.
"You exclude the poor, not necessarily by disenfranchising them, but by giving them nothing to vote for. By giving them two candidates who are both members of the oligarchy." -- Michael Parenti