December 7, 2010

Not all that secret

It has been estimated that about 3,000,000 Americans are authorized (by their government!) to read "secret" documents.

Among the latest 251,287 U.S. State Dept. cables recently released by Wikileaks, only 6.2% are "secret". None are "top secret". More than half (53.3%) are unclassified.

December 5, 2010

The Irish Bailout of Financial Speculators

Nick Bearns writes at the World Socialist Web Site (click the title of this post for the entire piece):

What has taken place is not the bailout of Ireland. Rather, the Irish government has agreed to the demands from international financial markets that all the resources of the state be deployed to ensure that all Irish debts and financial assets held by banks and financial institutions are paid in full, at the expense of the working class. In other words, it is not “Ireland” that has failed and requires a bailout, but the holders of Irish debt—the European and international banks. [emphasis added]

The agreement is expected to cost Irish families an additional €4,000 each, on top of the €4,000 they are estimated to have lost already. And, as if to emphasise that there is no line it will not cross in order to meet the rapacious demands of the financial markets, the government agreed that pension funds would contribute €17.5 billion to the bailout.

No sooner was the agreement announced, however, than the financial wolf pack began lining up its next target … Portugal, Spain or possibly Belgium.

The deepening European financial crisis underscores the fact that the collapse of the US investment bank Lehman Brothers in September 2008 was not the result of a cyclical downturn, which would be followed by “recovery”, but marked the beginning of a breakdown of the entire post-war global capitalist order.

The onset of the US financial crisis in 2007 had an immediate impact on European banks. They had been either directly connected to the sub-prime operations of the US finance houses, as in the case of Germany’s state banks, or engaged in similar speculative activity.

If that were all there was to it, the crisis would have been over by now. But the initial bankruptcies were only the expression of far deeper contradictions within the global capitalist economy.

Since the beginning of the 1980s, following the end of the post-war economic boom, world capitalism has been characterised by what could be called the rise and rise of financialisation. One significant statistic points to the extent of the process. Some three decades ago, the stock of global financial assets was equivalent to around 100 percent of world GDP. By 2007 it had risen to 350 percent.

The implications of such a vast shift are now manifesting themselves in the deepening debt and financial crisis.

Notwithstanding the delusions of various financial spokesmen that money can somehow, by its very nature, indefinitely beget money, financial assets represent, in the final analysis, a claim on the wealth produced by social labour, in particular, the surplus value extracted from the working class in the process of capitalist production. ...

The so-called Irish bailout is only the beginning. The financial markets are demanding not just a limited period of austerity, but the destruction of the entire post-war European social welfare system.

At the same time, the austerity measures being imposed now create the conditions for a vicious economic cycle, in which low growth exacerbates the economic crisis, leading, in turn, to deepening debts and insolvency—of banks, financial institutions and even governments.

The future of the European Union itself is in doubt, threatening a return to the intra-European conflicts that led to two world wars. National conflicts and divisions are on the increase. Writing in yesterday’s Financial Times, head of the Madrid Office of the European Council of Foreign Relations, José-Ignacio Torreblanca, blamed Germany for the mounting economic problems confronting Spain.

The conspiracy against us

Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to befoul this unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of statesmanship.
— U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt

[as quoted in an earlier draft ("State and Terrorist Conspiracies") of the essay "Conspiracy as Governance" (click here)]

Also see: "Wikileaks, Julian Assange & Modern Anarchist Praxis":

Most people could probably not name very many anarchists -- historical, contemporary, or even fictional. A few might cite artists like George Orwell or Leo Tolstoy, and fewer still will be aware of prominent historical anarchists like Emma Goldman or Peter Kropotkin. The historical impact of anarchist practice has largely been glossed over in the curriculum of government run, and compulsory, public schools. People generally aren't aware of anarchists fighting for the first labor rights in America or giving the first public talks on birth control. People are unaware that it was the anarchists who brought about the Russian revolution which was subsequently derailed by the Bolsheviks. People are largely unaware of historical anarchist movements in Spain, the Ukraine, and elsewhere. As for contemporaries, most people might only be able to name Noam Chomsky as an anarchist (and that is probably something of a misnomer).

But now, in the headlines of all the world's newspapers, on the lips of all the television pundits, all over the internet, and in the running for Time magazine's "Person of the Year," we have Julian Assange. One may argue about whether or not he precisely fits into the definition of what an anarchist is, and some dyed-in-the-wool anarchists will perhaps turn up their noses at the suggestion, but Julian Assange is engaged in anarchist acts and has presented governments around the world with damning attacks against their credibility and legitimacy.

He is one of the founders, and the public face, of Wikileaks (which publicly leaks damning internal documents from governments and corporations from around the world). With that tool he has thereby presented one of the biggest contemporary challenges to the continuation of state power. In theory, by the nature and design of the Wikileaks project, no national authorities with any degree of power are safe from exposure and subsequent public scrutiny. If that isn't a threat to corporatism and centralized governing power, nothing is. And while that alone isn't enough to make Assange an anarchist, the Wikileaks organization is intentionally designed to exist outside, and in spite of, the control of all nation states. Furthermore, in his own words, "leaking is basically an anarchist act." His organization, and his personal actions, are overtly in support of anarchist acts! At the very least, his tireless devotion to freedom of speech, and his intense scrutiny of governing bodies, is anarchistic at its core -- because most modern governments and major corporations could arguably not exist if people were fully aware of what the leaders of those institutions were actually doing. ...

Earlier in this essay was mentioned the historical impact of anarchist ideals and practice. That praxis cuts across many of the differences that modern states and figures of authority have used to divide the masses. This is because the common person (regardless of race, religion, or creed) does not wish for wars, or prisons, or opulence in the face of poverty. But those in power require these elements to be in place so that they can maintain their control over the various populations.

Consequently, false ideas of racial, religious, and national inequality are instilled and maintained by the governing institutions. At their core, however, most people around the world value anarchistic ideals. Even the masses of religiously-minded people are not usually at odds with the principles of anarchism. The Mahatma Gandhi was a Hindu who identified himself as an anarchist. The Christian ideal of Jesus Christ is fundamentally anarchist in his earthly habits. Lao Tzu (author of the Tao Te Ching and originator of Taoism), practically made a religion of anarchism. And the list of anarchistic saints could surely go on across many other cultures and religions.

One needn't totally agree with the pacifism of those spiritual anarchists to recognize that their anarchistic ideals resonate with many people across most cultures of the world. The point is... many people already value anarchistic ideals but are nevertheless controlled and manipulated by people who have polar opposite values. And it may not be the pacifism of the aforementioned religious figures that enthralls people but, rather, their sense of basic justice. That's why archetypes like Robin Hood, for example, are also held in high regard. And, when it comes down to it, all of humanity descended from, in the not-so-distant past, relatively egalitarian and peaceful primitive tribes. The majority of humanity has the same underlying values, buried in the very needs of our existence, but we have been manipulated, domesticated, and made subservient to those who do not have our best interests at heart. ...

December 4, 2010

Blood on the sands

According to the Washington Post, 5,807 U.S. service members have been killed in Afghanistan and Iraq as of November 28, 2010.

According to the tally kept at the link in the title of this post, as of August 10, 2010, at least:

10,816 people involved on the U.S. side in the war in Afghanistan (soldiers, contractors, journalists) have been killed, and 33,925 have been seriously injured.

8,813 Afghan civilians have been killed and 15,863 seriously injured.

31,393 people involved on the U.S. side in the war in Iraq (soldiers, contractors, journalists) have been killed and 134,747 seriously injured.

864,531 Iraqi civilians have been killed and 1,556,156 seriously injured.

Julian Assange and Wikileaks have a lot to answer for!

Freedom vs. secrecy

"In a free society, we are supposed to know the truth. In a society where truth becomes treason, we are in big trouble."

— Ron Paul

December 3, 2010

Fiscalized speech

Julian Assange writes in The Guardian (click the title of this post for more):

The west has fiscalised its basic power relationships through a web of contracts, loans, shareholdings, bank holdings and so on. In such an environment it is easy for speech to be "free" because a change in political will rarely leads to any change in these basic instruments. Western speech, as something that rarely has any effect on power, is, like badgers and birds, free. In states like China, there is pervasive censorship, because speech still has power and power is scared of it. We should always look at censorship as an economic signal that reveals the potential power of speech in that jurisdiction. The attacks against us by the US point to a great hope, speech powerful enough to break the fiscal blockade.

December 1, 2010

Wikileaks as projective test

Dallas Darling writes at World News (click the title of this post to read the entire piece):

A story is told of a psychologist who was administering a projective test. (A projective test presents subjects with ambiguous stimuli and then interprets the meaning of such stimuli. The assumption is that the subject's inner needs, feelings, desires, and perception of the world will be "projected" onto the stimuli.) The man being tested saw every one of the inkblots as either someone engaged in exploiting others, or people committing violent and aggressive acts. After the last inkblot (stimulus) was administered, the psychologist declared, "I've never in my entire career seen anyone so obsessed with exploitation and violence as you seem to be." The man responded indignantly and self-righteously, "What do you mean, I'm obsessed with exploitation and violence? You're the one with all the exploitative and violent pictures!" ...

WikiLeaks' revelations exposes an empire that projects its own concealed and unconscious aggression, violent anxieties, paranoid fears, and anger onto other nations. Unable to cope with its own violent past and its manipulative and hurtful political and economic realities, this empire utilizes projection as a defense mechanism. Unconsciously ashamed and embarrassed, it falsely sees its own depraved traits in other nations. ...