In the present case, the systems set the loons loose in response to the once-increasing power of the workers and other subordinate groups after WWII during the Golden Age. After the resistance was largely defeated or coopted in the 1980s, there existed no countervailing force to put the dogs back in their cages. The USSR was gone, China was assimilated into the world system. These had long ceased to be inspirational but they were sources of funding and spaces more or less outside global capitalism.
The mafia-casino neoliberal (in the US also theocratic) capitalism that has resulted from this alignment of forces is far less in the interests of systematic reproduction and the ruling class than Keynesianism, but that seems to requires the subordinate groups to be organized enough to fight to win it and a ruling class weakened by crisis or defeated in the class struggle or both. For the last 30 or so years the class struggle has been increasingly and overwhelmingly one-sided. The system is crisis-ridden and increasingly unstable, but it has not weakened the capitalist class relative to the working and other subordinate classes. Remember that the common ruin of the contending classes is unfortunately a possible outcome. It seems increasingly likely as well.
Happy new year, all. 'Shana Tova.
Sent from my iPad
On Sep 16, 2012, at 6:16 PM, "Carrol Cox" <cbcox at ilstu.edu> wrote:
> There are a number of political and economic features of the present that I
> do not quite understand. The attack (both in Europe and the U.S.) on the
> masses is simply too extreme. Why is it necessary? The squeeze on wages &
> benefits, the destruction of public services, and the extensive repressive
> network being built since the mid-90s seem the acts of a ruling class that
> fears for its existence. The degree of ruling-class unity is also
> remarkable. Political debate has degenerated to ferocious fights over
> trivialities. It would have been inconceivable 50 years ago for any
> president to ask for the power of indefinite detention.
>
> Why is the Ruling Class so terrified? Why are corporations engaging in such
> penny-pinching? (Consider the 'history' of toilet tissue and facial tissues
> over the last year.) Why the assault on a very minor nuisance in Libya? And
> so on.
>
> Carrol
>
>
> andie_nachgeborenen
>
>> More grist for Carrol's mill, and a further reminder to those of us for
> think that
>> Obama is still the lesser evil that a lesser evil is still a considerable
> evil. And this
>> particular manifestation, from a sometime Professor of Constitutional Law.
>>
>>> Obama attorneys ask court to restore indefinite detention power
>>> by Stephen C. Webster
>>> RawStory.com
>>> September 14, 2012
>>> Less than 24 hours after a judge blocked a law that gives the government
>>> the power to indefinitely detain U.S. citizens without trial, attorneys
>>> for the Obama administration were already filing an appeal.
>>>
>>> U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest in New York ruled Wednesday that
>>> the law is unconstitutional after The Nation Institute senior fellow and
>>> Pulitzer-winning journalist Chris Hedges brought a lawsuit alleging his
>>> free speech rights were being violated by the very possibility of the
>>> law being enforced, even though President Barack Obama declared in a
>>> signing statement that the administration will never detain Americans
>>> without trial.
>>>
>>> Judge Forrest, an Obama appointee, said that the language of the law was
>>> too vague and that Congress must better define "what conduct comes
>>> within its scope," or else it could be applied to people like the
>>> plaintiff to chill free speech activity and the practice of journalism.
>>>
>>> Congressional Republicans crafted the bill to make it much more
>>> difficult to shut down the Guantanamo Bay military prison, compelling a
>>> vote on indefinite detention powers by tying it to the National Defense
>>> Authorization Act (NDAA), a military spending bill late last year.
>>>
>>> Thursday's filing may come as a surprise to many, given the
>>> administration's lengthy signing statement that insists authorizing
>>> indefinite detention of Americans "would break with our most important
>>> traditions and values as a nation."
>>>
>>> "Judge Forrest's decision firmly rejects governmental overreach,"
>>> plaintiff attorney Bruce Afran said in a media advisory. " We now have a
>>> judgment that the NDAA, by threatening indefinite military detention as
>>> the price of speech, violates the First Amendment and threatens core
>>> American values."
>>>
>>> "The federal court has denied the dangerous notion that American
>>> civilians can be taken into military custody and that the President is
>>> above the law outside of the reach of the courts," he added. "The
>>> decision is an affirmation of the American constitution."
>>>
>>> By Friday morning, petition site Demand Progress said more than 60,000
>>> people signed a form asking Obama not to appeal the ruling. "If we don't
>>> do anything, they'll keep fighting to defend this law!" the petition
>>> site declared.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
> http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/09/14/obama-attorneys-ask-court-to-restore-
>> indefinite-detention-
>> power/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+
>> TheRawStory+%28The+Raw+Story%29
>>>
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