Bulletin N° 734
Subject
:
J20-minus-one and counting, in the Year of the Oligarchs.
19
January 2017
Grenoble, France
Dear
Colleagues and Friends of CEIMSA,
Tomorrow
is Inauguration (and anti-inauguration) Day in Washington, D.C. ! The war of words escalates, as
the relentless wheels of capital accumulation continue to turn, and the rich
get richer, the planet is increasingly poisoned, and the rest of us become poorer.
Eight individuals, according to a recent Oxfam
report, own more wealth than one-half of the world’s population. What is the
significance of such a concentration of wealth? Has casino capitalism completely turned against consumers and against
the market place that offers essential commodities, in order to satisfy the
desires of a few capitalists sitting at the control switch of this game? If so,
how can they be unplugged? How can this fixed system be shut down? These are
the burning questions being discussed today, on the eve of the Inauguration.
In
chapter 7 of his book, The
Structures of Everyday Life, Fernand Braudel discusses the historical perspective of money :
Let us start by adopting something like the old-fashion (nominalist)
approach of before 1760, and look at things through the deliberately
mercantilist perspective of the preceding centuries. This perspective gave a
particular prominence to money, which was considered as wealth in its own
right, like a river whose force alone could stimulate and complete exchanges,
and whose mass could accelerate or slow them down. Money, or rather the monetary stock, combined mass and momentum.
If the mass increased or the overall momentum was accelerated, the result was
virtually the same: everything went up: prices, more slowly wages, and the
total volume of transactions. If the opposite occurred, the whole process went
into reverse. Under these conditions, if there is direct exchange of goods
(barter); or if substitute money makes it possible for a deal to be concluded
without cash changing hands; or if a transaction is facilitated by credit, it
must be concluded that the volume in circulation has actually risen. In short,
if all the instruments of capitalism are introduced into the monetary process,
they are behaving like pseudo-money –or ever real money. In other words, what
one has is a general reconciliation . . . .
But if it is possible to say that everything is money, it is just as
possible to claim that everything is, on the contrary, credit –promises,
deferred reality. . . . As [Joseph] Schumpeter
said: ‘Money in turn is but a credit instrument, a claim to the only final
means of payment, the consumer’s good. By now [1954] this theory, which, of
course is capable of taking many forms and stands in need of many elaborations,
can be said to prevail.’ All in all, the brief can legitimately be argued
either way. Like ocean navigation or printing, money and credit are techniques,
which can be reproduced and perpetuated. They make up a single language, which
every society speaks after its fashion, and which every individual is obliged
to learn. He may not know how to read or write: only high culture depends on
the written word. But not to know how to count would endanger one’s survival.
Daily life is ruled by sums: the vocabulary of debit and credit, barter, prices;, the market and fluctuating currencies envelops and imprisons
any society with a claim to development. Such techniques become inherited and
are inevitably passed down through example and experience. µthey determine
human life from day to day, lifetime to lifetime, generation to generation,
century to century. They provide the environment of human history the world
over.
.
. .
The techniques of money, like any other techniques, are therefore a
response to express, insistent and often-repeated demand. The more developed an economy
became, the wider the range of monetary instruments and credit facilities it
employed. And in the wider international unity that money represented on a
world scale, each society had its place, some favored, some backward, some
heavily handicapped. Money gave a certain unity to the world, but it was a
unity of injustice.
Of this hierarchy and of the consequences it
brought in turn (for money rushed to the service of monetary techniques), there
was more awareness than one might think. An essayist, Van Ouder
Meulen, remarked in 1778 that to read the authors of
his day ‘one might think that there are Nations who will become very powerful
with the passage of time, and others who will become completely destitute’. A century and
a half earlier, in 1620, Scipion de Gramont had written: ‘Money, said the seven sages of
Greece, is the blood and soul of men and he who has none wanders dead among the
living.’(pp.476-478)
The unequal and unjust concentration
of the world’s wealth placing great power into the hands of the few cannot
assure world peace, notwithstanding the efforts of certain religious cults who
would like to introduce a new world order
based on coerced submission rather than voluntary cooperation.
The 12 items below will provide CEIMSA
readers with insights into strategies of the world’s oligarchs, who long ago
abandoned any politics of national identity and are now on the World Wide Web
seeking quick profits from clandestine financial interventions. The disconnect between what is said and what is
done is obvious to anyone willing to look into the fearsome reality that is
unfolding today. This is the new norm !
Sincerely,
Francis Feeley
Professor emeritus of American Studies
University Grenoble-Alpes
Director of Research
University of Paris-Nanterre
Center for the Advanced Study of American Institutions and
Social Movements
The University of California-San Diego
a.
How
Trump Could Bring on the Crash of 2017
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3klabW-pptk
===========
b.
The Bizarre Far-Right Billionaire Behind Trump's
Presidency
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcJqjgB4tyQ
When
all seemed to be falling apart for Trump this summer, one shadowy billionaire
offered up his own massive political infrastructure, which included Steve Bannon and Kellyanne Conway, and
saved Trump’s campaign from demise
===========
c.
Trump's Pick for Defense Sec'y Made Millions in Defense Industry After
His 2013 Retirement
https://www.democracynow.org/2017/1/13/trumps_pick_for_defense_secy_made
===========
d.
Wilbur Ross's Economic Expertise:
Exploiting Tax Law
http://therealnews.com/t2/story:18157:Wilbur-Ross%27s-Economic-Expertise%3A-Exploiting-Tax-Law
White collar criminologist Bill Black says Donald Trump is the only
president in modern times who has not disclosed, nor will end, his massive
conflicts of interest before taking office.
===========
e.
Global Capitalism: Fixing
Capitalism v Moving to Another System [JANUARY 2017]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4gPXvW3DG4
===========
f.
As Democrats Press for War, the Left Must Demand Peace and Social
Transformation
http://www.blackagendareport.com/left_must_demand_peace_transformation
by Glen Ford
As is ordained by law, at the end of the week much of President Obama’s
legacy will become Donald Trump’s powers, including the power to detain
Americans indefinitely (forever) without trial or charge, an authority the
First Black President secured from Congress in 2011. Obama’s wars become
Trump’s wars, which, if Trump follows Obama’s example -- and if he succumbs to
the furious pressures of leading Democrats, old line Republicans and an openly
aggressive and “politicized” national security establishment -- will be
expanded and multiplied. The most imminent threats to human survival under a
Trump presidency flow, not from the billionaire’s own belligerent instincts and
unpredictability, but from the momentum of Obama’s policies of ever-escalating
confrontation with Russia and China -- his deliberate “pivots” towards
brinksmanship on all the geopolitical fronts of Empire.
===========
g.
From Selma to the CIA
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/01/16/pers-j16.html
by Patrick Martin
John Lewis, Donald Trump and the demise of the “civil rights”
establishment
In an interview conducted Friday for NBC’s Sunday
morning program “Meet the Press,” Democratic Representative John Lewis
announced that he would boycott the inauguration of President Donald Trump
because, “I don’t see this president-elect as a legitimate president.”
===========
h.
Former Black Panther: Trump Win Gives Us Unique
Opportunity
to Organize the Ongoing Freedom Struggle
Elaine Brown talks to Eddie Conway about the role of women in the party,
state repression against the Panthers, Black Lives Matter, Obama, and Trump
===========
i.
Hollywood on Trial
Dir. David Helpern
1976
(Documentary Film – 1h42)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxFMsZGLleQ
This documentary, narrated by legendary
director John Huston, examines the 10-year period in which the House Committee
on Un-American Activities used its unlimited government power to force citizens
to confess to being a Communist or accuse others whom the committee deemed
guilty of un-American activities. The film focuses particularly on the group of
filmmakers -- the "Hollywood Ten" -- who spurned the investigative
committee and were imprisoned as a result.
===========
j
Richard Wolff - Economics
and American Psychology, 1850 - 2008
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwPv9kxCPaM
In this
analysis, Richard discusses how the American people came to believe in American
exceptionalism- not in any patronizing or glorifying
way, but simply from the personal experience of industrialization on the people
of the American continent. Later, technological changes put to an end the
American nation's exceptional situation, leading not only to the American
people's current discontent, but also to the Great Financial Crisis of 2007 -
2008.
This analysis is simple and to-the-point,
encompassing both the material causes and the mindset of the most successful
capitalist society so far.
The thumbnail picture is George A. Crofutt's painting, sometimes known as Manifest Destiny,
Westward the Course of Destiny, or American Progress.
===========
k.
Trump's Biggest Donor Bankrolls
Israeli Right Extremism
http://therealnews.com/t2/story:18116:Trump%27s-Biggest-Donor-Bankrolls-Israeli-Right-Extremism
Casino magnate Sheldon Adelson has also
provided major support to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for years, but that
relationship might collapse in the coming days, says Shir
Hever
===========
l.
Xi Jinping
Steps Up With Charm Offensive
http://www.atimes.com/article/global-helmsman-xi-jinping-steps-charm-offensive/
by Pepe Escobar
Chinese leader profits from a
geopolitical vacuum only days before Donald Trump’s inauguration.
He did it, his way; Chinese President Xi Jinping descended on the Swiss Alps; profited from a
geopolitical vacuum only three days before Donald Trump’s inauguration with the
Atlanticist West mired in stagnation and/or
protectionism; unleashed a charm offensive; and deftly positioned China in the
lead of “inclusive” globalization.