The protests that continue in France are not just about the pensions. The US media fail to understand that and also distort the pension --“Social Security” in the US--issue. The age for full pension benefits in France is 65. The Sarkozy government wants to raise that to 67. Just as Americans can start receiving Social Security benefits at a reduced rate at age 62, the French can get reduced payments at age 60, but only if they have worked for 40.5 years.
The early stages of the protests, largely organized by the trade unions, were a response to the proposed changes in the pension. For millions of French people the protests also became an opportunity to voice many other suppressed demands and dissatisfactions. The protests are rightly called a referendum on the Sarkozy administration, which is seen as pandering to the rich elites. The protests also target the huge economic inequality in French society, the squalor of the housing projects, and the way that immigrant populations have been received. The placards show a wide range of demands. In Nanterre, where, as in 1968, the protests are at times violent, issues include the fact that the opening of the University has this fall been delayed because of overcrowding, with 35,000 students squeezed onto a campus built for 14,000.
Taking to the streets and erecting barricades are what the French turn to when democratic participation in government policy is denied. Sarkozy is very unpopular. 70% of the French people support the strikers. The police are not liked because they resort too easily to violence.
My initial Wanderjahr project involved looking at the economic and cultural aspects of this late phase of late capitalism, particularly in Europe. Were I there, I would I hope grasp enough of the consciousness and mood of the protestors to offer some assessment. From this distance, the best insight that I have comes from the song adopted by the movement: “On Lache Rien” or “Never Give an Inch” as originally performed by HK and Les Saltimbanks but now cropping up everywhere on videos of the protests, on YouTube and other video and music-sharing sites.
“Never Give an Inch” speaks from the “urban project” and in behalf of “the homeless, the unemployed, workers/ Farmers, immigrants, the undocumented.” It directly indicts Sarkozy: “It’s crazy the way they’re protected/ All our rich and powerful/Not to mention the help they get/For being the friends of the president.” HK, who sings the song, is Kadour Haddadi, from an Algerian family settled in Calais. The music is a blend of Algerian Chaabi, reggae, rock, hip hop, blues, and gipsy, a mixture which reflects the emergent culture of France. But it must be heard, and its performance seen. It is perhaps the sound of revolution, but it is life-affirming, joyful, and sexual. One hears within it the potential for the completion within this new France of the project of human liberation that Marx set forth.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Friday, October 15, 2010
The Tea Party on the Eve of Mid-term Elections
Earlier in the blog, I expressed the opinion that there is not substantial evidence for the rise of a fascist movement in the United States. And, even though some leading figures in the Tea Party and one of its internal tendencies have, as the Guardian (UK) reported, allied themselves, with a violent neo-fascist group in England, I am still not convinced that neo-fascism is precisely what the Tea Party as a whole intends to embrace. I must now, however, admit that the danger of a turn to overt fascism exists and try to explain why it does.
I quoted earlier in the blog the formula that says that fascism is the socialism of the middle class. I also tried to explain that the illusion that someone is “middle class,” although really a well-paid member of the working-class, is a fantasy fed by genuine boom periods or by credit bubbles such as the one recently ended. With the disappointment, felt in both consumption and aspiration, that ensues when the boom ends or the bubble bursts, a labor aristocracy experiences the same emotions as the fading petite bourgeoisie (the class of small shopkeepers), and these emotions are largely those of fear.
The fears of a “middle class” are fears of falling into a working-class that lacks opportunities for consumption and prestige. Fascist groups have directed such fears into suspicion of working-class organizations and of socialists, who are reputed to be levelers or equalizers. This ’middle class” itself finds groups to scapegoat for reduced opportunities. It fears minorities who take jobs and university places through affirmative action and immigrants who receive support from the taxes the middle class feels itself unfairly forced to pay. It resists welfare programs that tend to equalize quality of life between the middle class and the lower orders. It feels that the American way of life is what brought its own benefits, and it fears the enemies of America, whether political or ideological. 9/11 added an immediate sense of being under siege, and one result is the anti-Islamic hysteria of one wing of the Tea Party including those in discussions with the English Defence League in the UK.
An identity coming out of all these middle class fears would seem to present a group of people ready for fascism: disappointed, robbed of their chances, scapegoating Reds (including the “Marxist” Obama), Affirmative Action recipients (seen as African-American and Hispanic or even, simply, female), and immigrants, and ready to cleanse America of the Muslim menace. They look for a strong and charismatic Leader (Glenn Beck? Sarah Palin?). They defend their right to bear arms (as I do myself). For the most part, the Tea Party supports the costly wars that are one large factor in their threatened impoverishment. They have strong financial support and a major television network to back them up. Do they project a new form--or is it an old form?-- of patriotic, industrial, and military state? The neoconservative intellectuals serve them by putting an intellectual gloss on such a vision when they pontificate on Fox News.
I must seem pretty naïve to my faithful reader by not getting the point by now, but I still wonder whether they are, precisely, fascist. They will certainly take their revenge on their perceived enemies by assuring the election of representatives who will cut funding of social services--and giving tax cuts to the party’s wealthy supporters. They are definitely an electoral force. I don’t, however, believe that they do envision a society in which a powerful centralized government with pervasive military and police control runs the country for the benefit of the corporations--or for the benefit of what I think I’ll call the Financial, Industrial, Military, Political Complex (FIMPCO). Perhaps I take their Libertarian rhetoric too seriously. Maybe I shouldn’t believe that they dislike big government, but in the bank bailouts FIMPCO exerted its presence and power, and the Tea Party didn’t like it. With the austerity programs now, however, beginning to wreak destruction at the state and city level, the recession will worsen. The bottom won’t, I think, be reached until 2012--without prospects for an upturn. Maybe the uniforms, armbands, and jack boots will have more appeal for these people by then. And I will be one of those who could not see the dangers.
I quoted earlier in the blog the formula that says that fascism is the socialism of the middle class. I also tried to explain that the illusion that someone is “middle class,” although really a well-paid member of the working-class, is a fantasy fed by genuine boom periods or by credit bubbles such as the one recently ended. With the disappointment, felt in both consumption and aspiration, that ensues when the boom ends or the bubble bursts, a labor aristocracy experiences the same emotions as the fading petite bourgeoisie (the class of small shopkeepers), and these emotions are largely those of fear.
The fears of a “middle class” are fears of falling into a working-class that lacks opportunities for consumption and prestige. Fascist groups have directed such fears into suspicion of working-class organizations and of socialists, who are reputed to be levelers or equalizers. This ’middle class” itself finds groups to scapegoat for reduced opportunities. It fears minorities who take jobs and university places through affirmative action and immigrants who receive support from the taxes the middle class feels itself unfairly forced to pay. It resists welfare programs that tend to equalize quality of life between the middle class and the lower orders. It feels that the American way of life is what brought its own benefits, and it fears the enemies of America, whether political or ideological. 9/11 added an immediate sense of being under siege, and one result is the anti-Islamic hysteria of one wing of the Tea Party including those in discussions with the English Defence League in the UK.
An identity coming out of all these middle class fears would seem to present a group of people ready for fascism: disappointed, robbed of their chances, scapegoating Reds (including the “Marxist” Obama), Affirmative Action recipients (seen as African-American and Hispanic or even, simply, female), and immigrants, and ready to cleanse America of the Muslim menace. They look for a strong and charismatic Leader (Glenn Beck? Sarah Palin?). They defend their right to bear arms (as I do myself). For the most part, the Tea Party supports the costly wars that are one large factor in their threatened impoverishment. They have strong financial support and a major television network to back them up. Do they project a new form--or is it an old form?-- of patriotic, industrial, and military state? The neoconservative intellectuals serve them by putting an intellectual gloss on such a vision when they pontificate on Fox News.
I must seem pretty naïve to my faithful reader by not getting the point by now, but I still wonder whether they are, precisely, fascist. They will certainly take their revenge on their perceived enemies by assuring the election of representatives who will cut funding of social services--and giving tax cuts to the party’s wealthy supporters. They are definitely an electoral force. I don’t, however, believe that they do envision a society in which a powerful centralized government with pervasive military and police control runs the country for the benefit of the corporations--or for the benefit of what I think I’ll call the Financial, Industrial, Military, Political Complex (FIMPCO). Perhaps I take their Libertarian rhetoric too seriously. Maybe I shouldn’t believe that they dislike big government, but in the bank bailouts FIMPCO exerted its presence and power, and the Tea Party didn’t like it. With the austerity programs now, however, beginning to wreak destruction at the state and city level, the recession will worsen. The bottom won’t, I think, be reached until 2012--without prospects for an upturn. Maybe the uniforms, armbands, and jack boots will have more appeal for these people by then. And I will be one of those who could not see the dangers.
Monday, October 4, 2010
Twilight of the Liberals
The sun shone brightly at the One Nation Working Together rally in Washington, D.C. on October 2, and there may have been 100,000 people there, but watching all four hours of it on C-Span, I realized that I was watching the Twilight of the Liberals. It was perhaps not yet their death agony, and there was energy and eloquence throughout, but the speakers were caught up in the dilemma of reformists, the dilemma of the social democracy, and the dilemma of the parties of the Second International. Indeed there was not even the electoral campaign of a party like Britain’s compromised Labour Party to support --although there were numerous speakers from the Democratic Socialists of America, a group that has been given Second International recognition. The DSA, however, supports the Democrats, and that points up the fatal contradiction in the claim to relevance made by the participating groups.
The contradiction that was almost always at work was evident in one of the best speeches, that by Harry Belafonte. He clearly condemned Obama’s decision to escalate the war in Afghanistan and pointed to Congress’s having funded it over social programs. Then he went into a sustained litany about being sure to vote in November.
For whom are we supposed to vote? One guy had a sign that said, “I’ll vote. You betcha.” Yeah, but for whom?
This movement, sincere and eloquent, has no electoral outlet. And some of the speakers were the same kind of trade unionists who killed off the Labor Party that we were trying to create with them.
The One Nation rally was undertaken to show the relevance of these activist groups in meeting the unmet needs of this country, but such groups come up against the fact that capitalism cannot be reformed. The Democrats and Republicans will finally say, “We can’t afford it”--a statement that means that Our Masters cannot afford it. Systemic change is needed, but the corporation-supported parties--Democrats and Republicans, ultimately the parties of Wall Street-- cannot run on a platform of genuine change. How would they get campaign contributions?
It was the end of an era, a twilight, for the forces that ended segregation, fought for basic healthcare, equal pay, and educational opportunity. It was the end of the Great Society, the end of the 1960s, a twilight or worse. Without a party to sustain it, the movement is dead.
The most encouraging aspect of the day’s events was the presence of many young people. They heard what demands can be made. And, although not invited to speak, the socialists did turn out. I hope that they succeeded in revealing some glimmerings of the socialist alternative.
****
In the meantime, the struggle continues in Europe. The RMT has shut down London again today in its effort to stop job cuts on the Underground. The new leader of the Labour Party, Ed Miliband, has not yet endorsed the strike and is unlikely to do so. Ironically enough, he was called “Red Ed’” as a candidate for the party leadership. Instead, good old “Red Ken” (as he’s been called for ages) Livingstone has come out in support of the RMT. The Left in Britain has rightly been critical of Livingstone since his return to the reformist Labour Party, but he does have some memory of what it means to be pro-labor. In the UK, and in the USA, what is needed is a new mass worker’s party. In the USA, we haven’t approached that since the days of Eugene V. Debs.
The contradiction that was almost always at work was evident in one of the best speeches, that by Harry Belafonte. He clearly condemned Obama’s decision to escalate the war in Afghanistan and pointed to Congress’s having funded it over social programs. Then he went into a sustained litany about being sure to vote in November.
For whom are we supposed to vote? One guy had a sign that said, “I’ll vote. You betcha.” Yeah, but for whom?
This movement, sincere and eloquent, has no electoral outlet. And some of the speakers were the same kind of trade unionists who killed off the Labor Party that we were trying to create with them.
The One Nation rally was undertaken to show the relevance of these activist groups in meeting the unmet needs of this country, but such groups come up against the fact that capitalism cannot be reformed. The Democrats and Republicans will finally say, “We can’t afford it”--a statement that means that Our Masters cannot afford it. Systemic change is needed, but the corporation-supported parties--Democrats and Republicans, ultimately the parties of Wall Street-- cannot run on a platform of genuine change. How would they get campaign contributions?
It was the end of an era, a twilight, for the forces that ended segregation, fought for basic healthcare, equal pay, and educational opportunity. It was the end of the Great Society, the end of the 1960s, a twilight or worse. Without a party to sustain it, the movement is dead.
The most encouraging aspect of the day’s events was the presence of many young people. They heard what demands can be made. And, although not invited to speak, the socialists did turn out. I hope that they succeeded in revealing some glimmerings of the socialist alternative.
****
In the meantime, the struggle continues in Europe. The RMT has shut down London again today in its effort to stop job cuts on the Underground. The new leader of the Labour Party, Ed Miliband, has not yet endorsed the strike and is unlikely to do so. Ironically enough, he was called “Red Ed’” as a candidate for the party leadership. Instead, good old “Red Ken” (as he’s been called for ages) Livingstone has come out in support of the RMT. The Left in Britain has rightly been critical of Livingstone since his return to the reformist Labour Party, but he does have some memory of what it means to be pro-labor. In the UK, and in the USA, what is needed is a new mass worker’s party. In the USA, we haven’t approached that since the days of Eugene V. Debs.
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