"The impact of war is self-evident, since economically it is exactly the same as if the nation were to drop a part of its capital into the ocean"
-- Karl Marx, Grundrisse, 1857-58.
Acknowledging this obscenity, Ralph Nader wrote in the Chicago Tribune (July 20) that big firms should be judged based on their "corporate patriotism." They like to take tax breaks and be rescued by marines when it suits them, but they are unwilling to invest their untaxed profits to build up the productive capacity in the United States. Corporations, Nader wrote, "receive all the benefits of American corporate personhood and avoid all the expectations of patriotic behavior and the responsibilities that go along with those privileges and immunities." Hand-over-fist they make money in the financial casinos and by defrauding workers across the world. Meanwhile, they are party to the view that the U. S. needs to balance its budget and cut "entitlements" so that the debt can be managed – but without their own positive contribution to that $14.46 trillion hole.
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The message from this corner of America is simple: no more bombing houses in Droneland, no more foreclosing houses in America.
"On Friday evening, Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek gave a lecture in a bookstore in Central Tel Aviv teeming with familiar faces of leftwing activists. It was hosted by Udi Aloni, an Israeli-American artist and BDS activist, who just completed a book entitled What Does a Jew Want, which is edited by Zizek.http://contested-terrain.net/zizek-%E2%80%9Cantisemitism-is-alive-and-kicking-in-europe%E2%80%9D/
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Sitting in a room full of Israeli activists, some of whom consider themselves on the forefront of the fight against Israeli occupation and apartheid; who devote much of their time going out to the West Bank in solidarity with Palestinians, in confrontation with Israeli military and who favor a total boycott of the country, I could feel the disappointment in the room from certain people that Zizek was not speaking more critically and disapprovingly of Israel. He barely said the word occupation, did not mention the word apartheid even once. He did not directly speak that much about Israel itself or what should be done.
This was a bold move with such an audience – and I’m not sure if people got it or not, but in many ways, I think that Zizek was actually levying criticism against the very activists sitting in that room. They are so caught up with the “evils” of Israel that they have lost perspective on what is going on in the rest of the world, and may have lost sight of the very real dangers of continued antisemism, which has all sorts of consequences.
As someone familiar with Zizek’s ideas and who is well acquainted with his poignant criticism of Israel, I was quite pleased, because I didn’t need to hear over again from him how Israel is occupying the Palestinians. And really, as a philosopher who spends his time in Europe, what could he renew for us on that? But of course, an activist in the audience was not happy that he did not devote enough time to criticizing Zionism, so she asked him why that is.
He proceeded to say that Zionism is not the worst evil in the world. He mentioned the strangling of the West Bank by Israel as a colonization project and said that there should be maps everywhere hanging of what belongs to whom in the West Bank so people who can really see Israel’s domination.
But he also stated that someone from the Democratic Republic of Congo would sell his mother into slavery in a heartbeat for the chance to move to the West Bank."
Chapter 5: Capital Evolves from The Enigma of Capital and the Crises of Capitalism (258k PDF)
"You know, Paul, Reagan proved that deficits don't matter. We won the mid-term elections, this [tax cut] is our due"
"For those who think that a default won’t happen because it is in nobody’s interest, think back on World War I. It was in nobody’s interest. Yet it destroyed Europe’s common civilization and ushered in nearly a century of economic instability and war. World War I occurred because both sides dug in and assumed the other would have to blink first. But that was a miscalculation. Instead of a last-minute deal, we got four years of trench warfare, economic ruin, and millions of wasted lives. Oops.
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This may sound churlish at such a moment, but in addition to blaming the recklessness of today’s Republican party, the man who deserves substantial blame for this impending economic doomsday is Barack Obama. For two and a half years, he has been all but training the Republicans, Pavlov fashion, to keep rejecting compromise. He has done this by rewarding them with a treat every time they up the ante or move the goal posts."
