Home truths
Alright, world. It is time we come to terms with some home truths.
Capitalism is not the only means by which democracy can be achieved.
And contrary to popular opinion, free trade does not prevent war.
In fact free-trade has largely been achieved through war.
Free-trade has a long and violent history, almost more violent than all the worker’s revolutions put together.
From Chile to Brazil, Portugal, Nicaragua, the former Soviet Union, Bulgaria, Uruguay, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Guatemala, Honduras, The Philippines, Vietnam, China, Japan, Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, there are few countries in the world that haven’t been invaded for the sake of free trade.
Upton Sinclair once said: ‘It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.’
Today’s political crisis is the culmination of the 35-year long-fiction about money and history. Perhaps longer, even.
Unless we come to terms with how both operate, the victor of this ideological spectre will not be those with the best policies or intentions, but those who are best able to perpetuate these long mythologies.
Please understand that the right to self-determination has almost always been a violent, bloody fight against the establishment.
The French and Russian revolutions were some of the bloodiest in history.
What little progress workers have achieved over the last half-century is not the inevitable result of a system designed to support our interests, but an exception made possible by key individuals who defied the status quo and who were almost always punished for it.
The New Deal almost didn’t happen, were it not for the good-will of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) and his running mate and VP, Henry Wallace who both envisioned building an era of the working man, in contrast to their cabinet and Congress who were more concerned about business constituents abroad then voting constituents at home. Both men were punished severely for having the audacity to pull America — and the world — out of The Great Depression. Having survived one assassination attempt that resulted in the accidental death of Chicago mayor, Anton Cermak, FDR was also subject to an almost-fascist coup, organised, funded and executed by the country’s leading bankers and capitalists. Were it not for the fact they picked the wrong military man to lead the charge — General Smedley Butler — America might be a very different country right now. Or at least a slightly different country… (*sigh*).
And boy, did they pick the wrong guy. Tired of being “a gangster for capitalism”, Butler blew the whistle on the entire plot, culminating in a Congressional investigation and trial.
Having risked a fascist-coup, Roosevelt put his professional career on the line for what he believed in. He even threatened not to run for a second term if the terms of the New Deal were not met. And even when it did pass Congress, it was full of massive compromises, including structurally excluding African Americans from even participating in its rewards. Massive concessions to the South were the only way to get the New Deal through Congress.
Even so, the DNC eventually had its revenge, bumping Vice President Wallace from the ticket at the nominating convention, replacing him with the incompetent Harry S Truman, who would become President within three months of his elevation to power, upon the death of FDR.
Likewise, British wartime Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, almost fell victim to a fascist coup plot — this one organised by Britain’s leading industrialists and aristocrats — for daring to defy Hitler. The capitalists of The Right Club, a group of British capitalist fascist sympathisers, even tried to organise a surrender and subsequent alliance with Nazi Germany. Thankfully MI6 put the kibosh on the attempt.
Small gains were made over time, that suited the interests of working people, but those who stuck their neck out for us almost always lost theirs, mostly — but not always — in the proverbial sense.
American labour leader Joseph Yablonski was murdered by assassins in November 1969, hired by union political opponenet, Mine Workers president, Tony Boyle.
Chilean President Salvador Allende was assassinated in a 1973 CIA coup led by economist Milton Friedman and his ‘Chicago Boys’, making way for Augusto Pinochet to takeover in what was to be the first in a long-line of ‘free-market coups’, appointing leaders sympathetic to US interests.
Marxist revolutionary, Thomas Sankara was assassinated in 1987 for challenging neoliberal IMF orthodoxy in Burkina Faso by repudiating unjust debts.
10 union leaders connected to Coca-Cola were killed between 1990 and 2002, including Colombian union leader, Isidro Gil. A day after he was killed, the workers at his plant were summoned to the manager’s office and given two choices: Resign or die. The plant then hired new workers at less than a third of what it was paying its former employees. Monthly wages were slashed from US$380 to $100 a month.
Strike leader and rock-drill operator, Mgcineni Noki, was gunned down by South African police in 2012, along with 34 miners for daring to defy exploitative working conditions and slave wages.
Guatemalan union leader, Brenda Marleni Estrada Tambiento, was shot and killed in Guatemala City on the 19th of June, 2016, for advocating for labour rights.
Political and union leaders weren’t the only people who suffered for justice.
At least 25 workers were executed by the state over the same period.
The system is not and was never designed to support workers, who have forever been a thorn in the side of the capitalist class.
What little progress the working man has made throughout history is in spite of a system rigged heavily against workers, thanks to the intervention of individuals who intervened to try to achieve some semblance of financial independence for the population, without which we’d still be living in feudalism.
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