Progressive Calendar 12.01.11 /2
From: David Shove (shove001umn.edu)
Date: Thu, 1 Dec 2011 13:04:30 -0800 (PST)
 P R O G R E S S I V E   C A L E N D A R   12.01.11

1 .Occupy raid/rally 12.01 5pm

2. James Petras          - The new authoritarianism
 3. BraveNewDirtyThirty - The worst of the .01%

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From: WAMM,sundin
Occupy raid/rally 12.01 5pm

Rally: Support Occupy Movement After Raids Thursday, December 1, 5:00 p.m.
Government Plaza (the People’s Plaza) at 300 South Sixth Street,
Minneapolis.

Wednesday night there was a peaceful rally for OccupyMN at the People’s
Plaza at Hennepin County Government Center. Nearly four hundred people
gathered in a peaceful and orderly manner. Around fifteen tents were set up
for the Occupiers to protect them from the elements while they exercise
their right to peaceable assembly in a public area during the cold
Minnesota winter. About fifteen people decided to stay the night in
addition to the usual Occupy vigil group.

At 4:00 a.m. security guards from the Government Center raided the
encampment, confiscating tents and ordering people to leave the plaza. The
group managed to save three tents, and under orders to evacuate the plaza,
moved across the street to Minneapolis city property where they erected the
three tents. After a 9:00 a.m. press conference, they were ordered to move
off city property, which they did. As they moved back across the street to
the People's Plaza, they were informed that they had left everything
unattended, which was not true, as a few people had stayed behind to watch
over things in the plaza, and those that had crossed the street had done so
to peaceably comply with orders. A few valuable items were allowed to be
removed, but security guards informed us that they had orders to sweep the
plaza at 10:30 a.m.—I, Kim Doss-Smith, do not know if this occurred or not,
as I was helping with evacuation of valuable items. A rally in support of
the remaining occupiers has been called. Called by: OccupyMN. FFI: Visit
www.facebook.com/OccupyMN.

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On Thu, Dec 1, 2011 at 10:58 AM, Jess Sundin <jess [at] antiwarcommittee.org>
wrote:

Last night, the Anti-War Committee joined a rally at Occupy Minneapolis, to
support the occupiers demand for shelter. Some 400 people rallied with us,
including Union leaders, and elected officials from City Hall and the MN
House of Representatives. It was a great rally, and in the midst of it, we
set up dozens of tents, posted protest signs on them, including one for the
Anti-War Committee. After a few hours, we went to sleep... Just after 4am,
county security stormed into the Plaza and began dragging people out and
tearing down our tents. All the tents, as well as many sleeping bags and
blankets were taken, but no one was arrested.
After a brief meeting, most of the group decided to reconvene across the
street at City Hall, where we set up a few more tents. At 9am, Minneapolis
Police came in to tear down the tents, brutally arresting at least two
protesters. Shortly after that, County security informed occupiers that
they intend to clear the Plaza of any remaining Occupy stuff - tables,
blankets, food, etc.
We need community support to defend the Occupy movement!
1. URGENT: Go to the Plaza to ensure that no more property is seized.
2. CALL: County commissioners to demand accountability for last night's
attack on the Occupied tents! They should immediately return all the seized
property, and protect the rights of occupiers to continue an
around-the-clock presence on the Plaza, including the right to shelter.

Call as many of the commissioners as you can, but if you can only call two,
call Gail Dorfman and Peter McLaughlin.
Gail Dorfman: 612-348-7883 | gail.dorfman [at] co.hennepin.mn.us
Peter McLaughlin: 612-348-7884  | commissioner.mclaughlin [at] co.hennepin.mn.us
Mike Opat, chair: 612-348-7881 | mike.opat [at] co.hennepin.mn.us
Mark Stenglein: 612-348-7882 | mark.stenglein [at] co.hennepin.mn.us
Randy Johnson: 612-348-7885 | randy.johnson [at] co.hennepin.mn.us
Jan Callison: 612-348-7886 | jan.callison [at] co.hennepin.mn.us
Jeff Johnson: 612-348-7887 | jeff.r.johnson [at] co.hennepin.mn.us

For more info, call us at 612.379.3899

3. CALL: Mayor Rybak to demand accountability for this morning's attack on
the occupiers at City Hall.  He should ensure that City property is a
protected space for protest and dissent, and call for the release of the
protesters arrested with the occupied tents this morning.
Mayor R.T. Rybak
City Hall, Room 331
350 South Fifth Street
Minneapolis, MN 55415
Phone: (612) 673-2100 or
call 311 or call (612) 673-3000 outside Minneapolis
Fax: (612) 673-2305


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The New Authoritarianism
>From Decaying Democracies to Technocratic Dictatorships and Beyond
by James Petras
November 28th, 2011

We live in a time of dynamic, regressive, regime changes. A period in which
major political transformations and the dramatic roll back of a half
century of socio-economic legislation are accelerated by a prolonged and
deepening economic crises and a world-wide financier led offensive. This
essay explores major ongoing regime changes that have a profound impact on
governance, the class structures, economic institutions, political freedom
and national sovereignty. We delineate a two-stage process of political
regression. The first stage involves the transition from a decaying
democracy to an oligarchical democracy; the second stage currently
unfolding in Europe involves the transition from oligarchical democracy to
colonial-technocratic dictatorship. We will identify the specific features
of each regime focusing on the specific conditions and socio-economic
forces behind each “transition”. We will proceed to clarify the key
concepts, their operative meaning: specifically the nature and dynamics of
“decaying democracies” (DD), oligarchical democracies (OD), and “colonial
technocratic dictatorship” (CTD).

The second half of the essay will detail the politics of CTD, the regime
which has moved furthest from the notion of a sovereign representative
democracy. We will clarify the differences and similarities between
traditional military-civilian and fascist dictatorships and the up-to-date
CTD, focusing on the ideology of apolitical expertise and technocratic rule
as a preliminary to an exploration of the profoundly colonial hierarchical
chain of decision making.

The penultimate section will highlight the reason why the imperial ruling
classes and their national collaborators have overturned the pre-existing
“democratic” oligarchical ruling formulas of “indirect rule” in favor of a
naked power grab. The turn to direct colonial rule (a coup by any other
name) was consumated by the major financial ruling classes of Europe and
the US.

We will evaluate the socio-economic impact of rule by imperial appointed
colonial technocrats, the reason for rule by fiat and force over the
previous process of persuasion, manipulation and co-optation.

In the concluding section we will evaluate the polarization of the class
struggle in a time of colonial dictatorship, in the context of hollowed out
electoral institutions and radical regressive social policies. The essay
will address the twin issues of struggle for political freedom and social
justice in the face of fiat rule by emerging technocratic colonial rulers.

What is at stake goes beyond the current regime changes to identifying the
most basic institutional configurations which will define the life chances,
personal and political freedoms of future generations, for decades to come.

Decaying Democracies and the Transition to Oligarchical Democracies

The decay of democracy is evident in every sphere of politics. Corruption
is all pervasive, as parties and leaders vie for financial contributions
from the wealthy and powerful; congressional and executive positions have a
price tag; each piece of legislation is influenced by powerful corporate
“lobbies” which spend millions writing the laws and engineering their
approval. Prominent influence peddlers like the US felon Jack Abramoff
boast that “every congressperson has their price.” The vote of citizens
counts for nothing: the politician’s campaign promises have no relation to
their behavior in office. Lies and deceptions are considered “normal” in
the political process. The exercise of political rights are increasingly
under police surveillance and active citizens are subject to arbitrary
arrest. The political elite depletes the public treasury subsidizing
colonial wars and pays for their military adventures by eliminating basic
social programs, public agencies and services.

Legislators engage in vitriolic demagogy in virtual Punch and Judy puppet
conflicts as public displays of partisanship while in private they feast
together at the public trough. In the face of the discredited legislative
institutions and the overt, gross buying and selling of public office,
executive officials, elected and appointed, seize legislative and judicial
powers.

Decaying democracy evolves into an “oligarchical democracy” as executive
officials rule by fiat; overriding democratic rules and ignoring the
interests of the majority. An executive junta, of elected and non-elected
officials, resolves questions of war and peace, allocates billions of
dollars or euros to a financial oligarchy, and reduces living standards of
millions of citizens via class-biased “austerity packages.” The legislature
abdicates its legislative and oversight function and submits to the
executive junta’s “accomplished facts.” The citizenry is assigned the role
of passive spectators – even as anger, disgust and hostility spreads and
deepens. Isolated voices of dissenting representatives are drowned out by
the cacophony of mass media contracted prestigious “experts” and academics
shilling for the financial oligarchy and advising the executive junta. No
longer do citizens look to the legislatures for relief or redress from the
executive siezure and abuse of power. To fortify their absolute power, the
oligarchies emasculate the constitutions, citing economic catastrophes and
all pervasive “terrorist” threats. A vast and growing police state
apparatus, with unlimited powers, enforces constraints on civic and
political opposition. As legislative powers are sapped and executive
authorities enlarge their sphere of action, the remaining democratic
freedoms are curtailed via “bureaucratic restrictions” on time, place, and
forms of political action. The purpose is to minimize the critical minority
from mobilizing a sympathetic majority. As the economic crises worsen and
the bondholders and investors demand higher interest rates, the oligarchy
extends and deepens their austerity measures. Inequalities widen, exposing
the oligarchical nature of the executive junta. The social bases of the
regime narrows. The well-paid skilled workers and middle class employees
and professionals begin to feel the acute erosion of wages, salaries,
pensions, working conditions, and future career prospects. The narrowing of
social support undermines the junta’s claim to democratic legitimacy. Faced
with mass discontent and discredit and with strategic sections of the civil
bureaucracy in revolt, factional strife breaks out among rival cliques
within the “official parties” of government. The “democratic oligarchy” is
pushed and pulled in several directions: it decrees social cuts but can
only find limited support in implementing them. It decrees regressive taxes
but cannot collect them. It launches colonial wars but cannot win them. The
executive junta alternates between force and compromise; robust promises to
the international bankers and then, under mass pressure, backsliding.

Over time oligarchical democracy is no longer useful as to the financial
elite. Its democratic pretensions no longer can deceive the masses.
Prolonged elite factional warfare erodes its willingness to impose the
financial oligarchy’s full agenda. At this point oligarchical democracy as
a political formula has run its course.

The financial elite are ready and willing to discard all pretenses of
ruling via democratic oligarchs. They are seen as willing but too weak; too
subject to domestic pressure from factional rivals and not willing to
proceed to savage cuts in social budgets, even greater reductions in living
standards and working conditions.

The real power behind the executive juntas comes to the fore. The
international bankers discard the “native junta” and impose non-elected
bankers to rule – dubbing their private bankers as technocrats.

The Transition to a Colonial “Technocratic” Dictatorship

The naked rule by foreign bankers is disguised by an ideology which
describes it as rule by technocrats who are experts, apolitical and above
private interests. The reality behind the technocratic rhetoric is that the
officials appointed have a career of working with and for big financial
private and international interests. Lucas Papdemos, the appointed Greek
Prime Minister, worked for the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and, as head
of the Greek Central Bank, was responsible for cooking the books covering
up the fraudulent budgetary accounts leading Greece to financial disaster.
Mario Monti, the appointed Prime Minister of Italy was employed by the
European Union and Goldman Sachs. These appointments by the banks are based
on their total loyalty and unstinting commitments to impose the harshest
regressive policies on the working populations of Greece and Italy. The
so-called technocrats are not subject to party factions, nor remotely
responsive to any social protests. They are free of all political
commitments … except one, to secure the payment of the debt to foreign
bondholders – especially the loans owed to major European and North
American financial institutions. The technocrats are totally dependent on
the foreign banks for their appointments and tenure in office. They have
not a smattering of a political organizational base in the countries they
govern. They rule because, foreign bankers threatened to bankrupt the
countries if they were not appointed. They have zero independence, in the
sense that the “technocrats” are merely instruments and direct
representatives of the Euro-American bankers.

The “technocrats” by the nature of their appointments are colonial
officials explicitly appointed at the behest of imperial bankers and
sustained by them. Secondly, neither they nor their colonial mentors were
elected by the people over whom they govern. They are imposed by economic
coercion and political blackmail. Thirdly, the measures they adopt are
designed to inflict the maximum pain by totally altering the basic
relation-between labor and capital, by maximizing the power of the latter
to hire, fire, fix salaries and working conditions. In other words, the
technocratic agenda imposes a political and economic dictatorship.

The social institutions and political processes associated with a
democratic-capitalist welfare state, corrupted by decadent democracies,
eroded by oligarchical democracies are threatened with total demolition by
the emerging colonial technocratic dictatorships (CTD). The language of
social regression is full of euphemisms but the substance is clear. Social
programs regarding public health, education, pensions, and disabilities are
slashed or eliminated and the “savings” transferred into tributary payments
to foreign bondholders (banks).

Public employees are fired, their retirement age extended and their
salaries reduced and their tenure eliminated. Public enterprises are sold
to foreign and domestic capitalist oligarchs with services curtailed and
employees shed. Employers shred collective bargaining agreements. Workers
are fired and hired at the whim of the owners. Vacations, severance pay,
starting salaries and overtime pay are drastically reduced. These
pro-capitalist regressive policies are dubbed “structural reforms.”
Consultative processes are replaced by the dictatorial powers of capital –
“legislated” and implemented by the appointed technocrats. Not since the
time of Mussolini and fascist rule and the Greek military junta (1967-1973)
has such a regressive assault on popular organizations and democratic
rights taken place.

Comparing Fascist and Technocratic Dictatorships

The earlier fascist and military dictatorships have much in common with the
current technocratic despots regarding the capitalist interests they defend
and the social classes they oppress. But there are important differences
which disguise the continuities.

The military junta in Greece and Mussolini in Italy seized power by force
and violence, outlawed all opposition parties, press trade unions and
closed the elected parliament. The current “technocratic” dictatorship is
handed power by the political elites of the oligarchical democracy – a
“peaceful” transition at least in its initial phase. In contrast to the
earlier dictatorships, the current despotic regimes retain the hollowed out
and emasculated electoral facades, as rubber stamp entities to provide a
kind of “pseudo-legitimacy,” which beguiles the financial press but fools
few public citizens.

>From the very first day of technocratic rule the key slogans of the
organized movements in Italy was, “No to a government of bankers”; while in
Greece the slogan that greeted the puppet pragmatist Papdemos was “European
Union, IMF, Get Out.”

The earlier dictatorships began as full blown police states, arresting
pro-democracy movement activists and trade unionists before pursuing their
pro-capitalist policies. The current technocrats first launch their vicious
all-out assault on living and working conditions, with parliamentary assent
and then in the face of sustained and determined resistance by the
“parliaments of the street”, proceed to escalate police state repression by
degree … practicing incremental police state rule.

Policies of the Technocratic Dictatorships: Scope, Depth and Method

The dictatorial organization of a technocratic regime is derived from its
policies and political mission. In order to impose policies that result in
massive transfers of wealth, power and legal rights from labor and
households to capital, especially foreign capital, an authoritarian regime
is essential, especially in anticipation of sustained resistance. The
international financial oligarchy cannot secure “stable and sustainable”
long term extraction of wealth with any semblance of democratic governance,
even a decaying oligarchic democracy. Hence the last resort for the bankers
in the EU and USA is to directly appoint one of their own to push, shove
and impose a sequence of comprehensive large scale, long-term regressive
changes. The mission of the technocrats is to impose an enduring
institutional framework which will guarantee long-term, high interest
payments based on decades of impoverishment and popular exclusion.

The mission of the “technocratic dictatorship” is not to put in place a
single regressive policy of short duration, such as a salary freeze or
dismissal of a few thousand school teachers. Their intent is to convert the
entire state apparatus into an efficient press to continuously extract and
transfer tax revenues and income from workers and employees to bond
holders. To maximize the power and profits of capital over labor, the
technocrats grant the capitalists absolute power to fix the terms of labor
contracts, as far as hiring, firing, longevity, hours and working
conditions.

The technocrats “method of rule” is to have an ear only for the foreign
bankers, bondholders and private investors. The decision process is closed
and limited to the coterie of bankers and technocrats without the least
transparency. Above all, under colonial rules the technocrats must ignore
the protestors if possible or, if necessary break heads. Under pressure
from the banks, there is no time for mediation, compromise or delays as was
the case under decaying and oligarchical democracies.

Ten historic transformations dominate the agenda of the technocratic
dictatorships and their colonial mentors.

1) Massive shifts in budgetary allocations from welfare to bond and bank
payments.

2) Large scale changes in income policies from wages to profits, interest
payments and rents.

3) Highly regressive tax policies, increasing consumer (VAT) and wage taxes
and lowering taxes on bondholders and investors.

4) Eliminating employment security (“labor flexibility”), increasing the
reserve army of unemployed to lower wages, intensifying the exploitation of
employed labor (“higher productivity”).

5) Rewriting labor codes, undermining the balance of power between
organized labor and capital. Wages, working conditions and health issues
are taken out of the hands of rank and file unionists and put in the hands
of technocratic “corporate commissions.”

6) The dismantling of a half century of public enterprises and institutions
and privatizing telecommunications, energy, health, education and pension
funds. Trillion dollar privatizations are windfall profits on a world
historic scale. Private monopolies replace public and provide fewer jobs
and services without adding any new productive capacity.

7) The economic axis shifts from production and services for mass
consumption in the domestic market, to exports of specialized goods and
services to overseas markets. This new dynamic requires lower wages to
“compete” internationally but shrinks the domestic market. The new strategy
translates into an increase in hard currency earnings from exports to pay
the debt to the bondholders but results in greater misery and unemployment
for domestic labor. Under the technocratic “model,” prosperity accrues to
vulture investors buying lucrative but financially strapped local producers
and real estate on the cheap.

8) The technocratic dictatorship by design and policy aims at a “bipolar
class structure” in which the bulk of the skilled workers and the middle
class is impoverished and suffers downward mobility while enriching a
strata of local bondholders and business owners who cash in on interest
payments and the low cost of labor.

9) Deregulation of capital, privatization and the centrality of financial
capital leads to greater colonial (foreign) ownership of land, banks,
strategic economic sectors and “social” services. National sovereignty is
replaced by imperial sovereignty in the economy as well as politics.

10) The unified power of colonial technocrats and imperial bondholders
dictating policy concentrates power in a non-elected power elite. They rule
with a narrow social base and no popular legitimacy. They are politically
vulnerable, therefore, constantly dependent on economic threats or physical
force.

Three Stages of Technocratic Dictatorial Rule

The historic task of the technocratic dictatorship is to roll-back the
political, social and economic advances gained by the working class, public
employees and pensioners since the defeat of fascist capitalism in 1945.
The unmaking of over sixty years of history is no easy task, least of all
in the midst of a deep ongoing socio-economic crises, in which the working
class has already experienced severe cuts in wages and benefits and the
number of young unemployed (18-30 years) throughout the EU and North
America ranges between 25 to 50 percent.

The proposed agenda of the “technocrats” – parroting their colonial mentors
in the banks – is ever more severe reductions in living and working
conditions.The proposed “austerity” occurs in the face of growing economic
inequalities between the wealthy 5% and the bottom 60% between Southern
Europe and Northern Europe. Faced with downward mobility and heavy
indebtedness, the middle class and especially their ‘educated children’,
are outraged by the technocrats call for even greater social cuts. Outrage
spreads from the lower middle class to business and professionals on the
verge of bankruptcy and loss of status.

The technocratic rulers, constantly play on mass insecurity and fear of a
“catastrophic collapse” if their ‘bitter medicine’ is not swallowed by the
anguished middle classes who fear the prospect of sinking into the working
class or worse.

The technocrats call on the present generation to sacrifice, to commit
virtual suicide, to save future generations. With gravity and humble
posturing they speak of “equal sacrifices”, a message belied by the firing
of tens of thousands of employees and the selling of billions of
euros/dollars of the national patrimony to foreign bankers and investors.
Lowering public expenditures to pay bondholders and entice private
investors erodes any appeal for “national unity” and “equal sacrifice”
..The technocratic regime strives to act decisively and quickly to impose
its brutal regressive agenda, the rollback of sixty years of history before
the masses have time rise up and bring them down.

To preclude political opposition the technocrats demand “national unity”,
(the unity of bankers and oligarchs), the backing of the decadent electoral
parties and their leaders and their total submission to the colonial
bankers’ demands.

The technocrats’ political trajectory will be short lived given the
draconian systemic changes and repressive structures they propose, the best
they can accomplish is to dictate and implement policies and then return to
their lucrative sanctuaries in the overseas banks.

Technocratic Rule: Stage One

With the unanimous backing of the mass media and the full backing of the
powerful bankers, the technocrats take advantage of the downfall of the
despised and discredited politicians of the past electoral regimes. They
project a clean government image which speaks to a regime which is
efficient and competent, capable of decisive action. They promise to put an
end to deteriorating living conditions and partisan political paralyses. At
the onset of their rule the technocratic dictators exploit the justified
popular disgust with privileged “do-nothing” politicians to secure a
measure of popular consent or at least passive acquiescence from the
majority of the citizens drowning in debt and in search of a “savior.”

It should be noted that among the most politically aware and social
conscious minority, the bankers resort to a colonized “technocratic regime”
cuts no ice: they immediately identify the technocratic regime as
illegitimate deriving powers from foreign bankers. They affirm the rights
of citizens and national sovereignty. From the beginning, even under the
cloak of emergency powers, the technocrats face a core of mass opposition.

The bankers realistically recognize the technocrats must move quickly and
decisively.

Stage Two: Technocrats’ Shock Policies

The technocrats launch 100 days of the most egregious class warfare against
the working class since the military/fascist regimes. In the name of the
Free Markets, the Bondholder and the Unholy Alliance of political oligarchs
and bankers dictate edicts, and laws are passed, immediately firing tens of
thousands of public employees. Scores of public enterprises are rushed to
the auction block. Job security is abolished and firing without cause
becomes the law of the land. Regressive taxes are decreed and households
are impoverished. The entire income pyramid is turned on its head. The
technocrats widen inequalities and deepen immiseration.

The initial euphoria greeting technocratic rule is replaced by bitter
reproaches. The lower middle class looking for a paternal dictatorial
resolution of their condition, recognize “another political swindle”. As
the technocratic regime races to fulfill its mission to the foreign
bankers, the popular mood sours, bitterness spreads even among its ‘passive
collaborators’. There are no crumbs from the table of a colonial regime
empowered to maximize the outflow of state revenues to bondholders.

The compromised political oligarchy tries to revive their fortunes and
“questions” the particularities of the technocratic “tsunami” smashing the
social fabric of society. The scale and scope of the dictatorship’s
extremist agenda and the ongoing build-up of mass frustrations frightens
the political party collaborators, while the bankers urge them on to bigger
and deeper social cuts. The technocrats in the face of the burgeoning
popular storm begin to cower.

The bankers call for greater backbone and offer new loans for “keeping the
course.” The technocrats bunker down – alternating between pleas for time
and sacrifice with promises of prosperity “around the corner.” Mostly they
rely on constant police mobilization and de facto militarization of civil
society.

Mission Accomplished: Civil War or the Return of Oligarchical Democracy?

The outcome of the “experiment” with a colonial dictatorial technocratic
regime is difficult to predict. One reason is because the measures adopted
are so extreme and extensive, that they unify almost all important social
classes (except the top 5%) against them at the same time. The
concentration of power in an “appointed” elite further isolates them and
unifies most citizens in favor of democracy against colonial submission and
unelected rulers. The measures approved by the technocrats face the
unlikely prospect of full implementation, especially by civil servants and
public employees facing firings, pay cuts and reduced pensions. The across
the board cuts undermine “divide and conquer” tactics. Given the scope and
depth of the downgrading of the public sector and the indignity of serving
a regime clearly under colonial tutelage, it is possible that breaks and
fissures will take place in the military and police apparatus especially if
they provoke popular uprisings which turn violent. The technocratic juntas
cannot ensure that their policies will be implemented. If not, revenues
will falter; strikes and protests will scare off predator buyers of public
firms. The big squeeze will undermine local business, production will
decline the recession will deepen.

Technocratic rule is by its nature transitory. Under threat of a mass
revolt the new rulers will flee to their overseas financial sanctuaries.
Local oligarchical collaboraters will hasten to augment their billion
dollar euro overseas bank accounts in London, New York and Zurich.

The technocratic dictatorship will make every effort to hand power back to
the oligarchical democratic politicians with the proviso that they retain
the regressive changes in place. Technocratic rule will end up with “paper
victories” unless the overseas bankers insist the “return to democracy”
operates within the “new order.”

The application of force could boomerang. The technocrats and democratic
oligarchs renewed threats of an economic catastrophe for non-compliance
will be counter-manded by the reality of real existing misery and mass
unemployment. For millions the living catastrophe resulting from
technocratic policies will outweigh any future threats. The rebellious
majority may choose to rise up and overthrow the old order and take its
chances in an independent democratic socialist republic. One of the
unforeseen consequences of imposing radical colonial appointed technocratic
dictatorship is that it clears the political landscape of parasitic
political oligarchies and lays the groundwork for a clean break. It
facilitates renouncing the debt and reconstituting the social fabric of an
independent democratic republic.

The serious danger is that the discredited politicians of the old order
will demagogically attempt to seize the democratic banners of the
“anti-dictatorial anti-technocrat” struggle to bring back what Marx called
“the old crap of the previous order.” The recycled political oligarchs will
adapt to the “restructured” new order of eternal debt payments as part of a
deal to maintain the ongoing process of unending social regression. The
revolutionary struggle against the colonial technocratic rulers must
continue and deepen, to block the restoration of the democratic oligarchs.

James Petras, a former Professor of Sociology at Binghamton University, New
York, owns a 50-year membership in the class struggle, is an adviser to the
landless and jobless in Brazil and Argentina, and is co-author of
Globalization Unmasked (Zed Books). Petras’ most recent book is The Arab
Revolt and the Imperialist Counterattack. He can be reached at:
jpetras [at] binghamton.edu.
All content © 2011 Dissident Voice and respective authors
|

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BraveNew Dirty Thirty
The worst of the .01%

[This is taken from an in-process on-line vote for the 30 most evil
corporate slavemasters.
There are lots of "dirty thirty" lists, so you have to add "braveNew" to
the search. Pictures and bios of all of them. And you can cast your vote.
-ed]

Meet the Nominees
Check out our nominees and vote to choose the worst ones. No need to pick
just one: start rating and you’ll be taken through the list of nominees,
person by person, to rate their dirty deeds on a scale of “ho-hum” to “pure
evil.” Then we’ll make a series of videos exposing the ones you put at the
front of the pack. So go ahead and vote. Start to take your democracy back.

Donald Trump
The Trump Organization
"The Grandstander"

Darrell Issa
U.S. Congress
"The Inside Man"

Rush Limbaugh
Radio Personality
"The Mouthpiece"

James McNerney
Boeing
"The War Profiteer"

Jeff Immelt
General Electric
"The Pretender"

Ivan Seidenberg
Verizon
"Ivan the Terrible"

Rupert Murdoch
News Corp.
"The Propagandist"

Erik Prince
Blackwater/Xe
"The Prince of Darkness"

Richard DeVos
Amway
"The Magic Man"

Charles & David Koch
Koch Industries
"The Puppeteers"

Brian Moynihan
Bank of America
"The Robo-Signer"

Rob Walton
Walmart
"The Billionaire Bully"

Hugh Grant
Monsanto
"Dr. Frankenfood"

Jamie Dimon
JPMorgan Chase
"The Fraudster"

Richard Anderson
Delta Airlines
"The Union Buster"

Robert Rubin
Goldman Sachs, Citigroup
"The Financial Architect"

George Paz
Express Scripts
"The Pill Pusher"

Joseph Cassano
AIG
"The Crasher"

Damon Hininger
Corrections Corporation of America,
"The Prison Profiteer"

John Paulson
Paulson & Co. Hedge Fund
"The Deal Designer"

Art Pope
Variety Wholesalers
"Koch Jr."

Don Blankenship
Massey Energy
"Dirty Don"

Phil Knight
Nike
"The Sweatshop King"

Rex Tillerson
Exxon Mobil
"The Science Denier"

Larry Summers
Harvard University
"The Revolving Doorman"

Pete Peterson
Blackstone Group
"Mr. Social Insecurity"

Paul Singer
Elliot Hedge Fund Mgmt
"The Vulture Capitalist"

Lloyd Blankfein
Goldman Sachs
"Lyin' Lloyd"

Angelo Mozilo
Countrywide Financial
"Optimus Subprime"

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