Pretext to Eliminate Civil Society: Debt!

As the U.S. once again teeters on the edge of bankruptcy, republicans can as usual be expected to argue that slashing civil society will help reduce the debt, and democrats can again be expected to argue for increasing taxes. While soaring debt may even be allowed to happen to provide an excuse to slash civil society and/or raise taxes, neither of these two actions will solve the problem of soaring debt once and for all.

First, the world will have to confront the unfettered investment money-sequences where money alone creates more money as self-multiplying compound-interest, with no labor and no product to back it. The result is a seemingly unending increase in the supply of unbacked currency. While this "new" return money is exponentially routed (via corporations) to a small wealthy investor class, the ordinary worker's frozen wages buy less and less due to an accompanying devaluation of the currency and rise in prices. While a few get wealthier still, most people experience an incessant decline in buying power. At some point, the real social collapse of the life-support-system will leave the average worker unable to survive, while globalization displaces and relocates to inaccessible places the necessary life-support (factories, cottage industry, farmland, know how, etc.).

Since access is to life-support for the species is gradually eliminated, this vicious cycle isn't sustainable. Raising the debt limit just puts off the inevitable day that the corporate investment model will have to be radically overhauled and/or replaced by healthier life-support structure(s). The sad reality is that the burden will fall on unsuspecting masses of ordinary common folks who will be left to pick up the pieces and start from scratch.

Meanwhile, there appears to be a PR blitz to blame the U.S. citizenry for the increased debt. On one day, the current administration (via Cheney) says consumers are spending beyond their means and should save more. On other days, the administration says consumers need to buy more stuff. It's as if the administration is saying, "It's your fault because you didn't save enough, or otherwise it's your fault because you didn't spend enough, but the bottom line is that it's your fault, and you can't say I didn't tell you so."

Fault should first go to those responsible: The wealthy elite that purchase the necessary propaganda to ensure the production of laws (and an enforcement apparatus) that protect their corporate money-for-nothing scheme, increasingly at the expense of the life, wellbeing, rights and liberties of the masses. Real change will only come when ordinary people recognize the root cause. The question that lingers in my mind is, "what are the best ways to help people become aware?"

Here's one possibility. For a better understanding of the problem of globalized corporate money-sequences and the issue dealt with here, see John McMurtry's groundbreaking work, The Cancer Stage of Capitalism. Google books offers sample pages here.