What's up with that?

I caught the tail end of the news last night and the commentator was talking about the economy. He said that Tuesday was a surprise as the stock market declined so terribly. They thought the taxpayer bailout of AIG, the world's largest insurance company would inject some confidence in to the market and the investors might inject some capital, but investors "weren't buying it". In other words, they were not letting capital go.

He also said that the banks were "turning their backs" on the situation. This also means they aren't letting capital go. Imagine what we are called when we are forced to go on strike to win better wages and conditions? Nurses, teachers and social workers especially are viciously maligned in the press because they are "putting people's lives and safety at risk". People are losing homes and banks are "turning their backs". We'd be shot for that.

You notice there aren't any injunctions forcing the huge moneylenders to release capital or to force the banks to inject liquidity in to the economy; no banker is being accused of being unpatriotic or anti-American because they are turning their backs on a crisis. There are no accusations of terrorism like there were when the ILWU threatened a strike or when that strike took place in Minnesota after 911.

We are in a strike of capital. In a capitalist economy we are the possessors of Labor power and we sell the use of it to a buyer (the possessor of capital). Yet when we threaten to withhold it, to refuse to sell it in an attempt to either force a rise in its price or a change in the conditions under which it is used, the entire weight of the state is brought down upon us to force us to cease such unpatriotic and terroristic activity; we are forced to sell at a cost that is "realistic". From the buyer's point of view the cheaper the better.

Yet the capitalist, who, in a capitalist economy, is also the legal owner of capital in its money form, is not forced by the state to cease his or her terroristic activity and release this money in to the economy by purchasing Labor power (hiring workers/creating jobs) or investing in companies that do. There are no injunctions forcing them to build a hospital or school. The state of California's constitution guarantees that the moneylender's debts are paid. It doesn't guarantee the humans living within its borders a roof over their head, an education or medical attention. Who wrote that document I wonder?

That should tell us something about the government shouldn't it? And at the very least, the last few months have shown us that there is plenty of money for the schools and hospitals and public transportation that we so desperately need in the US. They use force to break our strikes, that's what will work to break theirs.

Can the government really be the government of "all the people?" I think we need to assess that situation.