I am pleased the Giants won tonight’s game against the Texas Rangers. I am not an avid baseball fan but they are the local team and I do enjoy a good game now and then. But, as I commented in a previous blog, I find all the nationalist and religious propaganda offensive and nauseating to say the least. Surely, singing god bless a nation state must be anti-Christian.
The nasty thing about it is the coercion, the announcer telling you to remove your caps and on some occasions, to stand. I did think that it would be OK for the Rangers to win as they have never won the World Series (always astonished me calling it that as almost no one else in the world competes in it, so a US team is almost a cinch to win it) but seeing the imbecile George Bush and his father riding out on to the field where George W threw the first pitch made me so angry I wanted the Giants to trounce them and they did. Madison Bumgarner, the young pitcher who pitched through eight innings had a great game.
I cannot help feeling very uneasy with all the nationalism that has increased since 911. If my memory serves me right, at the seventh inning we used to stand up and I think they sang, Take Me Out to The Ball Game. But now its God bless America. A massive US flag (you know, the image that is on the little explosive canisters from cluster bombs that blow Iraqi and Afghan kids arms off because they don’t explode sometimes and the kids think they’re toys) is unfurled across the field as folks cheer. I can’t imagine the level of cheering for George W and his father was sincere, it was quite nauseating, two killers like that.
I haven’t lived in England for a long time but I cannot recall seeing such a sight as that huge flag, and there are close up shots of a smaller flag blowing in the warm Texas wind that are supposed to evoke national pride. Maybe they do it in Britain now I just don’t know, but Europeans are much more wary of such aggressive displays of nationalistic fervor I think. The Union Jack, referred to by Irish Republicans as the “Butcher’s Apron” was seen but not in that way, I think I would assume it was the Nazis or fascists if I saw that sort of display.
Nationalism is bad for workers, it places national unity above class unity, it places Warren Buffet and me in the same boat and keeps workers of other countries out: like the religious fervor, it’s a con game. It’s different if it were Ireland or Mexico, two countries bordering the two most powerful of imperialist nations; these countries’ global ventures don’t quite match up to those of the US and Britain and they have been imperialized, while the reverse is true for Britain and the US in the main. This doesn't negate the fact that all capitalist states tend to imperialize their neighbors and rivals but some have been vastly more successful at it. Below: a position that prevents international solidarity
While for the masses it brings out the flags, sings the patriotic songs and has Hollywood show how great we are on film, in the real world the US capitalist class understands that the great game has changed and they have to adapt if they want to play; they can't be the bullies they once were. You can read their own words. The G20 met in Korea last week (that there is a G20 is one sign of this process) and the US is trying desperately to get some agreement to cap trade surpluses at 4% of a country’s economic output among other things. The US wants exporting countries like China to increase domestic demand so that the balance of trade can be more equal. It attacks the Chinese for currency manipulation by preventing their currency from rising, but the dollar has fallen about a third against major currencies in the last 8 years so that argument is a bit weak.
These arguments go on forever as representatives of global capitalism attempt to maintain a stable environment for profit making. They love free trade but then claim it is destroying US jobs. And as much as they fear protectionism, they are driven by economic reality to head in that direction. Their word means nothing. According to Global Trade Alert, an independent monitoring firm, “pledges not to engage in protectionism have been ignored about 400 times in two years” Business Week reports.
It’s a real mess.
Were it not for nuclear weapons, World War Three might well have started long ago. But look at how US capitalism sees the situation: David Rothkopf, former trade official in the Clinton Administration, “The US is in the weakest position in terms of leading international negotiations that its been in a very long time.”
Reporting on the trade talks, Peter Coy in Business week* compares US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geitner’s situation in Korea to that of John Maynard Keynes at the Bretton Woods talks immediately following WW 11. At Bretton Woods, the US through its economic and military might drove down the tariff barriers of its rivals and instituted trade terms that were favorable to it. British domination was over and the baton was being passed to the US. The US position in Korea last week reminds Coy of “..how dramatically America’s position in the world has changed.” He goes on to explain: “In Bretton Woods, the US delegation under Treasury official Harry Dexter White represented the world’s biggest creditor, bestriding the world like a colossus. That’s China’s part now” he concludes.
At last week’s meeting and at other international gatherings Coy writes, “The US was reduced to the part that Britain played in the 1940’s----a weakened power, running chronic trade deficits and uncertain of how to restart growth.” There’s no singing of God Bless America before these games.
The Chinese are not intimidated and there is no doubt that tensions will continue to increase between the Chinese Bureaucracy and the US capitalist class in the struggle for global market share and power.
As always, these struggles are disagreements between forces that US or Chinese workers have no interest in supporting. Both players will argue to their respective working classes that we are all in this battle together, that our interests and that of Goldman Sachs and GE are the same; that we are on the same team. That’s what all the increased patriotism and nationalism is about. And if god is on our side we can kill anyone and its not murder.
Free trade and protectionism are both capitalist answers to the problem of overproduction, or what the capitalists call overcapacity. This is inherent in the capitalist economy where private individuals own the means of production and the products produced;. The solution for workers is international working class solidarity and a global plan of production in worker owned and managed industry. If we consider auto---or more accurately----transportation, almost all of this production is unionized already; it would not be difficult to have a functioning global transportation structure through which workers and consumers developed rational plans for such an important social function as transportation for each nation.
It might be easier to sing God Bless America at sports functions, but I think there’s a good possibility she’s not there.
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