The culture of violence in the the US. Capitalism does not work.

The thug and multimillionaire Schwarzenegger, former governor of California. In his movies he advocated violence and slaughter indoctrinating the minds of so many of the youth. He posed as the fearless one who took on the toughest guys in town. But when Governor he refused to take on the top criminal gangs in California, that is the corporations and their bribed politicians. Especially the oil companies in the state which get away with no extraction tax unlike in any other major oil producing state in the US.

Readers will have read yesterday's blog where we talk about inequality and how this leads to all kinds of problems in society. Today I would like to look at another and related aspect of this. There is a powerful culture of violence continually propagated in the US. Hollywood and the electronic media is full of it. What proportion of the movies and the different TV series focus on the importance and positive effects of gentleness and kindness and solidarity? Not too many. It is a class question. For capitalism such attitudes lead too easily to people working together and the next thing you know people will be acting collectively and in solidarity to get better wages and conditions and more jobs and a better life. No, from capitalism's point of view it is much better to portray life as violent confrontations, people shooting each other, or trying to solve their problems through individual actions.

In this context I see the thug Schwarzenegger is now no longer Governor of California. This thug, I call him this because in his movies he advocated thuggery and violence, that is shooting and killing people, he glorified this way of life, this extremely violent individualism. Inevitably young people and not so young people were affected. They too were victims of the propaganda that the way was to was to take up the gun and shoot somebody. How many people are sitting in jail because they reacted to some incident with the image of a Schwarzenegger movie in their head. The Schwarzeneggers' and their kind are the scum of the earth. They become multi-millionaires through glorifying violence. My step son was in court recently for a traffic offense and he called distraught. A young man was up before him and given twenty years for having a gun. His whole family was there to support him. A family was destroyed. The Schwarzenegger's and their kind are responsible for this.

When in the California governor's seat Schwarzenegger went after the living standards of California's workers. He claimed he was doing this to cut the state's budget deficit. So he attacked the teachers and the nurses and the public sector. But wait a minute. We are talking here about this great tough guy who takes on the toughest guy, the biggest gang in town and lays them low. The hard man. So he targets the nurses, the teachers, the public sector workers and education in general. What about other targets. What about the state's real gang leaders. The real big forces which presently have and exercise power in the state, the real gangs in the state. I am speaking of course about the owners of the corporations and their bribed politicians.

Consider one of the most powerful of these criminal gangs. The oil companies. Did Schwarzenegger take on these crooks? California is the only major oil producing state in the US which does not have an extraction tax on the oil companies. Why did this big tough guy not go after these big outfits - the oil companies, and hit them with an extraction tax or better still take them over. No, these were too big for him. He left them alone. What a contemptible piece of cowardly dirt. Yes the oil companies were too big for him. This great tough guy.

Schwarzenegger and his kind also advocate more and longer prison sentences for people. Well let me correct this, for poor people, street criminals, mentally ill people, not the criminals of Wall Street and the banks, with these people of their own class they are very lenient. For the rest they advocate putting them in jail and throwing away the key. The inequality in US society and the vicious repressive policies of the US state has lead to the US with 5% of the world's population having 25% of the world's prisoners. This in the so called land of the free. Think about it - 5% of the world's population and 25% of the world's prisoners. This is a staggering scandal criminal reality. You do not need a single other fact to show the rotten character of US capitalism, to show as we on this blog say: US capitalism does not work. As anybody with any sense knows the more people put in prison for long sentences the more crime there is. Today's Chicago Tribune writes: "studies show that lengthy prison sentences may increase crime."

Remember keep up our defense of Wikileaks, Manning and Assange.

Sean.