Tuesday, July 12, 2016

Some conclusions from reading the serious capitalist media.


By Sean O’Torain

There was an article in Atlantic magazine a week or so ago which dealt with the political crises of US capitalism. It does not give the changed economic base which has significantly contributed to this, by this I mean the rise of the new technology bourgeois and the weakening of the industrial bourgeois, but it is of interest.

It is important to know how to read the bourgeois press. Trotsky said there are different kinds of the bourgeois press. The gutter press which told lies 90% of the time and the more serious press which told the truth 90% of the time in order to be able to lie convincingly the other 10% when it really mattered. We try to read the serious bourgeois press to see what they are thinking, to see what our enemy is thinking. Of course they do not put all their thoughts and strategies in their press, even their serious press. They have their think tanks and clubs to which many thousands of dollars have to be paid to join.

But joining is not just a matter of money, members of these elite clubs have to have a record of willingness to tolerate the most vicious of bourgeois crimes and keep their mouths shut. They also have to show they are prepared to sacrifice themselves when necessary for the system, like Gore did when he let his right-----in a bourgeois sense his right------ to the presidency of the US go rather than shake the whole system up. One of Trump’s problems is he is so egotistical and arrogant and stupid that he does not see this. He does not understand the class structure of society. Of course he might be able to pull off his bid for the presidency yet given the extreme crisis of the whole bourgeois political system but I think not. I think the most serious bourgeois see him as too big a shock to that system as well as having no idea as to what is necessary at this time. They will make the greatest effort to stop Trump and to get Clinton.

But back to the bourgeois press. We have to know, we have to develop the skill to read the bourgeois press. 

Look at a few phrases from that Atlantic article I am referring to. It speaks about how Trump is damaging the "system of governance.”, how he is not prepared to make the compromises necessary. The author they says he is not prepared to work with and develop the "middlemen (and women) who are essential to building durable coalitions."

These coalitions are essential if they are to "assemble the power to govern." They are essential to "assembling power in the formal government." What are they saying here? They are saying that there are all kinds of forces and elements in US society. And what has been possible up to now is that these forces have been kept under control, have been brought and held together in compromises to form "formal governments" which could rule society in a climate of relative calm-----a certain equilibrium has been met, class antagonisms have been softened.

And this brings us to Trump. But it does not start with him. It starts with what we have said for decades. US imperialism cannot afford to rule the world and keep the US working class at the living standards it has been used to in the last few decades. It can no longer afford guns and butter. So the butter has got to go. This increases the class tensions and anger in society. Reflected in many ways by the rise of Trump and also Sanders. Even if, as I think likely, Clinton gets elected and surrounds herself with the most conscious elements of the bourgeois, she still has to deal with the guns and butter conflict.

We can be sure this is being talked about behind closed doors. Part of these discussions is the role of new technology, the Internet and also the Internet warriors, people like Assange and others who are ferociously dedicated to a free and transparent Internet independent of government and private sector meddling and censorship. *

So Trump is making everything worse for the ruling class in the US. Like the Leave crowd did in Britain. He is inflaming the anger and divisions. He is weakening the established bourgeois parties and institutions. The fact that he can only get the most stupid individuals and sections of the bourgeois with the least established background to be VP candidates or even attend the convention shows what is going on. They do not want him, they want him to shut the f... up to put it bluntly. He is destabilizing their political system so I cannot see him being elected for this reason. But I do not totally rule it out because the bourgeois institutions have become so fragmented and divided and are becoming even more so and cannot always get done what they want done.

I think the serious bourgeois in the US will go after Trump with everything. All his corrupt business deals, his misogyny, racism and anti-Semitism, the lot. This will weaken him. More firings and resignations from his inner circle are likely. If Clinton does not implode with some new revelations I cannot see him winning. And the bourgeois wing that hates the Clintons will grit their teeth and support her. She will, and is, drawing around her the new Silicon valley billionaires, the military industrial complex, the Wall Street crowd and will most probably be able to do what the Atlantic article called "assemble power to govern.", at least for a while. They will have a little while due to the inertia,  (And I am being too kind here) the betrayal and counter revolutionary role of the union leaders. But at some stage the workers and youth will erupt. The first signs are with us. The Occupy Movement, Black Lives Matter, the attacks on the Trump rallies, the support for Sanders, movements to defend the environment. But for a while, Clinton is the best choice for the bourgeois and they will make every effort to get her in to the White House.  

So as far as reading the bourgeois press. The Atlantic magazine said the following: “That sometimes a trip to the woodshed or the wilderness was necessary." What is meant by these euphemisms? The aim is to make it clear to those who are able to see, that something more than just fighting Trump politically could be considered. It would not be the first time major US bourgeois figures in the US, presidents, senators and other politicians were assassinated. Trump is but a political punk. There are of course his followers and this would have to be taken into account. But the US bourgeois are overconfident and ruthless. They are also increasingly seeing that with the new technology and the new world crisis they have to assemble a new world order in an economic and political and military sense and that a buffoon like Trump could not do this.

Of course the bourgeois are not omnipotent and so we have to be careful. But I still think Trump cannot make it and I still think a proper reading off the serious bourgeois press points in this direction. 

* For further reading on this subject read: When Google Met Wikileaks by Julian Assange

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