Afcme Local 444, retired
Let's not lose track of what's happening here. The goals of the global mass media is to praise capitalism and the so-called free market and win the battle for the consciousness of the working classes throughout the world, particularly in the US and other advanced capitalist countries.
There are all sorts of stories and coverage that obscures the misery and death that the free market delivers on a day to day basis. The recent daily reports of the Thai children trapped in the cave was an excellent chance to get people's minds off the horrors of daily life.
Thousands have died trying to escape the consequences of capitalism/imperialism's forays in to the so-called "underdeveloped" world. Thousands have drowned in the Mediterranean Sea, many of them children, attempting to escape failed nation states created from without by colonial powers or to escape the endless imperialist wars that have devastated their homelands.
Millions more have been displaced in the Middle East with US imperialism's more than 20 year savagery in Iraq. 500,000 thousand Iraqi's, mostly women and children died due to US imposed sanctions in that country. Madeline Albright, busy trying to sell her latest book, referred to that tragedy as "worth it". The tragedy is that these developments are not even "worth it" from US capitalism's point of view as its influence on the global stage declines and it faces severe economic, political and growing social crisis at home.
The US mass media which is the planet's dominant news source, made a lot of hay out of the trapped children and of course it is good they were rescued. But the attention the US and British media is giving it is pure propaganda as the US government steals children from their parents here and locks them away in cages and detention centers.
As Hollywood prepares the blockbuster movie about the Thai rescue let's not forget that some 50,000 children died in Yemen last year from starvation bombing and disease due to US weapons, bombs and money. The US has its flunkies the Saudi thugs do most of the dirty work in Yemen. As the US government praises the Thai rescue it blames Palestinian children for their own deaths as they are mowed down by Zionist snipers funded by the US taxpayer.
Millions of children die each year due to hunger and malnutrition. Mothers literally watch them waste away before their eyes. The UN's World Food Program reckoned in 2015 that $3.2 billion was needed to feed the 66 million school age children who suffer from hunger about Trum's net worth.
The UN, a capitalist club, and the liberal non-profits and NGO's always tell us that food deprivation or hunger is difficult to eradicate of that politicians can't "find the will". Just as there is plenty of money in the world that would solve so many social problems, there's plenty of food. The world produces enough food to feed everyone. Food availability per capita has increased from approximately 2220 kcal per person per day in the 1960s to 2790 kcals per person per day in 2006 according to the Borgen Project.
But like capital, it's not that we don't have it. In the case of capital, it is privately owned. Capital is accumulated by capitalists that's why they are called that and they can do with it what they will. To provide food for hungry people capital has to be invested in this area. To provide the social infrastructure to produce, distribute and provide food requires capital. To provide the roads, sewage, water systems and health care in society capital has to be laid out for that purpose and along with this, labor power has to be bought and paid a wage in order to purchase the necessities, or some of the necessities of life. This is a major project and not a profitable one, ties up too much cash. Capitalism is incapable of developing the so called "developing world". If they're going to invest in food production, soy for cattle feed is more profitable. In the US the average American consumes about 250 pounds of beef (or meat but I thin k it's beef) a year.
Capitalists do none of this as it is not profitable. So it's not that we don't have enough food or the ability to produce it, the starving people don't have the money to buy it. If you can't pay, you starve.
And as the capitalist mass media brings us the trailer for the upcoming movie on the now famous Thai rescue, we should think about all those images of starving children, of Yemeni kids children burned to death by US missiles, we should remind ourselves of Iraq and particularly Falujah. The US assault on a country and people that never threatened the US and on a city that will forever be remembered in the minds of the Iraqi workers as a shrine of resistance to an imperialist invasion caused immense suffering and death. In he brutal assault on Falujah and throughout Iraq, the US used white phosphorous and depleted uranium on people and children. In Falujah and throughout the country children are still being born deformed today due to the US invasion, there are "catastrophic" levels of deformed births in Iraq. US imperialism left a similar gift for the people of Laos and Vietnam as it dropped dropped chemicals on the civilian populations there.
So let's recognize the intent behind the massive attention paid to the Thai rescue by the mainstream media dominated by US and western capitalism. It's a publicity stunt as it is painfully clear that the investors that own that media do not care about children dying.
No comments:
Post a Comment