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Title: The Other Civil War
Author: Zakk Flash
Date: 29 February 2012
Language: en
Topics: capitalism, anti-capitalist movement, police state, dissent, GDP, NATO, G8, Obama, Rahm Emanuel, Chicago 
Source: Retrieved 18 September 2012 from http://news.infoshop.org/article.php?story=20120229010911948

Zakk Flash

The Other Civil War

The Other Civil War: Capitalism’s Uncivil Peace

By Dr. Zakk Flash

Gaunt figures wander like the dead through streets and alleyways, worn

clothing hanging from emaciated bodies, their rough faces frozen in an

image of utter desolation. Foodstuffs are sold at exorbitantly high

rates by monopoly agro-business; those who can’t afford to buy food

starve almost immediately, while those who can scrape together the funds

succumb to slow death from the poisons within. Old folks, little

children, widows, and former national heroes—all these are thrown from

their homes while those houses are left to rot, shiny new locks gleaming

on the door. The entire time, plutocrats sleep in virtual fortresses,

hidden in gated communities while people starve in the streets.

This is the nature of the other Civil War. This is capitalism’s uncivil

peace.

The first American Civil War has never seemed to reach an end; issues of

states’ rights versus the federal centralization of power play

themselves out on the nightly news, while the real question of lasting

peace goes unanswered. But this issue is bigger than the United States

and deeper than any partisan divide. The other Civil War is one of

crypto-fascism, of neo-colonization, a war on the environment, on the

right of people to privacy, and on democracy itself. It is a war of

attrition. When Chris Hedges wrote in January of 2011 that “

corporations have no use for borders

,” he was only partially correct.

“Corporate power is global, and resistance to it cannot be restricted by

national boundaries. Corporations have no regard for nation-states. They

assert their power to exploit the land and the people everywhere. They

play worker off of worker and nation off of nation.”

Corporate power is indeed global, but national boundaries play easily

into capitalist power games. Countries are viewed as holding pools for

cheap labor to exploit; when the race to the bottom within a country

ends with the inevitable crash, xenophobia and racism make nationalism

and patriotism the customary tools for dividing people across state

lines. It becomes “un-American” to question, say, a transnational oil

pipeline moving costly and toxic sludge from the largest intact forests

on Earth across pristine aquifers, public and private property,

indigenous communities, and the rights of all within. Resistance against

digging up the Black Hills and the areas around the Grand Canyon in

search of radioactive uranium is met with equal derision. After all,

won’t the job creation and financial payoff be worth the destruction of

a few natural wonders? It is all done, happily, in the name of progress.

The way that capitalism measures progress is a sham.

Because corporate capitalism seeks to maximize profit at the expense of

sabotaging work safety conditions and standards, labor hiring and

compensation standards, environmental conservation principles, and the

self-determination of individual communities, our resistance must indeed

be worldwide. Any other efforts will stop short of defeating neoliberal

“progress.”

Gross Domestic Product, or GDP, measures the market value of all goods

produced in a particular country and is used as an indicator of standard

of living within that country. It is the measure by which capitalists

determine which countries are on top. But while economic “goods” are

evaluated, socio-political and environmental “bads” are not. GDP is an

abstraction, devoid of any real connection to the world. A few examples:

GDP treats crime as economic gain. As crime rates increase, so does

the prison-industrial complex push for more police, jails, surveillance

systems, and the like. The dominant culture uses mass media to

perpetuate stereotypes of people of color, poor people, immigrants, and

dissident political groups to justify cycles of systemic and

institutional violence. Fear of “the other” is exploited as a mechanism

to control the working class. Shadow government groups like the

American Legislative Exchange Council

create laws to be rubberstamped by politicians of the major political

parties; the fascist’s wars, domestic and abroad, are fought with

weapons made by her prisoners. Like all other capitalist industries, the

prison-industrial complex requires continual growth and acquisition of

raw materials—in this case, people.

GDP treats environmental disaster as economic gain. Cleanup of

contaminated Superfund sites (1,280 sites listed on the National

Priority List as of November 2010) and massive oil spills like Exxon

Valdez and the Deepwater Horizon oil gusher (4.9 million barrels of

crude over 68,000 sq mi) mean big business for those interested in GDP

rankings. Not only does environmental remediation pump money into the

economy, inflating growth rates, but GDP factors in the economic

activity that generated the waste in the first place. Pollution is a

boon for capitalist ideology.

GDP treats nonmarket economies as worthless. The amount of time spent

volunteering in a homeless shelter, providing free assistance to

veterans, running Food Not Bombs, an Infoshop or other community

center—none of this matters. At least not in the capitalist system.

Capitalism doesn’t care for community enrichment; it only seeks profit

and growth.

While policy wonks should strive to determine new metrics that can

measure the wealth as the intersection of natural, built, financial,

human, and social resources, we must strive to determine our own measure

of progress in the physical world. The ratchet effect is locking in the

disastrous results of cancer-stage casino capitalism; overpopulation,

overconsumption and environmentally risky technologies are pushing us

over a precipice.

Political processes are reactive in nature; our movements must be

proactive, revolutionary.

Environmental and social costs must be factored into any analysis of

technology and its application. The revelation in 2012 that the Sierra

Club had accepted more than $26 million dollars from Chesapeake

Energy—the most active driller of natural gas wells—was a shock to some

environmental groups. It shouldn’t have been.

Bright green environmentalism has long worshipped technological change

as the primary vehicle for ecological interests, often jumping onto the

bandwagon of untested or greenwashed technologies. The newest director

of the Sierra Club has rejected notions of natural gas “as a ‘kinder,

gentler’ energy source” and apologized for the group’s former support of

the industry over coal. While dumping natural gas and hydraulic

fracking—the dangers of which are illuminated in Josh Fox’s

award-winning documentary

Gasland

—is to be commended, a valuable lesson remains: myopic views of

industrial solutions can lead to entirely new problems. Environmental

ethics must include a holistic worldview beyond anthropocentric

environmentalism, the idea that the natural world is merely a resource

to be exploited by humans. Our progress requires transcending mere

ecology to accomplish what Norwegian philosopher Arne Næss called an

ecosophy

: an “evolving but consistent philosophy of being, thinking and acting

in the world that embodies ecological wisdom and harmony.”

Subsidies and legislative mismanagement of sectors that create

environmental and social costs, such as energy, transportation and

agriculture, must be eliminated in favor of sustainability and

biodiversity. Eighteen past winners of the Blue Planet prize—the

unofficial Nobel for the environment—have released a statement on

environmental and development challenges, calling it an

imperative to act

. Society has “no choice but to take dramatic action to avert a collapse

of civilization. Either we will change our ways and build an entirely

new kind of global society, or they will be changed for us.”

In this new society, decision-making processes must also empower

marginalized groups. Being marginalized doesn’t necessitate being a

member of a minority group—being wealthy is indeed a minority position;

marginalization means instead that society has refused to acknowledge a

particular community’s needs, beliefs, and concerns. Think apartheid

South Africa.

The

Occupation of New York City released their Declaration

on 29 September 2011, calling for an end to “inequality and

discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one’s skin,

sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.” This is a good start. Our

progress, however, must go beyond the workplace; we also have the

obligation to include the voices of the poor, the uneducated, the

mentally and physically disabled, single mothers, criminals, and other

groups silenced by the mainstream. We must not stop there; too often,

analysis of marginalization focuses on the marginals themselves and not

the processes responsible. We must seek new understanding of the

connections between life circumstances of members in various marginal

groups and the larger socio-political and economic processes at the root

of the American political establishment.

Émile Durkheim, the father of sociology, claimed that social deviance

was “a normal and necessary part of social organization”; the role of

the marginalized group under traditional sociology, therefore, is to

“define moral boundaries for the larger group.” Durkheim saw two

reactions to deviance by marginalized groups and others: either the

larger society would unite in opposition to people who violate a

culture’s values (think of Dick Cheney’s call for a

new Pearl Harbor moment

) or that deviance would push society’s moral boundaries which, in turn,

would lead to social change. Social change is exactly what we’re after.

As capitalism continues its race to the bottom, bankers and their

servants in government cry out for harsh measures to save their skin.

Privatization of the commons, deep cuts to social services, and

dismemberment of labor unions are enacted as a way to “save the

economy.” Austerity has become a reality for so-called developed

nations, but the true meaning and impact of these words have been

understood and felt within the developing world for decades. Even in the

United States, which touts its high standards of living, there are

places like

Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

with an average life expectancy of 48 years of age for men and an infant

mortality rate 5 times higher than the national average. Spanish

sociologist Manuel Castells has dubbed these areas the

Fourth World

; Russell Means, an Oglala Sioux activist, goes further with his solemn

pronouncement linking years of economic terrorism and corruption on

Indian reservations with the corporate takeover of the United States:

“America has become one big Indian Reservation.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt, in an April 29, 1938 message to Congress, warned

that the growth of private power and industrial empire building could

lead to fascism:

“The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the

growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their

democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism—ownership of

government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling

private power.”

The other Civil War, the crypto-fascist encroachment on democracy,

cannot be ended with a cease-fire or a truce. To surrender now is to

surrender forever.

The elites that own the governments behind the world’s largest economies

are gathering with NATO in Chicago on May 19–20, 2012 to discuss global

political and economic policy. Far from healthy international

cooperation seeking to end worldwide issues like poverty and disease,

summits like these push capitalist ideology into local communities,

disrupting traditional ways of life. The horrifying trend of

farmer suicides in India

—at least 17,368 in 2009 alone—illustrates the results of globalization

from above. Don Welsh of the Chicago’s Convention and Tourism Bureau

illustrates the summit’s goals precisely:

“To penetrate international markets takes time and money, and this is

going to help us showcase to the international markets in a quick way.”

The Group of 8 (G8) would rather the world’s citizens ignore the fact

that multi-national corporations having unregulated political power has

effectively derailed democratic representation by installing technocrats

over elected officials in places like Greece and Italy, that elections

in the United States are being turned into auctions for the highest

bidder, and that deregulated financial markets and neoliberal trade

agreements decimate the environment and worker’s rights in the Global

South while ignoring basic issues of economic inequality in developed

countries.

Draconian measures are already being put into place to squelch dissent.

Under the rule of former White House Chief of Staff and current Chicago

Mayor Rahm Emanuel, police powers are being extended, along with public

surveillance without oversight, restrictions on public activity,

amplified sound, morning gatherings, and parades. New requirements for

parades include a $1 million dollar insurance purchase and registration

of every sign or banner that will be held by more than one person. They

also require any organizer to “indemnify the city against any additional

or uncovered third party claims against the city arising out of or

caused by the parade,” and “agree to reimburse the city for any damage

to the public way or city property arising out of or caused by the

parade.” In other words, should some outside group decide to crash your

event, the City of Chicago could hold you financially responsible. Given

the history of police infiltrators and provocateurs, this guideline

effectively crushes any activity the City disagrees with. Say goodbye to

Saint Patrick’s Day, to say nothing of the Occupy Wall Street movement

itself. Naomi Klein quoted Chicago School economist Milton Friedman, a

spiritual forefather of deregulation, on the best way for capitalists to

enact the reforms they wish to see in her book,

The Shock Doctrine

“Only a crisis—actual or perceived—produces real change. When the crisis

occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying

around. That, I believe, is our basic function … until the politically

impossible becomes politically inevitable.”

This call for a crisis, echoed in the aforementioned Project for a New

American Century call for a “new Pearl Harbor” sets the stage for

authoritarian controls, not only in Chicago, but around the world. Think

9/11 and nation-building, right-wing coups in South America and the

Middle East, post-Communist Russia, and in the aftermath of Hurricane

Katrina.

After hyping a real or inflated crisis—helped by mass media in Chicago

by denouncing “anarchists” and “socialists” and “illegal Occupations” on

24/7 infotainment channels—the next step is to authorize excessive

force. Emanuel has set the stage by pushing legislation that allows him

to marshal and deputize the United States Drug Enforcement

Administration (DEA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the

United States Department of Justice’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and

Firearms (ATF), and the entire United States Department of Justice

(DOJ); as well as state police (the Illinois department of state police

and the Illinois attorney general), county law enforcement (State’s

Attorney of Cook County), and any “other law enforcement agencies

determined by the superintendent of police to be necessary for the

fulfillment of law enforcement functions.”

In addition to the thousands of federal agents who will be descending

upon Chicago, this last provision allows Emanuel to hire Blackwater

mercenaries and other private paramilitary forces to do his dirty work.

Not only will this outsource city activities to private enterprises, a

beloved capitalist tactic, but it gives these outside groups protection

from lawsuits, while requiring none of the federally mandated civil

rights protections. Lawsuits will fall on the backs of

taxpayers—socializing the risk and privatizing the cost. These laws, and

laws like the

National Defense Authorization Act of 2012

, present a chilling effect on the right to freedom of expression and

propagate a culture of fear. The Nuremberg Trial of Hermann Goering

further reveals the map used by authoritarian governments:

“The people don’t want war, but they can always be brought to the

bidding of the leaders. This is easy. All you have to do is tell them

they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of

patriotism and for exposing the country to danger. It works the same in

every country.”

A bloodless coup by spineless technocrats has taken place. They

manufacture consent, using the state to provide a patina of moral

legitimacy, while they expand their security apparatus to control every

aspect of waking life. Our way out of this authoritarianism will be

illuminated by the fires of our resistance.

August Spies, an anarchist known for his aggressive rhetoric in bringing

about the eight-hour workday, spoke of the other Civil War before his

execution in 1886.

“Anarchism does not mean bloodshed; it does not mean robbery, arson,

etc. These monstrosities are, on the contrary, the characteristic

features of capitalism.”

When asked if anarchy was a utopian dream, Rudolf Rocker stated that he

was an anarchist not because he viewed anarchism as the final goal, but

because there is no such thing as the final goal. But his demand for

perpetual reclamation of human rights does not mean that we should have

no aspirations.

Our first goal? We must end capitalism—and its faulty notion of peace.

_________________________________________________________

Dr. Zakk Flash is an anarchist political writer, radical community

activist, and editor of the

Central Oklahoma Black/Red Alliance (COBRA)

. He lives in Norman, Oklahoma.