Post by Modesto Anarcho on Dec 18, 2008 14:57:02 GMT -5
Are You Ready for Social War?
Edited and compiled by the Social War Department
The ruling elite are in a crisis right now - brought on by their very own system of capitalism. What began several years ago during the housing boom as a way to make huge amounts of money through faulty sub-prime loans, has brought the whole system to the verge of collapse. As one investor stated in a recently uncovered email, “I hope we get out before this whole deck of cards comes tumbling down.“ And tumbling down is just what is happening - as more and more homes go belly up and the sub-prime loan crisis expands, more and more banks are losing money and some are going under. With more banks losing money and going broke, businesses and firms have less money to take out loans and do business. Rushing into save the system that screwed us is Bush himself, stating that the government is the only institution with the capacity to save the financial sector and get the economy back on track (you know, exploiting all of us, destroying the earth, and commodifying everything in sight). Thus, the government has been bailing out large banks and firms left and right, taking them over (nationalizing them) as it goes along. But as government bailouts of rich capitalists have grown, so has the anger by ordinary people as more and more Americans are welcomed into poverty’s fold. Feeling the heat, on Monday September 29th, the House of Representatives voted down the government’s plan to bailout Wall Street and give them a free ride for screwing us all over. However, Congress eventually passed the bill and Bush signed it into effect - is anyone really surprised? But the crises is far from over and repression is already rising against those who would dream against the ongoing cycle of poverty, wage slavery, depression, and recession. Offering up a short analysis of the present crisis was Crimethinc and the Center for Strategic Anarchy (an online blog), which wrote:
“So what exactly is going on with the economy right now? The only honest answer is that no one is exactly sure. The American financial system operates on a variety of levels of transparency, making it impossible to know with certainty who has what and how much it is worth. The system also relies upon a high level of interconnectedness between different institutions and industries, making it difficult to predict the implications of failure. But we can identify a few things that may give us the beginnings of a coherent answer. The basic outline of the situation is this: starting in the mid-1990’s, the American government began deregulating [taking away rules on how to do business] the banking industry, repealing laws that had governed the terms of credit and investment since the Great Depression, due in large part to the money-soaked lobbying of commercial banks. Simultaneously, it created institutional and consumer incentives for home buying, motivated in part by statistical evidence that home ownership was the single greatest determinate of a family’s financial success. At the same time, the dot-com boom was putting (fake) money into consumers’ and bankers’ pockets, and although that bubble burst in 2001, it was quickly replaced by a new bubble in real estate. Thus began a massive surge in home buying. Part of this up-tick in buying was made possible by “sub-prime mortgages”: loans with adjustable interest rates given to people who probably can’t afford to buy a house in the first place. They function much like credit cards: if homebuyers miss a payment, which they are likely to do, the interest rate doubles or even triples, dramatically increasing the cost of their monthly payments. These were attractive loans for banks to make since they assumed that all but a few homeowners would continue making payments after the upward adjustment of their interest rates. The scheme seems idiotic in hindsight. A huge rise in demand for homes led to rapidly rising real estate values. To keep the market booming, less qualified buyers were found and given sub-prime mortgages to buy houses at inflated prices. Because prices were rising and wages were stagnant, lots of people with sub-prime mortgages were unable to keep up with payments. Their interest rates rose, but instead of paying banks a premium, many of them had to stop paying entirely. Now, at least two million of the seven million sub-prime mortgages used to buy homes since 1998 are expected to default.
What exactly led to the failures of Lehman Brothers, AIG, Morgan Stanley, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac, the news of which has cable news anchors on the verge of tears? The precise answer is more complicated than space allows. To put it in very general terms, the trading of sub-prime loans became a market unto itself, a market that was almost completely unregulated and pushed to wildly unrealistic heights by mountains of debt. When the loans themselves started going bad, the obscure little financial products based on them—which had been virtually printing money for investment banks—turned to nuts. All of a sudden banks had a lot less money, making it impossible for some of them to pay for everything else they do.
Where things go from here is difficult to predict, but we can safely assume that there will be a lot less money floating around for loans, at least for a while. This means businesses will have a harder time expanding and fewer people will be able to afford homes, cars, and higher educations. This will have broad negative implications for the economy and growth will almost definitely slow; whether that will be an apocalyptic recession or a brief lull is up for debate.”
But while banks and business fail and the state tries its hardest to bail this system out - the government is also planning for full scale social unrest. Either in response to the ongoing economic crisis, rising poverty, distrust and outrage toward the government over the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, or perhaps anger over the election, starting October 1st, US troops will be stationed in the US in order to put down domestic unrest. According to the World Socialist Website (nutsty politics, but interesting articles):
“For the first time ever, the US military is deploying an active duty regular Army combat unit for full-time use inside the United States to deal with emergencies, including potential civil unrest.
Beginning on October 1, the First Brigade Combat Team of the Third Division will be placed under the command of US Army North, the Army’s component of the Pentagon’s Northern Command (NorthCom), which was created in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks with the stated mission of defending the US “homeland” and aiding federal, state and local authorities.
The unit—known as the “Raiders”—is among the Army’s most “blooded.” It has spent nearly three out of the last five years deployed in Iraq, leading the assault on Baghdad in 2003 and carrying out house-to-house combat in the suppression of resistance in the city of Ramadi. It was the first brigade combat team to be sent to Iraq three times. While active-duty units previously have been used in temporary assignments, such as the combat-equipped troops deployed in New Orleans, which was effectively placed under martial law in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, this marks the first time that an Army combat unit has been given a dedicated assignment in which US soil constitutes its “battle zone.”
The Pentagon’s official pronouncements have stressed the role of specialized units in a potential response to terrorist attack within the US. However, the mission assigned to the nearly 4,000 troops of the First Brigade Combat Team does not consist merely of rescuing victims of terrorist attacks. An article that appeared earlier this month in the Army Times, “Brigade homeland tours start Oct. 1”, a publication that is widely read within the military, paints a different and far more ominous picture. “They may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control,” the paper reports.”
If we couple this repression with the ongoing crackdown of anarchists and other radicals, we get a very grim picture of the next couple of years in the US unless we start to fight back. Anarchists like Eric McDavid (see Modesto Anarcho #8) are facing close to 20 years in prison for never even committing a crime, but for ‘conspiring’ to carry out various acts for the sake of the environment. Anarchists organizing against the Republican National Convention (RNC) with the group the RNC Welcoming Committee, are now facing up to 8 years for “conspiring to riot.” These people deserve our support and solidarity - but they are also guideposts of things to come.
But while repression is nothing new, we have to be aware that the state is reacting to the tension in the air and reality of the current social terrain. They know that people are pissed off and fed up with the government and the economy. They know that people are starting to question this very system and everything that it stands for. As the crisis expands, everyday people will realize that it is in their interests to fight back and start to organize with each other in new and dangerous ways.
For those of us who wish to see the end of this great beast that they call capitalism, we should be aware that interesting times are ahead. It appears that the economy is going to keep getting worse and the wars in the middle east will continue to rage on. Furthermore, whoever wins the election will be left with an economy in shambles and no plan on getting the US out of Iraq and Afghanistan. Thus, here are several points of “intervention,” or direct participation, within this time in history.
1.) Don’t vote and encourage people not to vote as well. The elections are distracting us from the bigger and more important task at hand of getting rid of capitalism and the government and creating a world in which regular people have control over their day to day lives, communities, and means of sustaining themselves. Boycott the elections - encourage direct action.
2.) Start discussion groups with co-workers, friends, cell-mates, fellow students, and neighbors about what is going on. Discuss how we can support ourselves in the growing crisis and how we can build autonomy from the government and the capitalist system. Start food sharing programs and gardens, squat building to avoid paying rent, and start pooling resources as a community. Discuss what you should do if the police and/or military should enter your community. Share publications like Modesto Anarcho with friends and check websites like news.infoshop.org often to learn what is going on. If possible, set up large meetings (’general assemblies’) of people in your area to talk about these issues. Discuss what is happening and share information - organize with your community.
3.) Form an ‘affinity group’ of people that you can engage in actions with. This should be a group of people who all know each other and includes no one who could be a snitch or pig. If you hear about some sort of unrest going on; either a strike, building occupation, prison uprising, school walkout, riot, large demonstration, etc, get your crew together and attempt to aid and expand that struggle. Denounce those who would channel these struggles back into the system. Struggles must be controlled by those who start and organize them. Any attempt by those who want our struggles to elect the next leader or bureaucrat must be met with resistance. Form action groups to expand, support, and aid social struggles - resist bureaucrats and reformers.
4.) In the event of large scale rioting and social unrest, we will have several tasks. The first is to create autonomous zones out of the rioting. These must be places where the people will have power and the police, snitches, government, and military will not be allowed to enter. We must push the political nature of these actions. Through our affinity groups, we must create flyers and publications that support the uprising and call for greater mass action. We must write graffiti and put up posters with similar messages. We must encourage the looting of corporate businesses and the ‘communalization’ of resources. We must encourage the taking back of housing and land. We must take out the infrastructure of the police, prisons, military, and government within our communities so they are not able to launch counter attacks. We must be on guard against anti-social elements such as drug cartels, rapists, and murderers within our communities. We must be on guard against racist elements within our ranks and we must generalize rebellion among the poor and working classes as a whole. Lastly, we must link up with other communities who will hopefully also be rising up. Push revolt into revolution - create autonomous power for poor and working people.
This article appears in Modesto Anarcho #9, which can be downloaded for free here: news.infoshop.org/article.php?story=20081002171514979
Edited and compiled by the Social War Department
The ruling elite are in a crisis right now - brought on by their very own system of capitalism. What began several years ago during the housing boom as a way to make huge amounts of money through faulty sub-prime loans, has brought the whole system to the verge of collapse. As one investor stated in a recently uncovered email, “I hope we get out before this whole deck of cards comes tumbling down.“ And tumbling down is just what is happening - as more and more homes go belly up and the sub-prime loan crisis expands, more and more banks are losing money and some are going under. With more banks losing money and going broke, businesses and firms have less money to take out loans and do business. Rushing into save the system that screwed us is Bush himself, stating that the government is the only institution with the capacity to save the financial sector and get the economy back on track (you know, exploiting all of us, destroying the earth, and commodifying everything in sight). Thus, the government has been bailing out large banks and firms left and right, taking them over (nationalizing them) as it goes along. But as government bailouts of rich capitalists have grown, so has the anger by ordinary people as more and more Americans are welcomed into poverty’s fold. Feeling the heat, on Monday September 29th, the House of Representatives voted down the government’s plan to bailout Wall Street and give them a free ride for screwing us all over. However, Congress eventually passed the bill and Bush signed it into effect - is anyone really surprised? But the crises is far from over and repression is already rising against those who would dream against the ongoing cycle of poverty, wage slavery, depression, and recession. Offering up a short analysis of the present crisis was Crimethinc and the Center for Strategic Anarchy (an online blog), which wrote:
“So what exactly is going on with the economy right now? The only honest answer is that no one is exactly sure. The American financial system operates on a variety of levels of transparency, making it impossible to know with certainty who has what and how much it is worth. The system also relies upon a high level of interconnectedness between different institutions and industries, making it difficult to predict the implications of failure. But we can identify a few things that may give us the beginnings of a coherent answer. The basic outline of the situation is this: starting in the mid-1990’s, the American government began deregulating [taking away rules on how to do business] the banking industry, repealing laws that had governed the terms of credit and investment since the Great Depression, due in large part to the money-soaked lobbying of commercial banks. Simultaneously, it created institutional and consumer incentives for home buying, motivated in part by statistical evidence that home ownership was the single greatest determinate of a family’s financial success. At the same time, the dot-com boom was putting (fake) money into consumers’ and bankers’ pockets, and although that bubble burst in 2001, it was quickly replaced by a new bubble in real estate. Thus began a massive surge in home buying. Part of this up-tick in buying was made possible by “sub-prime mortgages”: loans with adjustable interest rates given to people who probably can’t afford to buy a house in the first place. They function much like credit cards: if homebuyers miss a payment, which they are likely to do, the interest rate doubles or even triples, dramatically increasing the cost of their monthly payments. These were attractive loans for banks to make since they assumed that all but a few homeowners would continue making payments after the upward adjustment of their interest rates. The scheme seems idiotic in hindsight. A huge rise in demand for homes led to rapidly rising real estate values. To keep the market booming, less qualified buyers were found and given sub-prime mortgages to buy houses at inflated prices. Because prices were rising and wages were stagnant, lots of people with sub-prime mortgages were unable to keep up with payments. Their interest rates rose, but instead of paying banks a premium, many of them had to stop paying entirely. Now, at least two million of the seven million sub-prime mortgages used to buy homes since 1998 are expected to default.
What exactly led to the failures of Lehman Brothers, AIG, Morgan Stanley, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac, the news of which has cable news anchors on the verge of tears? The precise answer is more complicated than space allows. To put it in very general terms, the trading of sub-prime loans became a market unto itself, a market that was almost completely unregulated and pushed to wildly unrealistic heights by mountains of debt. When the loans themselves started going bad, the obscure little financial products based on them—which had been virtually printing money for investment banks—turned to nuts. All of a sudden banks had a lot less money, making it impossible for some of them to pay for everything else they do.
Where things go from here is difficult to predict, but we can safely assume that there will be a lot less money floating around for loans, at least for a while. This means businesses will have a harder time expanding and fewer people will be able to afford homes, cars, and higher educations. This will have broad negative implications for the economy and growth will almost definitely slow; whether that will be an apocalyptic recession or a brief lull is up for debate.”
But while banks and business fail and the state tries its hardest to bail this system out - the government is also planning for full scale social unrest. Either in response to the ongoing economic crisis, rising poverty, distrust and outrage toward the government over the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, or perhaps anger over the election, starting October 1st, US troops will be stationed in the US in order to put down domestic unrest. According to the World Socialist Website (nutsty politics, but interesting articles):
“For the first time ever, the US military is deploying an active duty regular Army combat unit for full-time use inside the United States to deal with emergencies, including potential civil unrest.
Beginning on October 1, the First Brigade Combat Team of the Third Division will be placed under the command of US Army North, the Army’s component of the Pentagon’s Northern Command (NorthCom), which was created in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks with the stated mission of defending the US “homeland” and aiding federal, state and local authorities.
The unit—known as the “Raiders”—is among the Army’s most “blooded.” It has spent nearly three out of the last five years deployed in Iraq, leading the assault on Baghdad in 2003 and carrying out house-to-house combat in the suppression of resistance in the city of Ramadi. It was the first brigade combat team to be sent to Iraq three times. While active-duty units previously have been used in temporary assignments, such as the combat-equipped troops deployed in New Orleans, which was effectively placed under martial law in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, this marks the first time that an Army combat unit has been given a dedicated assignment in which US soil constitutes its “battle zone.”
The Pentagon’s official pronouncements have stressed the role of specialized units in a potential response to terrorist attack within the US. However, the mission assigned to the nearly 4,000 troops of the First Brigade Combat Team does not consist merely of rescuing victims of terrorist attacks. An article that appeared earlier this month in the Army Times, “Brigade homeland tours start Oct. 1”, a publication that is widely read within the military, paints a different and far more ominous picture. “They may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control,” the paper reports.”
If we couple this repression with the ongoing crackdown of anarchists and other radicals, we get a very grim picture of the next couple of years in the US unless we start to fight back. Anarchists like Eric McDavid (see Modesto Anarcho #8) are facing close to 20 years in prison for never even committing a crime, but for ‘conspiring’ to carry out various acts for the sake of the environment. Anarchists organizing against the Republican National Convention (RNC) with the group the RNC Welcoming Committee, are now facing up to 8 years for “conspiring to riot.” These people deserve our support and solidarity - but they are also guideposts of things to come.
But while repression is nothing new, we have to be aware that the state is reacting to the tension in the air and reality of the current social terrain. They know that people are pissed off and fed up with the government and the economy. They know that people are starting to question this very system and everything that it stands for. As the crisis expands, everyday people will realize that it is in their interests to fight back and start to organize with each other in new and dangerous ways.
For those of us who wish to see the end of this great beast that they call capitalism, we should be aware that interesting times are ahead. It appears that the economy is going to keep getting worse and the wars in the middle east will continue to rage on. Furthermore, whoever wins the election will be left with an economy in shambles and no plan on getting the US out of Iraq and Afghanistan. Thus, here are several points of “intervention,” or direct participation, within this time in history.
1.) Don’t vote and encourage people not to vote as well. The elections are distracting us from the bigger and more important task at hand of getting rid of capitalism and the government and creating a world in which regular people have control over their day to day lives, communities, and means of sustaining themselves. Boycott the elections - encourage direct action.
2.) Start discussion groups with co-workers, friends, cell-mates, fellow students, and neighbors about what is going on. Discuss how we can support ourselves in the growing crisis and how we can build autonomy from the government and the capitalist system. Start food sharing programs and gardens, squat building to avoid paying rent, and start pooling resources as a community. Discuss what you should do if the police and/or military should enter your community. Share publications like Modesto Anarcho with friends and check websites like news.infoshop.org often to learn what is going on. If possible, set up large meetings (’general assemblies’) of people in your area to talk about these issues. Discuss what is happening and share information - organize with your community.
3.) Form an ‘affinity group’ of people that you can engage in actions with. This should be a group of people who all know each other and includes no one who could be a snitch or pig. If you hear about some sort of unrest going on; either a strike, building occupation, prison uprising, school walkout, riot, large demonstration, etc, get your crew together and attempt to aid and expand that struggle. Denounce those who would channel these struggles back into the system. Struggles must be controlled by those who start and organize them. Any attempt by those who want our struggles to elect the next leader or bureaucrat must be met with resistance. Form action groups to expand, support, and aid social struggles - resist bureaucrats and reformers.
4.) In the event of large scale rioting and social unrest, we will have several tasks. The first is to create autonomous zones out of the rioting. These must be places where the people will have power and the police, snitches, government, and military will not be allowed to enter. We must push the political nature of these actions. Through our affinity groups, we must create flyers and publications that support the uprising and call for greater mass action. We must write graffiti and put up posters with similar messages. We must encourage the looting of corporate businesses and the ‘communalization’ of resources. We must encourage the taking back of housing and land. We must take out the infrastructure of the police, prisons, military, and government within our communities so they are not able to launch counter attacks. We must be on guard against anti-social elements such as drug cartels, rapists, and murderers within our communities. We must be on guard against racist elements within our ranks and we must generalize rebellion among the poor and working classes as a whole. Lastly, we must link up with other communities who will hopefully also be rising up. Push revolt into revolution - create autonomous power for poor and working people.
This article appears in Modesto Anarcho #9, which can be downloaded for free here: news.infoshop.org/article.php?story=20081002171514979