[this article was written for the Unz Review]
I have lived in the United States for a total of 24 years and I have witnessed many crises over this long period, but what is taking place today is truly unique and much more serious than any previous crisis I can recall. And to explain my point, I would like to begin by saying what I believe the riots we are seeing taking place in hundreds of US cities are not about. They are not about:
- Racism or “White privilege”
- Police violence
- Social alienation and despair
- Poverty
- Trump
- The liberals pouring fuel on social fires
- The infighting of the US elites/deep state
They are not about any of these because they encompass all of these issues, and more.
It is important to always keep in mind the distinction between the concepts of “cause” and “pretext”. And while it is true that all the factors listed above are real (at least to some degree, and without looking at the distinction between cause and effect), none of them are the true cause of what we are witnessing. At most, the above are pretexts, triggers if you want, but the real cause of what is taking place today is the systemic collapse of the US society.
The next thing which we must also keep in mind is that evidence of correlation is not evidence of causality. Take, for example, this article from CNN entitled “US black-white inequality in 6 stark charts” which completely conflates the two concepts and which includes the following sentence (stress added) “Those disparities exist because of a long history of policies that excluded and exploited black Americans, said Valerie Wilson, director of the program on race, ethnicity and the economy at the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning group.” The word “because” clearly point to a causality, yet absolutely nothing in the article or data support this. The US media is chock-full of such conflations of correlation and causality, yet it is rarely denounced.
For a society, any society, to function a number of factors that make up the social contract need to be present. The exact list that make up these factors will depend on each individual country, but they would typically include some kind of social consensus, the acceptance by most people of the legitimacy of the government and its institutions, often a unifying ideology or, at least, common values, the presence of a stable middle-class, the reasonable hope for a functioning “social life”, educational institutions etc. Finally, and cynically, it always helps the ruling elites if they can provide enough circuses (TV) and bread (food) to most citizens. This is even true of so-called authoritarian/totalitarian societies which, contrary to the liberal myth, typically do enjoy the support of a large segment of the population (if only because these regimes are often more capable of providing for the basic needs of society).
Right now, I would argue that the US government has almost completely lost its ability to deliver any of those factors, or act to repair the broken social contract. In fact, what we can observe is the exact opposite: the US society is highly divided, as is the US ruling class (which is even more important). Not only that, but ever since the election of Trump, all the vociferous Trump-haters have been undermining the legitimacy not only of Trump himself, but of the political system which made his election possible. I have been saying that for years: by saying “not my President” the Trump-haters have de-legitimized not only Trump personally, but also de-legitimized the Executive branch as such.
[Sidebar: this is an absolutely amazing phenomenon: while for almost four years Trump has been destroying the US Empire externally, Trump-haters spent the same four years destroying the USA from the inside! If we look past the (largely fictional) differences between the Republicrats and the Demolicans we can see that they operate like a demolition tag-team of sorts and while they hate each other with a passion, they both contribute to bringing down both the Empire and the United States. For anybody who has studied dialectics this would be very predictable but, alas, dialectics are not taught anymore, hence the stunned “dear in the headlights” look on the faces of most people today]
Finally, it is pretty clear that for all its disclaimers about supporting only the “peaceful protestors” and its condemnation of the “out of town looters”, most of the US media (as well as the alt media) is completely unable to give a moral/ethical evaluation of what is taking place. What I mean by this is the following:
By repeating mantras about how “Black anger is legitimate” the US liberal media is basically placing a seal of approval on the violence and looting. After all, if Black “anger” is legitimate, and if “White privilege” is real, then it is quite “understandable” that this “anger” “sometimes” “boils over” and leads to “regrettable” “excesses”. Just take a look at this image of Biden kneeling down before a Black demonstrator:
Of course, Biden and his supporters will claim that Biden was only kneeling before a cute little girl and her peacefully protesting father, but when combined with the attacks against Trump’s “law and order” rhetoric by Biden and his supporters (including four former US Presidents!), I believe that these kinds of photo-ops are sending a very different message: keep “protesting” as we are on your side which, coming from a guy like Biden, the ultimate symbol of the 1%er elites and a perfect example of “White privilege”, just goes to show that the hypocrisy of US politicians really knows no bounds or limits.
[Sidebar: I have to note here that these riots also represent a potential danger for both factions of the Uniparty in power: for the Demolicans the riots probably represent the very last chance to prevent a Trump-reelection, but if the Demolicans are too obvious in support of the riots, then it could backfire against them and turn all the frightened “law and order” types against them. But if they do not support the riots, then the Demolicans will alienate their core constituency (a hodgepodge of various “minorities” pushing their narrow identity-politics agenda). Likewise, for Trump this is an opportunity to show his “law and order” credentials and promise the White people and the relatively fewer Blacks of his base that he will protect them. However, if he is too direct about this and if Trump orders what might be seen by many as unfair or excessive force (of which there has been a lot almost everywhere), then he risks pushing many moderate Republicrats over the edge and side with the Demolicans (or, at least, withhold their vote). In other words, both factions of the Uniparty feel that the riots are both an opportunity and a threat and this is why neither faction can come out and speak truthfully about the real causes of the riots.]
The exact same message of weakness and even submissive impotence is, I believe, sent every time a cop kneels when confronting even peaceful demonstrators like on this photo. While this might be intended as a message of compassion, and maybe even an apology, the only thing the rioters will see here is a powerful sign of surrender of the local authorities and I find that extremely dangerous.
Yes, there are plenty of racist, violent and otherwise incompetent cops in the USA. And yes, many of my Black friends reported feeling singled out and treated rudely by cops. But having extensively traveled the world, I want to assure you that the US most definitely does not have the worst cops out there. In fact, I believe that most US cops are decent people. Much more importantly, these cops are the “thin blue line” which protects society against criminals. And while I do believe that US policemen ought to be better educated, better trained, better led and better supervised, I also realize that there is also no short term alternative to them. It is all very fine to dream about educated, peaceful and non-racist cops, but if you remove the existing police force from the equation, there are no other alternatives (the national guard or the regular armed forces do not qualify and don’t have the correct training to deal with civilians anyway), especially in those states which have successfully killed the 2nd Amendment by means of what I call “death by a thousand regulatory cuts” (including NY and NJ).
Then there is what Solzhenitsyn called the “decline of courage” in the West: the vast majority US politicians have basically lost the ability to criticize Blacks, even when it is quite obvious that many of the current problems of the Black population of the USA are created by Blacks themselves: I think of the truly vulgar, obscene and overall disgusting “rap culture” with which most Black youth are now “educated” in since early childhood or how many Black youth have been brainwashed into considering gang members and street prostitutes as the measure of what “looking cool” looks like in terms of clothes, language and overall behavior. I believe that it is pretty obvious to any person who lived in the USA that Blacks are very often (mostly?) the cause of their own misery: I can tell you that my Jamaican and Sub-Saharan African friends (who live in the USA) have told me many times that a) they think that US Blacks have opportunities which they would never have in Africa or Jamaica and that b) local Blacks often resent Africans and Jamaican Blacks because the latter do so much better in the US society. I can also testify to the fact that I have seen a lot of anti-Latino feelings from US Blacks. As for how Blacks often feel about Asians, all we need to do is remember the LA riots in 1992. Finally, I do believe that many (most?) people in the USA know that the strongest and most frequent form of racism in the USA will be anti-White, especially from politically engaged Blacks.
I can personally attest that there is plenty of anti-White racism in the USA. Not only did I experience it myself (I lived in Washington, DC from 1986-1991), but it has been amply documented by people like Colin Flaherty whose books “White Girl Bleed A Lot: The Return of Racial Violence to America and How the Media Ignore It” and “Knockout Game a Lie?: Awww, Hell No!” are excellent primers on Black on White violence and racism. Yet, anybody daring to suggest that US Blacks themselves are at least partially responsible for their own plight will immediately be labeled a “racist”.
To those of you who live outside the USA, I would recommend this simple thought experiment: just take 20-30 minutes and watch the footage of BOTH the “peaceful protests” AND “the violent riots” and look carefully not only at what the folks you see in the footage are wearing, but also how they speak, how they act, what they say and how they say it and ask yourself a simple question: would you want to hire any of these guys and pay them a decent salary? I very much doubt that many of you would. Frankly, most of these rioters are unhirable, and “racism” has nothing to do with this.
The fact is that what is sometimes called the “MTV culture” is, in reality, nothing else than a systematic glorification of criminal mayhem. Forget about rap hits like the famous “Fuk Da Police” or “Kill d’White People“, I would argue that 99% of rap is a glorification of all the worst problems of Black communities in the USA (drugs, violence, promiscuous sex, objectification of women, alcoholism, glorification of criminal behavior in the streets and in prisons, etc.). Yet most US politicians seem to be paralyzed and feel the need to pretend like they are absolutely charmed by this so-called “Black culture”. But it is even worse than that.
Combine an emasculated ruling polity which does not dare to call a stone and stone and which promotes a (pretend) “culture” which glorifies violence and hatred against all non-criminals, including law abiding Blacks who are called “Toms” and who are also singled out as in this “beautiful” rap which includes the following “verses”: “Then you got niggas that’s blacker than the night, Running around town saying their best friends are white, Niggas like that are gonna hang up from a tree, And burn them up alive and let everybody see” (check out this “beautiful” rap here and for the full lyrics, a truly fascinating read, here). Next, throw in a completely dysfunctional state which is owned and operated by a tiny gang of obscenely rich narcissistic bastards (of all races, very much including Blacks), add to it a total absence of any real social opportunities, then toss in the COVID pandemic and the worst recession in US history with record high levels of unemployment even among those who would be employable (folks with dropped down pants, excessive tattoos, past felony convictions and a comprehensively non-professional attitude would not even get a job even if the economy was booming). Then, you get a relatively localized “spark” (like the murder of George Floyd by a gang of arrogant imbeciles in uniform) to start a fire which will instantly spread throughout the entire country, especially since there are so many other groups besides Blacks who want to “piggyback” their personal agenda on top of the one of Black Lives Matter or Antifa (I am, of course, referring to the real cornucopia of Trump-haters which never accepted his election).
Conclusion 1: this is not the US version of the Gilets Jaunes!
Some might be tempted to say that what we are seeing in the USA is a US version of the French Gilets Jaunes. I assure you that it is not. For one thing, the Gilets Jaunes had a pretty clear political program. US rioters do not. Next, the Gilets Jaunes were mostly peaceful and much of the violence was instigated by the French police forces (including the use of fake rioters). While there are definitely peaceful protesters in the USA, neither BLM or AntiFa have truly denounced the riots (and why should they when the USA media and politicians don’t have the courage to do that either?). Finally, the French ruling classes and media did not show the kind of “understanding” of the riots which did take place although Macron did pose with two “gangstas” in an effort to look “cool” (which failed):
Not only Biden, in Europe too…
Conclusion 2: this is not a revolution or a civil war
Some are now fantasizing that what we are witnessing today is either a revolution or a civil war. I believe that this is neither.
For a revolution to take place there must be a force capable of changing not the person(s) in power, but fundamentally change the regime, the polity, itself and replacing it with another one. Declaring that “Black lives matter” or looting stores or even demanding that the police be defunded, does not have this kind of potential capability.
For a civil war to take place you need a least two sides, each with a clearly identifiable political agenda. Since the see real power in the USA is hidden from the public awareness, there is no potential for a “the people vs the rulers” kind of civil war in the US. A “Right/Conservative vs Left/Liberal” civil war is also not possible, because both the US Right and the US Left are, in reality controlled by a deep state which is neither liberal nor conservative. Finally, a “rematch” between North and South is not possible either because the modern USA is not really split along North/South lines anymore. In terms of geography, there is somewhat of a “Big cities vs rural USA” split, but it takes place in both the north and the south of the country. Instead, what we do observe is a social breakup of the USA into “zones” some of which will be doing much better than others (big cities with a strong Black population fare the worst, mostly White small towns fare best; that is even true within the same state). In some of these zones, we will see more of these kinds of acts of self-protection:
These kinds of confrontations, even if they are not violent, are yet another illustration of the state being simply unable to take charge and protect the people.
Conclusion 3: this is an insurrection which has initiated the systemic collapse of the US society
I call what is happening today an insurrection: a violent revolt or rebellion against the authorities as such. When you burn a police precinct you do not “protest” against the actions of a few cops, no, what you are doing is expelling the cops from your neighborhood (I know that personally. In Argentina I lived in a suburb of Buenos-Aires in which the police station was attacked so often that it closed and was never rebuilt). And since in a civilized society the state should have the monopoly on the (legal) use of force, you are basically rejecting the authority and legitimacy of the state which operates the police force. This insurrection is most unlikely to remove Trump from office (hence it is not a coup or a revolution), but the anti-Trump faction of the ruling elites have now clearly adopted the strategy of “worse is better” simply because they realize that these riots are probably their last chance to blame it all on Trump (and Russia, why not?!) and maybe, just maybe, defeat him in November.
Right now all we see can only be called a mob-rule (technically referred to as an “ochlocracy“). But mobs, no matter how violent, rarely succeed in achieving tangible political results as they act ‘against something’ and not ‘for something’. This is why the real (behind-the-scenes) ruling classes need to instrumentalize this mob-induced insurrection to their political advantage. So far, I would say that neither the Demolicans nor the Republicrats have succeeded in this. But there is a very long and potentially extremely dangerous summer ahead and this might well change.
Irrespective of whether either faction will succeed in instrumentalizing the riots, what we are seeing today is a systemic collapse of the US society. That is not to say that the USA will disappear, not at all. But just like it took the Soviet Union a decade or more to fully collapse (roughly from 1983-1993), it will take the US many years to fully crash. And just like a New Russia eventually began taking form in 1999, there will be a New USA coming out of the current collapse. Total and final collapses are very rare, mostly they just initiate a lengthy and potentially very dangerous transformation process, the outcome of which is almost impossible to predict.
However, just as the Russian people had to stop kidding themselves with silly dreams about “democracy” and had to tackle the real problems of Russia, so will the people of the USA have to find the courage to deal with their real problems, frontally and deliberately. If they fail to do that, the country will most likely simply further disintegrate into numerous and mutually hostile entities.
Time will tell.
The Saker
L445,
Your furious, and may I say, incoherent reply is a validation of my contention that white supremacy is “entwined into the very fabric of US society.” It is also revealing that you refer to (European-origin US) Americans as a “Race” where as I never used such reactionary terminology. Yes, slavery was not unique in world history but at the same time, it was not practiced in all parts of the world. To my knowledge, unlike Ancient Greece and Rome, the slave mode of production never existed in China and India. The peculiar form of US chattel slavery was that it co-existed for some time side by side with Northern capitalism, which was an advanced mode of production; this was its unique feature. Thus a conflict arose between the backward and the more advanced modes, and the former (slavery) had to go, which was the main reason for the US Civil War, although it may have taken the appearance of a war over “states’ rights”, and “Union Federation”. And that was why Karl Marx congratulated Lincoln and the Address of the International Workingmen’s Association, based in London, declared that “victory for the North would be a turning point for nineteenth-century politics, an affirmation of free labor, and a defeat for the most reactionary capitalists who depended on slavery and racial oppression” (see the essay “Lincoln and Marx” by Robin Blackburn, former editor of the New Left Review, at https://jacobinmag.com/2012/08/lincoln-and-marx).
The destruction of the US middle class was caused by finance capitalism, which as I had written earlier, is the main danger to the US working class, and not by African-Americans. So please put the blame where it should belong.
It is also highly amusing that, in spite of knowing nothing about me, you ask me, in a most condescending and presumptuous fashion to “Get an education”. You know nothing about my educational credentials, none whatsoever apart from what I have written on this blog on a few occasions. I request you to desist from this practice in the future.
I saw the “speech” by your hero, the white supremacist currently residing in the WH. I stand by my original contention that there wasn’t a single word of condolence or sorrow expressed by the Ignoramus-in-Chief.
Finally, in spite of not being in agreement with the Saker on many issues, I am deeply grateful to him for allowing a great diversity of voices on this blog from which I have learned a lot.
“You know nothing about my educational credentials, none whatsoever apart from what I have written on this blog on a few occasions.”
To be fair to us other readers, Captain, all we can know about you is from what you have written on this blog.
The same applies to Larchmonter.
Wrong again I’m afraid.China and India like most of the World had a vigorous history of slavery.
Slavery abolished in China 1910.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_China
Slavery abolished in British India 1861
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_India
The words “slavery” and the “slave mode of production” should not be conflated. I had written that “To my knowledge, unlike Ancient Greece and Rome, the slave mode of production never existed in China and India.” In spite of terrible caste oppression, India never had a slave mode of production like the US. The Wikipedia source you cited says the following about the word “dasa”, which is to be interpreted as a servant, and not a slave: “It means to serve, but has no meaning of being sold for money and having no freedom of movement or will but to serve without any payment as the word slave indicates. This likening of the old word dasa to slave is not accurate in the above mentioned way in the previous line.”
I guess we live in the internet age of “instant knowledge”! This is what Karl Marx wrote about science (i.e. knowledge) in the preface to the French edition of Das Kapital dated March 18, 1872: “There is no royal road to science, and only those who do not dread the fatiguing climb of its steep paths have a chance of gaining its luminous summits.”
Don’t stop at the first entry section to state your point.Go further into the meat of the long article.Afterall it covers several thousand years of slavery.Here are only a couple of titbits:
Slavery escalated during the medieval era in India with the arrival of Islam.[1][4] Wink summarizes the period as follows,
Slavery and empire-formation tied in particularly well with iqta and it is within this context of Islamic expansion that elite slavery was later commonly found. It became the predominant system in North India in the thirteenth century and retained considerable importance in the fourteenth century. Slavery was still vigorous in fifteenth-century Bengal, while after that date it shifted to the Deccan where it persisted until the seventeenth century. It remained present to a minor extent in the Mughal provinces throughout the seventeenth century and had a notable revival under the Afghans in North India again in the eighteenth century.
— Al Hind, André Wink[39]
Slavery as a predominant social institution emerged from the 8th century onwards in India, particularly after the 11th century, as part of systematic plunder and enslavement of infidels, along with the use of slaves in armies for conquest.[3
(During the invasion of Muhammad al-Qasim), invariably numerous women and children were enslaved. The sources insist that now, in dutiful conformity to religious law, ‘the one-fifth of the slaves and spoils’ were set apart for the caliph’s treasury and despatched to Iraq and Syria. The remainder was scattered among the army of Islam. At Rūr, a random 60,000 captives reduced to slavery. At Brahamanabad 30,000 slaves were allegedly taken. At Multan 6,000. Slave raids continued to be made throughout the late Umayyad period in Sindh, but also much further into Hind, as far as Ujjain and Malwa. The Abbasid governors raided Punjab, where many prisoners and slaves were taken.
Levi states that the forcible enslavement of non-Muslims during Delhi Sultanate was motivated by the desire for war booty and military expansion. This gained momentum under the Khalji and Tughluq dynasties, as being supported by available figures.[1][52] Zia uddin Barani suggested that Sultan Alauddin Khalji owned 50,000 slave-boys, in addition to 70,000 construction slaves. Sultan Firuz Shah Tughluq is said to have owned 180,000 slaves, roughly 12,000 of whom were skilled artisans.[45][52][55][56][51][57] A significant proportion of slaves owned by the Sultans were likely to have been military slaves and not labourers or domestics. However earlier traditions of maintaining a mixed army comprising both Indian soldiers and Turkic slave-soldiers (ghilman, mamluks) from Central Asia, were disrupted by the rise of the Mongol Empire reducing the inflow of mamluks. This intensified demands by the Delhi Sultans on local Indian populations to satisfy their need for both military and domestic slaves. The Khaljis even sold thousands of captured Mongol soldiers within India.[46][55][58] China, Turkistan, Persia, and Khurusan were sources of male and female slaves sold to Tughluq India.[59][60][60][61][62] The Yuan Dynasty Emperor in China sent 100 slaves of both sexes to the Tughluq Sultan, and he replied by also sending the same number of slaves of both sexes.[63]
Alongside Buddhist Oirats, Christian Russians, Afghans, and the predominantly Shia Iranians, Indian slaves were an important component of the highly active slave markets of medieval and early modern Central Asia. The all pervasive nature of slavery in this period in Central Asia is shown by the 17th century records of one Juybari Sheikh, a Naqshbandi Sufi leader, owning over 500 slaves, forty of whom were specialists in pottery production while the others were engaged in agricultural work.[80] High demand for skilled slaves, and India’s larger and more advanced textile industry, agricultural production and tradition of architecture demonstrated to its neighbours that skilled-labour was abundant in the subcontinent leading to enslavement and export of large numbers of skilled labour as slaves, following their successful invasions.[81]
After sacking Delhi, Timur enslaved several thousand skilled artisans, presenting many of these slaves to his subordinate elite, although reserving the masons for use in the construction of the Bibi-Khanym Mosque in Samarkand.[82] Young female slaves fetched higher market price than skilled construction slaves, sometimes by 150%.[83]
Could Macron look any gayer? Looks like love at first sight. Always thought his wife was a beard.
Last year in comments I referred to US collapse and my predictions have come true.
It is also quite clear that the Democratic Party operatives and their network of supporters are behind the recent riots etc.. and Trump has duty now to move to deal with them – mass arrests should be made starting with the ring leaders who will be Obama and Hillary and their staffers. Soros who has both setup & funded most of these groups over the years also is guilty.
On the flip side, the wealth gap caused by Republican greed for tax cuts and wasteful spending directed at them etc.. since Reagan era also has to be addressed to make life easier of average Americans and those corporate elements bleeding them dry have to be squashed (drug & medical insurance corporations & credit card / financing businesses) and large tech industries like Amazon and Google who have damaged small business.
Unless this is done the meltdown will continue over time.
Anti-trust monopoly laws also have to be either enforced or expanded.
In particular the activities of Obama (a proponent of “blackness”) needs to be extensively looked into over what he has been doing since he left office and in particular his own lawfulness to have been President.
See https://www.infowars.com/bombshell-evidence-of-cia-role-in-forging-obamas-birth-certificate/
It should be noted is is only some elements of the blacks in US who are involved in this insurrection. Older blacks and those with jobs are no different to whites.
But there also a lot of white masked rioters and protestors involved in recent events too. They are people who dont have much of a future or dont see much of one and are happy to be part of the DEM army.
The underlying problem is US has too many people relative to its economic and social structure since trade liberalization of the 1970s. It should have been capped at 200-220 million population. Corrupt politicians under the control of evil elites (mainly foreign agents trying to destroy the US from the start) have allowed it to expand beyond the point of stability – and this is the causal reason for the problems of the past 30 years and recent unrest.
The 2 party state in US needs removing and it is likely in the end an independent President or new party(s) will emerge to rescue the situation. Caused by grassroots GOPs & DEMs deserting them.
The collapse has began and once in progress it can only snowball unless steps are taken to address the reasons for it.
Yes, yes, and yes! Overall a very accurate analysis of an extremely fluid situation. But it is most important to understand racism from two distinct points of view. The first is tribal racism. This is prevalent in all countries and all cultures. Tribal racism is based on the principle of “stick to your own”. This is a consciousness that essentially acknowledges that we are all equal in the eyes of the Lord, but for practical and cultural reasons we “marry within our own”, but we do not deny access to justice based on race. We are “friends” and “civil” with other races but “don’t touch my daughter”. The other form of racism is based upon a false recognition of superiority such that “the other is inherently inferior”.
This point of view subscribes to the notion that Blacks/Latinos/Asians/Indigenous are genetically inferior and beyond redemption in comparison to genetic Caucasians. The vast majority of human beings only struggle with tribal racism which is natural and can be easily overcome. A select few subscribe to true Eugenics which the vast majority of God Loving Human Beings find to be abhorrent and antithetical to the Word of God and the teachings of Jesus and other Prophets. Do the Great Races of the World struggle with particular inherited characteristics? Yes we do!! Does this make us any less honored in the Eyes of God? No! It does not! Americans can, will, and have risen above these challenges and we will do so again! We will NOT be deterred by the machinations of Satan! WE WILL RISE ABOVE AND CONQUER AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN! God Bless America and ALL HER PEOPLE!
Also there is a particular distinction in USA law that needs to be understood by foreigners. A Sheriff is directly elected by the People and accountable to the People and operates at the County level which technically can challenge the State in a number of ways as well as, shall we say, “coordinate” city/village/hamlet law. A Sheriff can usually deputize any citizen to enforce the local law. A city Police Chief is appointed by the Mayor who is elected by the People. Nonetheless, it is one more layer between the People and the Law and could technically be abolished in favor of voluntarily contracting with the County Sheriff department to uphold the Constitution and local laws. My city does precisely this as well as numerous other cities in the USA. We actually save a lot of money and the law enforcers remain accountable to the tax payer which is key to preserving the Republic. Note: none of these legal principles has anything to do with race.
I would like to get the Saker’s (or other expert) analysis of this very recent development in which the Minneapolis City Council has announced a veto-proof majority in favoring of DISBANDING the Minneapolis Police Department itself.
Is this proposal just propaganda to pacify the masses?
Or is it sincere?
And if it is sincere, it is crazy talk to “abolish the Minneapolis Police system as we know it”?
If the Minneapolis police department is ended as we know it, who will now investigate crimes?
Veto-proof majority of Minneapolis City Council announces support for dismantling MPD
https://www.fox9.com/news/veto-proof-majority-of-minneapolis-city-council-announces-support-for-dismantling-mpd
Although I voted for Trump in 2016 {because the alternative wasn’t even remotely possible for me to vote for}, I have always been suspicious of him. For one thing, I believe these riots have merit, just not for the same reasons most do. I came to the conclusion many years ago that there is no political solution to the USA’s problems anymore. No, it is going to take something that allot of people don’t have the stomach for, but the ones that do, will inherit the kingdom so to speak. But back to Trump, He either has been led astray by his son-in-law on many issues, or he is a Judas goat. I am beginning to believe he is the later. Most of us can now see that the plandemic and these riots are intertwined. Not only are they related, but the same folks are behind them both.
If Trump wasn’t their boy, he would have never been allowed on the Republicrat ballot, much less got elected. Like someone said; “If voting really mattered, they wouldn’t let you do it”. Were all of these so-called “deep state” witch hunts after Trump really just smoke and mirrors? Where they ever really after him, or was it just for domestic consumption? I say this cause I have never know them not to “get their man” when they really wanted to {Kennedy Bros, MLK and Nixon}. No way they couldn’t have got after three tries. Thats like asking me to believe the 9/11 Commission report. Either way, I suspect we will be finding out real soon which he was.
Systemic collapse, whether state or personal, is the inevitable result of unbrideled libelarism. Reject Devine authority, and suffer the consequences. Its like the force of gravity. You ignore it at your peril. It’s that simple.
Thanks for a great article.
The financial capitalists are in favor of extending the lock down, since it increases the middle class debt load and enriches the bankers. (Cuomo and the democrats)
The industrial capitalists would like to see a return to work, since they are losing money and many are going bankrupt. (Trump et al)
This is a very nice analysis. The sentence: “Next, throw in a completely dysfunctional state which is owned and operated by a tiny gang of obscenely rich narcissistic bastards (of all races, very much including Blacks), add to it a total absence of any real social opportunities…” contains in my eyes the core of the trouble. Only I would replace “Next, throw in..” at the beginning with “First and foremost”. It is the decisions of the social elites that lead the societies in one direction or another, and certainly not the the ones of the stupidified and marginalized rapping drug abusing looters.There is a saying where I come from: ‘The fish stinks from the head.’
‘Who has, will be given more, and who has not, will be taken even what he has’. No need to attribute this one.
The property of haves gives them a lever to leverage more and more from the havenots, and that is what they do. This story of the income and property in US and the western world flying into the hands of rich from the pockets of poor is the umpteenth such one in history; this happens again and again. When it happens, the rich , seeing ever more drugged rabble in the streets , start getting afraid. They give the police the free hand and protection against prosecution. This police murder is one of the many; confronted with ever more dangerous, sometimes gun toting people on he streets, and in most cases protected against prosecution, they shoot first, ask afterwards.
And it is by far not only the blacks that get killed that way. Not so long ago , an Australian woman suspected a burglary attempt and called the police, they came and killed her.
In the core of all this is ever growing ravine between the rich and poor, and a complete social irresponsibility of the rich elite. Just another example is education; a couple of decades ago i have red a statistics saying that some enormous percentage ( was it 40%…?) of the kids finish the elementary school in the US as effective analphabetes.
If the elite cannot think in anything else but zero-sum terms, which is just another name for taking without giving, or robbery in simplest terms, such results are pre-programmed. You first rob them blind, and of course, then you are afraid they ‘ll try the same with you given a chance. Then you surround yourself with private securities, whatnot, police with a license to kill, and then the mob is ready not only to rob you, but to kill you, as well.
The elimination of “race” problems will NEVER happen. When God created the first 2 humans they were the same “race”. Every single person afterward is their offspring and the same “race” . After the flood (which was caused by the world’s sin, there were only 8 people left. They were all the same “race” They were told to mul;tipl;y and fill the earth. They sinned again and didn’t. God scattered them (they were all the same “race” ) from their tower of babel. Since then we filled the earth because God scattered and confused our language. The end result is the world is filled with people of different tonguues, differen facial features and different colors of brown (the pigment melanin is what makes us different colors. Some have lots of melanin making them very dark brown. Some have very little making them very light brown – not white. I am light melanin but I am NOT white,. Hold a sheet of white paper up to you and look. If you were white like the paper we would be calling 911 !). However we all are the same “race” ! Around the year 2000 science discovered DNA. That discovery PROVED we were all the same “race”. The race God created. The “race” I am referring to is the human race. There is no such thing as multiple races- we are all the same “race” !!!! Because we still have gone astray from God and are stilll sinners we willl never change. Just loook – the schools teach race. the media still proposes different races, it is everywhere- satans lie is seen as truth. AS DNA proved there is no such thing as race we need to ask ourselves a simple question. Who should we believe- man or God. Same question satan asked Eve. We all know she said man. Untill we learn that the bible is true and God is true we will never I mean NEVER accept the fact that there is no such thing as “race”
“…would you want to hire any of these guys and pay them a decent salary? I very much doubt that many of you would….”
Attorneys from local public defender offices in California joined protesters at courthouses today, though I suppose no one commenting here has plans for hiring a bunch of public defenders.
“ask yourself a simple question: would you want to hire any of these guys and pay them a decent salary? I very much doubt that many of you would. Frankly, most of these rioters are unhirable, and “racism” has nothing to do with this.”
A demonstration passed by near where I live. I watched some of it. They seemed to be mainly ordinary young people of the type that I’ve seen typically making up the work force. There were some high school students who maybe are not in the work force yet. I didn’t notice any obviously homeless or crazies among them.
Margaret Thatcher once observed that “[t]here is no such thing as society.” She was no doubt speaking about the UK, but her words apply even more terrifically — in the original sense of terror-making-ly — to the USA. For, dear Saker, you err in referring to “American society.” There is no such thing. There is no “social contract” between American government and its people, and little sense of social obligation among Americans. There were some pretty words in the preamble to the American constitution, and the better part of a decade’s worth of faking it during the 1930s, but otherwise the USA is a dog-eat-dog, every-man- (or, at best, clan-) for-himself, I’m-saved-and-you’re-going-to-hell *anti*society, and we are seeing the mask for what it is as it falls.
The push to decentralize our society is gaining traction… Being poor has its advantages in skill sets required to survive and less expectation. A dollar collapse is next.
Distinction between correlation and causality is important to understanding. I would posit the following as one among other causes of what we are witnessing:
“….what hasn’t received as much attention is where Baltimore police received training on crowd control, use of force and surveillance: Israel’s national police, military and intelligence services.
Baltimore law enforcement officials, along with hundreds of others from Florida, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, California, Arizona, Connecticut, New York, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Georgia, Washington state as well as the DC Capitol police have all traveled to Israel for training. Thousands of others have received training from Israeli officials here in the U.S.
Many of these trips are taxpayer funded while others are privately funded. Since 2002, the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee’s Project Interchange and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs have paid for police chiefs, assistant chiefs and captains to train in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT).
These trainings put Baltimore police and other U.S. law enforcement employees in the hands of military, security and police systems that have racked up documented human rights violations for years.”
— WITH WHOM ARE MANY U.S. POLICE DEPARTMENTS TRAINING? WITH A CHRONIC HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATOR – ISRAEL
extract from article @ http://www.amnestyinternational.org
https://www.amnestyusa.org/with-whom-are-many-u-s-police-departments-training-with-a-chronic-human-rights-violator-israel/
I would add this police training can be easily corroborated from a variety of sources, given that, in my opinion, many human rights organizations are often self-serving and dubious.
Reply to Uncle Bob
In my earlier post, I had written that “In spite of terrible caste oppression, India never had a slave mode of production like the US.” I stand corrected. In order to grapple with the very complex socioeconomic formation in the Indian subcontinent (very different from that in Europe), Marx and Engels attempted to describe it as a separate mode of production, which they called the Asiatic mode (distinct from the ancient, feudal, and bourgeois modes of production). Since that time, a substantial literature has developed on the different modes of production, including the Asiatic Mode. Some examples are:
1) “More on the Five Modes of Production” by Hu Zhongda, Chinese Law & Government, Volume 22, issue 2, 1989 (see https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.2753/CLG0009-4609220271).
2) “Asiatic Mode of Production, Caste and the Indian Left” by Murzban Jal, Economic & Political Weekly, Vol. XLIX, No. 19, May 10, 2014.
3) “The Asiatic Mode of Production: National and Imperial Formations” by Rebecca E. Karl (New York University), Historein, Vol. 5, 58-75, 2005.
4) “Soviet Historians’ Views of the “Asiatic Mode of Production”” by Donald W. Treadgold, Hokkaido University Collection of Scholarly and Academic Papers: HUSCAP, Acta Slavica Iaponica, 5: 1-20, 1987 (see http://hdl.handle.net/2115/7964).
5) “The Fall and Rise of the Asiatic Mode of Production” by Stephen P. Dunn, Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN, 1982 [ISBN 13: 978-0-415-61621-8 (hbk), ISBN 13: 978-0-203-82882-3 (ebk)].
6) “The Social Evolution of Indonesia – The Asiatic Mode of Production and Its Legacy” by Fritjof Tichelman, Kluwer Academic Publishers Group, Distribution Center, P.O. Box 322, 3300 AH Dordre, The Netherlands (ISBN-13: 978-94-009-8898-9, e-ISBN-13: 978-94-009-8896-5).
These references were provided to me by one of the foremost Marx scholars in the world today who has encyclopaedic knowledge (i.e. a polymath). I specifically asked him the following: “Also, did the slave mode of production ever prevail in India? If so, what were the differences between that mode and the slavery practiced in ancient Greece and Rome, and also in the pre-Civil War US South?”
Below is his reply:
“Perhaps for a period, in some mountainous and geographically isolated parts of Kerala, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh and in the adjoining areas, we had and I hear we may still have [in parts of Arunachal Pradesh] ancient Greek or Roman style slaves for agricultural production. In the rest of the subcontinent we had slaves as palace guards and for domestic chores of the elite.
The crux of slavery is totally non-contractual unpaid labour.
Our main source of such labour was and still is the unpaid labour of our women and labouring castes and tribes, that is to say, appropriation of results of labour based on stree-purushved pratha (translation: woman-man custom/tradition) and varnaved/jatived pratha (translation: caste custom/tradition).
In the ancient West African, Egyptian, Greek, Roman … forms the slaves were mainly controlled through visible physical violence by use of armaments.
In the ancient, medieval and modern South Asian forms we have controlled and we still continue to control our female and male unpaid workers mainly through invisible psychological violence by use of layers and layers of ideologies.
The slavery of indigenous American and African people in North America [1508-1865]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_United_States#:~:text=The%20first%2019%20or%20so,baptized%20in%20Africa%20before%20embarking. was a form of slavery legalized within the bourgeois laws of commercial, agricultural, cattle etc. productions there. Hence, this was a part of the bourgeois mode of production. These slaves were purchased commodities.
Our current South Asian appropriation of our unpaid female and male labour through stree-purushved pratha and varnaved/jatived pratha, within our bourgeois mode of production is comparable to, but it is also immensely vast in scale to, the North American unpaid labour through physical slavery of 1508-1865.”
My thanks to Uncle Bob for pointing out my error.
But now, 90% of the population are debt slaves to the banks. It is a much more efficient method of extracting wealth from the workforce, since there is a much lower overhead in terms of housing, feeding and health care now the sole responsibility of the debt slave, not the master.
‘The liberals are pouring on the fires’
Western Mass media constantly implying that people or european descent are a collective racial group and that the same for people of African descent. This is in itself racist according to their own definitions.
A deeply conservative wealthy Christian male of european descent the son of a merchant no less who worked his entire adult life to abolish slavery and achieved this through legislation in the House of parliament and enforced through the British empire afterwards so as to ban slavery world wide for the first time in recorded history.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Wilberforce
He also worked to ban capital punishment and cofounded the animal rights charity RSPCA in the UK.
Look how tall the plinth is on this statue it is like Nelson’s column:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Wilberforce_1.jpg
but no mention of this deeply religious and conservative man who worked so hard to do what is right.
I do agree with this article. It has at least broadened my view on the social situation of African-Americans. And i agree that they are partially to blame for their social fracture. But i wont ever rule out that US is inherently racist. I mean no one can convince me that police doesn’t brutalize black folks for any petty crime or trumped up charges which they can throw on black folks. They are generalized. All blacks are criminals and all Muslims are terrorists. Prison in US is overflowing with black folks with petty crimes.
This rioting and looting does nothing to enhance their social stand in US, i agree with it. If anything it will only make them look bad in the eyes of their own people. Its not a revolution or civil unrest. Its nothing. This Flyod guy isn’t the first one to be shot by police. Rioting has happened before and will happen in future but it wont change a thing in US or its crooked system. It is a system that is made to oppress not only others but the people who live under this very system. It isn’t going down by any financial hiccups. I don’t buy it. All this financial troubles and crisis. I don’t buy it at all. I will not buy it until i see normal Americans regardless of their colors suffer as much as people in Middle East, Asia, Africa have been due to this crooked system. And i don’t buy Trump destroying the empire from within. He simply can’t. He doesn’t rule the country, its the deep state, elite or 1%er or whatever we call it. Trump is just a puppet like all the previous presidents have been.
L445 had written as a response to one of my earlier posts:
“And your charge that there is White Supremacy in the US is total fabrication. Whites are at every disadvantage for the last forty years in America. The destruction of the middle class has been the destruction of mostly whites …….. Your statements are race-baiting drivel …….. You basically vandalized this blog with garbage.”
In stark contrast to the cavalier denial of the phenomenon of white supremacy made by L445 above, the origin of white supremacy in the US is documented in the following just-published scholarly work by Monthly Review Press written by the historian Gerald Horne.
“The Dawning of the Apocalypse: The Roots of Slavery, White Supremacy, Settler Colonialism, and Capitalism in the Long Sixteenth Century”. A very brief description of the work is available at
(https://monthlyreview.org/product/apocalypse_of_settler_colonialism/?utm_source=MR+Email+List&utm_campaign=a37d286281-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_06_03_06_24&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_4f879628ac-a37d286281-295775165&mc_cid=a37d286281&mc_eid=cab60192d8) from which the extract below is taken:
“Virtually no part of the modern United States—the economy, education, constitutional law, religious institutions, sports, literature, economics, even protest movements—can be understood without first understanding the slavery and dispossession that laid its foundation. To that end, historian Gerald Horne digs deeply into Europe’s colonization of Africa and the New World, when, from Columbus’s arrival until the Civil War, some 13 million Africans and some 5 million Native Americans were forced to build and cultivate a society extolling “liberty and justice for all.” The seventeenth century was, according to Horne, an era when the roots of slavery, white supremacy, and capitalism became inextricably tangled into a complex history involving war and revolts in Europe, England’s conquest of the Scots and Irish, the development of formidable new weaponry able to ensure Europe’s colonial dominance, the rebel merchants of North America who created “these United States,” and the hordes of Europeans whose newfound opportunities in this “free” land amounted to “combat pay” for their efforts as “white” settlers.
Centering his book on the Eastern Seaboard of North America, the Caribbean, Africa, and what is now Great Britain, Horne provides a deeply researched, harrowing account of the apocalyptic loss and misery that likely has no parallel in human history. This is an essential book that will not allow history to be told by the victors. It is especially needed now, in the age of Trump. For it has never been more vital, Horne writes, “to shed light on the contemporary moment wherein it appears that these malevolent forces have received a new lease on life.”
Rap and the prison culture were a deliberate war against black children and communities by the “music” industry paving the way for the prison industry.
Please do some serious research…most Americans want to be civil, raise their families safely, and see a reform in the justice system. Faith in corporate media is almost non existent, the hilarious repetitions of sexy “reporters” saying the same exact words from teleprompters is exposed for the world to laugh at.
The American Evil Empire is imploding, as a variety of crises have exposed its vaunted “democracy” as a political lie of the first order.
And the Americans are truly reaping what they have sown around the world.
United States: An Obituary
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/06/10/united-states-obituary
I didn’t take you to be a racist, Saker. I find this write up a little insensitive but I guess I should expect that. The geopolitical analysis is on point though, as usual.
Only someone who knows nothing about hiphop would say this: ““, I would argue that 99% of rap is a glorification of all the worst problems of Black communities in the USA”.
That is true of commercialized hip hop that gets promoted by record labels (and the underground wannabes who just mimic that lyrical content because they think they will get discovered and get a deal themselves). The real hip hop is underground. You don’t know anything about that, Saker! The hip hop that comes out of this scene is very empowering and uplifting.
But typically, anyone who makes the comment you did just doesn’t know hip hop beyond the surface level trite corporations want you to hear. I can give you some examples of great hip hop if you like. I’m willing to share. I mean it!
Yes, please, send me the links.
Kind regards
The Saker
@ Mr. Saker
” I can also testify to the fact that I have seen a lot of anti-Latino feelings from US Blacks. As for how Blacks often feel about Asians, all we need to do is remember the LA riots in 1992.”
Based on this observation, will the estimated 18% Latino community and Asian community align themselves with the “black” minority or with the white American majority? During World War 2 Japanese Americans were forced into internment camps. They were the manufactured “enemy” of that time. Those that are in power are masters at manufacturing enemies at home and abroad. The urban core of American cities/ghettoes are already internment camps. “Blacks” are allowed limited movement, in essence, this is what “stop and Frisk” is meant to achieve. All the military/ National Guard has to do is declare martial law, close all the major routes of transportation in and out of the cities urban core/ghetto. Create a corridor to allow White Americans, Latinos, etc. to leave. How then will “blacks” blend in with the rest of the population to avoid detection? “Blacks” will receive the Fallujah treatment or the open-air prisons of the Palestinian may be on the menu. I don’t want to beat a dead horse, but my point is that White America will not have to worry about the “black” population. The problem is going to be the white American populous because when they lose everything, they will tear this country apart.
I think this is an excellent summary of the situation. I was particularly impressed by this insight:
“A “Right/Conservative vs Left/Liberal” civil war is also not possible, because both the US Right and the US Left are, in reality controlled by a deep state which is neither liberal nor conservative.”
I realised that the very same is true of the British State: it is run by dead-eyed experts possessed of what is known as second order intelligence – the ability to see how things will really turn out.
Perhaps one area of disagreement is that I think African Americans ARE disadvantaged in that the US deep state:
– sort to subvert rap music
– floods their areas with drugs
– increases labour market competition for black people via the importation of surplus labour (usually Latino hence the ethnic tensions – British capital did the same with the Irish playing them off against the organised English working class).
Black leaders are utterly negligent in not opposing this but then I guess the ones who did would find themselves having an accident.
The collapse is complete, whether this will mean anything is doubtful. Maybe for a few yes, but the few have always been another country. Sadness indeed.
“Much more importantly, these cops are the “thin blue line” which protects society against criminals.”
Surely you must know that the police are the go-to tool which enables the state to enforce it’s will against the majority of the people? Police are an integral part of the capitalist system and other systems which prioritise and protect the interests of the rich and privileged minorities against the rest of the population. Their ‘anti-crime’ (and remember who defines what are ‘crimes’?) activities are just something to keep them occupied until their real role is required. I expected better of you.
Unfortunately, I think you have explained in great detail the complexities of our current dilemma. I recall crossing paths with this site in the past. This time I followed links from other related articles that referenced this one. After reading thousands of articles a week and reviewing tens of thousands of comments I nearly gave up on humanity. Many of my contemporaries often feel the same way. After a brief respite we all come back with a renewed sense of duty. Your words are both dreadful, yet encouraging, as we need to be able to focus clearly on the true nature of the crisis before we can begin to implement decisive action to regain our humanity. Culture wars tear at the soul of our society. The inner cities are a hot bed of contention. We just don’t see that type of behavior anywhere else. The impending economic collapse will eventually touch us all. I hate to see 50 years of my hard work and generations of my forefathers spent building up this society just to see it being torn down by uneducated radicals and rebel rouses. Such are these days of our lives. Where is the moral compass?
I hope that black man keeps a firm grip of his daughter and doesn’t let Creepy Joe too close to her.
America has inflicted this type of mayhem and far worse on so many countries over the decades.
Regime change is coming home, along with a lot of roosting pigeons.
All Empires end in madness.
Reading of the end of the British Raj or the end of Rome you see this same debauched madness.
You have to remember that meritocracy is a word not a practice and the sons and daughters of the great….well are not so great
Once the horses suspect those holding the reigns aren’t to be obeyed..they bolt and this happens more and more.
What you see now is the horses bolting and idiot sons and daughters not knowing what to do.
I agree that the listing are “pretexts.” But, whose pretexts are they and to what end are they being used and why do they use them? Answer to the last question is the collapse of America, ushering in a new world order is the answer to the second question. The who is more complex. America has a domestic/foreign enemy called the private Federal Reserve since 1913. Second, the who can be answered by naming the secret principals profiting from the private Federal Reserve. Third, the who question can be answerable by the partners of the private Federal Reserve: Those partners are running the United State’s media, Congress and Supreme Court and the Military Industrial Security Complex, the Bank Of International Settlements Network, the City of London Banking Networks ect.. And, the who is also Bush Family and Dick Cheney and Mega Corporations owning the secret technology in Space and under ground. The who is too China and Russia, surprisingly. The who can also be answered by who funded the Nazis? The answer is New York’s Cromwell law firm and WallStreet.
The “Who” matters more than the pretexts because they are the “cause” of the abominable crimes giving excuse to the rise of a brief new world order to come.
America Victimology 101: Stand reality on its head and present America as a victim (like being the “victim” of a nefarious conspiracy to collapse the USA), even as America victimizes the world through it serial wars of aggression; economic sanctions warfare; political regime change and balkanization campaigns; or mass media propaganda.
This is a standard propaganda tactic of imperial American apologists everywhere–like yourself.
The more crimes against humanity that the USA commits, the more contrived psyops the Americans will spew to cover for their precious American Empire.
P.S. The New World Order itself is an Orwellian euphemism for an America-dominated World Order.
You might want to check out Great Seal of the USA, which was first created way back in 1782. The slogan emblazoned on America’s Great Seal is Novus ordo seclorum (“New order of the ages”), which sounds suspiciously like a declaration of a New World Order.
And today, it is no coincidence that US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is always aggressive propagandizing for an “International Rules-Based Order” led by America.
Great Seal of the United States
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Seal_of_the_United_States
OK. So, let’s give this time. It is early days. A decade of waiting will tell us whether this matters or whether it will just be a light breeze that has blown on by.
It’s ‘deer in the headlights’, not dear btw :-).
Other than that, the focus here seems to miss the most important point, the disenfranchise of the US voter and his /her interests. To understand this, two US social critics stand out: Chalmers Johnson and Noam Chomsky.
When you have a population that is willing to go along with all the war crimes as perpetrated by the US government and the US armed forces, a population scared to act against its own interests by allowing the MIC and mighty corporations to waste taxpayers’ money on a ‘defence’ that is pure warmongering, and where a few can become extremely rich to the detriment of the many, you have fundamental problems that can’t be solved easily.
So the only hope for the rest of the world is that USA goes broke, seriously totally broke, so the masses wake up (those that haven’t starved to death), and introduce social justice, a society where those who benefit the most are willing to share with the less fortunate. Yes, it’s called ‘socialism’, and it is how most civilised societies are run. And somehow it makes for much happier societies, with the Scandinavian countries as prime samples.
Read Chalmers Johnson’s ‘Dismantling the Empire. America’s Last Best Hope’ and Noam Chomsky’s ‘Media Control. The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda’.
And lastly, ordinary US Americans have little to fear from China or Russia, it’s only the 1%-ers and the US Mafia government that are threatened as they would face a future that will be very different from the past.