Report from Detroit for AfroSpear: Porn Shows at the Reconstrueists’ Ball

Tags

Democracy, Detroit, Detroit News, Gentriication, John Berger, mass media, Media, Miami, Politics, United States, Urban Blight

“Democracy is a proposal (rarely realised) about decision-making; it has little to do with election campaigns. Its promise is that political decisions be made after, and in the light of, consultation with the governed. This is dependent upon the governed being adequately informed about the issues in question, and upon the decision makers having the capacity and will to listen and take account of what they have heard. Democracy should not be confused with the “freedom” of binary choices, the publication of opinion polls or the crowding of people into statistics. These are its pretense. Today the fundamental decisions, which effect the unnecessary pain increasingly suffered across the planet, have been and are taken unilaterally without any open consultation or participation.” ~ John Berger

I. Dance, reconstrueism [rek-kun-stroó-ism], dance!

My impulse used to be to dismiss it. But nearly six years after returning here to my hometown of Detroit after my decade living in Miami, it has become more and more difficult to go on living and working in a post modern, post industrial, casebook ‘capitalist endtime’ city like Detroit, ignoring the hyper-reality and the hype of American rust belt era gentrification and post gentrification; to go on ignoring the post industrial situation: the poverty, loss, and disintegration in weird concert with the outlandishly enthusiastic, intrusive media junkets that spin across the dance floor in disco mode even though the music is a mournful dirge.

While local Detroit’s news media have steadfastly ignored for two decades now the steadily growing din of community protest and outrage, the gulf between politicians and the governed, between the suburbs and the city, between the haves and the never-will-haves again, between official public media and real life has grown into an ocean; and the two continents are drifting. Citizen outrage over both a political establishment’s and media establishment’s practice of treating community voices and groups as if they were invisible, is as the feeble complaints of Hebrews in the work pits of ancient Egypt, cutting stones for pyramids they will never see the end of. The same newspapers, radio broadcasts, and so-called ‘alternative’ media that have steadfastly ignored post-civil rights, post-nationalist, and post mass culture complaints of racism and abandonment lodged by the mostly Black, mostly poor populace, are peculiarly attentive now to the interests, ideologies, and the dogmas of the forces of Republican triumphalism. They are likewise quick to lick the hand of the interests of ‘urban renovation’ politics, and of what I call ‘settler chic’.

‘Settlers’– the slowly increasing trickle of returnees from suburbs, and new arrivals from other cities (of which I was one, six years ago) are a new dispensation, but all these forces and interests make up ‘the media junket’: journalism at its worst. Nothing covered by American Journalism, or rather, nothing that is blipped, blurbed, byted, and blurted, is presented with adequate depth, meaning, or critical content. The two major city newspapers, The Detroit News and Detroit Free Press, cover the city either sensationally through a blanket fascination with crime and petty corruption (as opposed to deeper, more far-reaching corporate corruption), or else in so diffident a way (emphasis upon what Miami cultural critic Dr. James Nadell sarcastically calls ‘that local media life-giving, all important, precious sports coverage’) that all the city’s greater complexity is flattened out into purely entertaining, descriptive, lurid and titillating ‘copy’ for creation of a salable commodity by a media that abhor political, economic, cultural, and ethnic diversity and legitimacy. Thus, the rot, the collapse, the poverty, the slow

The Rot

disintegration of a city center and of its neighborhoods, is the daily commodity that turns the profit motive. With a few human interest and ‘poor folk make good’ stories sprinkled in for plausible deniability’s sake, pathos, suffering, and rot are the papers’ real bread and butter, and crime is the spice. News is wrapped like liver and sold slightly bloody with little meaningful, ongoing attention to the past and its economic and political causality. In Detroit, ‘if it bleeds, it leads’, and that motto controls the daily fare (‘crime reporting’ being a perfect avatar for it all) of TV, radio, and print journalism. It’s a corporate standard, a nationally pervasive style of media coverage of cities that is shallow in focus, stereotyped, smug, and presumptuous–not just because it leaves citizens uninformed, which it does, but because it leaves citizens altogether: it has fled us; or it floats above our heads, unconcerned with our real, material lives as it arbitrarily selects what it chooses to spill down upon us–information as scat. If this is what has become of ‘the watchdog of democracy’ then Detroit has what is more accurately described as a cadaver dog of complacency. The media, conglomerated by Gannett (newspapers), Clear Channel (radio and satellite access), and New Times Corp (‘alternative publication weeklies), and their subsidiaries, have long ago broken democracy’s leash, to root through the details of the dead, the unburied casualties, with no concern for or memory of democracy as John Berger defines it, and even less concern for democracy’s discontents (sudden gun battles at police precincts notwithstanding).

Jeffries Projects Demolition

Lately in fact, a characteristic of inappropriate playfulness, even of exuberance, is being displayed by the current incarnation of those junkets ridden by suburban settlers touring the inner city, assessing property values, and planning renovation. These excursions are peopled by ‘creative class’ types [see Richard Florida further down this page]. The tone of their safaris has veered, nauseatingly, over toward the extreme of what some call ‘ruins porn’ (a growing fascination, nationally, with American cities’ shattered, disintegrating architecture and that dying architectures ‘antique’ quality; fascination with the even more fetishistic practice of doing ecstatic and politically mute photographic ‘studies’ of urban wreckage shots offered as aesthetic objects and as visual commodities).

Typical Detroit 'Ruins Porn' Shot

The corporate ghouls–the land developers, real estate vampires, expensive condo prospectors, and strip mall developers, are only some of the many junketeers who have for years now been descending upon modern dying cities. However, when a city that has lost its industrial basis and its economic base begins to die, and also happens to have a high percentage of people-of-color, of Blacks, Latinos, Asians, Arabs, or members of the working poor, the ghouls are double in number and strength, and even more easily can they buy access, authority, and fiat from easily bought-off, corruptible local public and elected officials who fail to protect constituents from these revelers at The Ball. Their claim, the caption that scrolls across their faces calls them ‘rescuers’ of dying urban space.

Ted Williams: Not So Shiny & New

Tags

Black Men, golden voice, recovery, ted williams

When things are shiny & new, everyone wants a piece. I’m happy that Ted was “discovered” & I’m VERY happy that he is in recovery now but it’s a shame how it all played out for him under the media pressure.

Shame on Kraft, The Cavaliers & them other bitches who dropped Ted like a hot potato. I mean, come on, did you really expect that he had a squeaky clean past. Perhaps they should have did some background checking before they started sucking his dick & making offers because they wanted to look “nice & caring.” I’m just saying.

I’m hoping that Ted heals the areas of his life that were neglected for so long. While healing, I hope that the money/fame hungry vultures are kept at bay. Let a brother be successful the right way.

Now that I said my piece, peep this story I found on Good.Is.

“A Month Later, “Homeless Man with a Golden Voice” Is Abandoned by His Corporate Friends” by Cord Jefferson

“In early January, a journalist in Ohio came across a homeless man possessed of a “golden radio voice.” That man, as you probably know, was Ted Williams, and the journalist’s video footage of him quickly became a hit on the internet and television. Williams got a makeover seemingly overnight, and soon he was doing voiceovers for Kraft products, appearing in TV ads, and fielding an announcing job offer from the Cleveland Cavaliers. But then reality struck.

After getting into an altercation with his daughter, an altercation for which he was not , Williams was pressured into going into rehab for alcohol addiction by TV psychologist Dr. Phil McGraw. He then left almost immediately, saying he felt rushed and that the process (i.e. being broadcast on Dr. Phil live from rehab) felt “scripted.” Williams then checked himself into a sober living house for voiceover actors in Los Angeles, where he could come and go as he pleased, but where he still needed to submit to drug tests and promise to remain clean.

Eventually came word that Williams had long ago abandoned his nine children. And then The Smoking Gun released his rap sheet. Ultimately, it turned out that the man with the golden voice did not have such a golden history.

Alas, in the aftermath of his troubled second chance, Williams is still making minor appearances—the Los Angeles Times reports he was recently at a milkshake shop but Kraft hasn’t brought him back, his TV ads have been pulled, and the Cavaliers’ job offer has been reneged.” Read More Here…

Photo Credit: AP

White Approval Addiction–You Got it!

You know you’re addicted.  Tell me you’re not, and I’ll tell you that you are.  You actually need a white person to approve of you as a black person in order to feel good about yourself.

That’s why you’re so mad that there are still racists out there.  It’s so upsetting to you because you want them to understand that you are a person too!  You won’t rest until white racists stop being racist.  Because the way they see things and the way they view you is very important to you.  You don’t feel too good about you when you know there are so many racists out there and that they hate you for no cause that you can figure out. This to you is unacceptable. You are starved for white racist love.  You desparately want it, and won’t rest until you get it.

Black man, how important is it to you to get a white woman’s approval–STILL?  When a white woman tells you, “I like you” do you feel vindicated, empowered, or validated?  Or if she says, “I’m sorry about racism”, does that make the racism more bearable?  Does it become OK that she still profits from that racism?   It’s like saying I’m sorry that I’m stealing from you, and you then you say “that’s OK”!

Black woman, is it still so important when a white man tells you that you’re beautiful?  Does it become more real when he tells you, is it more believable, and is it a bigger compliment coming from him?
 
Now black folks, don’t go off on a derailing tangent.  I have the right to look at this phenomenon of white approval addiction–to analyze it  from my own perspective, if I wont to.  So I’m wondering why after all this time, do we black folks need white approval?  Why do we struggle so hard to get it?  I’ve come to some conclusions about this thing.  I think that black folks need white approval only when they don’t truly know who they are as a people, when they don’t know anything about their history, beyond the lame statement “We come from Kings and Queens”, that generic statement that lacks any true power or knowledge of history, but that is thrown around in a weak attempt to show that one has an understanding of who he or she is as a black person, when one really doesn’t.  I have concluded that white approval addiction proliferates in the hearts of black folks who haven’t taken the time to learn about themselves.  Those black folks who may be afraid to look deep into their history as a people for fear of what they might NOT find.

I know that white approval addiction is catching in black people who deep down believe all the negative things that are reported in the media, maybe because it’s easier than learning the truth, maybe because it’s convenient, or maybe because the fight for liberation is too much work.  Since we don’t have the strength to find out all the hidden truths about ourselves, we weakly just accept not knowing.  Then we overreact to every stupid thing white racists say.  We allow ourselves to be manipulated by everyone, turned this way and that way, raging all the while.

Then a magic white person comes along and tells us simple shit like “you black people are really good” or “my white people are really bad” and we fall damn hard for that shit!! Yeah I said it!  Well I like what Peter Tosh said a long time ago.  “Everybody cries out for peace, but none cries out for justice”  “I need equal rights and justice”!!

I don’t need a white person to tell me that I’m good as a person, nor tell me that they are bad as people.  That’s just bullshit.  What I would respect more, is a white person who goes into his or her own neck of the woods and fight against racism from their own little place or big place depending on who they are.  Otherwise, I don’t need your approval of me.

Malia vs. Haitian Child Sex Slaves

I have been very busy with work and travelling this week, however two stories caught my attention. Although they involved Black children, what I found interesting and most revealing was the reaction of the African American community to both stories.

The first story had to deal with FOXNews personality Glenn Becks spoof of a conversation between President Obama and his daughter Malia on plugging the hole of the oil leak in the Gulf. During a press conference on Thursday, Obama stated: “When I woke up this morning and I’m shaving, and Malia knocks on my bathroom door and she peeks in her head and she says, ‘Did you plug the hole yet, Daddy?’ “ Beck did a skit on his radio program mocking what this conversation would sound like (here). When I first heard of this story, I thought “hell no, let’s kick Glenn Becks azz!” I read headlines in the MSM such as, “Beck Attacks Obama’s Daughter!” and “Glenn Beck Crosses Line, Teases Malia Obama!” etc. As far as I’m concerned, children are (should be) off limits in political debates. Unfortunately that is certainly not the case in American politics.

However, once I read these articles I thought to myself, there has to be more to the story than this. What Beck did may be considered in bad taste and juvenile, but it was pretty tame, I would even say “inconsequential”, when compared to what was said of Sarah Palin’s children during the 2008 presidential campaign. Still in my “as a father” induced rage, I went to where I would hope to get the real story, a true perspective of what was said and in what context: the African American media and blogging community. Imaging my (non) surprise when I found a parroting of the MSM reports: theloop21, theRoot, the Field Negro. Maybe a little more of an emotional response, understandable since Beck mocked the Black Messiah and the First Daughter, but I found nothing more of any value.

The second story that caught my attention this week involved an RCMP officer who returned from Haiti and reports that orphans are being smuggled into the Dominican Republic to be used as sex slaves and in child sex videos (read article here). Once again in my “as a father” induced rage, I went to where I would hope to get the real story, a deeper perspective of what was actually happening: the African American media and blogging community. Imaging my (non) surprise when I found nothing at all in regards to this story.

So what ignites African American pseudo-intellectual rage? Glenn Beck’s childish antics or the worldwide phenomenon of sexual exploitation of Black/African children? I saw on Field Negro’s blog, a call to boycott Beck’s sponsors. Really!? Does Glenn Beck have that much power on the quality of life in the African American community!? How about calling for a boycott of the corporations that fund the militias in the Congo that rape women and girls, so that these corporations can control the mineral resources of the country (here).

I’m sure the Obamas, especially Malia Obama, isn’t losing any sleep over the comments of Glenn Beck. She will do more than “okay” in this life. With the prestige and privileges now associated with the “Obama” name, her life will be more like the black princess in the Disney movie, The Princess and the Frog. In contrast, there will be soon be the release of countless sex videos starring nameless Haitian orphans for the African American media and blogging community to ignore, while eagerly waiting to report and comment on the next Glenn Beck fiasco.

Sarah Palin daring to Go Rogue: A Case Study in the Art of Style over Substance

As I look down upon American society…literally and figuratively… from my perch up here in Canada, I must admit that it’s politics and political figures fascinates me to some extent. The higher up the political ladder one goes, its becomes more and more like following a t.v. reality show, where as we know, “style over substance” is the premise of all the various plots. The continuing drama surrounding U.S. presidential politics is the highest stage where this phenomenon plays itself out. Where “American Idol” meets “America’s Top Model”, to create figuratively, “A perfect storm”.

What I had found most fascinating about the 2008 U.S. presidential election but for whatever reason didn’t feel moved to comment on at the time, was the treatment that Sarah Palin received from the so-called “mainstream media”, made up primarily of the so-called “liberal” participants. For me, it was an intriguing contrast when compared with the A-list starlike adulation, Manchurian candidate Obama received. Maybe because the difference was so blatant I didn’t feel the need to state the obvious… and not surprisingly a year later, it still continues. 

Obama has always been the media’s “guy”. They created, nurtured, directed, marketed and protected, “The Obama Brand”. When he first popped up on the national scene during the 2004 Democratic convention, I remember saying to myself, after listening to the t.v. commentators heaping praise on his speech, that this dude is a media creation. However, let me be clear: Barack Obama was and is no mindless stooge. As a political strategist, the man is brilliant. He used them also for his political advantage. I saw during the 2008 campaign how, depending on the audience he was catering to, he would mesmerize them with conflicting speeches… and the mainstream media would fall all over themselves saying how inspiring he was, while never calling him out on his inconsistencies. Sure, the right-wing zealots over at Fox News like Sean Hannity and radio talkshow personalities, like Rush Limbaugh would rail against him, but outside of their diehard supporters, their rantings fell on deaf ears. No-one took them seriously… especially the majority of those within the Republican Party itself, much less the majority of Americans as was proven at the end of the election.

Obama’s greatest political feat was not winning the Presidential election against John McCain. That was a given. Whoever won the Democratic nomination was going to be the next President of the United States of America. Obama’s greatest political triumph was defeating the Clinton machine, (in February 2008 I wrote this post predicting that he would beat her). So after he won and Hillary got onboard “The Obama Train”, it was pretty much smooth sailing for the Obama campaign. Not only did he have the overwhelming majority of Democratic base in his corner, but more importantly, the Independents, primarily moderate conservatives, were supporting him. 

All was well until… “uh-oh!”… John McCain picked a nationally unknown female Alaskan Governor, a Sarah Palin, as his running mate. Although everyone was lambasting McCain on this choice, I saw it as a clever political move on his part. I still didn’t think he would win, but it was a choice he needed to make to put some life… to give his sinking campaign a boost… which it did! For a time at least. He desperately needed someone to galvanize the Republican base, especially the social conservatives. McCain is a moderate. He therefore appealed primarily to moderate Republicans and Independent conservatives, so having Joe Lieberman as a running mate would not benefit him much, plus it would alienate him even further from the more right-wing segment of the Republican base. There was no way he was going to get the Black vote, so asking Colin Powell would be a waste, plus there were already indications that Powell was going to support Obama. Mitt Romney’s religious beliefs would further alienate the more right-wing segment of the Republican base, so who was really left? 

Well as the saying goes: “desperate times call for desperate measures”. By choosing Sarah Palin, the McCain campaign hoped to solidify the support of the more right-wing elements of the Party, such as the social conservatives; gain the support of White middle and upper class women who felt betrayed by the Hillary loss; and win over the “Walmart” constituents, who were primarily conservatives, if not necessarily Republicans, but weren’t being inspired enough by the campaign to vote for John McCain. Most importantly however… and I don’t know if during the vetting process of Sarah Palin they took this into consideration… she was very photogenic! This added greatly to her appeal. Ever since the Kennedy-Nixon television debate in 1960, it is a given that within Presidential campaigns, being “camera friendly” is more important to getting elected, than any policy position a candidate may have! 

So it was very interesting observing how, as the “Palin phenomenon” took hold and gained momentum, the mainstream media, although rattled in the beginning, got it’s “shit together” to make sure that this upstart wouldn’t derail their guy. Did they really believe that Palin could seriously spark enough excitement into the McCain campaign to pull off the upset? I doubt it… but they weren’t going to take the chance! In the beginning no one gave the relatively unknown junior Black Senator from Illinois a chance against the Clinton machine… and look what happened! The lesson was learnt:
“Never underestimate your opponent!”

Caster Semenya determined to be a woman… and a man

According to news reports, gender tests ordered by the IAAF for the South African 800 meter world champion, has determined that technically she’s a hermaphrodite. The tests found that Ms. Semenya has internal males testes, the male sex organ that produces testosterone, the hormone that is responsible for building muscle, producing body hair and a deep voice. The tests also revealed that she has no womb or ovaries. Depending on the reports you read, the IAAF may or may not strip Ms. Semenya of the gold medal she won, however they are certain that the IAAF will disqualify her from future events.

Hopefully this will be the beginning of the end of this controversy for Ms. Semenya, however I doubt it. This whole affair is no longer about her as she has become of a “pawn” in this circus. The results, if true, has political, social as well as international implications. Although, I may now have to reconsider my position that the gender test by the IAAF was racially motivated, my support for Ms. Semenya hasn’t wavered. In fact, I am proud of the way this African sister has handled all the controversy… with dignity and class.

Interesting post by brotherpeacemaker: “South Africa Is Ready To Defend Caster Semenya”  

Transformers 2: Racism in a Post-racial Techno World

I never watched the Transformers television animated series nor read the Marvel comic books. I saw the first film with my cousin who was a fan, but I didn’t think much of it. I had no intention of seeing the latest Transformers release, but the vitriolic comments in support of the movie after Tafari posted this article on the racism within the film, plus reading other likewise comments elsewhere, spurred me to go see it. I can’t offer an honest and educated critique on something if I haven’t seen it for myself, so yesterday I made the time to go and see what the controversy was all about. 

 

Tafari’s review of the film was right on point. Although it was action packed, exciting and overall I must admit that I did enjoy it (certainly much more than the 1st film), the characterizations of the twin Autobots, Skids and Mudflaps, were undoubtedly racist stereotypical depictions associated to Black males… hence the term “Little Black Sambo[ts]”. Tafari and others in his original post, described the specific racist stereotypes within the movie so I don’t need to repeat them here. I do however want to address a few of the comments and arguments made on his post and elsewhere.

There were a few references made that there is more going on in the world to worry about than any “perceived” racist or stereotypical depictions in movies. That’s easy to say if you’re White. Stereotypes associated to Black people, especially those depicted in this film, such as we look like monkeys, we fancy wearing gold teeth, we’re uneducated, ebonic speaking, cowardly but will quickly engage in senseless violence among ourselves, reinforces the negative opinions held about us… not only by the dominant culture, but also by those of our own community.  

It is true that some stereotypes are based on some element of truth, and we can all point to some individuals who engage in these types of behaviours. (I refer to these Black individuals as the present day, real life “sambos”). But I would argue that they do not represent the majority of those in the Black community! I can count on one hand the number of people I’ve met in my over 40 years of living, who had gold teeth… and not all of them were Black! Most Black people I’ve met value education and I’ve never met one who couldn’t read. The overwhelming majority of people I have dealt with as a law enforcement officer, in regards to criminal activities, have been White males, even when you take into account percentages based on demographics. Black males are very much in the minority of those I have charged, especially for violent crimes.

So I would contend that most Black people don’t wear gold teeth, can read and have some level of education, don’t speak what is termed “ebonics” as their regular means of communication, aren’t self-destructive, violent criminals but are hard working law-abiding citizens who make positive contributions to whatever society they live in. So why does the media and entertainment industry keep depicting Black males by these racist stereotypes!? Why would the director of the movie state that his vision of the Autobot Twins was to create characters “the younger audience could really identify with”!?

Then there were the arguments that the Black entertainment community does the same thing by also promoting these negative stereotypes, so why should there be a problem with the characterization of the Autobot Twins? BET, rappers such as T-Pain, Lil Wayne, and Souljah Boy, etc., were repeatedly used as examples of those promoting the same negative stereotypes. I have argued that Black artists like these and the programming by BET does hold some responsibility for the negative portrayals of Black people, but let’s be clear, there is no “Black entertainment community”, nor individual, that controls it’s own product and more importantly how it’s marketed. BET is owned by Viacom. Black record companies need distribution deals with major labels to finance their marketing, videos and to get radio play, if they want to reach a wide (aka ‘White”) audience. Even critically and commercially acclaimed filmmakers like Spike Lee and John Singleton, need the backing of major film studios to finance and distribute their movies. (Is there any surprise that VIBE magazine is shutting down after 20 years without even a whimper from the Black entertainment community? Where is their bailout!?)  

Therefore those who control the means of production and what it’s willing to promote, ultimately decides what it will and will not sell for public consumption… which in turn determines what kind of product will be created. If they wanted to market positive images of Black people, then they would sign, finance, develop, promote, market and distribute such products. Black rappers and other artists in the “Black entertainment community”, who want to “get paid”, would then mold their music, videos, films and professional images, depicting positive and uplifting messages, so as to be marketable.

Finally there were the arguments that now that the POTUS is a Black man, racism and/or racial stereotypes no longer have any negative consequences for the Black community and we need to just see the Autobot Twins as characters in a movie, providing harmless comic relief. As a commenter on Tafari’s post stated: “Pissed off over 2 autobots? Get a grip, and enjoy the movie.”  

I would however suggest that it’s movies like “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen”, with characterizations such as the Autobot Twins… the “Little Black Sambots”… which perpetuates and entrenches racist attitudes, like those directed at President Obama, such as this one, and this one, and this one, and this one. It contributes directly to a worldview of African-Americans, where the interim foreign minister of Honduras can feel empowered enough to refer to the POTUS, a 6ft-2in Black man, the most powerful leader in the world, as “this little black man who has no idea where Tegucigalpa is” (source). In other words, President Obama is irrelevant and ignorant due to the color of his skin! It also leads directly to real life situations such as this one!

It is not my intention to change the opinions of those who defend the movie or feel that the stereotypes are a real depiction of the majority of Black males. Racism in a post-racial techno world now masks itself in robotic characterizations. Subtle yet blatant… for those who care to see it.

Bottom Line about the Economy

Now the latest hype about the global economic situation involves the debate about what has caused it rather than what is actually taking place. Working class people must exercise some critical thinking, because this ruse intends to keep them in the dark. Since black folks are linked into the global economy just like anybody else, we need to get our heads out of the soaps and churches and anywhere else that does not help us gain clarity and substance on this issue.

The economists are inventing red herrings like the “global savings glut”. This is nonsense. Who believes that money can be earned thru saving? In terms of working class folks, it makes little sense to save, since inflation eats up savings. The annual 3% inflation rate results in only a 1% yearly savings on your money, if banked. Outside of the industrialized countries, there is no return because inflation is much steeper. If you are a middle class person trying to save, your higher education is not paying off.

Not only that, but the Savings & Loans crisis of the Eighties and Nineties definitely scared the US public away from savings and stampeded them towards more sophisticated types of swindles, such as retirement plans based upon 401k and KEOGHs. Just because an activity is approved by Congress, and filled with volumes of small type that only a lawyer can understand, does not make it honest. No black worker has any business playing the stock market without knowing the dollar value of one point on the DJIA or having $250k to throw away in a money-manager fund. ‘Investment’ means only fools leverage all their assets on a gamble.

So if the economists were discussing stock-based retirement funds as a form of savings, consider that misinformation. The New York Review of Books and PEN World Voices presented a symposium on the world economic crisis at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on April 30. At that time, the idea was proposed that savings had driven down interests rates when, in fact, the Fed and the European Common Bank (ECB) themselves dictate interest rates. Not only that, North America and Europe in no way represent the globe.

It is important to repudiate any notion which dismisses the theory that the ruling class manipulated the financial system for their own benefit. The theory proposed by the symposium flies in the face of every scandal from Enron to Bernie Madoff. It contradicts the events which demanded welfare (bail outs?) for the banks.

Folks must not be duped by the highly esteemed panelists at that event, former senator Bill Bradley, Niall Ferguson, Paul Krugman, Nouriel Roubini, George Soros, and Robin Wells, and Jeff Madrick as moderator. Not one of them has an analysis which serves the interests of the millions of people who form the basis of the US domestic economy; not one of them even speaks the language of every day people.

When the banks pressed the Fed to raise interest rates, this became the primary trigger for the financial meltdown. While most folks think of the banks as finance institutions, the bank is a tool for making money. It is an instrument for concentrating money. Concentrated money becomes capital. Working class people lack capital. They sell their labor for a wage. Capitalists do not earn wages. They make money not thru labor or savings but by skimming value from what labor produces.

If ten laborers in a gold mine work together to extract one ton of gold daily which has a value of $900 per ounce, not one of them makes $900 per day, or even half of that. Even if their combined labor only extracts ten pounds of gold a day, who gets the money? The workers do not earn enuf to save. The value of the gold gets concentrated at the top of the chain, by people who trade paper with a value printed upon it, in exchange for the real value that has been extracted from the mine. This practice prevails thru out the bloodsucking capitalist system, where a few people live exorbitantly upon the backs of five billion working people worldwide.

This paper money has a value assigned to it. This value can be manipulated easier than anything else. After all, the paper has no real value! Today, one dollar may be as strong as yesterday’s ten dollar bill; tomorrow, that same one dollar note may be devalued so that it is only worth five cents. Entire societies remain at risk as a worker in this type of system.

So the monies the panelists claimed were tied up in savings actually were being poured into a volatile market, the stock market, another place ruled by paper tigers. Over the last thirty years, real wages failed to keep pace with inflation and the cost of living. Working people lacked the ability to save. However, amid the fears that Social Security would dry up before they could retire, they put a few hard earned extra dollars into stock-based retirement funds. Human relations managers and other company officials pulled their workers off assembly lines to sell them pyramid and ponzi schemes called a KEOGH or IRA or 401k Plan. These talks sounded something like the average MLM hustle, where the guy at the top of the chain makes all the money and the suckers who bought into it are left holding the bag. That is precisely what happened in instances such as MCI-Worldcom, Tyco, Enron, and others all the way thru the  Madoff scandal. These were all multi-billion dollar scams.

Now, this symposium happened in April. Do not forget, several weeks earlier, pretty much the same crew had called for the goverrnment to nationalize the banks. Their analysis continues shifting, while the causes for this period of voodoo economics involve financial manipulation, pure and simple. Prior to the curveball idea about interest rates being dictated by savings, the pundits said that the financial crunch happened because people were living on debt, another shattered theory.

People were indeed living on debt, yet that is not the reason for the crisis. People were forced to live on debt because wages did not keep pace with rising costs. Remember the old adage: “When creditors enforce collections, that results in market corrections.” So for folks living in debt, their very existence has become manipulated by those who control wages and prices. Stay tuned to the media, because within the next few weeks they will cook up a new rationale for the problems they continue heaping on the backs of poor and working people.