I don’t know the history of India much at all, but I know they are not an imperialist society, though they seem to rapidly be becoming one. All I know about India is that they were under British domination for a time.

Starting in the late 19th century, the United States became an imperialist society. A way to define imperialism is “capitalist exploitation abroad”. Profit is funneled from other countries to the United States, where it starts out in the hands of the capitalist exploiters and then depending on the national politics gets divvied up in any number of ways.

Under Imperialism the national economy is no longer of defining importance. It becomes more profitable (potentially and often actually) for the poor to get imperialist blood-money transferred to them from the local capitalists than to build local and national economies.

It’s embarrassing that Chomsky celebrates “advances in democracy” in the United States when those advances amount to a transfer of blood-money from local capitalist to local worker – all Imperialist societies (the Soviet Union is another example, as is Western Europe) feature these “advances in democracy” and all of them never extend the “advances” outside their own borders.

The poor in the US have been living in a vastly wealthy criminal society for over a century now and their culture reflects that. The poor of India have been living in a colonized society, then a “free” society, and their culture reflects that. The poor of the two countries are equally moral, with vast differences in their culture resulting from vast differences in their structural and economic history.

It’s hardly ironic. The poor in the United States understand the pain of suffering, of low-status, of oppression. They enjoy inflicting this same pain on others, who they demonize just like the elite in the US demonize them. In the criminal global capitalist hierarchy there are innumerable points, and unless you’re at the very top or the very bottom you have experience BOTH at oppression and at being oppressed, at both feeling the pain of receiving oppression and the pleasure of giving it.

Here’s one personal story showing just this – I (a white guy) was riding my bicycle to work, and was heckled by three hispanics because they were in a car (requiring greater wealth and hence displaying greater status). This is a pretty mild form of oppression as oppression goes, but it illustrates the point that everyone who lives in a capitalist system is corrupt. Until we destroy the system there are no truly good people in the world.

People who we call “good” are people who *try* to be good, and sometimes succeed. People who fight their own corruption. Those are the *best* people living today.

Noam Chomsky is a classic example. We can see the strain he lives under to be moral. That’s why he’s so disciplined, because he knows that corruption always waits for him and he doesn’t want to yield to it.

By destroying capitalism and building a just society, we will enable not just justice but morality – the goodness of humanity – to prevail.

Perhaps you’re referring to a working class with which I am not familiar.

I’ve lived the vast majority of my long life in the working class, and I’m living here today. The working class people with whom I’m familiar ( but to whom I’m not close ) are not aware that the US is an empire. They know almost nothing about American foreign policy, in general, as they receive most of their information from local mainstream newspapers and from radio and television news. Most are entirely unaware of alternative sources of information and those who are aware, tend to think of such sources as “wack-jobs,” fools, liars, or “America Haters.” Most seem still to believe that the US is an essentially benevolent nation, truly attempting to help less fortunate nations rid themselves of poverty, misery, and totalitarian governments. A relatively significant percentage still support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, though they feel we’re not doing enough to “win,” and – you’re right, they’re worried about oil prices. Most tend to think we can still become energy-independent, if we’d just drill more oil here at home…

It’s important, methinks, that you realize that the American working class, too, is a victim of American capitalism. Most working class folks know very little of what goes on throughout the world – or here at home – because they are mired in one or two or more grim, demeaning jobs with low salaries and few if any benefits. Their days are filled with hard work, lots of disrespect, few pleasures, and few, if any, bright options. As children, they were sent off to America’s public schools where they were taught that sitting still and being quiet and obedient were infinitely more important than curiosity, understanding, real education, self-fulfillment, or even honesty and integrity. They were taught that their opinions and questions were entirely unimportant, and that there were “others,” their betters, who had the right answers, the ONLY right answers, and that they would be given these answers if they would simply shut up, listen, and memorize. They were taught that dreams and aspirations were mostly the stuff of laziness, foolishness, and profound immaturity, and that they should buckle down and learn how to fit nicely into the service or manufacturing industries.

They were bright, energetic, passionate, determined kids – and they learned their lessons well.

Now, as adults, they somehow do not see their frustrating, confusing, anxiety-ridden, overworked, under-rewarded lives as “40 times more” rewarding than that of your “global citizen.” They don’t ponder the existence or non-existence of a “starvation class,” or feel that they’re receiving crumbs from the capitalist class in order to pacify them… They’re overworked, underpaid, exhausted, uneducated, and trying very, very, very hard to do the best they can.

Exactly where in “back of their minds” do you think they’re keeping all of this deep social /political awareness of the “American Imperialist Machine?” Give me the location, would you? I’ll pass on the information and see to it that they stop “refusing to reach” for it…

As to the so called “Left” and it’s “sympathy” for the working class:
I get most of my information from CounterPunch, DV, and Z-Mag. I’m unable to discern this “sympathy” for working people at these sites, though I visit each of them every single day. On the contrary – my perception is that the Left very much dislikes working people, though their disdain is often shrouded in cutesy phrases about “educating” working folks, or “enlightening” them, or “waking them up.” Indeed – I don’t think the Left, the Center, or the Right gives a shit about working people. I think the Left, the Center AND the Right profoundly dislike and frequently even despise the working class. I think if there was a quote revolution unquote tomorrow, much of the working class would end up in detention / reeducation centers for a while, so that they could learn – finally!!! – to be and to think more like their betters in the middle and coordinator / scientific classes.

The problem with such a scenario, of course, is that the middle class and the coordinator classes would be unable to do any such thing without using huge numbers of working people to actually do the work, build and maintain the required structures, transport the detainees, fix and maintain the transport vehicles, care for the injured, the sick, the wounded… As I see it, the working people actually DO the work, actually create the wealth, actually maintain the whole fucking world, while the rest of the population spends most of their time disliking, despising, or merely laughing at them – at them and their supreme foolishness. Dear lord, they hunt, they fish, they eat meat, they go to church, they fight, they drink, they smoke tobacco, they ride those off road vehicles that roar about throughout the forests and fuck everything up. And they don’t even know what’s going on! They’re just stupid, ignorant, useless…

Well, they carry the whole fucking society on their backs, and at some point, those portions of society which are riding about on those already exhausted shoulders, ought to find some way to communicate with them, respect them on their own terms, and become friends with them. Until and unless this happens, there will be no significant, enduring change here in the Empire – or anywhere else. In the meantime, when your car breaks down – see if Alexander Cockburn, some of the cool authors here at DV, or some Libertarian talking head can fix it for you. When your electrical system or plumbing goes out – find an educated radical to take care of it. When you or one of your friends or family needs to get to a hospital, see if you can get some of the more enlightened folks to stabilize the patient, get him or her into the ambulance, and get them to the hospital alive. Once there, see if you can get a doctor, an administrator, a public health expert, a cool, knowledgable radical, etc., to ACTUALLY take care of the patient – as opposed to writing orders, giving orders, dispensing advice, and wandering off to pick up a fat paycheck…

If you run into anyone with magical powers, see if you can get them to Bang! – zap the working class off the face of the earth. Then, 6 months or a year later *** if you’re still alive *** you can write and tell us how much time you’ve spent, during that time, thinking about, reading about, and pondering politics, the world situation, and the machinations of the capitalist class… Maybe, however, you’d be off in a vacant lot somewhere, with a few of your friends, gulping down a few beers, smoking a cigarette or two or three, and getting ready to go to bed early before getting up to do it all again – and again, and again and again…

The war in Iraq went so tremendously well, with zero effective resistance inside the US and not much more elsewhere, that the Bush regime stepped up it’s ambition with pressure on Iran, the Middle East’s biggest threat to Western Imperialism. If Iran proves to be as much of a “debacle” as Iraq did there may no longer be a state threat to Israel in the Middle East, or to American oil hegemony there.

Meanwhile, the American taxpayer – ignorant, bewildered, stressed, and despairing, complains about only one thing – the price of gas. The complicit American knows at the back of his mind, a place he refuses to reach, that if only the American imperialist machine is successful enough enough scraps will fall from the table so that Americans can continue to lord over the rest of the world. So why bother resisting the war? If we aren’t victimizers we’ll be victims, and we sure don’t want to end up like the Iraqis, or the Africans. Better to be the Roman, or rather the Roman’s cared-for slave, than the Christian eaten by lions.

While the left covers the crimes of the Bush regime quite thoroughly, they almost entirely ignore the complicity of the American people, a complicity that extends to the working class itself. Considering a typical member of the American working class makes 40 times more money than the median global citizen, there is literally no “starvation class” in America, and hence no bottom-feeders. Americans are quite aware that the reason there is no starvation class in the criminal capitalist American society is because it’s important to pacify Americans (in order to safely enable a claim that the society is democratic), and the prime method of pacification is for the American elite to take care of Americans’ basic needs and a bit more.

There are two major reasons why the American left largely avoids the subject of the complicity of the American people – the American left sympathizes with Marx for whom the working class can do no wrong. The second, and far more important, is that the political goal of the American left is not social justice, it’s not to eliminate oppression or state terror and it’s certainly not to end capitalism. It’s to transfer money from the American capitalists to the American workers. Considering the American capitalists obtained this money largely from non-Americans, this is a transfer of criminal blood-money from the mob boss to the mob underlings. It doesn’t address the victims of American capitalism – victims located in Asia, in Africa, in Eastern Europe, and elsewhere.

Whenever a prominent member of the American left turns toward global socialism (which unlike blood-money transfer threatens the existence of the American elite), as did Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X, they are killed. That’s the world we find ourselves in today.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1132/is_n10_v39/ai_6323610

He should also point out where Partridge asserts that Henry Ford raised wages “to help his workers.” Since Ford’s (alleged) question, “Who will buy my cars?” clearly shows he had his own interests primarily in mind.

In fact, if either Partridge or brs thinks the critical posts from “lefties” rate their rebuttals, I’ll almost certainly not continue this discussion tomorrow.

There is no debacle in Iraq – Iraq is a tremendous success story. The American multinationals are getting just what they want – massive transfer of funds from American taxpayers to them, enhanced and perpetrated by their own incompetence (which leads to cost markups and ongoing projects). The military-industrial complex is getting just what it wants – by not controlling the country they can maintain perpetual war which means perpetual war funding.

It’s only from the perspective of the American taxpayer and the Iraqi people that Iraq is a debacle, but those people are not in control of the situation and they have no power to end it.

Iraq is a “debacle” just like Vietnam was a “debacle” just like Iran will be a “debacle”. Stop being a fool and start seeing who gains and who loses from perpetual war.

This is the Age of Orwell which the American state fully understands.

Americans are not special. They are not going to be protected by the American elite. They are going to be devoured.

Notice that in the Henry Ford quote his buyers lived close to him – the buyers were Americans. That’s not the case for the capitalist future of the world – the capitalists will be here and there and everywhere searching for the most exploitable workforce and finding buyers wherever enough capital groups together.

It suggests that the car has brought about the demise of our planet. You might be interested in my thoughts.

He did not raise wages to help his workers or anybody else’s.

You could read about it, if you bothered to care:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1132/is_n10_v39/ai_6323610

Stop giving capitalists credit they don’t deserve!

As for “more radical perspectives”? It seems to me that anarchism is more radical than most if not all indignenous or feminist perspectives.

Although some excellent points were raised in the first half of the article (and in the excellent comment above), I believe a more radical analysis of capitalism and the current human condition is needed. When you honestly look at what capitalism really is and where it came from then a “regulated capitalism” is no more justifiable than a “regulated racism” or a “regulated misogyny.” The giant gorilla in the room, Western industrial civilization from which springs capitalism but 20th century socialism as well, needs to be addressed. Marx was by no means the only more radical perspective. Consider indigenous and feminist perspectives as well.